PURGATORIO, Episode 104. Sapía, Part Two--Blasphemy Among The Penitents Of Envy: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 112 - 132

Sapía now tells her story to Dante the pilgrim . . . and it includes one of the most blasphemous lines in all of COMEDY.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we look closely at one of the most honest and blasphemous monologues in the poem . . . and as we grapple with Sapía's incredible skills in rhetoric.

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Here are the segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:39] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 112 - 132. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page.

[03:56] Indicators of Sapía's interiority.

[07:48] Her reaction to the Sienese battle of 17 June 1269.

[10:40] Sapía's right attitude toward God's will.

[12:41] One of the most blasphemous lines in all of COMEDY.

[14:54] Lighthearted folkloric storytelling amid her shocking honesty.

[18:48] The holy man who saves her: Peter Comb-Seller (or "Pettinaio").

[22:09] Honesty or manipulation?

[23:22] The logic of her monologue.

[25:13] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, lines 112 - 132.

And here’s my English translation of Purgatorio, Canto XIII, Lines 112 – 132

“And so that you won’t believe I’m keeping you in the dark,

Hear how foolish I was as I tell you

About a time when the arc of my years was coming down on top of me.

“My fellow citizens were in league

With their enemies near Colle.

I prayed that God would do what he’d willed to do.

“Our alliance was put to rout. Our men whirled about

In the bitter footsteps of haste. Seeing them chased down in the hunt,

I took greater joy in their plight than in any other joy.

“I turned my face boldly upwards

And cried to God, ‘Now I’m no longer afraid of you!’

It was just how the blackbird reacts to a little bit of sunlight.

“Yet I wanted peace with God at the end

Of my life, although my debt couldn’t be paid off

With mere penance . . .

“Were it not that Peter Comb-Seller

Remembered me in his holy prayers

And had pity on me out of his sense of charity.

“But who are you who go about inquiring

About our condition, and with your eyes unstitched,

If things are as I believe them to be? Do you breathe as you speak?”