The griffin pulls the chariot or cart up to the denuded tree--the "widowed" tree--and the tree regenerates into a color reminiscent of other moments in PURGATORIO. But which one exactly?

We're descending into the murk of mystery with new songs that can't be defined, with allegories that are becoming increasingly opaque, and even with classical references that seem somehow out of place in the overall arch of the glorious parade.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we begin to approach the strange and incomprehensible mysteries that lie at the end of the second canticle of COMEDY.

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

[01:24] My English translation of PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, Lines 49 - 69. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me with a comment on this episode, please find its entry on my website, markscarbrough.com.

[03:32] A correction perhaps: "Adam" may have been a murmured reassessment of the misogyny in the text.

[04:55] The pole, the chariot, and the tree: complicated translation problems.

[07:15] The pole as the cross or perhaps the ties of good human governance.

[11:49] The changing seasons as the tree regenerates.

[13:26] The ambiguous symbolism of purple.

[15:41] The unknown new song, a further mystery in the passage.

[18:48] A tense and perhaps off-pitch reference to Ovid.

[22:27] A knock against representative art before the apocalyptic vision just ahead.

[24:18] Rereading the text: PURGATORIO, Canto XXXII, lines 49 - 69.