A Geocentric Rest Stop: Purgatorio, Canto IV, Lines 52 - 75

Virgil and Dante the pilgrim have completed their first major climb on Mount Purgatory. They hang out for a bit on a ledge to rest. But there's no rest with all these mental gymnastics!Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we explore this passage in which Dante discovers that the sun is shining on the "wrong" side of him and Virgil rationalizes the sun's position, based on the strange workings of a geocentric universe.Here are the segments for this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:[01:50] My English translation of the passage: PURGATORIO, Canto IV, lines 52 - 75. If you'd like to read along, print it off, make notes, or drop a comment to me, please go to my website, markscarbrough.com.[03:53] How ironic that a passage with so many mental gymnastics is supposed to be restful![06:44] The sun's position is on an ellipse around the earth in this geocentric universe.[10:48] Virgil's explanation for the sun's position involves a complicated supposition about the sun's position later in the year, when the sun is in Gemini.[13:47] Dante's successful journey across the cosmos is in direct contrast to Phaeton's failed chariot drive across the sky.[16:47] Let's begin a larger discussion of the Ptolemaic universe and the beginning of its cracks in the European late Middle Ages.