Hugh Capet abruptly turns from the pilgrim Dante’s first question about who he was to his second question about why the pilgrim only heard Hugh’s voice on the fifth terrace of avarice. Along the way, Hugh Capet offers a brief but well-stocked list of those who have been done in by greed. Then he offers a curious, curt ending to his monologue: a person does as much as they want.
Read MoreHugh Capet, the almost legendary founder of the Capetian line of Frankish/French kings, winds up his monologue with a shocking turn of events: The French monarchy has become so bad that it has made the papacy under Boniface VIII, Dante’s arch enemy, look . . . not just good, but divine.
Read MoreHugh Capet continues the story of his family with three descendants who make a mess of Italy in Dante the poet’s own day: Charles I of Anjou, Charles of Valois, and Charles II of Anjou. The Capetian dynasty is driven mad by avarice, all starting with the acquisition of the dowry of Provence. (And in this passage, we get our first instance of antisemitism in COMEDY.)
Read MoreDante the pilgrim walks up to the soul who has been citing Mary, Fabricius, and Nicholas as his exemplars against avarice. The pilgrim finds himself with Hugh Capet, the legendary (and historical) founder of the Capetian dynasty of French kings. Or maybe not, since Dante the poet gets his historical wires crossed.
Read MoreThe angry penitent Marco of Lombardy continues his diagnosis of the world's ills. It should have two suns. It's got only one. And a sun that's not kosher. Or that perhaps cannot be kosher. So is the fault in us, as he claimed? Or is the corruption of the world a systemic problem?
Read MoreThe long awaited angel finally arrives and ushers Dante and Virgil to the stairway up to the third terrace of Purgatory. As the two climb this easier ascent, Dante takes a moment to get Virgil to gloss two lines spoken by Guido del Duca in Canto XIV. Both in Dante’s question and in Virgil’s answer, we can sense the changing notion of COMEDY as we enter the middle cantos of the poem.
Read MoreDante has been quite cagey in saying where he’s from. His coy game has led him to use periphrasis, one of his favorite poetic techniques. He’s about to learn his lessons. One of the envious penitents is going to beat him at his periphrastic game and bring the entire prophetic denunciation of Tuscany into incredibly complicated metaphoric space.
Read MoreWe hear from the first penitent beyond the gate of Purgatory proper: Omberto Aldobrandesco. He’s from a storied, titled family who switched sides, became Guelphs, and were brought low. Is Omberto humbled? Or is he still prideful? Or is he both? And why does Dante choose such a boring figure to begin our conversations on the terraces of Purgatory proper?
Read MoreDante steps down into the dale of the negligent rulers and finds a compatriot: noble judge Nino. They embrace and Dante is so glad to find this friend in Purgatory, the very person the poet himself put there, the very way he can bolster the reality claims in COMEDY: by being amazed at the people he finds exactly where he put them.
Read MoreWe’ve already glossed this long, difficult passage about the darkening vale of the negligent rulers in the last episode of WALKING WITH DANTE. In this episode, I ask ten interpretive questions of the passage: some with answers, some with tentative answers, and some with mere speculation as an answer. Dante is showing us his increasingly intellectual side. Let’s figure out what he’s up to.
Read MoreSordello runs through the roster of kings and rulers in the beautiful vale on the lower slopes of Mount Purgatory. They’re lamenting their very actionable lives. And in running the list, Sordello is giving someone (Virgil? Dante? the reader?) a crash course in the politics of central and southern Europe from the mid to the late 1200s.
Read MoreThe story of Dante’s walk across his known universe breaks in PURGATORIO, Canto VI, right after Virgil and Sordello embrace. The rest of the canto is dedicated to the poet’s rage at the constant warfare on the Italian peninsula and his hope for an iron fist to set things right. Along the way, many of us have to confront our expectations that COMEDY may not be the poem we want it to be.
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