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

Walking With Dante

Guido del Duca reaches the climax of his diatribe: a nostalgic retrospective of the courts and families of Romagna. Where have the good guys gone?

Is this Dante the poet's lament? Or Guido del Duca's? Does this passage tell us more about Guido's problems or Dante's hopes?

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through a tough passage about historical figures from Romagna, many of whom have been lost to the historical record.

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

[01:42] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 97 - 126. If you'd like to read along or drop a comment on this passage, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.

[04:49] The genre: "ubi sunt?" But whose? Guido del Duca's or Dante the poet's?

[09:26] The structure of this passage: good people, to good families (without children), to bad town, to childless warlords.

[14:47] The nostalgic diatribe becomes infernal.

[16:59] More play with bestial and vegetal metaphors (as throughout Canto XIV).

[19:19] The trap of chivalry.

[22:28] Guido del Duca finally finds delight in his laments: the key problem.

[25:28] Rereading the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto XIV, lines 97 - 126.