Rage knows no bounds--even in a poem as controlled as Dante's COMEDY. The poet has been offering up an invective about Italian strife and the war-torn landscape that has ruined his home. But in the middle passage of his invective, he may have finally lost all control and committed outright blasphemy.

Or maybe really complex irony. It's hard to tell.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore the middle of the invective in PURGATORIO, Canto VI. Here are the segments for this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:21] My English translation of the medieval Florentine for PURGATORIO, Canto VI, lines 106 - 126. If you'd like to read along, print it off, or drop a comment to continue the conversation, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:23] Who are the various families in this passage: the Montecchi, the Cappelletti, the Monaldi, and the Filippeschi?

[07:47] Who is the Marcellus who ends this middle section of the invective?

[09:46] To whom is this middle passage of the invective addressed?

[12:28] The poet turn to the (Justinian?) legality of questioning God's purposes.

[13:50] Dante seems to taunt God.

[15:58] Here are two possible answers to the tangled knot of blasphemy in this passage.