Dante wants to know why some people have it good and some have it bad. Virgil, seemingly impatient, sets into his sermon on the goddess Fortune who controls this world. It's boiler-plate Boethius, as you'll see. But it may be a lot more, too.
Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take a slow stroll with Dante-the-pilgrim and his (current) guide Virgil across the known universe in this podcast, WALKING WITH DANTE. We've come to the back part of Canto VII of INFERNO. We've seen those who hoard their wealth and those who spend too much. And Virgil's got some sort of answer. Trouble is, it's not a very satisfying answer. Nor are standard interpretations of this passage from INFERNO.
Here are the segments of this episode:
[01:03] I read the whole bit of Canto VII all the way up to and through this passage. It's my English translation--and I want you to hear the sweep of the canto to understand what I see as the strangeness of Virgil's sermon on fortune.
[06:38] A series of very light glosses on this passage--just walking you through it to explain some of the more opaque lines (or at least opaque if you're not a medieval or haven't read the whole COMEDY already!).
[13:00] Stepping back, let's look at Virgil's sermon. First off, it's from Boethius' work ON THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY. I'll explain that connection. But I'll also highlight the interpretive knots Dante-the-poet ties in what should be a boiler-plate rehearsal from a classical figure's work. And I'll offer four interpretive stances you can take to Virgil's sermon on Fortune: 1) Virgil's wrong, 2) Virgil's character is changing, 3) Virgil's right but in a limited way, and 4) this passage isn't about Virgil at all but instead the start of the progress of revelation about the nature of the universe in COMEDY. You've gotta start somewhere. Here's as good as any a place!