PURGATORIO, Episode 119. The Answer To Wrath Is Written On Your Face: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 94 - 114

Dante the pilgrim has already had one ecstatic vision as he stepped onto the third terrace of Purgatory proper: the Virgin Mary’s return to Jerusalem to find Jesus after Passover. Now the pilgrim has two more visions in quick succession: Pisistratus and his wife, then the martyrdom of Stephen. These visions give us a clue as to Dante’s antidote for anger or wrath. It’s found on the face, in the countenance.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 118. The First Ecstatic Vision . . . Of COMEDY: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 85 - 93

Dante and Virgil step onto the third terrace of Purgatory proper and the pilgrim is immediately struck with an ecstatic vision, the first such vision in a poem that itself may seem like one big ecstatic vision. This time, it’s Mary at the door, reprimanding Jesus and speaking in medieval Florentine.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 117. Hunger, Light, Love, And The Theology Of Abundance: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 58 - 84

Dante has heard Virgil’s explanation of the good becoming more, the more it’s shared (at least in heaven); yet Dante is not satisfied. So the pilgrim goes back for a second helping in this passage that continues Virgil’s lesson, turning the “good” into love and light, a move that will set us up for the grand revelations in the central cantos of COMEDY.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 116. Scarcity, Abundance, And Poetics Between Terraces: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 34 - 57

The 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 115. Redefining The Terms Of What Seems To Be: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 25 - 33

Dante the poet begins the complex and brilliant process of helping us convert what seems into what is. But seeming and being are interconnected in so many ways that we can feel the ground shift under our feet as we begin our exit from the second terrace of Purgatory proper. And if all that were not enough, Virgil, Dante’s guide, undertakes a redefinition of “pleasure” or “delight.”

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PURGATORIO, Episode 114. Playing Around With The Sun: PURGATORIO, Canto XV, Lines 1 - 24

Dante and Virgil walk away from the envious on the second terrace of Purgatory . . . and straight into the sun. Meanwhile, we walk straight into Dante’s poetics, which are becoming more and more complex as we enter the liminal space that forms the central cantos of COMEDY.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 113. Virgil Inscribes Circularity Into Linearity: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 142 - 151

As Dante the pilgrim and Virgil begin to walk away from the envious penitents on the second terrace of Purgatory proper, Virgil, silent for a long while, suddenly pipes up to refocus and reinterpret our entire experience in cantos XII and XIV, transforming the linearity espoused by Sapia and Guido del Duca into the comedic circularity of Dante’s poem.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 112. Two More Voices On The Winds Of Envy: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 127 - 141

With Guido del Duca lost to his tears, Dante the pilgrim and Virgil begin to walk on to find a way up to the third terrace of Purgatory. Before they go very many steps, two more voices on the wind strike them head-on: Cain, after his fratridice and banishment; and Aglauros, laded with the sickness of envy from Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 111. Oh, For The Glory Days (That Maybe Never Were): PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 97 - 126

Guido del Duca continues his diatribe about the descent of his culture, finally ending with a long passage bemoaning the end of the glory days, the fine families and courts of Romagna, now long gone. Here’s the big question: Is this Dante the poet’s lament or is his a function of Guido del Duca’s character?

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PURGATORIO, Episode 110. Now You Know Who We Are: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 73 - 96

Dante finally finds out who these two penitent souls are on the terrace of envy: Guido del Duca and Rinier (or Rinieri) da Calboli. Knowing who they are forces back up to the top of PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, to reassess what’s the political strife underlying its theology and to reinterpret their relation to each other and to Dante.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 109. The Descent Of The Arno Into Metaphoric Space: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 43 - 72

Dante 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.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 107. Be Careful Of The Company You Keep In PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, Lines 1 - 2

Two envious penitents interrupt the action of PURGATORIO at the opening of Canto XIV. They seem to be gossiping about Dante the pilgrim, then they turn to him and use some of his own words to get what they want, all the while dividing his soul from his body. Dante replies with one of his favorite rhetorical techniques: periphrasis. And he engages in modesty . . . or maybe reticence . . . or maybe truth-telling.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 106. Sapía, Part Four--The Coda

A coda to our episodes with Sapia, one of the most complex and intriguing souls in all of Dante’s COMEDY. Is this passage incredibly uneven or textured with a great deal of irony? How does it reflect back to INFERNO, Canto XIII? And how does it set us up for the canto ahead, PURGATORIO XIV?

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PURGATORIO, Episode 105. Sapía, Part Three: Rhetorical Games Reveal Both The Penitent And The Pilgrim: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 133 - 154

Dante the pilgrim (and even Dante the poet!) may have met his match with Sapia on Purgatory’s second terrace, the ledge of the envious. She manipulates him into a confessional moment, then either turns that confession into flattery or comedy, all to get what she wants: a refurbished reputation back among the living. She’s caught in the human dilemma: neither good nor bad but a wild mix in-between.

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

Dante the pilgrim gets more than he asked for: Sapia’s incredible monologue, a master stroke of rhetoric, part honesty, part manipulation, all wrapped around one of the most blasphemous lines in all of COMEDY. The terrace of envy is full of surprises . . . none bigger than this woman who matches wits with Dante.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 103. Sapía, Part One--The Pilgrim Gets More (And Less!) Than He Bargained For: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 94 - 111

Dante the pilgrim, goaded by Virgil, has worked up the courage (or the flattery) to prompt one of the souls to speak on Purgatory’s second terrace, the landscape of the envious. She does . . . and gives Dante both more and exactly what (or in fact, perhaps a bit less) than he asked for. Her reticence, her generosity: the combined tension inside the human problem of envy.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 102. Flattery Will Get You Irony: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 73 - 93

Dante tiptoes by the envious on Purgatory’s second terrace, thinking he’s making some gaffe by staying silent. But Virgil is having none of it. He tells Dante to be brief . . . and Dante launches into overblown flattery (reminiscent of a certain moment for Virgil in INFERNO XIII). How much irony is found in the texture of this seemingly simple passage from PURGATORIO.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 101. Eyes Stitched Shut: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 46 - 72

Dante the pilgrim finally sees the penitents on the second terrace of PURGATORIO. They’re huddled against each other, leaning back against the mountain’s cliff, and clothed in livid haircloth. But they also have their eyelids stitched shut with wire, blinded because of this sin that we have reinterpreted and tamed as jealousy but that entails so much more.

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PURGATORIO, Episode 100. The Voices Of Love And Alienation: PURGATORIO, Canto XIII, Lines 22 - 45

Dante and Virgil make great haste along the empty second terrace of PURGATORIO but are soon accosted by three disembodied voices, whipping them on to love but also offering a node of the alienation that will pervade this terrace . . . and that is crucial as a separating space between Dante the poet and his master, Virgil.

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