Dante and Virgil begin their exit from the terrace of pride on Mount Purgtory. To do so, they must encounter and angel who implicitly calls back Lucifer (or Satan) into the text yet who welcomes them on their way up the less-steep ascent.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we watch Virgil reassert this role as the guide and see another of the epic angels in Purgatory.

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

[02:22] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 73 - 99. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:47] Virgil returns to being Virgil: a guide to the afterlife who quote himself.

[08:08] Virgil and the angel both seem to set the plot in motion again.

[11:19] Virgil seems more interested in what's ahead and less interested in the reliefs and carvings. In fact, he seems to mistake the lesson from those carvings: Some days, like Trajan's, happen again and again in an eternal art form.

[14:08] The strength of COMEDY is that the complex always resolves into the simple.

[16:17] Irony: Virgil's "simple" ethic contains a Dantean neologism.

[17:20] The beautiful angel contains an implicit and perhaps redemptive reference to Lucifer (or Satan).

[21:11] Who speaks the condemnation against humanity? The angel or Dante the poet?

[25:54] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XII, lines 73 - 99.