the TL;DR place

I have more intellectual pursuits, and not that much intellect with which to pursue them.

[thetldrplace]

signing off

For a while now I've been using this tumblr blog to post some of my more long-form thought processing. I have also used this tumblr, as well as another tumblr page, for occasionally posting vacation pics so that some co-workers could access them if they wanted. But several couldn't because they don't have tumblr accounts.

For this reason I've considered switching the blog over to my own site. I manage a website for my job, and I have set up websites at various times. So I'm familiar with it. This week I finally did it. I've moved nearly everything over from both tumblr blogs to my own domain everyoneloveslarry.com

That's a play on my own name.

The new blog is pretty barebones right now, and I'm still formatting some of the older posts because when they were copied in, some of the formatting went wonky. But that's where my content will live from now on. I'll keep this account around for a bit, just in case I ever need to access tumblr.

[thetldrplace]

Marcuse- Repressive Tolerance (1965)

I'm not going to post the notes I took of this essay.

The basic outline of Marcuse's argument:  Tolerance is usually a good thing because it allows an opportunity in the marketplace of ideas. 

Tolerance only operates when there is authentic information and autonomous thought. 

Western technological societies have brought false consciousness, so that people are unable to challenge the establishment. 

Tolerance has therefore lost its purpose in the western societies. 

Breaking the grip of the establishment will require intolerance, undemocratic, and even violent means. 

How can we known which side is just?  

The rational way of using societies resources is to distribute the social product with priority on the satisfaction of vital needs with a minimum of toil and injustice.  

The Left supports this, the Right doesn’t, so tolerance towards the Right needs to be withdrawn.  

Marcuse's argument hinges on several assumptions: 

1. Those in the west (broadly) are incapable of autonomous thought and authentic information. 

2. The most rational ordering of society is broadly more leftist than right. 

3. Tolerance for the regressive right ought to be withdrawn, in order to restore true balance. 

I don't accept these assumptions, so I want to challenge them.

His first assumption is that the western nations are broadly incapable of autonomous thought and authentic information. 

This happens because capitalist societies produce material comfort that integrates workers into the system, so instead of rebelling, they become satisfied consumers. They internalize the system's values so that dissent becomes culturally suppressed. Marcuse sees this as manufactured, not genuine consent. 

Because of this, even democratic debate is structurally distorted. The marketplace of ideas is controlled by dominant interests, and economic power shapes what opinions gain visibility. What looks then like tolerance is merely preserving the existing hierarchy. 

But these claims don't really work. Capitalism is a system that produces enough material comfort to integrate workers so they become satisfied. That's what a system is supposed to do, it's not a sign of evil. Would Marcuse be suggesting that a system, in order to be considered legitimate, OUGHT to produce enough problems that an equal amount of its populace dissents from it?  If Marcuse's ideal society existed, wouldn't IT produce enough comfort to integrate its citizens so they are satisfied? 

It seems to me that the widespread satisfaction of those in western societies is simply rational approval of their lot, rather than ideological manipulation. Marcuse treats this satisfaction itself as suspicious. But I can't think of a valid reason to do this. The explanation seems to be that since Marcuse was a Marxist, and Marx predicted the working class would grow increasingly alienated until it revolted. That didn't happen, so Marxists justified this by declaring the working class had been bought off.  

The second assumption is that the leftist model of what society ought to do is better than the right's view. In general, the liberal western viewpoint is that man should be left alone to set his own agenda. This means individuals have rights, and correspondingly, they have responsibility for themselves. 

Broadly, the left curtails that view by asserting that collectively, society should provide for the basic needs of all members, even those that aren't providing for themselves. Marcuse states this as: "The rational way of using societies resources is to distribute the social product with priority on the satisfaction of vital needs with a minimum of toil and injustice." 

But this is merely a value judgment about what society ought to prioritize. Marcuse assumes the socialist view is objectively rational, but that assumption is itself, what the political debate is about. 

What Marcuse manages to do is declare his view the winner, and then declare tolerance of the other view must be withdrawn, even to the point of violence against it. 

The third assumption is that, even given that the broad populace has somehow been manipulated into believing false ideas, and that the Left model is clearly best, so that tolerance should be withdrawn from the Right's viewpoint; that intolerance would actually lead to a society that is more just. 

One of the examples Marcuse gives in the essay is what he calls the "Orwellian" slogan- "We work for peace by preparing for war." He says these two are opposites. Two actual examples from Orwell's 1984 are "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery". Is preparing for war the actual antithesis of working for peace? Clearly there is an argument to be made for the statement. Two sides don't perfectly know what the other will do. One way to show the other side that it would be wise NOT to wage war against you, is to demonstrate that it will be very costly to them to do so. That is actually an effective deterrent. So preparing for war, doesn't mean going to war, it means you are prepared to wage war if it comes down to it. Marcuse might have provided a better example of an Orwellian phrase with the title of his essay: Repressive Tolerance. Tolerance is the allowance of ideas or things you don't agree with, while repression is the opposite. Repressive tolerance is therefore an oxymoron. One can't repress in order to arrive at tolerance. At best you can call it forced equality.  

That assumes that equality is the same as justice. But if one has to use force, which even Marcuse himself calls violence, is one producing a more just society by using violence? Isn't that the very thing that Marcuse is accusing western societies of?  

To be fair, I'm sure Marcuse was aware enough to recognize that his title was …. paradoxical. What I think is that Marcuse is using the best arguments he could to arrive at his predefined conclusion: the right must be stopped because he disagrees with it. This little essay became the intellectual justification for radical activism, and it still is today. Much of what is called "cancel culture": deplatforming, hate speech isn't free speech, etc, comes from the arguments Marcuse set forth here.  

[thetldrplace]

Jesus and Church Protests 

A tweet from John Pavlovitz said:  

"Conservative Christians clutching their pearls at people of conscience disrupting their worship gathering to call out hypocrisy and abuses of power remind us again that they have no interest in emulating Jesus or reading the Gospels. He literally turned the tables over, dummies..." 

Pavlovitz says that conservative Christians are outraged at "people of conscience disrupting their worship...." but says Jesus would have done the same thing. According to Pavlovitz then, this demonstrates conservative Christians have no interest in either: 1) emulating Jesus, or 2 ) reading the Gospels. 

So let's actually read the Gospel story, found in Mark 11:15-17 (and Matt 21:12-13). 

"On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’"  

Jesus says explicitly why He flipped the tables in the temple: it had been turned into a "den of robbers". While it doesn't explicitly say what the "robbery" was, it's implied that the money exchange took advantage of people.  

Jesus then clarifies what the temple, and by extension the church, is supposed to be about by saying "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations". The proper point of the temple, and the church by extension, is a place of worship and prayer.  

Given that Jesus defines the church specifically as a house of prayer/worship, and the protesters were, in Pavlovitz's own words, "disrupting their worship", Pavlovitz has inadvertently proven that the protesters, however righteous they might consider themselves and their cause, were the ones violating Jesus' words in the invasion of the church to protest. 

There is a similar mis-framing that since Jesus was against the religious authorities, therefore Jesus must have been against organized religion. This is incorrect according to the Bible. I present James 1:27. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  

So clearly, if there is a "religion that God accepts as pure and faultless...", Jesus can't be against religion per se, he must then, be against only an impure and faulty version of it.  

I am a born-again Christian, and I attend an Evangelical church. We too have a common saying that "we're not religious, we have a relationship with Jesus". The idea is that we see Christianity not as a series of religious obligations, but as a relationship with God. Even so, the wording is sloppy, and as I see it, unbiblical.  

Returning to Pavlovitz's tweet:  "Conservative Christians clutching their pearls at people of conscience disrupting their worship gathering to call out hypocrisy and abuses of power remind us again that they have no interest in emulating Jesus or reading the Gospels. He literally turned the tables over, dummies..." 

I can address some of what he charges. Do "conservative" Christians really have no interest in emulating Jesus or reading the Gospels?  

I should probably address this first: there are a lot of gatherings that call themselves "Christian", many of which believe not only radically different things, but in some instances mutually exclusive doctrines. In many instances, denominational differences are matters of emphasis- one denomination might push one aspect more than another. In some cases, denominational differences are matters of church governance structures. But some of the rifts are much more foundational. Some churches believe the Bible is the written Word of God and is to be treated as such. Others believe the Bible is a set of guidelines, from which principles can be deduced, but it isn't to be treated as the literal Word of God. The breadth of beliefs that call themselves "Christian" is very large. 

Pavlovitz is calling out "conservative" Christians, by which I'm assuming he means politically conservative, but that is often accompanied by exegetically conservative approaches too. 

Pavlovitz, from his own website, is clearly a more liberal Christian, and he is clearly antagonistic towards conservatives.  

Even though I come from only one small slice of the Christian church, since I call myself a Christian, I'll just talk in the "we" since I'm a part of the larger Church. 

Is it true that we don't have any interest in emulating Jesus? Well, I'd like to say I try, but I'll be the first to admit I'm a miserable failure. And I wish I could say it's just the occasional mistake, but that's not true either. Sometimes I just blatantly disregard what I know the Bible says. I wish I was better, and I keep confessing and asking for forgiveness, but still, I'm sad to report, I'm still a total failure.  

Do I read the Gospels? Yes, I do. I've read the entire bible through, and I'm on my 22nd time through right now. I read as much of the Old Testament as I could in Hebrew. I've read the entire Bible through in Italian twice. I've done book studies on every one of the New Testament books. Does that mean I follow it perfectly? Nope. 

One thing I do want to say, which I'll admit has only been my experience: almost all the Christians I've ever known are people trying to be good. The thing with following Jesus is, Jesus was perfect. If you want to fault me for not following Jesus, you're right, I'm a failure. Of the Christians I've known in church, I've not met many that are as self-righteous as I hear they are. I'll grant, your mileage may vary because I don't know all the same people that you do. So maybe you actually know ONLY hypocritical Christians... I can't say, I'm not you. 

In fact, a word about this charge of hypocrisy too. We get charged with being hypocrites a LOT. I see hypocrisy as saying I do one thing, and doing the opposite. Most Christians believe the Bible is the Word of God and the things it says are true. The moral principles it spells out are the ideal and they're what we believe would be true and right. But it doesn't always mean we manage to do the ideal. I can both believe that lying is bad, and also occasionally lie. So that makes me a hypocrite. But seriously anyone who is never a hypocrite doesn't have any external standards at all. And if your only standard is doing whatever you want, well, you'll avoid being a hypocrite, but probably end up being even worse.  

So back to the Christians not being good people. This is true. The church is full of us "not good" people. In fact, that's why most of us are there in the first place, because we became aware of the fact that were so "not good", that we were doomed without Jesus paying the price for our sin. That's the message of the gospel after all. I am a sinner, and that sin has separated me from a perfect, holy God. That sin will require my banishment from God's presence when I die, and that place will be hell. I couldn't save myself from my sin, since being in God's presence requires perfection. So God sent His own son Jesus to take the penalty of my sin on Himself at the cross. But not only did Jesus die for my sin, He also rose again, so that I can have new life. Every actual Christian must accept this as the heart of salvation: you have to know you're a sinner, and you have to have accepted Jesus as savior. The church then is full of people who have looked at their lives and seen that they weren't good enough, and that they need salvation. The church (the actual church-meaning the believers that make up the church, not just those that attend services) is necessarily filled with these people- sinners saved by grace. 

So 1) the church is filled with not-good people who generally know they personally aren't good; 2) they will still try and proclaim the things they believe to be good and true according to what they believe the Bible says. And of course there are serious disagreements as to what exactly the Bible says, or means. But if comes across as really bad-faith to say that people just don't care about what Jesus says simply because they have different politics than you.

[thetldrplace]

Fascism's Ideology

We hear the word “fascist” a lot in today’s political climate, mainly thrown at those on the right as an epithet.

It seems to be applied to someone mainly authoritarian, but probably racist is up there too. Lumped in there are people who fly American flags, because they are patriotic > nationalist > xenophobic > racist, etc.

Years ago I decided I didn’t really know enough about what fascists actually believe, and so I decided to start reading some source material to find out, not what non-fascists say about fascists, but what do the fascists themselves say. This book is NOT by fascists, but it does attempt to look at the ideology in an objective light.

I’m drawing the comments here from Zeev Sternhell’s paper called Fascist Ideology. Much of what he writes, I was already aware of through reading source materials, but his recap of the intellectual climate of the time, along with his emphasis on the actual ideology as the defining element of a movement was enlightening for me.

Too often we think in terms of very imprecise relations, such as I mentioned above, as being enough to classify someone. So the modern left tends to see any authoritarian look on the right as “fascist”. But authoritarianism, while a part of fascism, isn’t enough to define someone as fascist. Communism is also authoritarian, as is monarchy, as are theocratic regimes like Iran and Afghanistan. Neither is being nationalist. Almost all nations and people are “nationalist” to various degrees. Nor is racism a marker of fascism. Even though the Nazi’s were explictly racialist in their particular form of fascism, fascism per se doesn’t require racialism at all, and in fact, it wasn’t a part of Italian fascism until much later under German influence. More on that in a few paragraphs.

The overriding ideological basis in fascism is their understanding of the nation. It was their views on the nation that pretty much laid down the foundation of everything else. If the ideological basis isn’t there, then some structural similarities aren’t enough to define something as fascism.

The two main places fascism popped up: Italy and Germany, were both European nations with long histories, that were unable to unite until relatively late- both around 1870. This left them both in weakened positions among the other strong nations of Europe, and in somewhat of a inferiority complex, and feeling like they had something to prove. This would prove to be decisive in why they went fascist, while other nations didn’t.

Almost all the intellectuals of fascism began as socialists. As a very brief refresher, Marx defined socialism as the economic system that would arise after capitalism collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. Marx held that capitalism would continue to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer until the working class would finally understand that they were being oppressed as a class (class consciousness), rise up, overthrow the capitalist and bourgeoisie, and seize the means of production, forming what he called the dictatorship of the proletariat. They would abolish private property and live collectively, not for personal gain, but for the good of the collective society. There would need to be a State to direct this at first, but eventually, the State would be abolished as unnecessary. Marx saw the working class all over the world as natural brothers, that would unite against the capitalists.

The pre-fascist thinkers came to see the Marxist socialist idea of class consciousness, which would lead to class conflict and the dictatorship of the proletariat, as unnecessarily divisive. The better way would be to unite all society behind the nation, developing national consciousness. In Germany, this national consciousness was replaced by a race consciousness. They would use the socialist collective model of working together to form a new type of society, but the focus was on national, rather than international socialism.

A few other intellectual threads was weaving through Europe at the same time- Romanticism, which stressed the subjectivity, imagination, passion and intuition, heroism as a response to rationalism and economic materialism; and Darwinism, which many thinkers took too far in its concept of the survival of the fittest.

The ideological foundations of fascism start with the particular concept of the nation.

Fascist thought that the liberal notion of humans as formed prior to society and then grouping together to form societies, is fundamentally wrong. Fascism says humans are formed by pre-existing social realities. Language, habits, values, instincts, and loyalties all precede choice. Man as an individual then is a later abstraction, not a natural unit. Society isn’t a contract, or an aggregation of wills, it is a body, an organism with a living, historical reality. The nation was what shaped individuals, whether they choose it or not. The nation was embodied in its language, customs, transmitted through education and memory, expressed in myths, symbols, and rituals. Every people has a national spirit, a particular, historical, and non-universal culture.

The nation then has a shared historical trajectory, that trajectory produces characteristic values and instincts, and those values are what expresses what flourishes for that people, and therefore, the nation has interests independent of individual opinions. The nation has direction, tendency, telos (purpose or goal) and exists in action. The State is what gives that will consciousness.

From this, individuals are understood to be analogous to cells in the body. Cells don’t vote on the body’s direction, and cells that act independently of the body are cancerous. Then from this, the fascists conclude that individual rights are conditional, dissent threatens coherence, and pluralism is pathology, not diversity, which is why repression follows so directly.

The liberal promise of individuals being born with inalienable rights, being allowed freedom to determine their own direction as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, is absolutely contrary to fascism. Liberalism considers men equals, which means debate to come to resolutions. Fascism considers this nonsense. It sees nature as a natural hierarchy, and the Darwinist notion of survival of the fittest means that not only will the strong survive against the weak, it actually good to eliminate the weak. It saw the natural differences of men and deduced the best should lead the lesser, this was natural and good.

What does fascism believe?

Civilization is in an existential crisis that requires total solutions, and only a total revolution- spiritual, moral, political and social- can save society.

Fascism is a revolt against liberal modernity. It is a total rejection of liberal civilization: individualism and natural rights, parliamentary democracy and pluralism, rationalism, positivism and enlightenment universalism, and bourgeois materialism and the pursuit of comfort. Liberal democracy is seen as not only inefficient, but decadent, emasculating, and corrosive.

The collective over the individual, who has no intrinsic value outside the community. Rights exist only through the State, and man’s humanity is realized only through collective life. Society is the end, man is the means.

I’ll state here that the fascists, like many today, set up a straw man around the concept of individualism. The fascists saw individualism as elevating greed and self-interest over everything else. The collectivism they got from Marx was a belief that when we all work towards a goal, we will achieve it and overcome societal problems. But individualism was never pushed as elevating greed; it was an essential part of freeing the individual from the tyranny of rulers. It never said there was no difference in men’s capabilities, or that they should only pursue their own self-interests. The point was that individuals were accepted as being free moral agents with a right to define their own goals, provided they didn’t infringe on others equal rights. The collective, on the other hand, while it sounds more cooperative and considerate, actually removes all individual members' rights and subjects them to the “collective” will, which will always be defined by a small group of leaders.

Democracy and Parliamentarism are fundamentally false. Parliaments are rule by detached elites masquerading as representation. Debate and compromise inherent in parliaments are weak, and universal suffrage empowers mediocrity and stifles excellence.

Social Darwinism shows a natural hierarchy; elites are biologically and spiritually superior. Equality is a myth contradicted by nature. Therefore fascism believes in rule by a minority, contempt for mass democracy, and accepts domination as the natural law.

Human behavior is driven by instinct, emotion, myth, and will. Rational argument breeds doubt, division, and paralysis, and intellectualism is hostile to unity and vitality.

Fascism celebrates action, violence and heroism. Action is a metaphysical principle: action is life, inaction is decay, and violence is regenerative, not pathological. Heroism, sacrifice, and struggle are treated as moral virtues, means of national rebirth, and antidotes to bourgeois decadence. War and conflict are not aberrations, but expressions of vitality.

Fascism is anti-capitalist, but not anti-property, socialist, but anti-Marxist, collectivist but nationalist. It rejects class struggle and integrates workers into the national community. Corporatism is a means of harmonizing interests, and the State will control the economy through authority, not ownership.

The State is the supreme organizing principle, reconciling social conflict, directing economic life, and embodying the moral unity of the nation.

Fascism is a new way of living in society, and totalitarian in its dominion over society. Nothing exists outside the State, no moral or social autonomy is tolerated, and dissent is considered a pathological deviation. The aim is a new man, a new morality, a new civilization.

Unity requires embodiment of the nation’s will in a leader, who will incarnate its history, destiny, and virtues. The cult of the leader resolves political fragmentation, social pluralism, and individual dissent.

Fascism will function as a political religion and faith, offering meaning, belonging, and transcendence, and replacing liberal rationalism with collective myth. The mystical dimension is essential.

In summary, I’m not sure that any of the current movements in America qualify as fascist, if fascism needs to start from this ideological basis. There are some that are pretty close in a lot of their beliefs, and granted, from what I’ve read of fascism from actual American fascists, fascism will appear differently in different nations because they are inherently nationalist movements that must consider the native national elements.

Given the fascist notion of the nation, developed in Italy, that the pre-existing nation is what formed the individuals, and that the nation had a direction and telos given its “particular, historical, and non-universal culture”, it’s perhaps a tough sell in the Americas, were every nation is essentially composed of immigrants from elsewhere. So some of the base elements that fascists referred to are missing, and yet we managed to assemble a nation without them. Perhaps this is why fascists in the US tend to imitate either Italian or German fascists, because they either don’t understand the intellectual underpinnings of fascism, or perhaps because the elements necessary for it are missing here.

[thetldrplace]

Paradiso cantos 23-33

This is the third installment of Paradiso, the last 11 cantos from 23 to 33. This also marks the end of the entire Divine Comedy. I started the journey back in May 2024, simply hoping to read the work in Italian. I had read it years ago in English, but having a lot more Italian by now, thought I'd be ready to just write some translated words in the margins and get through it. I was wrong. I struggled so much with understanding it, even when I had gotten the translations of vocabulary, that I was forced to translate the entire canto into English. That's when I knew this was going to be a much longer process than I had planned. But I set to it, and honestly, it may one of the things I'm most proud of in my life.

So here are the last canto summaries of Paradiso.

Canto XXIII  The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.  Dante had been staring at Beatrice when he notices she is intently looking upward. So he pulls his attention away from her and stares too, when she declares the procession of the triumph of Christ and his saints gathered through the ages. He is given a glimpse of Jesus and at this, his eyes are strengthened to now see Beatrice's smile, as well as what this sphere contains. Dante pleads with the reader to understand that he is unable to the greatness of what he is seeing because it is beyond words.  

He sees Mary and the apostles, and the ranks of shining souls with them. Mary is the most resplendent of the souls, having been the greatest both on earth, and here in heaven, of humans. The angel Gabriel crosses the space and surrounds Mary with what appears as a crown, but which emits a music more beautiful than Dante can describe. At this point, Mary and Jesus ascend upwards, with the rest of the spirits calling out the name of Mary. Dante is unable to see the Primum Mobile, where they ascend to, so they disappear from sight, but the remaining souls watch and lift their flames towards Mary in deep love for her. 

The canto ends with a description of the souls as a rich abundance, those who now experience the treasure they had forsaken on earth, with Peter, holding the keys to such glory. 

Canto XXIV  The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.  Beatrice leads this canto off by asking the spirits there to allow Dante to taste of what they know since he ardently desires to know. The souls group into circles of dancers, some moving slowly and others quickly, and the brightness and rapidity of their dancing is due to their worth. Out of these, St Peter presents himself as the brightest, and Beatrice tells him to question Dante on matters of faith.  

He begins by asking Dante what faith is, to which Dante responds with the formulation of Hebrews 11:1- Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.   Peter accepts the standard answer, but only on the grounds that Dante understand why faith was first seen as a substance, then as evidence. Dante responds that faith is our foundation, therefore a substance, but once accepted, we argue from it, so it takes the form of evidence. 

Peter accepts that Dante understands what it is, but then wants to know if Dante himself has faith, and when Dante proclaims yes, Peter asks where Dante's faith came from.  Dante responds that the Bible is the basis of his faith.  

Peter asks Dante why he accepts the Bible as the word of God, and Dante responds that the miracles that followed it could not have been produced by men, therefore it must be divine. 

Peter pushes him on that though, and asks how Dante knows the reports are true, since it is the Bible itself that says those things. Dante answers that the men that produced them had nothing to gain from it, and more than that, it cost them dearly to follow it. 

Peter accepts this, but then wants to know about Dante's personal faith: how did Dante come to it? 

Dante responds that he believes in one God, creator of everything, of which Dante himself has both physical and metaphysical proofs, that show through every part of the bible: He believes in the Trinity. 

This pleases the heavenly company and Peter rejoices.  

Canto XXV  The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.  Dante begins with the admission that desperately would love to return to Florence, and he is hoping that the Divine Comedy would obtain him enough glory to change the minds of those who have exiled him. He is excited that Peter has acknowledged his responses as adequate, when the apostle James steps forward, greets Peter, then is addressed by Beatrice, who asks James to now question Dante on hope. James, recognizing that God himself has desired Dante to ascend to the highest ranks of heaven, he asks Dante to tell 1) what hope is, 2) how it has adorned Dante's own mind, and 3) where it comes from (for Dante personally). Beatrice jumps in to answer the second, since it might appear arrogant for Dante to answer it himself, but she relies on the very fact that Dante has ascended to this very place on the journey through the realms of hell, purgatory, and now heaven. Then she says Dante himself can answer the other two questions. Dante answers the first question by reciting that hope is the certain expectation of future glory, which produces divine grace and merits that precede it. He has learned this first from the Psalms, but also James' own epistle. The apostle then wants to know how it is the Dante delights in hope and how it has come to him. Dante answers the third question by stating that both the Old and New Testaments testify to the promises to those that God calls friends. Isaiah says we will receive two garments: a soul AND a renewed body, which the apostle John, James' brother, testifies to in the book of Revelation. 

At this point, an even brighter light comes down to join them, the apostle John. Dante struggles to see through the light if John has a body, and is temporarily rendered blind by the effort. John asks Dante why he does this. The reason is the legend that perhaps John didn't die, at which point he would been merely assumed up to heaven and therefore have his body. But John puts this to rest himself when he tells Dante that his body is dust in the earth like all other men's bodies. Only two in heaven have their bodies now- Jesus and Mary, and John wants Dante to carry this information back to earth. 

The canto ends with Dante blinded. 

Canto XXVI  The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.  Dante has been temporarily blinded by trying to see if John had a body. He is assured by John that it is only temporary, but while he is waiting to recover his sight, John questions Dante on love, the third of the theological virtues. John first asked about where Dante's soul is pointed, what is its focus. Dante says the Lord is the beginning and end, the only real focus of our love, which is shown through things great and small. John says he's going to have to get a little more specific with his answer, so who, or what, has directed him towards God? Dante answers that both philosophical arguments as well as the scriptures inspire love, and the better the thing, the more it inspires love towards God. Dante then gives Aristotle's argument that a discerning mind would see that the world reveals God as the first love and superior Essence, and that anything outside of God is a mere reflection of light. Next he states God himself, when he tells Moses that he would cause all His goodness to pass before Moses. So that God reveals all his goodness to those that ask. Next he quotes the apostle John himself, who wrote at the beginning of his Gospel about Jesus, having come from heaven to be our salvation- the supreme example of love. 

John then says that he understands Dante accepts the scriptures and human reasoning that points to loving God, but what else, since he desires to know all that has drawn Dante towards love of God.  

Dante answers that everything that could turn a heart towards God has contributed to his love: the existence of the world, Dante's own existence, Jesus' death on the cross so we could be saved, and the hope of salvation. He also has a love for all the believers within the world. 

At this, the heavens resound with the familiar "holy, holy, holy", and at that point, Dante is healed from his blindness as Beatrice sweeps the impurity from his eyes. 

He can see even better than before, but then notices a fourth light among them and asks who it is. 

Beatrice tells him that this is Adam, the first man. Dante is dying to ask some questions, and Adam, without hesitation, states what Dante's questions are: How long has it been since Adam was in the garden; How long he was in the garden; Why he was kicked out; and What language he invented and spoke. 

Adam answers the second question first: he wasn't exiled for eating the fruit of the tree, it was the sin of transgressing the limits set on him. Then he says he waited 4,302 years in limbo, before Jesus came through hell to lead the OT saints out. So from the time he died, until Jesus' death on the cross was 4302 years. Then he says he himself lived for 930 years, so a total of 5232 years from his death until the cross. (if we add in the 1266 years mentioned in Inferno 21, we get 6,498 years to the time Dante is asking the time Dante asks the question. 

Adam then says the language he spoke disappeared long before people attempted the tower of Babel. For even though the world all spoke the same language, language still changed, and so Adam's original tongue was lost. 

Adam then mentions that God was called simply "I" before he had died, but then later became El. This little detail, completely unconfirmed anywhere, was perhaps made up to show some sort of complexity added to language. 

Finally, Adam relates that it took only 6 hours to get kicked out of the garden of Eden. They were out by just past noon. 

Canto XXVII  The eighth sphere: the fixed stars- mystics cont.  Dante has passed the third and final test and heaven erupts into a song. Then Peter steps forward again and pronounces against the papacy, saying they usurp his seat, which God considers vacant. They have made Rome a sewer of corruption that even Satan would be satisfied with. The early popes were not martyred so that these could chase after earthly riches, but they were faithful unto death so they could acquire this blessed life in heaven. They never had any intention that Christians should be divided into Guelph and Ghibelline, nor that the symbol of the pope should be used to war against baptized believers; nor should the seal be used to sanction falsified and purchased privileges. French popes are preparing to live off the life of Rome, and the papacy, having started so well, has fallen to such vile ends, but soon this will come to an end. Dante is then exhorted to reveal all of this as it has been revealed to him. 

Then the lights drift up and away. Beatrice encourages Dante to look down again to see his progress, and he notices that about 6 hours have passed. He then turns his attention again to Beatrice and her look gives him the power to ascend again. 

The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels.  Dante finds himself in an empty realm where there are no stars or planets with which to establish his position. Beatrice tells him this is the highest sphere, which holds the earth in its center and moves the other spheres around it. God is what holds the ninth sphere in place. The other spheres draw their motion and time from this sphere.  

Then Beatrice speaks against greed, that drowns mortals so that they can't rise up again. Men desire good, but continual rain, representing the continual influence of corruption, transforms good fruit into bad. These two terzine use water as drowning and spoiling to illustrate the effects of greed.  

Faith and innocence are found only in babes, and as soon as they grow, they flee from that purity. Two terzine are used to show corruption: the first is that babes will fast, but then turn from it as they age, and then the second is that babes will listen to and love their mothers, but then wish for her death as they get older. Neither of these is meant to show that children are born holy, the point is to show that the child's will is untested, but is corrupted through the world. 

Men are drawn away by temptations and their purity is darkened, but since the earth has rejected God as its leader, men are led astray. But before 9000 years (a long time), these higher spheres will again exert their influences, a storm will come that will right the ships, and the fleet will sail on a just course again, and good fruit will come from the flower. 

Canto XXVIII  The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels cont.  Dante and Beatrice, entering the Primum Mobile, have passed the realm of humans, into the abode of the angels. This realm is spiritual, and so the descriptions are more abstract in nature. This canto starts off with a description of an infinitesimally small point of light that is so bright, Dante can't keep his eyes on it. Around it are 9 concentric circles of fire. The closest to the point are the brightest and purest and fastest moving. Dante grasps what it represents, but also can't accord what he sees with the model of the universe, which has earth at the center, and successively larger spheres enclosing the smaller, and finally the Empyrean, which encloses all.  Beatrice sees he is confused as to how to reconcile these two opposite visions and explains. 

She starts with the model of the physical universe, explaining that in the physical universe, the larger bodies are due to the greater goodness that exerts a greater influence. But without resolving the contradiction in the two physical depictions, she notes that in the spiritual depiction, the concentric circles that are closest to the point, representing God, are thus the brightest and purest. 

God is, in this way, represented as both a single point, and the center, in the spiritual depiction, but also the all-encompassing sphere of the Empyrean in the physical depiction.  

The angelic beings, their orders represented by the concentric circles, are like humans in that they are given grace and intellect, and this results in a merit that allows them more or less vision of God, drawing them closer to Him according to this merit.  

Beatrice then describes the hierarchy of Angels as: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.  

Canto XXIX  The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels cont.  Dante and Beatrice are looking at the point of light, when Beatrice says she will answer some questions Dante has about the angelic orders. God created simply to express His splendor, and did so by shining His light through creation. There was no time prior to creation, God existed timelessly before that point. 

His creation consisted of pure form, which would be spirit with no matter, pure matter, which is really only the metaphysical potential of matter, and the combination of the two, which is the physical universe in all its diversity. The pure activity of form takes the highest place closest to God, pure potential matter takes the lowest, and the created universe is between the two. 

The world was created in an instant- including the angels and their respective orders. Jerome thought there was a no lapse of time between the creation of the angels and the creation of the physical universe, but that isn't correct. The purpose of the angels was the movement of the spheres, so they would not have been created and left with no purpose. 

However, very shortly after creation, a part rebelled, while those Dante sees there still in Heaven, remained humble enough, and that humility granted them an exalted view of God. It was this humility that merited an additional grace, which perfects their nature, and grants them their view of God. 

Various human schools teach differently, but they are wrong about, for instance, the memory of angels. Angels have no need of memory since they eternally keep their eyes focused on the unchanging God. 

But humans have come up with all sorts of invented ideas, mostly as a way to try and exalt themselves, which takes away from the Gospel. But neglecting the Gospel is a very serious crime. 

The number of angels is unknowable, but creation, including the angels, is all a way for God to showcase His unity through diversity. 

Canto XXX  The ninth sphere: the Primum Mobile- the angels cont.  Dante sees the angelic realms from the Primum Mobile fade from sight little by little, until finally, nothing left to see, and his love for Beatrice, turns his mind back to her. At this point, her beauty is completely beyond his ability to describe. Beatrice pulls his attention to what is happening, as they have ascended beyond the Primum Mobile to the Empryean. 

The tenth sphere: the Empyrean  This is a purely spiritual sphere, where, as in the Primum Mobile, there really isn’t a physical existence, but it is a realm of light. Beatrice does mention, however, that Dante will see both 'armies' of heaven- the saints as well as the angels, and he'll actually see the saints in their embodied forms, which is some sort of miracle, since they won't have physical bodies until the resurrection at the last judgment. 

Suddenly Dante is wrapped up in a blanket of light, which both welcomes him into the Empyrean, and enables his eyes to adjust to the increased brightness. Now he is able to see what he describes as a river of light, and on both sides appear banks covered in flowers as in an eternal spring. Living sparks come from the water and settle all over the flowers like rubies in gold settings. Then they jump back into the river, described as a vortex, again. Beatrice knows that Dante wants to understand this, but the only way he can do so is to "drink" the water. But drinking is symbolic here for staring deeply into the light. She adds that what he sees as sparks and flowers are in fact only foreshadowing of the true nature of what he sees. Dante quickly complies and as he does so, the river seems to transform from flowing in a line, to flowing in a circle. The sparks and flowers are revealed to be both hosts of heaven: saints and angels. 

There in the Empyrean is a type of light that makes God visible to the creature that desires only to see God. It extends in a wide circumference that would encircle the Sun. It is visible only by light reflected off the outer surface of the Primum Mobile, which itself, takes its life/movement and power/influence, from God's presence. Dante uses the picture of hillsides visible in the reflection in the water at their base, to describe an enormous rose, which he describes as something like a stadium, with more than a thousand levels expanding up and out. The distances meant nothing since the laws of physics don't apply here, but from the center emanates an aroma of praise to God.  

Beatrice tells Dante to see how vast this is, and that there are very few seats left before the final number is fulfilled. Then she notes a throne in the center where Henry VII would sit, and reunite Italy under an Emperor. But blind greed stands in the way, that causes men on earth to push this away, even though it would be what saves them. The false pope Clement V is saying one thing publicly, but privately undermining God's plan, but while this will be tolerated for a short time, he will soon be in the level of Hell holding the Simonists. 

Canto XXXI  The tenth sphere: the Empyrean, cont.  Dante sees the saints in the stadium like seating arrangement he compares to an enormous rose, and the angels that fly from God to the saints, like bees, bringing love and peace. Dante references the northern barbarians coming to Rome and seeing the wonders of Roman civilization as a comparison for how he himself felt coming from the human to the divine, from time to eternity, and from the filth of Florentine politics to just and sane people. He has taken it all in and turns to ask Beatrice some things, only to find that she is no longer there. Bernard of Clairvaux has taken her place. Dante doesn’t know who he is, but wonders what has happened to her. The old man tells him she has returned to her place, but that she may be seen from where Dante is. Dante offers a moving thank you and prayer for Beatrice, whose efforts have rescued him and brought him to this point. She acknowledges his thanks and turns her attention again to God. 

Bernard states that he will bring Dante's journey to completion, and introduces himself. Dante is intrigued to see him face to face, but Bernard encourages him to instead turn to Mary, who is seated on high. Dante notes that there is a glow coming from her that he likens to the Sun rising from the east.  

There are thousands of angels rejoicing at her and Dante turns his attention to her. 

Canto XXXII  The tenth sphere: the Empyrean, cont.  Bernard gives an abbreviated listing of some important names in the rose/stadium of the Empyrean. 

Right below Mary is Eve, under her is Rachel, with Beatrice next to her, then, in order moving down: Sara, Abraham's wife, Rebecca, Isaac's wife, Judith, heroine of the apocryphal work of Judith, and Ruth, great-grandmother of King David, below this are unnamed Hebrew women. The entire rose/stadium is bisected with Old Testament saints, who looked forward to the coming Messiah on one side, and New Testament saints on the other side, who could confess Jesus as savior. 

The rose/stadium is the perpendicularly bisected again with women on one side, and the men on the opposite side, but still following the Old/New Testament division. Notable on the men's side are John the Baptist, St Francis of Assisi, St Benedict, and St Augustine. 

Then Bernard points out another bisecting line, this one dividing the upper seats from the lower. On the lower half are the souls of those children who were 'innocent'- not old enough to make their own choices. But Bernard sees that Dante is not voicing a question: how can children who are here apart from any merits, be placed in some sort of dividing order? The basic answer is that God creates individual humans for his own purposes and gives them various capacities. No further answer should be sought. Bernard notes that a Biblical example of this is given in the Isaac and Rebecca's twins: Jacob and Esau. They struggled in the womb with each other, and this would have been before either reached an age of being able to freely choose on their own. Yet the prophet Malachi elaborates that God himself chose Jacob because he loved him, and rejected Esau because he hated him. Paul quotes this passage too. Bernard explains that the faith of the parents was the rule before the law, then after the law it was circumcision, at least for males. Then after Christ came, it was infant baptism. But at this point, Bernard tells Dante to turn his eyes towards Mary, because only looking into her light, can he be prepared to see Christ. 

Dante sees the angel Gabriel hovering near her. 

Bernard quickly mentions some of the male notable saints: Adam and Peter on the Old and New Testament sides, then the Apostle John next to Moses. 

He points out Anna, the mother of Mary, St Lucy next to Beatrice, but then prepares Dante to penetrate into the splendor of God as much as possible. They get ready to pray, and here the canto ends 

Canto XXXIII  The tenth sphere: the Empyrean, cont.  Bernard begins his prayer to Mary, asking her to give Dante strength to move to the final visions of his journey, where he would peer into the light of God himself. The rest of the saints join this prayer and Mary consents. Dante then looks into the light and joins with the omnipotence. As he looks, he sees a unity that shows Dante how it contains everything. Dante of course lets us know that he can't describe more than a touch of what he saw, but he goes on to describe three circles of light, and the second one, seeming to contain a human semblance, which we recognize as Jesus.  

The canto, the book, and in fact the entire Divine Comedy, closes with Dante letting us know that his desire and will have now been turned back to God, the Love that moves the sun and stars. 

We had initially found him in a dark forest, about ready to be lost, when he was sent help. He has been helped and moved back onto the true path. 

[thetldrplace]

No Borders?

I was looking for some more recent novels to add to my list, and decided to ask Chat GPT for some recommendations based on my criteria. One of the novels was Mohsin Hamid's novel Exit West. As with all the novels, I looked them up and read a little about them to see if I'd be interested. I grabbed this paragraph from the Wikipedia page. 

"Mohsin Hamid wrote Exit West as a way for readers to look at the refugee crisis from a different perspective. Hamid explains that borders for countries are extremely “unnatural” and the issue with migrants and refugees is that their movement is thought of as a problem that needs to be solved. Hamid believes that refugees and migrants, or anyone for that matter, should be able to travel freely throughout the world. Hamid also explains that reading can help people see things from a different perspective, which means that people can become more cognizant of others’ situations and see solutions they never thought possible before. Hamid wrote Exit West to broaden people’s thoughts about the refugee crisis. He wanted to give readers an alternative perspective on how the people could operate in one world instead of one nation. With the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and his strict border policies, Hamid is trying to show readers that a world without borders is not only possible, but desirable." 

There are three assertions in this paragraph that I'd like to challenge: 

Borders for countries  Hamid says borders for countries are 'extremely unnatural', but this doesn't seem right. I could maybe see an argument against the larger nation states, since they have often seen smaller tribal or cultural groups compressed into a larger area (think modern Italy), but even in tribal settings, recognized lands have long been accepted. If a tribe encroached on another's land, fights could ensue. Even now in America, we will sometimes acknowledge that we live on tribal lands (Democratic party platform). What would that even mean unless some geographic area called "a land" could be enclosed in some sort of acknowledged border? 

The article states that the issue is borders for countries, but it seems like the concept of "a land", as an acknowledged geographical area for a culture, is still applicable, just to a larger area in the modern sense of a nation-state. 

Diversity  I certainly see the argument that "seeing things from a different perspective can help them to see solutions they never thought possible". In fact, solutions to previously intractable problems is always going to be some form of seeing things from a different perspective. 

It's also not hard to see some truth to the assertion that bringing in people who think differently, may in fact introduce new ways of thinking about things, which may include solutions to problems unseen. In fact, in Helmut Schoeck's book Envy, he specifically mentions inventors moving to different places and bringing new ideas, which helped the spread of innovation. 

But "thinking differently" is not, in and of itself, a benefit. Societies dwell together through shared ways of thinking, not diversity. If everyone thought differently about things, there would be no basis for shared values, and therefore, no community.   Some level of diversity can be beneficial, too much of it can also tear societies apart. 

Refugees  Accepting refugees on a humanitarian basis can be considered a morally good thing. If fellow humans are in trouble, then giving them a safe place to escape is good. But with diversity as the model, it's also easy to envision scenarios in which people A are brought en masse into a culture B, and then A seeks to reproduce culture A into land B. It's possible the reason people in culture A have left their own native lands is because culture A had serious defects, which is why they are having to flee as refugees. (There can of course be other reasons) In such a scenario, the infusion of culture A into the land of culture B would be a threat to culture B, not the "solution to a problem". So it would seem that any people/society would have a well-grounded right in wanting to protect and preserve its own native culture. 

Given these things, I don't agree that "a world without borders is not only possible, but desirable", unless we first accept that no people has a right to its own culture. 

I asked Chat GPT about these and here is the response on borders: 

"Hamid calls borders “unnatural,” which probably reflects his rhetorical or philosophical point more than an anthropological one. You’re right: historically, human groups have always marked out territory—whether by rivers, mountains, migration routes, or tribal boundaries. Conflict over land is one of the oldest constants in human life.  "That said, what Hamid may mean is that modern, hard nation-state borders are a relatively recent invention. For most of human history, borders were porous, overlapping, or shifting. Think of medieval Europe, where allegiances and spheres of influence often mattered more than exact lines on a map. Even in tribal contexts, the “border” might not have been a hard line but a zone of negotiation, exchange, or contestation.  "So while borders in some form seem natural to human societies, the rigidity and legalistic enforcement of them in the modern world might be what Hamid is challenging as “unnatural.” " 

But I think those explanations fail: 

Let's grant that edges of territories, where the "borders" are found, may indeed be loosely delineated, particularly in tribal senses. Hamid could not be speaking of such a thing when he calls borders unnatural. When he talks about people coming to a different country, for the sake of diversity and assisting refugees, those aren't accomplished by people settling, for a U.S. example, in an uninhabited section of the Arizona desert on the border. Diversity to the native population could ONLY occur through influx and interaction in the major population centers. Meaning Hamid must be saying that people "should" be allowed access whenever they want, to any people's land. The same dynamic would be true with refugees. They couldn't really be helped by merely existing inside another border, although they may be considered "out of reach" if the issue is physical persecution. Though that in itself brings up another point: if there were no borders, then a persecutorial government could simply go wherever it wanted to exact its measures on those refugees trying to flee.    Which makes we want to parse out the point that borders are not only restrictions on people, but on particular governments too. If there were no borders, then the government of Iran could go into what is now considered Iraqi territory. So, if for no other reasons, it would seem that borders would be necessary limitations to restrain governments too. 

Again, I see Hamid's basic argument that borders are unnatural as being untenable. 

[thetldrplace]

Paradiso cantos 12-22

 This is the second batch of 11 cantos- from 12-22 that make up the middle third of the third book of the Divine Comedy- Paradiso.

In this book that covers the journey through heaven, Dante uses the accepted cosmology of the time: that the universe is made up of 10 concentric spheres around the earth. From lowest to highest in order:

Moon (unfulfilled vows) Mercury (too concerned with earthly honor) Venus (too concerned with earthly love)

[after Venus, the spheres no longer manifest earthly shortcomings, but spiritual strengths]

Sun (the wise) Mars (warriors of the faith) Jupiter (the just) Saturn (contemplatives) The Fixed Stars- (faith hope and love) The Primum Mobile (the angels) The Empyrean- the dwelling of God

In this second post here, the Sun to the beginning of the fixed stars is covered

Canto XII  The fourth sphere: the Sun- the wise, cont.  St Thomas finishes speaking and the circle, likened to a millstone, begins to turn again. But before it completes even one revolution, a second ring encloses it, matching movement and song perfectly. Dante gives several metaphors and similes for this, but I won't relate them here. From inside one of the lights in the outer circle, a voice calls out that since St Thomas, a Dominican, has spoken so lovingly of St Francis, it is fitting that he, a Franciscan, should return the favor for St Dominic.  

Since both Dominic and Francis fought together for the church, they should shine together.  

The church, which Christ bought at a high cost on the cross, was moving slowly in its mission, unsure of itself, and reduced in number. So God, seeing the state of his church, sent two champions to reorient his wayward people.  

In the town of Caleruega Spain, Dominic was born. He was so filled with power, even in the womb, that his mother prophesied that her son would set the world on fire. His godmother also had a dream that his intellectual gifts would illumine the world. Dominic's first instinct was humility, and he walked in poverty in his early days. While so many men pursue worldly gain, Dominic sought only to teach the true faith. He traveled about in his early days doing that. When given the chance, he didn't ask for any type of office that would provide him with riches, but wanted to combat heresy. He went straight to the most difficult heresies of the day, and from his example, several different ministries were born that would help the church thrive. 

Alas, after he died, his followers didn't keep to the original aim, and now even goes in the opposite direction, but they'll unfortunately lament this when they are thrown out with the weeds at judgment, 

though there are still, to be sure, some that adhere to the original vision. But you find these among several of the more prominent offshoots, which either shrink from the original goal and relax the order's rules, or others that try to make them even more restrictive. 

Here the speaker names himself as Bonaventure. He also names Illuminato da Rieti and Augustine, two of the early followers of St Francis, Hugo of St Victor, Peter Mangiadore and Peter Spano, Nathan the prophet, John Chrysostom, Anselm, Donatus, Rabanus, and the Calabrian Abbot Joachim.  

He finishes by stating that the gracious and clear speech of Thomas had moved him to celebrate Dominic, and moved the entire circle as well.  

Canto XIII  The fourth sphere: the Sun- the wise, cont.  Dante kicks the canto off with a word picture that, I can only assume, he THINKS will help me get a clearer idea of what he is seeing. But it didn't...at all. The basic idea is that these two circles of 12 souls each are dancing, then they surround him and stop. Thomas Aquinas again picks up to resolve a question he knows Dante has: how can Thomas have claimed Solomon was the wisest ever, and no other would arise that would be his equal? Certainly Adam and Jesus would be more perfectly created and wiser.  

Thomas explains that God's influence is imprinted in all creation since he is the prime mover of it all. But the celestial spheres and their angelic intelligences transmit that influence. This influence is diluted and modified as it moves through the spheres, further from its source. On earth, this results in brief contingent lives that are temporary and uncertain. 

Whatever God directly creates will be fully perfect, whatever is created through the intermediary of the spheres will have less.  

As such, the earth in its original state, including Adam and Eve, and Jesus himself, having been divinely implanted in the Virgin Mary, were perfect. In this sense, Dante is correct in that Solomon would not have been superior to them. But the distinction Thomas claims Dante missed, was that Dante should have considered who Solomon was, and what his motives were for asking for wisdom when the Lord granted him anything he desired. Solomon was a king, and he desired wisdom so he could govern rightly. Dante should note that Thomas said an equal had not "arose", meaning that Thomas was speaking of kings, not all humans. It seems to me that "arose" might also include humans born in the normal course of secondary creation, not the direct creation of God, but that point, if it was thought by Dante, wasn't explicitly named in the text. 

Thomas exhorts Dante to let this discourse act as lead to Dante's feet whenever he is tempted to run to a conclusion that hasn't been thought out. He gives a few examples of men who laid claim to truth without having fully thought out the premises they were operating on, and states that those who would do so, are worse than those who never seek answers in the first place, since their errors will prejudice their minds from accepting the truth once it is revealed to them. He also warns against judging divine motives since humans cannot fully comprehend what God knows. 

Canto XIV  The fourth sphere: the Sun- the wise, cont.  Dante leads off with a word-picture to let us know there is a real similarity between Thomas' words and Beatrice's. She chimes in and articulates a thought she knows Dante has, even though he doesn't yet know it: Will these saints retain their brightness when they get their glorified bodies? And if so, how will their eyes be able to handle the brightness? 

Though it is never stated outright, King Solomon steps up to field this one and states that the brightness will endure since it comes from love, which comes from seeing God, which comes from His grace beyond all merit. When they receive their glorified bodies, they'll be fully unified again, which will be even more pleasing to God. This light will in fact grow, since it disposes them to see God. Solomon gives an earthly example: take a piece of charcoal that gives off a flame. You can still see the coal as it burns inside the fire. And as for how they'll be able to see with physical eyes, Solomon simply says the glorified body will be strengthened for every such thing that could please them. 

At this explanation, the two rings are excited for their new bodies and then Dante sees what seems like myriad more spirits coming to  encircle these 24 already here. Then the brightness grows and Dante realizes that he and Beatrice have been 'translated' to the next sphere. 

The fifth sphere: Mars  In Mars, Dante notices things are now more red than before. He offers up a praise to God, and before he even finishes, he knows it has been accepted because he sees two spirits, as if they were inside two rays. These two rays cross each other, making the sign of the cross. The lights move across their rays and whenever they cross each other, it's like lightning striking out, at which Dante can swear he sees Christ himself within it. Again, we are given and earthly example of dust particles that one would see within a ray of light, moving in various ways. From within the cross, there is a sweet song. Dante is unable to really distinguish the song, but he again likens this to a chord on a stringed instrument being struck: you don't hear the individual notes, but the overall effect is sweet. Dante does here the words "Arise" and "Conquer", though, so he surmises it is a praise. He notes that he, at that moment, falls in love with it as something more beautiful than anything he has ever seen, though, he excuses himself to us, he had not yet looked at Beatrice's eyes since coming up to Mars, which have grown more beautiful with the ascent. 

Canto XV  The fifth sphere: Mars- warriors of the faith  A group of souls has come towards Dante, and in the cross that he saw, he sees one come from the right arm of the cross down to the bottom where he is tenderly greeted as a member of the family. Dante is bewildered by this and turns to Beatrice, whose own smile seems to allow him to see deeper into glory and blessing. The spirit at first speaks things so deeply that he couldn't comprehend, and then, as his speech come down to Dante's level, he understands that the spirit is blessing God for being so generous towards his descendants. Dante has no idea why he is being welcomed this way, but, encouraged by Beatrice to interact, he goes on to ask the spirit to please explain because he, Dante, is lacking in some facts that would give him context for the nature of this spirit's welcome. The spirit explains that he is a Dante's great-great grandfather, and that Dante took his surname, Alighieri, from his great-grandfather's wife. The spirit discourses about the change in Florence, which used to be more modest and noble, but such persons would be out of place in today's Florence. He finally states his name: Cacciaguida, and says that he had followed Emperor Conrad on the second Crusade, where he was killed by the Muslims. 

Canto XVI  The fifth sphere: Mars- warriors of the faith, cont.  Dante continues the conversation with Cacciaguida. He is so happy about his ancestry that his own human pride in his bloodline comes out and he starts to use high language with Cacciaguida. Beatrice is amused by this but only gently reminds him that she is there. Dante asks about Cacciaguida's ancestors and the date of his birth. Cacciaguida gives an odd description that there have been 580 revolutions of the sphere of Mars since Gabriel's annunciation to Mary about Jesus' birth, until he was born. Given that Mars 'year' is 687 days, it works out to Cacciaguida being born in 1091. They dwelt in the area of the Porta San Piero, but will say no more about this. 

The rest of the canto is spent detailing people and families which would mean nothing to us at this point. But in general, the lesson Cacciaguida means to put forward is essentially that the growth of Florence has been a problem. More and more people have been added in, which has weakened Florence by increasing divisions. It is the opposite of the modern wisdom that "diversity is out strength"; in fact, diversity introduced division rather than strengthening the city by uniting behind a more singular purpose.  

Cacciaguida chronicles some older families that are no longer there, which goes to show that all human endeavors have their end. Of course, sometimes it's hidden from us because the endeavor may last many generations, while our individual lives are short. It thus gives the impression of being more permanent. But as the history of Florence shows, human affairs are in flux.  

The canto ends with a lament over the current strife that has grown to the level of civil war and expulsions.  

Canto XVII  The fifth sphere: Mars- warriors of the faith, cont.  Dante has some more questions for Cacciaguida. Beatrice sees this and encourages him to voice them, even his saying them out loud doesn't alert them any more to his desires, which they already know. But this is a likening to prayer- in which learning to articulate the desires, aids in searching yourself to understand what it is you really seek after. 

Dante mentions that he has heard, in both hell and purgatory, prophecies of his future, so he would like to know more so he can be better prepared through foresight. Cacciaguida is pleased with this and starts by noting that these difficulties aren't caused by God, they are simply known by Him because all of history is known in an eternal present.  

Dante will need to run from Florence because the Pope is working against his party. The White Guelphs will be blamed for the troubles because they lost, but the divine judgment coming on the Pope and those that caused the trouble will make clear who is to blame. But leaving is only the first arrow shot from the bow of exile. Dante will be galled at the stupidity and malice of those he is exiled with. They will end up lashing out at him, so he will separate from them, but ultimately, it will be them that lose face, not Dante. Dante will find refuge in the home of CanGrande della Scala, and they will have an exceptionally close relationship. CanGrande is known for his martial deeds, such that even his enemies can't ignore his virtues. Dante is encouraged to rest his hopes with CanGrande, and not envy those around him who seem to have won, because their victory will be shortlived, and there shame obvious when it's all over. 

Dante asks then if he should fully reveal everything in his work, since he understands it will likely piss a lot of people off. Cacciaguida tells him to be fully truthful, and in doing so, this will cement him as one of the greats. While people might initially take offense, afterward, they will see the work as vital nutrition for their souls. 

It is also explained that all throughout, notable people have been shown to him as examples since those who will listen would only listen if they were told of people they knew of. Otherwise the work would not carry any weight. 

Canto XVIII  The fifth sphere: Mars- warriors of the faith, cont.  Dante is taking in Cacciaguida's words. Cacciaguida is content in the glory of God's plan, but Dante's mind is concerned with his exile, so there is the bitterness of the message with the sweetness of God's plan. Beatrice tells him to snap out of it and notice instead where he is. At this point he is drawn to the beauty of Beatrice and his attention is pulled to her. Again she tries to move him from his thoughts, this time back to Cacciaguida, who wishes to introduce him to some of the other souls in that sphere. 

He sees Joshua, Jude Maccabee, Charlemagne, Roland, William of Orange, Reynard, Godfrey of Bouillon, and Robert Guiscard. Then Cacciaguida rejoins them. 

At this point, Dante turns again to Beatrice to see what he should do, and notices that she is again, miraculously even more beautiful than just moments before.  

The sixth sphere: Jupiter- justice  He and Beatrice have now ascended to Jupiter, where he sees thousands of lights flying about and forming letters, all while they sing. They spell out the Latin phrase "Diligite iustitium, qui iudicatis terram", "Love Justice, you who govern the earth". Then an eagle is drawn. Dante grasps that our earthly justice is inspired from this sphere, but he asks that God would take note of where that justice is being obscured (The Papacy), and would once again, as Jesus did, get angry about the buying and selling in the Temple (the Church) that is leading astray so many people. Dante notes that war used to be waged with the sword, now it's done through excommunications decreed then rescinded, and denying the Eucharist, something the Father would never condone. But this is because the current Pope loves money more than anything else and wouldn't know Peter or Paul, the practical founders of the Vine (the Church) that he presumably presides over. 

Canto XIX  The sixth sphere: Jupiter- justice; cont.  The souls, still in the arrangement of the eagle (symbolizing justice), begins to speak to Dante as a single entity, using "I" and "mine" in place of "we" and "our". Dante then asks the eagle a question concerning justice: how can God justly condemn someone who has never had the opportunity to hear the gospel, but who has lived an absolutely righteous life?  

The answer is that God, who has imprinted some of himself throughout creation, could never imprint so much of himself in anything, that Jesus wouldn't be infinitely superior to the creation. Lucifer, the highest created being, even fell, and so how much more deficient would any lower beings have been in comparison? Since any man can only understand what he can perceive, he is far short of God's knowledge. Like a man looking at the ocean, you can see the bottom when you look from the shore and it's only a few feet deep, but you can't see the bottom in the open sea. It's there, but the depth conceals it. So likewise man is unable the true depth as God can, so it would be foolish for any man to think he can understand what God knows when he cannot see as God sees. 

The eagle finishes by noting that no one is admitted to heaven without confessing Christ, but.... Dante should also understand that there are many who confess Christ with their words, who will be separated from Christ on judgment day even further than the pagans who never knew of Christ.  

The Eagle then lists several earthly kings who would claim to be Christian kings, yet their lives and deeds will show that they were nothing of the sort. 

Canto XX  The sixth sphere: Jupiter- justice; cont.  The souls, still in the form of the eagle grow brighter while singing praises, and then sound forms from the neck and moves through the beak as words, where the eagle points out 6 other notable souls in this sphere: David, Trajan, Hezekiah, Constantine, William the Good, and Ripheus. Dante is perplexed at how Trajan and Ripheus could be there since neither were Christians. This gives the eagle occasion to explain how God's predestined will works with human free will. The eagle explains that neither died as pagans, but both were Christians. Trajan was brought back to life by the prayers of St Gregory, who preached the gospel which Trajan accepted, then when Trajan died shortly after for the second time, it was as a believer. Whether this story is to be believed or not, it is likely representative of the grace of intercessory prayer and the salvation of people we may consider unlikely. 

Ripheus is a different story. the Trojan warrior would have lived one thousand years before Christ. Yet, he represents the full cooperation with whatever divine grace is given, and as such, God caused faith, hope, and love to appear to him and show him the future Christ, so that he could profess faith and be saved. Here Dante praises God's predestination, the understanding of which can't be fathomed by men who can't see God, who is the first cause of all. We are warned to be careful not to judge who will be in heaven. This comforts Dante, the two souls slip back into place and the canto ends here. 

Canto XXI  The seventh sphere: Saturn- contemplatives  The canto starts with Dante's eyes fixed completely on Beatrice. This time she does not smile, because to do so would overcome him, reducing him to ashes. The more they ascend, the more beautiful she becomes, but her beauty has increased so much that he would be in danger of being destroyed. 

They have ascended to Saturn, the seventh sphere, where the contemplatives are revealed. 

Here Dante sees a set of steps that goes so far upward his eye can't follow it. He sees so many souls moving up and down the steps that it seems to him to equal the amount of stars in the sky. They are moving each in different directions, but one spirit comes closest to Dante and stops. 

Dante wants to ask a question, but stops himself since Beatrice has given him no sign as of yet. Finally, she encourages him, and he asks the spirit 1) why he has come to him, and 2) why he doesn't hear the music here a he has in the lower spheres. The spirit, Peter Damiano, responds that he is unable to hear it for the same reason Beatrice can't smile at him: Dante would be unable to withstand it in his mortal capacity. He also explains that he has not come because of his own personal love of Dante- meaning of his own volition, but that God has moved him to do so, for it is their purpose and will to do what God wills. 

Dante accepts that but then wonders why he was particularly sent, rather than one of the others. Peter responds by explaining that God's light penetrates into his own and raises him up to the point where he can see God, and this in turn, causes him to shine as brightly as the amount of enlightenment that he has been granted. But.... even the highest created being in heaven cannot see so deeply into God's wisdom because this is beyond any to see. Then he tells Dante that when he returns to the world, explain to them not to enquire into this anymore since men are always thinking they can see into causes, but they are unable to recognize that they simply can't see as deeply as they think.  

Dante accepts this and contents himself with asking who the spirit is. He gives his name at this point, and explains that he was hermit in a cloister not too far from Dante's hometown. That place once produced many souls fit for the sphere of Saturn, but no longer. While Peter and Paul went about hungry and barefoot, today's shepherds demand servants, drivers, and even need help getting up since they are so fat and lazy.  

At this point, more souls surround Peter, and begin spinning, then stop and shout so loud that Dante can't tell what they are saying. 

Canto XXII  The seventh sphere: Saturn- contemplatives  Dante is left dazed and stunned by the shout, so he turns back to Beatrice, who hits him with the truth that everything that happens here in heaven is done from a zeal for the good, and their prayers were lifted up against the prelates that were condemned in the last canto. She explains that the judgment over them would come before Dante's life is over. Heaven's judgment always come at the appropriate time, even if it might not seem so to those on earth. Then she directs Dante's eyes to the other spirits on the steps and explains that there are some illustrious souls among them. Dante wishes to ask something, but again is hesitant, when one of the spirits lets him know that they are more than willing to answer. Then he explains he is St Benedict. He gives some of his personal history, then introduces St Macarius of Egypt and St Romuald. Dante asks if he might see St Benedict unveiled from his light, appearing as he would have in his human form. He is told this desire would be fulfilled up higher, where every desire is perfected, matured and complete, because in the Empyrean, there is no more time or place, for it doesn't turn as the inner sphere's do.  

Benedict mentions that the staircase they are on was seen by Jacob, the patriarch, but now, those of his order no longer strive to reach this sphere. They are so taken with money, that the extract from the poor, rather than using the means of the church to give to the poor. 

Benedict mentions that Peter began his work without riches, Benedict himself started with prayer and fasting, and St Francis began humbly with his convent, but looking at the state of orders today, they have moved far from their original intention. But God has done greater miracles than would be needed to help the situation. At this, everyone closed ranks and ascended upward in a whirlwind. 

Beatrice then signals Dante to ascend to, and he is immediately whisked up beyond what would be naturally attainable. 

The eighth sphere: the fixed stars.  Dante implores the constellation of Gemini, thought to be propitious to artists and poets, to endow him with all the gifts necessary to be up to the task set before him. Before moving on, Beatrice tells him he must be clear and sharp, so first look at where he has come from: Dante looks past all seven spheres, even down to earth, then returns his gaze to Beatrice. 

[thetldrplace]

Review of Reader, I Married Him- Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre 

This is a collection of short stories inspired by Jane Eyre. 

I've read Jane Eyre five times now, I think, and this year decided to do something different. So I picked up this collection of short stories "inspired by Jane Eyre", and the line: "Reader, I married him", in particular being the prompt for many of the stories. The line is stated to reveal "not just Jane Eyre's determination, but Charlotte Bronte's too". 

A few of the stories take their cue directly from Jane Eyre and adding details from different angles. Others merely include elements from the book,  such as the moors. Many tell stories of weddings, some of married life, with no real attempt to tie back into the book. 

I ended up giving this book a one out of five stars on goodreads. It was disappointing in just about every way possible. I had hoped to get some writers contributions on backstories of various characters, or something that would add to my understanding of Jane Eyre, a book I've come to love. Of the 21 stories included, three attempted to do that. The rest took the prompt "Reader I Married Him" and simply wrote their own stories of falling in love and marrying, or not. Of the three stories that actually did attempt to add more depth to the original, two stood out.  

In one, Grace Pool gives her testimony about what happened when Jane showed up. She claims to have had an earlier affair with Rochester and was left pregnant. While away she gets smallpox, which has destroyed her looks, so Rochester is no longer interested. She returns to nurse Bertha and has a genuine concern for her, but Grace is deeply distrustful of Jane and sees her as a conniving interloper. 

OK, like it or not, that's a genuine attempt to add depth to the original. 

Another has Rochester secretly writing his version of events, claiming that he really did love Bertha, and was in fact trying to reconcile when Bertha fell off the roof and died. Then Jane came in and sort of railroaded him into marriage, actually preferring him in his degraded condition because it gave her more power and control over him. Don't love that take, but ok, things could have gotten to that point, and it does add some continuation to the story. 

The third one is Rochester and Jane going to therapy, where Rochester and his therapist seem (to Jane) to be trying to portray her as mentally unstable because she insists that she saw Bertha. Rochester, says it was nothing more than a parrot, and Bertha had actually died. The implication is that Rochester is now trying to get Jane declared mad, as he had done with Bertha earlier. I like this even less than the second, but again, it's at least related to the original. Rather than adding depth to the original, it's more like an alternate story. Don't really care for the therapy angle. 

On the exact opposite of the spectrum is the story of a woman in Zambia, whose granddaughter is engaged. The granddaughter and her fiance are caught having sex in the shed, and, if I understood the story, afterward, the dude takes off and the story ends. The writer is a Zambian-American woman, and ok, she wrote something that she knows about, but I can't see that it had anything to do with Jane Eyre, OR the prompt. There were several stories like that. 

Anyway, as I mentioned, this book was a giant disappointment for me. 

The summaries of the stories are below. I bolded the titles that were actually about Jane Eyre.

My Mother's Wedding- Tessa Hadley  A hippy wedding where the mom is supposed to get married to a younger guy, but the daughter ends up proposing to him after the younger sister hurts herself in protest to the proposed wedding. The finale was supposed to be the husband and wife wading naked into a pond, and after the daughter proposes to him, she wades in naked first... the story ends with him hesitating on the shore. 

Luxury Hour- Sarah Hall  A woman goes swimming in October in an open-air pool. After she finishes, and is walking back home, she meets an ex-lover. They exchange small talk and then she breaks it off and heads on. As the story ends, she is regretting that she hasn't told him that she has a child that was apparently his. 

Grace Poole Her Testimony- Helen Dunmore  Grace gives her testimony about what she saw in the Rochester household. She is jealous and resentful about Jane as she speaks. She talks about what she saw and heard as Rochester has Dr. Gallion do a phrenology exam on Bertha, and how she (Grace) feels that every judgment was rendered against Bertha during the exam. 

Grace shares that she started at around 15 as a girl in the house, and that she was lovely and often got attention from men much older. Rochester was drawn to her and they have sex, and she gets pregnant. He pays for her to have the baby elsewhere, promising to provide. While away she gets smallpox and her looks are ruined. She returned to Thornfield and, not wanting to be seen by anyone, she begins to wait on Bertha. She soon learns Bertha's preferences and has a genuine concern for her. 

Grace sees Jane as an interloper that could never really stir Rochester as she did. 

At the end, Grace has made Bertha a custard and spoon feeds her as one would a child. 

Dangerous Dog- Kirsty Gunn  This is a story about writing a story. A woman takes a writing class and they are looking at Jane Eyre: the scene where she is locked up by Mrs. Reed in the red room. On the way home from class she comes across 4 young men mistreating a dog. The writer sees "red" in that moment and confronts the four boys. She engages them by settling the dog down, calling him "Rochester", and explaining how the dog just wanted to be understood and loved. She tells the four what she knows of the story, and they give up on the dog, though dismissive at first about the lady writer and what she has to say. She ends up getting married to the teacher of the writing class. 

To Hold- Joanna Briscoe  The story begins: "Reader, I married him, because I had to. You see, we did in those days. There was no glimmer of a choice." The young protagonist is approached by Dougie, a young man she had only limited contact with for marriage. She had her eye on another, but he had not asked, so she accepts, though she doesn't love Dougie. They have a few kids and awkwardly attempt to establish some kind of depth to the relationship, but they are just too different. However, the writer finds a deep friendship with a teacher friend of hers.  

Dougie is killed in a work accident though and she is immediately courted by her first love, likely for an affair rather than marriage, but she resists. Then she marries another teacher at her school, Robert, whom she genuinely likes. She continues to grow in friendship with her friend Mary, until it crosses into a romantic relationship. Robert finds out and divorces her. 

Then she finally marries her first-love, John. But she insists that their wedding night be consummated on the moor. 

It's a Man's Life, Ladies- Jane Gardam  Gramma tells her story about her life with her husband, a sailor. About the only connection to Jane Eyre is she states "I married him", when speaking of her husband. 

Since First I Saw Your Face- Emma Donaghue  The story is based on real correspondence of Ellen Hall and Minnie Sidgwick. They are both temporary residents at a curative spa in Weisbaden. Minnie is the wife of an older man, who has produced 6 children in 11 years. Ellen is unmarried. The two become fast friends and Ellen falls in love with Minnie. Minnie recounts that her husband had noted her from when she was 11, and taken the care to groom her intellectually. When she was of age, he married her. She feels trapped and, while she respects him, she doesn't love him. As Minnie is summoned to return home, Ellen tries to talk her out of it, and offers to let Minnie stay with her. But Minnie has committed herself to her marriage and returns. 

The note at the end explains that Minnie continued to fall in love with various women, and after her husband died, she lived with one until she died. 

Reader, I Married Him- Susan Hill  Story of an American girl who married the heir to the English throne. The King's name in the story is David, which was the last of seven names for the Duke of Windsor, Edward VIII, who actually did abdicate the throne rather than give up his love for Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee. Simpson had been married and divorced twice, the second time to Ernest, who is also mentioned in the story. So this is a fictional retelling of Edward and Wallis. 

The Mirror- Francine Prose  This story is written from Jane's point of view, but after she and Rochester have been married some years. He then tells her that his wife Bertha had not lived in the attic, she had in fact died back in Jamaica. There was a parrot that Bertha had kept, which Rochester brought back to England, which made so much noise, it drove the household nuts. So the parrot was kept in the attic. The mad woman that snuck around the house was a local crazy that would sneak in cause problems. 

Jane protests that several trustworthy people had testified to the wife being upstairs, but Rochester insisted they had gotten it wrong, and wondered if Jane was calling him a liar. 

After a few years, Jane and Rochester start couple's therapy......with a Dr Collins, chosen by Rochester himself. The issue was Jane's "crazy ideas" about the madwoman in the attic. The doctor provided a document certifying Bertha's death back in Jamaica, which, Jane notes, is a bit of a strange thing to do for a therapist, but they moved on.  

During the therapy, Jane feels that there is entirely too much focus on HER history and problems, and not enough on who exactly sliced her wedding veil.  

Early on in the history of the therapy, Edward takes her to a zoo and, finding a parrot, asks her if she hadn't heard something similar. Jane insists that it wasn't like the parrot.  

During the therapy, Edward brings up Jane's having been locked in the red room, and being terrified of ghosts, and asks if that trauma could perhaps explain Jane's imagination about the ripped veil? 

The doctor asks Jane if she had a history of sleepwalking, but Jane says no. Her stay at Lowood is brought up Jane begins to wonder why Rochester would want the doctor to think that she was mad. 

Jane wonders if this is some sort of repeating pattern in Rochester's life: marry a girl, drive her nuts, burn the house down, marry someone else, repeat. But she settles that she had married him, and they had a child. If things got dangerous for her or her child, she would leave, but overall, both she and Rochester did a decent job of raising the boy. Rochester's eyesight continued to improve and Jane feels like she is noticing that he sometimes doesn't like what he is seeing in her. She mentions that she took pride in not being vain, so had let her appearance go. But they continue in therapy, always discussing her life as a series of traumas that had to produce a damaged adult. 

As little Edward turned two, he began crying a lot, so they took him to a doctor. He was pronounced fine, so they took him to a child therapist. Dr Grey sees Jane as a resilient woman, and the child as basically ok, but sometimes anxious. But she notes that Rochester himself seemed to be depressed. 

But little Edward continues crying. Rochester hires a governess for him to help make him more independent and less neurotically and morosely attached to Jane. The governess herself was vaguely pretty, but slightly resentful and sullen-looking woman. During the interview, the governess tells Jane's story as if it were her own. When she mentions that the previous house she worked at had a crazy woman locked in the attic, Rochester states that it wasn't a wife, but a parrot. At this point, Jane wonders about her own future, stating it felt like she was a visitor from the future, looking into a mirror. 

A Migrating Bird- Elif Shafak  A Turkish girl, Ayla, meets a Dutch man, Gerard, in Turkey to study the language. She is reluctant to speak to him but slowly develops romantic feelings for him. Her friends and family try to talk her out of it, but she is convinced he loves her too, and that he will convert to Islam for her. She finally sends an email to him confessing her feelings but he responds that she has misunderstood his feelings, and that he is not interested in her. He will not be returning to Turkey. She tries to move on, but recognizes while nothing has changed, nothing will be the same either.  

Behind the Mountain- Evie Wyld  An English woman moves with her husband to someplace on the edge of the wild in Canada. She briefly meets a mountain woman/recluse, Old Annie, who was nearly scalped by a bear. Yep. That's the story. 

The China from Buenos Aires- Patricia Park  Teresa lives in Harlem, a recent Korean-Argentine immigrant from Buenos Aires. She has been sent to America to study and hopefully do better, but she struggles to learn English and fit in. She runs across Yuna, another Korean-Argentine girl she knew in Argentina. She is invited to the house for a meal, where she also meets Yuna's brother Juan. They strike up a friendship and find places to eat that carry Argentine food. 

Teresa gets a call that her father has had a heart attack, but the economic situation in Argentina is so bad that there is no money for the family to fly her back to see him. 

Juan confesses he loves her, and buys her a round trip ticket to visit her family. While in Buenos Aires, Teresa is informed that the family's shop will be sold, and Teresa understands that her family can no longer support her, now she must support the family. 

She knows the better opportunities are in NY, but hesitates leaving Buenos Aires again. However, she asks her mom if she loved her dad from the start, and her mom replies no, but that it grows in its own special way. Teresa makes up her mind to return to NY and accept Juan's offer because it will help her family. 

Reader, She Married Me- Salley Vickers  This story is written from Rochester's point of view. He tells the story of his marriage to Bertha. They first lived near her family, but he found them unbearable, and so moved to the far side of the island where they lived for 2 years. Bertha is pregnant and gives birth to a little girl, Clara. Clara is sickly and cries a lot, and Bertha changes in character, from easy going to shrill and distraught. Rochester says that her race is superstitious, so Bertha begins to declare the child wasn't her own, but had been switched out. Soon, Bertha disavows the child and refuses to see her. Rochester decides to take Bertha back to England, hoping the change of temperature would help. They leave the child, hoping that Clara would join them soon.  

Bertha does seem to get better, but when they send for the child, they are informed she has died. This grief brought back Bertha's madness. Rochester begins to regret not having brought Clara back to England.  

On the night that Thornfield burned, Rochester found Bertha on the roof, with one of their child's toys. At that moment, Rochester had hoped for a reconciliation with Bertha, but she jumped to her death.  

Rochester then recalls Jane's story that she had heard his voice calling in the night and how she had come to him. He confesses that at that moment he was not in love with Jane, but she persisted and Rochester gave up and consented. He questions her having heard him call her name, for he can only recall crying out Clara's name. He also wonders if his initial attraction to Jane might have been because she reminded him of Clara in a way.  

As his vision had recovered, he feels Jane preferred him maimed, so that she could exert control over him, particularly since, given his guilt, she holds the upper hand. One night he finds her writing down her story, and Rochester is certain she will paint herself as the morally triumphant heroine, which is why he wanted his own version written down.  

Dorset Gap- Tracy Chevalier  Ed meets Jenn after an all-night rave. She leaves on a walk and he tags along wordlessly. They stop along the way where Jenn pulls out a copy of Jane Eyre to read. He tries to make small talk but she isn't that interested. They go to the Dorset Gap and there at a junction, is a book where people leave quotes. Jenn quotes Jane Eyre: "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will." She explains it is from Jane Eyre. He writes the one line he could remember of the book: "Reader, she married me." 

Party Girl- Nadifa Mohamed  A Somali-English girl's story about struggling to find solid work after university. She is attractive and has gotten a lot of attention from me, but was never really responsive to it. She then meets an immigrant man and they develop a relationship. 

Transference- Esther Freud  Woman goes to a therapist, develops feelings for therapist, they talk about it, nothing happens. 

The Mash-Up- Linda Grant  A Jewish girl and a Persian man, Ali, get married. They and their families are all secular, so they decide to avoid any religious symbolism at the wedding. They hire "Rabbi Larry", a homosexual who will officiate the wedding according to their wishes. As the ceremony is moving along, Ali has to step on the glass and when he does, a piece breaks off and goes through his foot. He spends the rest of the day in the hospital. When the wife comes back home, she finds him asleep with the mother lying next to him, who informs her that she'll spend the night there. The marriage doesn't last 6 months. A friend of the bride attended another wedding officiated by Rabbi Larry, where the bride was accidentally locked in a bathroom, causing the wedding to be delayed an hour. The story ends with "Say what you like, in my opinion, Rabbi Larry is a f***ing jinx." 

The Self-Seeding Sycamore- Lionel Shriver  Jeanette loses her husband, who was the one who had maintained the garden. After a while of neglecting the garden overall, she decides to tackle it in memory of her husband. She soon realizes that the neighbor has a 'self-seeding sycamore' that spreads spores all over her yard. She tries to convince him to have the tree taken down, but he refuses. Finally she decides to cut down what is hanging over her side, but she falls and injures herself. Her neighbor, Burt, comes to her rescue and they strike up a friendship that seemingly leads to a romance. 

The Orphan Exchange- Audrey Niffenegger  The characters are Jane and Helen, but the setting is some modern day war-torn country, we aren't told which. Helen doesn't die, but is sent away. As they grow older, Jane gets a job at Rochester's house but none of the romance of Jane Eyre occurs, instead she is free at 18 to do as she likes. She returns to her city and meets Helen. Helen was used as a disease testing guinea pig, given small-pox and the cure, which didn't work. They live together and get married. 

Double Men- Namwali Serpell  Young girl in Zambia gets ready to have marriage ceremony but she and fiance are caught having sex before the wedding... he takes off... I didn't care enough to figure out what this had to do with Jane Eyre. 

Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark- Elizabeth McCracken  Two homos take their adopted son to a German themed waterpark in Galveston Texas. During the river ride, the son gets dunked and loses his bathing suit, but one of the dads, terrified of drowning, is so happy the son's alive, that he proposes at the end of the ride.  

[thetldrplace]

Paradiso cantos 1-11

Continuing through Dante's Divine Comedy, I will post the summaries in three parts. The entire canticle of Paradiso is 33 cantos, so I'll post them in 3 batches of 11 each. These are summaries of the first eleven cantos.

Canto I  Prologue and ascent to the first sphere.  This first canto is divided into two parts: a prologue and the narrative.  

The prologue is an invocation to Apollo, the sun god, begging Apollo to supply the necessary words to convey the sense of this journey. Dante begins by saying this canticle tells the story of his journey to heaven, which is impossible to fully recount, because words can't convey it all, and because at times the intellect goes so deep, that the memory just can't recall it all. 

Here he calls on Apollo to grant him the fitness to recall the journey, saying that while one peak of Parnassus sufficed for the first two canticles, he would now need both peaks. He calls out for power to make known even a shadow of what he saw. He also references the glory that this poem will bring, and notes that someone may come after him who is even greater. 

The narrative starts with a typically Dantean reference to constellations to mark the time, but to save the effort, it's noon on April 13, 1300. 

The deeper dive is that the sun rises in different points along the horizon as the year progresses. At the point where four circles join with three crosses AND the sun rises joined to a better course (spring) under a better star (Aries), it was morning there and evening here. The hemisphere was almost all white there, meaning it was just after noon, the brightest part of the day.  

The four circles: If you're standing on the summit of mount purgatory, and look around 360° at the horizon, that's one circle. The other three circles are the celestial equator (perpendicular to the axis between the two poles), the ecliptical (the apparent path of the sun at the equator), and the equinoctal (the circle that runs over the poles perpendicular to the ecliptical circle), the point when those four circles cross, creating three 'crosses' too, would be the spring equinox, which was thought to be the moment the earth was created.  

But the moment wasn't exactly on March 21, it was a few weeks after on Apr 13. 

Beatrice looks into the sun intently, which, in turn, caused Dante to do the same. He couldn't maintain this for very long, but quickly the sky was brightening up dramatically. Dante, a la Paul in 2 Corinthians, questions whether he was in the body, or just the spirit, but then he notices the harmony of the spheres, and along with the increasing brightness, he prepares to ask Beatrice what is going on. She sees what he is going to say and tells him that his mind is being dulled by so many wrong guesses as to why the phenomenon is occurring. The fact is that they are no longer on earth, but flying quickly towards the heavens. Dante then wonders how he 'transcends these light bodies'? Beatrice answers that all things, being created by God, have an order and in this sense, resemble God to their varying degrees. All natures are inclined in different ways to the nearness of their origin to God. For example, fire tends upwards since its origin is in the sphere over the earth. The movements of animals originate in their hearts, and gravity holds the earth together. This tendency holds for man as well. Providence has arranged that the highest heaven is silent because it holds God's light, and so doesn't move. But the prime mover sphere, just below it, is the fastest. As God has created us to be with Him, we too are drawn to Him. But, God's intention isn't always realized in us because we have been given free will, and can choose our direction. So often, we are drawn away by the false pleasures of sin, just like when you see lightning, which is a fire and should tend upward, sometimes strikes the ground. 

Beatrice tells Dante that if he has understood this, then his ascent should make as much sense as the water of a stream flowing downhill by gravity. It's natural that man, unimpeded by sin, should ascend to his Maker. What would truly be astonishing is if Dante had stayed on earth. 

Canto II  Ascent and arrival at the first sphere- the moon  The cantos of each canticle sometimes stack up vertically, so that they cover similar materials. In Inferno canto 2, Dante wonders if he is worthy of such a journey, before Virgil calls him a coward and tells him Beatrice is waiting for him. In Purgatorio canto 2, he is wasting time on the shore before Cato of Utica chastises him for wasting time. 

Here in Paradiso canto 2, Dante warns off readers, telling them to turn back to shores they can see. If they follow him out to deep seas and lose sight of him, they may be lost at sea themselves. He says he's running in waters never traversed before, and says Minerva (wisdom) inspires him, Apollo (the god of music and poetry) leads him, and the nine Muses (that's all of 'em) keep him on track. For the few that have put in the necessary work to follow wisdom and theology, of which one is never truly filled, they may set out to follow him. For even the Argonauts following Jason were never so amazed, even when they saw Jason plowing the fields with the fire breathing oxen, as we who follow Dante on his journey will be. 

After this brief prologue, he returns to the narrative 

The second part of the canto has Dante and Beatrice arriving at the first sphere, of the moon. In a very short time; Dante gives the example of an arrow released from a crossbow and finding the target, they were at the moon, and Dante is amazed and unable to hide his concern. Beatrice tells Dante to gratefully give thanks to God. And here, they enter into what Dante can only describe as a cloud, but it is actually the dense, solid, and polished clean surface of the moon itself. The substance of the moon had taken them in, like a ray of light entering the water. This would incomprehensible on earth, how two solid surfaces could intersect this way. This kindles in Dante a desire to see the essence that united God and man (in Jesus). He mentions that one day, all those in heaven will see with their own eyes what we can only accept in faith here; and it will then be known as self-evidently as any first principle here. 

Dante then asks about the dark spots on the moon, recognizing that the tale told on earth about them being due to Cain being banished to the moon is nothing more than fable. This brings us to the bulk of the canto: an argument Beatrice will give in two parts. But Beatrice notes that men will devise fables to try and make sense of what they don't have access to. Then she asks Dante what explanation he might give for the different colored spots on the moon. Dante puts forward the argument from Aristotle that the difference is due to varying densities in the material making up the heavenly bodies. This was put forward by the ancients to explain the unity of the stars materials, but the different aspects visible to our eyes. And it is this that Beatrice will challenge. She starts by referencing the eighth sphere, containing the distant stars, and notes that within this sphere, there are many different stars with many different qualities. If differing densities were the cause of this, then that would mean that there was only one essence for all. The rest would be nullified in this reasoning. Which, by the way, contradicted Aristotelian thought in that he saw many celestial virtues as the cause of many species.  

Now, turning the argument back to the moon, if the different colors were due to varying density, then either the planet's substance was unevenly made, or perhaps different layers, like pages of a book, with different densities could explain this.  

To the first, Beatrice notes that if it were true, then during solar eclipses, one would be able to see through the moon. But that isn't the case, so the first can't be true.  

If the second were true, then it would be the case that sunlight should come through to whatever point the density no longer allowed passage. At that point the rays would rebound to the sun like your reflection bounces off a mirror. Beatrice anticipates an objection in that Dante might say the light DOES bounce off, but does so dimmer because of the increased distance, which is why that area appears darker. To this hypothetical point, she challenges him to do an experiment. Set two mirrors an equal distance apart from you, while you stand in the middle. Then take a third and put it further away than those, but in front of you. Then put a lamp directly behind you, and angle the mirrors so that you can see the light reflecting through them. You will notice the light further away is smaller, but the intensity of the light is the same in all three. This demonstrates scientifically that the second wouldn't be true either.  

However, having torn down that false argument, it still leaves Dante as uninformed as before concerning the actual truth. So Beatrice enters the second portion of her argument, and the fourth section of the canto, by noting that the Empyrean, the tenth and largest sphere of the cosmos, contains the next smaller sphere, the Primum Mobile. This sphere will influence all the others with the being it contains. 

The next sphere, the eighth of the distant stars, has many different stars (as already noted) each having had its essence portioned out from the Primum Mobile; the stars are distinct, yet all contained within it. The other smaller spheres, with their various differences, all arrange their distinctions within themselves according to their purpose and ends. These instruments or organs of the universe each take from above and act as such below them. And here is Beatrice's point: the motion and virtue of these spheres is animated by the angels as from the skill of a smith's hammer, and that from God himself. Just like the soul inside us resolves itself into the different members and fits according to their different abilities, so the intelligence of God unfolds its goodness through the stars, turning them all in its unity. The essence of God's creativity is to create a huge variation of things, all deriving their purpose from his unity. 

Theologically, this diversity in unity is seen in its most fundamental form- the trinity.  

Canto III  The first sphere: the moon- unfulfilled vows.  After Beatrice proves Dante's thoughts about the variation in the colors of the moon wrong, he is ready to confess himself corrected, when he notices faces barely outlined. He goes towards them, and then thinking they must be reflected, as in a mirror, he turns around. But sees nothing behind him. Beatrice smiles at this childish act, but encourages him to speak to the spirits, who are relegated to this sphere for unfulfilled vows. 

He asks the shades to give him their names and stories.  

The first is someone he knows, but doesn't immediately recognize because her beauty has been so augmented by her being in heaven. Piccarda, sister of his friend Forese Donati.  

Dante asks her if she ever wishes to ascend to higher spheres? She responds that God has placed each in their appropriate spheres, and they are each contented with their place, since longing for something outside what God has given would be discord, and all throughout heaven, those placed in their spheres are in accord with the will of God who placed them there. 

He further asks Piccarda what the vow was that was left unfulfilled. 

She had joined the order of Saint Clair of Assisi and vowed her life to follow their rules, but her other brother, Corso Donati, had her forcibly removed and married her off for political reasons. She only says about her following life that God knows what it became.  

Then she mentions another next to her that knows exactly what she went through. It is Costanza, daughter of Roger I of Sicily and the mother of Frederick II. Piccarda states that Costanza was also a sister and had the sacred veil removed from her head, and was returned to the world against her will, but she always retained the veil over her heart. Whether or not this take was true, is dodgy. But Dante believes it and relates the story as he knew it. 

The two then turn away as they are singing Ave Maria. Dante turns to ask Beatrice some questions, but finds Beatrice is now shining so brightly that he can take looking at her for too long, which makes it difficult to ask her his question. 

Canto IV  The first sphere: the moon- discussion of will  Dante starts the canto with three examples of choice: given equal choices, the will can't decide on its own. He uses this to illustrate how he, with two different questions, couldn't decide which to ask first, so he ended up staying quiet. But he says Dante did as Daniel did to Nebuchadnezzar and answers the question without even having heard it from the source. She notes that two questions are pulling at him. 

The first is: why did Piccarda and Costanza enjoy lesser merit, when they preserved the intent to keep their vows, but were prevented from it? 

The second concerns Plato's assertion that souls return to the stars- or more to the point, to the planetary gods that made them.  

Beatrice deals first with the second question, since she says misunderstanding it is more poisonous. 

Plato's assertion was that souls were immortal, but that after death they would return to the planetary gods that the great creator god instructed to create them. Dante had a belief that God created some things directly and others through an intermediary, but this was thought to entail that the body was not good and holy and would resurrected. Beatrice confronts this first to clarify this. 

From the highest to the lowest in heaven, all have access to God, and equal time in it. But they experience the sweet life differently through more or less of the eternal spirit.  

Piccarda and Costanza weren't assigned to the sphere of the moon, far away from God, (as might be assumed by the poetic scheme) but they appeared in that sphere to Dante in order for him to grasp that there are different ways in which the life of heaven is experienced, and so that Dante could understand the lowest sphere. This is fitting and necessary, because humanness is only able to grasp things through what it knows, then apprehending beyond. The Bible itself descends to this form, using anthropomorphic terms to explain God's actions, while of course referring to something other. The church represented the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Rafael with human faces so that humans could grasp something of them. 

Beatrice says that isn't true, if taken literally. Perhaps, if he meant rather that the honor or blame of the influence of the spheres returns, then the statement could be taken as closer to the truth. But the principle of the stars themselves being the guides has been misapplied greatly, such that people have even named the stars the names of the gods Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. 

The first question is less problematic because it wouldn’t lead Dante astray: If the justice of heaven appears unjust to the world, Beatrice says that is a mark in favor of the faith, not an evidence that justice in heaven is heretically misunderstood. Beatrice then offers an explanation of the problem from the last canto. Violence, if understood as the situation that occurs when one person is forced to do something not wished, neither Piccarda's or Costanza's situations would qualify. 

Because the will, if it truly doesn't want, does not soften in the face of the threat. But it will act as fire does, which always does what is in its nature even if buffeted a thousand different ways and returns to its ways as soon as the buffeting is over. 

Therefore, whether the will submits a little, or a lot, to the force, it still submits, as did these two. 

They could have returned to their vows as soon as the threats subsided. Had their wills truly been steadfast, as Lawrence, who was roasted on a grate, or Mucius Scaevola, who threw his own hand into the fire as he was threatened with burning at the stake. But, Beatrice admits, such iron will is extremely rare. 

But here Beatrice submits another difficulty: She has said souls in heaven can't lie because they are close to God, the First Truth. So if Piccarda and Costanza both claimed to love the religious life they had before abduction, yet they didn't really resist their removal, it would seem to say that they didn't really love their vows. 

In fact, it often happens that one in danger of harm will do things he normally wouldn't do, even things that are against his principles, like Alcmaeon. Alcmaeon was the son of a prophet. His mother betrayed her husband for a necklace, and his father's ghost appeared and begged Alcmaeon to avenge his death. While Alcmaeon didn't want to murder his mother, he did so to honor his father.  

From these, Beatrice is hoping Dante has arrived at the point where he thinks force mixed with will make it impossible to excuse the offense. But here Beatrice references Aquinas' view of absolute will, which is a simple declaration of what the will would do unconstrained, with the relative or conditional will, which doesn't consent to harm, but consents to the degree that it fears falling into greater harm if it resists the violence. 

Beatrice acknowledges that Piccarda expressed herself in these terms of absolute will- she didn't want to leave her vows, while Beatrice herself was speaking of the relative will, and in so doing, they were both speaking the truth. 

Dante is deeply grateful for the explanation and knows that he cannot, of himself, recompense her for the grace she has shown, so he rests that the Lord will do that for her. He then finishes by stating that doubts are the things that push us upward in knowledge so that we can arrive at the summit. With that, he asks Beatrice if an unfulfilled vow can be made up with other good works? 

Beatrice begins to glow with excitement and shines so brightly that Dante has to turn away. 

Canto V  The first sphere: the moon, then to the second sphere: Mercury.  Beatrice starts by explaining what Dante's question is: can someone compensate for an unfulfilled vow with another service, so that the person doesn't incur God's wrath? Beatrice explains that the greatest gift God has given to man is free will. It is the most conformed to God himself, and that which He most appreciates. All intelligent beings: angels and men, and ONLY them, have been given this gift.  

Making a vow is essentially a pact between man and God: where this treasure, free will, is sacrificed to God in the particular area, so that man voluntarily renounces his freedom to choose to do otherwise. God consents to accept this when man consents to obligate himself. So then, if you freely offer something, then take it back, it has effectively been stolen, and offering to do something else with it is, at the core, offering to do good with what you've stolen.  

This being clearly established, one might reasonably ask how it is then that the Church can grant dispensations- an exception from adherence to church laws, particularly in exchange for money. Beatrice breaks down two aspects of a vow: the thing sacrificed, and the pact itself. The pact itself can't be cancelled until it is fulfilled. For this, the Hebrews were required to make sacrifices, but allowance was made for different levels of financial means in what was sacrificed, so that it wasn't a sin to exchange one thing for another at times. But no one can exchange the terms of a vow, given the weight of the free will he has sacrificed without 1) the permission of the authority of the Church, and 2) he exchanges it for something worth 1.5 times the original.  

For this reason, men should be exceptionally careful and not obligate themselves in a vow the way they would flippantly engage in idle talk. She gives two examples of vows taken with disastrous consequences. The first is Jephthah, one of the judges in Israel who vowed that he would sacrifice whatever first crossed his threshold if the Lord would give him victory, and that turned out to be his virgin daughter. Beatrice says it would have been better to have admitted he was foolish than commit the even greater sin of actually killing his daughter. The second example is Agamemnon, who sacrificed his daughter Ifigenia in order to obtain a favorable wind from Artemis when sailing to Troy.  

She reprimands Christians for both being fickle and believing that such hasty vows would wash away sins. 

At this point, Beatrice glows even brighter and becomes more beautiful that Dante quiets his questions and then they shoot quickly to the next sphere: Mars. 

The very planet begins to glow brighter with her presence, and then Dante notices spirits coming towards them, saying "Here is one who can increase our love". As they approached, one in particular was glowing and spoke to Dante noting that he had not yet died and become a spirit, and to ask whatever he might want. Beatrice encourages Dante to listen to them as one might listen to God. 

Dante then asks who he is and why he inhabits this sphere. The spirit increases in brightness and prepares to answer, which we'll get in the next canto. 

Canto VI  The second sphere: Mercury.  Dante had asked two questions: who are you? And why do the spirits here inhabit this sphere? 

The answer to the first is that he is Justinian, Roman emperor. He mentions that after Constantine moved the capital east (against heaven's course, double meaning with against the sun's course and the will of heaven), the standard of Rome was located on the edge of Europe. He was moved, after having cleared up some errors in his faith, to condense and codify Roman law. 

Then Justinian follows this up with a long-winded history lesson to explain why claiming the mantle of Rome is justified cause for blaming those that would trifle with it. 

He begins by detailing the history of early Rome, from Aeneus through the period of kings, and how Rome continued to grow. The banner of Rome was carried through the republican years as Rome increased its territory. Then, at the time Heaven wanted peace for the peoples of the empire, heaven granted victory to Julius Caesar everywhere he went. That was followed by Augustus. Then a strained passage that has Rome being the vehicle of avenging God's anger on sin, through its condemnation, and crucifixion of Jesus, following  that up with Titus then having the further honor of avenging the crucifixion on the Jews who called for his crucifixion. Yeah...... 

He moves from that to the Lombard attack on the church, which Charles the Great helped repel. Here we get the fight between the "Holy Roman Empire" and the Papacy, supported by the French kings, and the origin of the Ghibelline and Guelph parties that tore apart Dante's Florence and exiled him. So the follow up to the question was to stress that Rome was the divinely appointed vehicle to carry the Church, and the faith, forward, so Guelphs and Ghibellines need to be very careful about trying to assume that mantle.  

Now to the answer of the second question: Mercury is adorned with the souls of those men sought fame and honor for a legacy. Justinian notes that when man's desires are set on fame and honor, it's inevitable that their desires would burn upward for God very brightly. Nonetheless, seeing that they did not love God as much, they accept that this is a just recompense for their level of commitment. In fact, just seeing God's perfect justice in action prevents them from inappropriately desiring a higher place. Inside this star, one particular character worth noting is Romeo di Villanova, a humble pilgrim who served under Raimond Berenger. The count had four daughters, and each married a king with Romeo's help. But the court in Provence slandered Romeo and he ended up leaving older and just as poor as when he came. He finished his life begging his daily bread, which would earn him praise if the world knew it.  

Here the canto ends. 

Canto VII  The second sphere: Mercury cont.  The canto begins with Justinian joining a dance with others and then vanishing from sight.  From here, Dante argues with himself whether he should ask Beatrice about a question, at which point, Beatrice, perfectly understanding what he wants to ask, tells him what is question is: How can heaven punish a just punishment? In other words, if, as Justinian outlined, Rome was just in committing Jesus to death because it was the vehicle through which sin itself was punished, then how could it be just to punish that action with the destruction of Jerusalem? So Beatrice gives this answer. 

Man, through Adam's sin, was condemned, and for centuries lay under this penalty. 

Jesus, came to earth, and united himself, as God, to human nature. The cross was then a perfectly just punishment on the human nature that Jesus had assumed, but at the same time, given the person on whom this judgment fell, it could not have been more unjust in that sense. This one death pleased both God and the Jews; opened heaven and made the earth tremble. 

Beatrice then anticipates that Dante understands this is what happened, but doesn't understand why it had to happen in this way. Her answer is that this is concealed from those who aren't matured in the fires of love, but because so many attempt to understand it, but get it wrong, she will explain to Dante why God's way was the most worthy. 

The Divine Good unfolds eternal beauties. Whatever he creates directly, that is, not through any intermediaries, is infinite, because the seal of God's imprint is stamped on it and can't be removed. 

What he creates directly is also completely free of the influences of the heavenly spheres. The more a creature is conformed to this, the more God loves it because it is more like Him. The human race was gifted with all these benefits, and if one is missing, man's nobility is necessarily degraded. 

Only sin can make man unlike God, and cause the light of God to diminish in him. Man is unable to return to his prior dignity unless that void is filled in through an adequate expiation for man's love of sin.   When human nature, through Adam, sinned, it was pushed away from this dignity just as it was from the garden. In order to restore man, God would have to either simply dismiss sin out of mercy, or man would have to satisfy the price of his own sin, which would satisfy justice. Man, of course, could never satisfy divine justice given his shortcomings, because he is unable to humble himself in obedience to the same level he presumed to exalt himself in disobedience. 

So it was necessary for God to do the work, using either mercy, justice, or both. Given that a work done is dearer its creator, and even more the goodness of the heart from which it came is demonstrated, so the Divine Good was content to use both mercy AND justice to raise man up again. 

Not only did this work satisfy justice and show mercy, but it also manifested the greatness of God in giving Himself to make man able to raise himself up, even more so than if he had just dismissed sin on his own. And there was no other path to justice possible. 

That question answered, Beatrice articulates another question Dante would have: if what God has created directly is eternal and free, how is that water, fire, wind and earth, the basic elements, are subject to decay?   Beatrice answers this undeclared question by stating that what God creates directly: The angels, the heavenly kingdom, are created as they are. The elements named however, and those things comprised of those elements, are informed by a created power. The matter they have was created, but the forming influence was created in the spheres that circle around them. It is the movement and influence of the spheres that draw out the nature of the unreasoning beasts and plants, that are constituted with a life potency. But God had breathed directly into man. From this, man's resurrection can be deduced, since human flesh was directly made by God in Adam and Eve. 

Canto VIII  The third sphere: Venus  Dante begins the canto with a brief intro about Venus, who gives her name to the third sphere he now finds himself in. He had no recognition of having traveled there, he just... was there, only recognizing it from Beatrice's increased beauty, which occurs as they progress towards God. 

On Venus though he discerns spirits in a dance of communion with the angels that turn the sphere, and when they see Dante, they address him as those full of love. Dante is encouraged by Beatrice to engage them, so he asks who they are. One of the souls begins to shine brighter and, without ever stating his name directly, we are led by the clues to understand he is Charles Martel, who would have ruled over France, Hungary, Naples and Sicily had he not died early. He bemoans that his brother Robert misruled in Sicily, causing the Vespers, and that his greed, though he came from generous stock, caused such problems. 

Dante rejoices that his view was in line with Charles', but asks how it is that someone like Robert could result from such a good family?  

Charles notes that the Lord causes His providence to operate through the influence of these celestial spheres. God forsees not only human natures, but also how to preserve them, and achieves whatever end He wills. In fact, if this weren't so, the heavens wouldn't produce God's work of art, but ruins, which would mean that God himself were lacking. 

Charles then asks Dante if man would be better off alone or in society with other men? To which Dante affirms man is better off in society.  

Charles continues that this could only be so given that men were doing different types of things, as opposed to being all the same. Accordingly, men need different roots to produce different actions. To this end, some are born statesmen, others generals; some are born priests, and others scientists. The heavenly spheres do this work without distinguishing between families. For this reason, the twins Esau and Jacob had radically different personalities, and Romulus, the revered founder of Rome, came from such humble stock that his birth was attributed to Mars instead. In fact, children would always be exact copies of their parents unless divine providence intervened. Now that this truth has been made known to Dante, he should be able to understand how Charles' brother Robert could be so stingy, yet come from a generous family. Charles finishes the canto with an additional tidbit for Dante: like any seed set in unsuitable soil, nature produces a bad result when the fortunes of life are not suited to it. If the world paid attention to the foundation that nature lays, it would have plenty of capable men. Instead, it forces born soldiers into the priesthood and makes kings of those born to preach. As such, things go off balance.  

The canto ends here. 

Canto IX  The third sphere: Venus cont.  Dante begins the canto addressing "Clemence", which would either be Charles wife or daughter, no one is exactly sure which. Let's say it's the wife. Dante tells her that he is aware of the deceits of her children and that a just punishment will follow their deeds. Dante then notes Charles returning to his place. Dante chastises men for turning their heads from the good to the pursuit of empty ends. 

Then another light comes forward wishing to satisfy Dante's curiosity, which he recognizes by her increased glow. Beatrice reassures Dante that he is free to ask whatever and Dante then asks the spirit to answer his question without even having heard it from him. She explains that she is from the Marca Trevigiana. There is a hill there, Romano, from where a "torch" came to scourge the countryside. The torch is Ezzolino III da Romano, one of the most infamous petty tyrants of the time. She is Cunizza, Ezzolino's sister, who was married to Count Riccardo for political reasons, but became enamored of the troubadour, Sordello. That didn't last long though and she then took up with a knight named Bonio. After that, she was married a few more times. She tells Dante that she was taken by an earthly erotic love. But she doesn't worry too much about this now though, which might seem odd to people who don't understand. The reason being that the guilt and remorse were purged in Purgatory and the focus now is on God's providence in foreseeing both the sin and its redemption. Then she another great shining jewel that is near her, of whom great fame remains on the earth, and in fact, before his fame would die, this "hundredth year", remembering that the setting is 1300, will be 'fived', meaning 500 years will pass, and if one considers this, a man should become so excellent as to leave a legacy before leaving life. Dante isn't advocating for a vain desire for human glory, but it is an admonition that men should seek good so that they leave good that would carry beyond their own lives. 

She then states that the rabble living between the Tagliamento and Adige rivers, which would define the limits of the Marca Trevigiana wouldn't consider such things, nor has it repented of its sin, despite its punishment (the fact that they had been scourged by various tyrants, including her brothers Ezzolino and Alberigo). But soon enough Padova will be punished so that their blood will redden the waters for their insolent resistance to the duty owed to the emperor (by Cangrande in 1314 as imperial vicar). She then states that one who lives there, Rizzardo da Camino, who lords over the area and is arrogant, will soon be captured.  

She further prophecies that the Bishop of Feltre, Alessandro Novello had committed such a grievous sin, that there was no one even in the prisons that had done such a thing. Without going into massive detail, he took in some men under his protection, then betrayed them. A wider vat would be necessary to hold the blood of the Ferrarese (the men Bishop Novello took in), and anyone attempting to measure out their blood by the ounce would tire themselves out. 

She then leaves off with a statement that there are mirrors above, we call them thrones, through which God, as judge, shines, so that speaking of such things in light of God's justice means these judgments are a cause for celebration. Then Cunizza returns to her dance. 

A second soul comes forward, shining like a ruby in the sun, and here it is noted that the more joy one in heaven acquires, the brighter the soul shines. Dante then also asks this spirit to answer his question without being specifically told what it is. The spirit responds that he lived in Marseilles (not quite so succinctly: he takes 12 lines to describe it in a roundabout way, but he meant Marseilles), and he was the famed Troubadour Folquet. Like Cunizza, he isn't much repentant over sin here, presumably that would have been taken care of in Purgatory, and the memory of it wiped clean. He then notes that Dante would like to know if there are others that would interest him in this realm, and he points to Rahab, the prostitute that sheltered the Israelite spies when they came to scout out Jericho. Folquet notes that she is here because she was instrumental in securing the initial victory of Israel into the Holy land, the importance of which was fully realized with Jesus' death on the cross, but such things are ignored by the Pope and cardinals, who are only concerned with searching papal decrees for what would allow them to get away with more sin. He closes with the warning that Rome will soon be set free of these adulteries. 

Canto X  The fourth sphere: the Sun- the wise.  The canto starts with a praise to God the Father, and the other persons of the trinity, who caused the universe to turn in such a way that anyone who contemplates it can't help but get a taste of Him. Dante then encourages the reader to consider how the rotation of the planets, particularly the offset ecliptical angle, that causes the seasons, and the waxing and waning influence of the planets that give varied influence over the earth. This is mentioned as a meal to partake for enjoyment before the work of describing the sphere of the Sun moves forward.  

At this point, Dante recognizes he has moved up, but imperceptibly; he is just.... there. This is the sphere of the Sun, where the wise are made known. I should mention here that the tenth canto marks the separation from those whose love of God was tainted by earthly concerns (the shadow of earth was still cast as far as Venus), to these here who wholly followed God according to the gifts bestowed on them. 

In the Inferno, the tenth canto marked the entrance to Dis, which separated the sins of incontinence from those that were willfully sinful; and the tenth canto of Purgatorio that marked the move from those waiting in ante-purgatory to those in purgatory proper. 

Here are those souls who spent their time contemplating God. 

Dante first notes that Beatrice is brighter than ever, so much so that she stands out, even on the sun, by her brightness more than any color differentiation. Dante notes that it would be impossible to accurately describe this in a way in which it can truly be imagined, since none of us is able to see something brighter than the sun. But here in this realm, the reward is that the nature of God and His trinity is made known. 

Beatrice encourages Dante to give thanks to God for bringing him here, at which point Dante is wholly given over to love God. At this point he notices Beatrice beams even brighter in her smile, leading him to notice that God's brightness shines through various channels, including spirits approaching them. 

The lights encircle them, and make three laps around them before halting, at which point one speaks out saying that when Divine Grace shines to a certain degree, it leads up "steps which no one descends without going up again". The "steps" are the 'ladder of contemplation'. The spirit knows Dante would want to know who the spirits are that form the circle, so he introduces them one by one. 

They are: Albert of Cologne, a famous doctor of the church, himself- Thomas Aquinas, Gratian, author of the Decretals, Peter the Lombard, writer of the standard theology textbook, King Solomon, Dionysius the Areopagite, Orosius, Boethius, Isidorus, the Venerable Bede, Richard of St. Victor, and Siger of Brabant. 

Here Thomas stops his introductions and they all begin to sing. At this point the canto ends. 

Canto XI  The fourth sphere: the Sun- the wise, cont.  Dante begins by noting how men waste their time and effort pursuing things that will get them nowhere in the life after death. St Thomas continues speaking by noting that Dante has two questions: the first is about what Thomas meant when he had said earlier that 'that path feeds well' (if it doesn't turn to vain things), and 'we'll not see another' or a 'second' like Solomon.  

Thomas explains that God, in His providence, has governed (created it to run and manages) the world with such understanding that no created mind is able to penetrate to the depths of it, and this was done so that the Church (the bride) would go towards Christ more assured of what she is doing, and more faithful to God, and with this in mind, God raised up two "princes", to guide His people in certainty and faith. The two princes were St Francis and St. Dominic. Thomas says he need only speak of one, since what he says of one can just as well be said of the other, since their aims were both the same. Dante then spends 12 lines on St. Francis' birthplace- Assisi. Next he recounts Francis history of how he, the son of a merchant, left that life and married 'poverty', symbolically represented as a 'wife'. 

The woman, poverty, had been Jesus' companion, but nobody wanted her for over a thousand years until Francis. Thomas then tells of the initial growth of Francis movement when Bernard, Aegidio, and Silvestro joined him; how they went to Rome, unashamed to appear before the majesty of the Pope in such humble state, and how Pope Innocent III accepted him. The growth of the movement is recounted of how Pope Honorius granted the movement official sanction as an order, and then, though chronologically out of order, tells how Francis, hoping to follow Christ in martyrdom, went to Egypt to confront the Sultan and preach Jesus to him. The Sultan listened to him, but sent Francis back unharmed. Francis then returned to Italy where, for two years, he was blessed with the third seal on his ministry, the reception of the stigmata on his body. Finally Francis was called home by God and sought no more coffin than his poverty.  

Thomas notes that these men were worthy companions to the church to help maintain her steadfastness in the middle of difficult times. While their followers were commanded to stay wedded to poverty, i.e. forsake trying to obtain worldly goods and follow Jesus, and that if they were to do so, they would see for themselves the preciousness of their 'possession', nonetheless, subsequent generations longed for a different food and wandered to different pastures, but unfortunately returning empty. 

So, Thomas explains, IF his words have been clear enough, and Dante has heard and understood, then he should by now be able to understand what was meant by 'the path feeds well if one doesn't turn to vain things'; meaning, if one adheres to the faith without deviation, the faith will nourish him well. 

[thetldrplace]

Purgatorio: cantos 23-33

Finished up my translation of Purgatorio

Canto XXIII  The sixth level: gluttony cont.  The canto starts with Dante still pondering the tree. Finally, Virgil tells him to get a move on, and so Dante turns and they all head down the road. They soon hear a group of penitents weeping and singing. The penitents, deeply emaciated, pass Dante and Virgil quickly and silently, but one cries out and Dante, not recognizing him at first for his disfigured face, recognizes the voice as that of his friend and fellow poet, Forese Donati. Forese wants to know who is accompanying Dante, but Dante is so taken with Forese's emaciated figure, that he wants to know what happened to him. Forese explains that a heavenly power runs through the water which causes them to hunger and thirst. This level punishes gluttony and their former sin is purged through this hunger. They must accept the punishment and submit their wills now to reject the appetite of the body.  

Dante wonders how Forese, who had died less than five years ago, managed to get so far up the mountain if he had waited until the last moments of his life to repent. 

Forese answers that it was the prayers of his faithful and devout wife Nella. When he left her, she alone was left to do her good works, for the women of Florence are an evil lot. Then Forese prophecies that very soon, such promiscuous dress will be forbidden from the pulpit.  However, having updated Dante, Forese now has his own burning questions that he wants answers to. The first is that everyone there notices Dante is casting a shadow, meaning he isn't a shade like the others there. Dante relates how only a few days ago he was still lost and adrift in life, when he was rescued by Virgil and led through hell, then up the mountain of purgatory. He doesn't name Statius, but pronounces that it is because of him that the recent quake occurred. 

The canto ends here. 

Canto XXIV  The sixth level: gluttony cont.  The canto continues with Dante locked into conversation with Forese. Dante asks about Piccarda, Forese's sister, and is told she is already in heaven. Dante asks if there are any other notable souls there among those looking at him, and Forese mentions several, none of whom we would know of today. But the first he mentions, Bonagiunta da Lucca, continues to stare at Dante and mutters "Gentucca", and Dante engages him in conversation. We don't know who 'Gentucca' is (still to this day), but Dante is told that she will cause him to love Lucca, even while others berate it. Presumably, this pertains to some welcome Dante received while exiled from Florence.  

Bonagiunta then asks if he isn't Dante, the famed poet of the "new style", who wrote "Women who have an understanding of love"? Dante says he is, and explains that "when love inspires me, I note it and go on expressing what the voice inside me said".  Dante is essentially explaining that his 'style' is based on the notion that Love dictates what to say, and he faithfully transcribes it, dispensing with earthly intermediaries. Bonagiunta then mentions that he, along with two other poets whose names we would no longer know, had fallen short of such a thing, and now he can understand why. Then Bonagiunta adds that apart from this attitude of the poet, there is no difference. At this point, Bonagiunta and the others continue rapidly on their journey.  

Forese stands off and lets them pass, so he can stick with Dante a bit longer, asking when Dante will be back again? Dante says he doesn't know how much life he has left, but regardless, he would rather be back here to continue on up.  

Forese then breaks from this by telling Dante to go, and that his brother Corso, the one Forese holds most responsible for the troubles in Florence, is about to be dragged to hell while being ignominiously killed. Then he says he must move on since staying with Dante step for step is slowing him down too much.  

At this point, Dante, Virgil, and Statius come upon another tree like the one in the previous canto. They see a bunch of people trying to get at the fruit, like willful children, but then they seem to wise up and understand it is pointless, and accept their lot. As our travelers move by the tree, an unknown voice cries out against the Centaurs that fought against Theseus as well as the Hebrews who were left because they were soft in the way they drank, and so were left behind when Gideon went in to battle against the Midianites. 

They move on for more than a thousand steps when a voice catches them unaware, leading them to the path upward to the next level.  

Canto XXV  The seventh level: lust  The canto starts off around 2 in the afternoon with Dante, Virgil, and Statius climbing up to the seventh level. The passage is narrow so they must climb up single file. Dante wants to ask a question, but holds back until Virgil basically says: out with it. Dante then asks how those in the last level could suffer and grow so thin if they had no need of food?  

Virgil gives two examples: Meleager, was by the will of the Fates, only to live as long as a log thrown into the fire. But his mother took the log out of fire before it burned up. However, when he killed her brothers in a fight, she threw the log back in when it burned up, he died. The second is of a man's reflection in a mirror, so that though you can see it as solid, it isn't. The point is that life and death aren't a matter of merely feeding the body, but external causes; and the external cause may not even be material. 

Then Virgil calls on Statius to explain the matter. Statius courteously defers to Virgil, but submits to his request in humility and gives this explanation.  

First we get a sort of sterile sex talk, where Statius explains how female eggs get fertilized through the sperm, but the important point is that the sperm and egg have formative power in their blood. 

Once together, they form the embryo, it continues to grow and at this point there isn't much difference between animal and human souls.  

The second part of the explanation moves to more theological ground, explaining that humans get their immortal soul, with its human reason and intelligence, from God breathing on it to give it this. 

Statius uses two examples to illustrate the point: the first is grape juice and sunlight makes wine. This is meant to show that an earthly element (the juice), and a celestial element (the sunlight) make another element- the wine; the second is from Greek mythology, where the Fate Lachesis cuts the thread of life and the body and soul separate. 

While the faculties of most of the body parts are done, the faculties of the soul: the intellect, will, and memories, are not only functional, but are heightened, no longer obscured by the body.  

The theological portion continues with some pure invention by Dante, who needed to explain how 'shades' could suffer physical effects. He describes that at death, the soul knows where it needs to go- either hell or purgatory, and while on the respective shores, the soul uses the same formative power that created the original body, to sort of make a new spiritual one- a shade- that has sensations.  

This is what allows the bodies to suffer the effects of the various levels. 

At this point the three travelers arrive at the last level and are immediately confronted with a serious concern: fire shooting out from the walls of the mountain. This is mitigated by a breeze blowing up from below and deflecting the flames away at the edge, but it means they must tread very carefully near the edge, worried about the flames to the interior, and falling over the edge of the cliff to the outside. 

They hear penitents on this level going through the fire, singing hymns, and then shouting prayerful sayings of those that resisted the sins of lust. This alternating between praise and prayer is the cure for healing up this sin. 

Canto XXVI  The seventh level: lust cont.  The canto continues with Dante, Virgil and Statius moving along the edge carefully in single file. They are now later in the afternoon, and Dante's shadow gives the shades that see him the impetus to speak and ask how it is that he doesn't seem to have a shade body. They draw closer to him, though carefully not to leave the fire where they are being burned, and one asks Dante to explain how he can be there and have a body that would seem to mean he is still alive. Dante starts to explain but his attention is drawn to a group of penitents coming along. They greet, with a very brief kiss on the cheeks, the ones that are traveling along Dante's way. They don't even stop, but continue on, however as soon as they are passed, the group traveling the other way screams "Sodom and Gomorrah", while the group traveling Dante's way screams "Pasiphae enters the cow so the bull may run to her lust". This last phrase refers to Pasiphae, wife of Minos, who was in love with a bull. So she had Daedelus construct a wooden cow, which she would enter into, and receive the bull's sexual intercourse in her.  

Dante then mentions a group of Cranes in flight, who divide into two groups one flying to the south, the other to the frigid north. Cranes would not do this, but it symbolizes doing what is completely against their nature. 

Then the same ones that asked Dante before to explain himself, ask him again, so Dante explains that he is indeed still alive, and that one above (Beatrice) obtained grace for him to travel through these realms so he would no longer walk blind. Then Dante asks the crowd to tell him who they are, and who the other group were. At first they remain stupified, like a wild and coarse mountaineer who arrives in the city is left speechless and dumbstruck, but then one answers that the group that passed were those that committed the same sin Julius Caesar was accused of when they called him 'Queen'- homosexuality; while they themselves were heterosexual, but didn't submit to human standards, but followed their lust about like beasts. So in rebuke of each group, the homosexuals call out Sodom, while the heterosexuals call out Pasiphae. But they have no more time to tell who they are except the speaker, who identifies himself as the poet Guido Guinizelli, and claims that he is here so quickly after his death because he repented of his sins earlier.  

Dante, uses the example of the sons of Lycurgus, who leapt to the defense of their mother, as what he wanted to do himself in greeting Guinizzelli, but the fire of course prevents him. So he just stops and stares at the shade for a while until Dante promises to serve Guinizzelli in whatever way possible. 

Guinizzelli asks what this is about, and Dante explains that his poetry has inspired many, including himself. Guinizzelli dismisses this with an indication that there is another close by that is a far better craftsman of his mother tongue: Arnaut Daniel, the Provençal poet. While many thing that Giraut de Bornelh was better, it was merely because he was more famous, and most people's opinions just follow the crowd. In the previous generation, this was done with Guittone d'Arezzo, but eventually the truth won out.  

Guinizzelli asks Dant to say an 'Our Father' for him if he gets to Paradise, except the last part of the prayer won't be necessary (lead us not into temptation) since he can no longer sin in purgatory. Then he disappears and Arnaut draws near. Dante asks him to tell his name, and Arnaut responds in Provençal, then hides himself in the fire. Here the canto ends. 

Canto XXVII  The ascent to the mountain top  The canto starts at the end of the day with Virgil, Dante and Statius needing to pass through a fire before they can move up to the next level. Dante, having seen people burned at the stake, isn't about to go in. But Virgil promises that while he may be tormented, he will not die, nor suffer any damage. Virgil reminds Dante that he led him safely down on Geryon in hell, how much more would be careful of Dante here so close to God! Dante still isn't having any of it, so Virgil tries to convince him to test it with the edge of his robes, but Dante remains where he is. Finally, Virgil invokes Beatrice by telling Dante that she is on the other side. That gets Dante's attention and he is ready to commit. Virgil goes first, then tells Statius to follow Dante. Dante describes the feeling inside as wanting to throw himself into boiling glass in order to refresh himself. Virgil keeps up some encouraging pitter-patter by saying he believes he can see Beatrice's eyes. A voice guides them through the flames and they come out the other side. The sun is going down so they are encouraged to get moving up the steps, but sundown comes while they are climbing. Since they can't, nor do they want to, move while its dark, they hunker down, each on a step. Dante looks up and can barely see the sky, being enclosed by high walls, but notes the stars are particularly clear, and numerous. At that he falls into sleep. He imagines it towards early morning, but he has a dream of Leah and Rachel, the wives of Jacob in the Bible. Leah is collecting flowers and represents the active life of works. She says she wants to adorn herself so she can be pleased with herself in the mirror. The mirror is symbolic of her conscience. Rachel, symbolic of the contemplative life, never leaves considering herself in front of the mirror.  

But then morning comes and Dante wakes up. Virgil and Statius are already up and Virgil tells Dante that today will be the day when his happiness will be satisfied. At this they all launch up the steps until they arrive at the top. Virgil then tells Dante that they've come to the point where Virgil can no longer lead. Virgil took Dante as far as he could go through intellect and skill, but now, with Dante's will being cleansed and set right, Dante must let his pleasure guide him, since his pleasure now will be to seek the good and true. He tells Dante that he can either sit, or wander around. Only Dante must no longer wait for instructions or signals from Virgil, because his will is free, straightened and healthy, and so it would be a sin not to follow it. Virgil proclaims that Dante is ruler of himself. 

Here the canto ends. 

Canto XXVIII  Earthly paradise  Dante decides to have a look around inside the divine forest. He feels a light breeze striking his forehead, and notices a low droning sound coming from the movement of the leaves in the trees. He then comes across a small stream, of exceptionally clear, yet dark, water. His progress halted by the stream, he looks across to the other side and notices a beautiful young woman singing and picking flowers. He greets her with a line I love: "Deh, bella donna, che a' raggi d'amore ti scaldi...". Hello, beautiful girl, who warms herself in rays of love. He then asks her to come forward so that he might understand what she is singing. This woman, whose name we learn only in the latter part of the last canto of purgatorio, is Matelda, and she is figurative of the innocence lost to man when he sinned. Her name is from a poem, In un boschetto trovai pastorella (I met a shepherdess in the woods), of Dante's friend and fellow poet, Guido Cavalcanti. Several of Dante's descriptions match up with Cavalcanti's poem. In Dante's greeting, he tells Matelda that she makes him recall Proserpina. Proserpina was a young maiden who was happily and innocently collecting flowers in the forest, which state Dante references here. But symbolically, the story of Proserpina is that she was taken and ravished by Pluto, god of the underworld, the reference is to man's innocence and happiness in the garden that would be lost to sin. 

But back to the story. Matelda draws near and Dante is utterly smitten by her beauty. He believes that even the goddess Venus, in love with Adonis when struck accidentally by one of Cupid's arrows, would not have shown more love in her eyes than he saw in the eyes of Matelda as she looked up at him. Dante notes that while he was separated the distance of only three steps by the river, he probably hated that short distance more than Leandro hated the Hellespont, which he swam across nightly to be with Hero, the priestess he was in love with. 

Matelda smiles at them (Virgil and Statius were there too) and says she can see they are new here, but for Dante to go ahead and ask whatever he wants. Dante doesn't hesitate, but asks about the weather. He notes that the presence of a river, and the wind, doesn't seem to correlate with what he had been told by Statius earlier- meteorological events didn't occur above the gates to Purgatory proper.  

Matelda answers that God indeed made this place for man to dwell, but that didn't last too long because of human sin. The winds below on the earth occur because water evaporates and rises up. It doesn't, in fact, rise up to this height because it is barred by God from doing so, but... all the atmosphere moves in a circuit because of the outer sphere. The outer sphere is an object from medieval cosmology, where it was believed that there were a series of concentric spheres. When God started the first one moving, that caused the atmosphere to move too, and it is only this movement of the air that Dante has experienced. Matelda drops a little more knowledge than he had asked for by explaining that the breeze hits the trees here, which in turn, scatter their seeds all over the earth, which would explain how trees that apparently had no origin locally could come into being.  

The waters Dante sees aren't due to the normal meteorological events of evaporation into clouds, rain, water collecting in rivers which gradually get bigger until they flatten out close to the sea; no, these streams spring up by the will of God and pour out in two directions. The stream Dante sees currently is the Lethe, which has the power to remove every memory of sin, and the other is the Eunoe, which restores the memory of every good deed. The waters of the Eunoe won't work unless one first bathes in the Lethe, but the waters of the Eunoe are the sweetest of all waters.  

Then Matelda drops one more unasked-for tidbit of knowledge: the poets of old spoke of a golden age, an idyllic time of peace and harmony with nature and the gods. It was a veiled allusion to this paradise that they were inspired to speak of. 

At this, Dante turns to check what the poets thought of this, sees their smiles, and then turns back to Matelda, and here the canto ends. 

Canto XXIX  Earthly paradise cont.  The canto begins with Matelda adding "Blessed are those whose sins are covered" to the end of her speech. At this point she moves along the edge of the river, and Dante matches her pace on the other side. She then points out that a procession is coming. Suddenly, the woods light up and an air of righteous zeal strikes Dante so that he rebukes the audacity of Eve in disobeying the commands of God, which result in everyone, himself included, not being able to enjoy such delights. 

As the procession comes into view, Dante implores the Muses to pour out on him every gift of inspiration on him so that he can accurately depict the things he saw, which are hard to even imagine, much less put into verse. 

He first sees seven golden candelabras, which he mistakes for trees from a distance, but recognizes as they get closer. These represent the seven-fold spirit of God that the book of Revelation speaks of. Their luminance shines brightly in the sky and Dante turns to Virgil, who is nonetheless stupified. Matelda then reprimands Dante for spending too much time noting the candelabras, and not noticing what comes afterward. A group of people dressed in the brightest white are approaching behind the seven candelabras. Dante notes that from each candelabra, there is a flame, which leaves behind it a colored streak of light that remains. These form the colors of the rainbow, and remain looking like ribbons over the procession. The first group of people, dressed in white, are the 24 elders described in Revelation, and they represent the Hebrew Bible divided into 24 books. They are crowned with a garland of white lilies, the color symbolizing faith. These sing a blessing to Mary, who gave birth to the Redeemer.  

Then come the four living creatures described in Revelation, each crowned with green, the color symbolizing hope, which the four gospels carried to the world. They each have six wings, filled with eyes. Dante says he won't spare time describing them, the reader can check out the prophecy of Ezekiel too. 

Between the four living creatures is a chariot, symbolizing the Church, which is pulled by a Griffin, symbolizing Christ. The Griffin is a creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. These represent the two natures of Christ- divine and human. The head and wings are gold (the divine) while the body is white, mixed with red, symbolizing faith mixed with the blood of Jesus. 

Three women dance to the right of the chariot. These represent the theological virtues. The red woman is love, the highest of the three virtues; the green woman is hope, and the pure white woman is faith. Sometimes faith leads the dance, and sometimes love leads the dance, but love always sets the timing of the dance. 

On the left, four women dressed in purple represent the infused cardinal virtues: prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude. These wear the purple clothes, whereas the other three women are their colors through and through. Prudence is described as having three eyes: symbolizing that she sees past, present, and future. 

Then come two men paired together. The first is a physician, representing Luke, the writer of Acts, and the second is Paul, carrying a sharp sword, signifying the word of God. 

After them come four more dressed humbly, symbolizing the smaller epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. 

Finally a sleeping man with an anguished face comes, symbolizing the old apostle John while in a trance receiving Revelation. 

The seven behind the four living creatures had bright red flowered garlands, symbolizing love. 

The procession stops when the chariot is opposite Dante and here the canto ends. 

Canto XXX  Earthly paradise cont.  The procession comes to a stop and one of the elders calls out for 'the bride to come forth'. A veiled woman comes to the edge of the chariot, and while Dante can't see her face for the veil, his spirit is overcome and he feels the same kind of power coming over him that he did in Beatrice's presence. Then when he finally sees her, he turns to tell Virgil that every drop of blood in his veins is trembling, but notices that Virgil has left them. At this moment, despite the glory of paradise, Dante is overwhelmed with sadness. The lady tells him not to weep right now, for there is another sword that will make him cry, by which she means, she has some words of rebuke that will bring him to tears.  

Beatrice greets Dante clearly but asks how he could have thought he was worthy to come here. Dante looks away in shame, because he, like all of us, can't consider ourselves worthy to come to salvation apart from the grace of God. In this case, even the glimpse into this place came because Beatrice had intervened to bring Dante here. 

At this the surrounding angels sing "in You, Lord, I trusted" as a reminder to Beatrice that everyone has to come to this place through grace and faith. Then Dante, grasping that the angels are interceding for him, breaks down in tears and sobbing. 

But Beatrice addresses the angels by noting that while they live in an eternal day outside of time, Dante is caught up in time and moments are precious. She wants Dante to have a repentance equal to his sin. The celestial spheres turn and produce life in its turn, but divine grace also rains down from such a place and height that humans can't discern how or what it is up to. Dante himself was blessed with such gifts that had he cultivated righteous habits, he would have been a proof of divine righteousness. But when a field is given such natural gifts, and yet has bad seed and remains uncultivated, it produces wildly and malignantly at the level it could have produced good.  

Beatrice notes that while she was with him, she knew he was attracted to her, so she tried to guide him along a good path. But as soon as she died, Dante gave himself to another woman. Even as Beatrice was becoming more beautiful and virtuous, she was therefore less pleasing to him. He turned off the true path and sought fulfillment in gods that never produce what they promise.  

She tried importuning God for inspiration, and she would call to him in dreams and other ways, but Dante would not respond. He'd fallen so low that the only thing that would reach him was to show him Hell. So she went to Virgil in limbo and asked Virgil to bring Dante through Hell, and up through purgatory. Now, though the angels would want her to back off a bit, she argues that the decrees of God would be broken if Dante were allowed to enter the Lethe, and taste of its food, which is the forgetting of past sins, without serious tears being shed as a payment for his backsliding. 

The canto ends with this.  

Canto XXXI  Earthly paradise cont.  The last canto finished with Beatrice explaining to the angels why she was being harsh with Dante. This one starts with her now turning her attention directly to Dante, where she continues ripping him a new one... in love... always in love.  After having declared Dante's sin to the angels who had attempted to mitigate her harshness, she demands Dante declare himself if these things are true, and add his confession to the accusation. He can't even speak in her presence, which she waits for a moment, before telling him that he has not yet lost his memory of sin, so answer her! Dante breaks down in sobs at this point and confesses that it is all true. She continues questioning him by noting that if her desires had lifted him to the highest good, what would have expected to find elsewhere? What would cause him to break from that and turn to lesser things. Dante again confesses that he was turned by false pleasures as soon as she was away. 

She adds that it is good to have confessed it since God knows It all anyway, but when confessed willingly, it lessens the consequences in the eyes of God. But she adds that next time he hears the Siren, be stronger. Plant the seed of weeping and listen to what she says, because she's going to explain why her death should have moved him in the correct direction, not where he went.  

Nothing was ever so beautiful to Dante as Beatrice. So what else could bring him fulfillment? After the first disappointment chasing after sin, he should have reverted immediately back to following what she was following, rather than waiting for a second or third disappointment, some other girl, or any other novelty that brought momentary joy.  

Baby birds learn to avoid the snares after 2-3 mishaps. Adult birds never fall for the traps. Dante is listening to her ashamed when she says if this pains you, raise your beard (meaning he is by now olde enough, and should be wise enough not to fall for such nonsense) and it'll be more painful seeing.  

At this, Dante lifts his face and sees the angels are resting, but Beatrice turned towards the Griffin, which symbolizes Jesus. Dante notes that even across the river, her beauty has surpassed even her unmatched beauty from earth. Dante is so stung to repentance that he says all those desires that had perverted him as the most hateful things now. This is so strong on him that he loses consciousness. What happened there, Dante says only Beatrice, the cause of it, would know. 

But he comes to with Matelda standing over him. She tells him to hold tight to her and she leads him into the waters of the Lethe river up to his neck. Then she embraces him and holds him down until he has swallowed the waters. When she pulls him back up, he is led among the four dancing woman that were at the left of the chariot in the procession. These women represented the four cardinal virtues: fortitude, temperance, justice and prudence. They promise to lead Dante to Beatrice's eyes, but the other three women will have to sharpen his sight so that he can be in heaven, otherwise the light would be too much for him there. 

They lead Dante to Beatrice who is gazing intently at the Griffin. Dante sees the dual nature, both divine and human, reflected in Beatrice's eyes, and gains understanding as the natures alternately reveal themselves to him. He gets this wisdom, but is thirsty for more, when the three women representing the theological virtues come up and tell Beatrice to unveil her mouth, the second beauty to Dante. 

Dante again notes that such heavenly splendor is difficult to express in words. And the canto ends here. 

Canto XXXII  Earthly paradise cont.  The canto begins with Dante intently staring at Beatrice in an attempt, he tells us, to make up for ten years lost time. One of the women representing the virtues mentions that he is staring, and that breaks him away. The last canto detailed a procession that symbolized the progressive revelation of God in the Bible. This canto will symbolically show the history of the church through time.  

As Dante turns back to what's happening around him, he sees the procession wheel around and head back where it came from. Matelda, Statius, and Dante are watching all this, and following along with the chariot as some angels pound out a song that their steps march to. Dante notes that they had gone about three times the distance of an arrow shot, when Beatrice descends from the chariot. There is a murmur of the word Adam, and they stop and encircle a dead tree. It has the same shape as the trees on the level of gluttony: an inverted cone that spreads out more as the height increases. This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Those around laud the Griffin (Jesus) that he never sinned by taking from this tree like Adam did, and in so doing, preserved the seed of righteousness: meaning he maintained that perfect righteousness that allowed him to take the sin of the world on his shoulders, and so provide righteousness for all that would believe in him afterward. 

He takes the pole of the chariot, which is the shaft that connects the body of the chariot to the horses that would pull it, and ties it to the tree as a stake. The pole symbolizes the cross. Very quickly then, the tree begins to have life again. Dante then falls asleep, which may symbolize the peace and happiness after reconciliation with God. When is called to wake up, he sees Matelda, but immediately asks where Beatrice is. She is close by sitting on the roots of the revived tree. The griffin has returned with the rest of the company, symbolizing that the church has been left on the earth while Jesus has returned back to heaven. The seven nymphs representing the virtues have remained with her however. 

Then there is a picture of seven calamities that have befallen the church through its history. 

The first is the persecution of the Roman empire; depicted as an eagle that tears through the tree and strips it, and smashes into the chariot, rocking it back and forth. 

The second calamity is a ravenous she-fox, representing heresy, that jumps into the very cradle of the chariot, until it is chased out by Beatrice, depicted as emaciated and stripped of meat. 

The third calamity is what's known as the donation of Constantine. After converting to Christianity, Constantine gave lands to the church. The canto portrays this as the same eagle as before (Rome) coming down to the chariot and leaving her feathers all over. We hear a voice of regret from the heavens saying: "My little ship, how badly you are loaded".  

The fourth calamity is a hole opening up between the chariot wheels and a dragon coming up, fixing it's barbed tail on the bottom of the chariot, and ripping it off. This may represent the great schism, but likely represents the rise of Islam. 

The fifth calamity is that the feathers that remained in the chariot body grew like weeds, covered itself, then covered everything else. This represents the growth of the church's worldly possessions. Even if this was done with good intentions, it was corrosive all the same. 

The sixth calamity shows three heads sprouting from the pole, and another four heads, one in each corner of the chariot. The three on the pole each have two horns like oxen, the other four have only one- ten total. This picture is taken from Revelation, but the intended interpretation is unclear. The seven heads together are said to be a beast unlike any seen before. 

The seventh is that of a loosely dressed harlot sitting on top the beast. There is a giant watching over the harlot, the giant supposedly representing Philip the Fair, or maybe more broadly, the intrusion of the French monarchy into Papal affairs. The harlot and the giant occasionally kiss, but at one point, the harlot eyes Dante, and the giant, in a rage, beats the harlot, cuts the monster loose, and takes the harlot so deeply into the woods they can't be seen anymore. This seventh picture is also obviously drawn from Revelation, but beyond the fact that the church has now been completely corrupted and distorted beyond all recognition, it's hard to know what other interpretations might be intended. 

Here the canto ends. 

Canto XXXIII  Earthly paradise  The seven maidens sing and weep with the opening lines of Psalm 79: "Oh God, the nations have invaded your inheritance" , in response to the vision seen in the prior canto. Beatrice herself is extremely saddened but then stands up and repeats the words of Jesus at the last supper: I'll disappear, and then you'll see me again. At this point she stands up and sends the maidens off, and signals that Dante, Statius, and Matelda will all now follow her and the seven maidens as they travel. While they travel, Beatrice calls Dante up to make sure he can understand anything she wants to communicate. She asks Dante why he doesn't have any questions, and he responds that she already knows what he needs, and therefore, anything she'd like to address to him will undoubtedly be exactly what he needs.  

She lets him know that he should put away all bashfulness and speak out. She then begins to explain the vision he saw and says that the chariot (the church) that the serpent broke was, and is no more. By which she means that the institution of the Roman catholic leadership is now so corrupted that it no longer functions as the body of Christ. But those guilty, the Popes and the Kings of France, should know that God's vengeance fears nothing. For the Holy Roman Empire that was meant to rule over Italy and the church therein, while it had become first a monster, then prey, it would not be like this forever. 

Dante give a number: 515 that we are told signifies one sent by God who will kill the thief, the whore (the Popes) that sat on the beast (The Papacy of the Roman church) and commits crimes with the giant (the French throne). 

While this prophecy may be obscure to Dante now, Beatrice notes that the facts themselves will soon reveal the enigma and solve the problem without damage to the flock or fields- presumably referring to the wider church flock, and the various places where the church had its dominion. So the corrupt leadership would be dealt with, but the lay church would be left intact. The reference of who the 515 means is unknown, but since the prophecy didn't come true, we won't worry about who Dante might have been referring to. 

Beatrice tells Dante to relate these events as he has seen and heard them, and to particularly relate the stripping of the tree, so that whoever has robbed or committed violence against the Tree, will understand that he has blasphemed against God himself through his deeds, even if not in words. 

Adam himself was the first to commit a crime against the tree, and he had waited over 5000 years to see Christ atone for sin- having waited in Limbo until Jesus descended into Hell and led captivity captive up from the grave. Beatrice says Dante's own genius would be asleep if he can't see the cause of the shape of the tree- thin at the bottom and large at the top. The shape represents the barrenness brought by sin down low, and the restoration of life by the redemption of Christ as it goes higher. 

But because Dante's mind has been crusted over and stained, he doesn't get the justice of God in it. 

She tells him to faithfully recount the words, at least the gist of them, so that people would understand where he has been, as a pilgrim to the holy land wraps his staff with palms as evidence he's been there. 

Dante promises to faithfully recount all he has heard, but wonders why he has such a difficulty understanding? Beatrice notes that he has filled his mind with human philosophy, but that it can't compare with divine wisdom which is as far from him as the highest heaven is from earth. 

Dante responds that he doesn't remember any divergence in his philosophy from hers. She notes that he doesn't remember it because he drank from the Lethe, which is clear evidence that his leaving her was sinful, but now his will is inclined to the good. 

It's midday now and they come to an opening in the woods where Dante sees the source of the Tigris and Euphrates bubbling up. Dante asks what this is that is so far from the rivers themselves, and Beatrice tells Matelda to explain it to him. Matelda lets Beatrice know that she has already explained it to him, at which point Beatrice notes that he probably forgot it in all the other events. Beatrice herself explains it’s the Eunoe, the river that restores memory of all the good deeds, and has Matelda lead him to it. Dante drinks and, having been renewed, is now ready to ascend to Paradise. 

[thetldrplace]

Purgatorio: cantos 12 - 22

Continuing through the Purgatorio with this second of three installements, this one covering cantos 12 to 22.

Canto XII  The first level: pride cont.  The opening of the canto finds Dante still walking along Oderisi as if yoked to him like oxen. But Virgil tells him he has passed enough time there, and now they must apply themselves and use whatever means possible to move on. While they proceed, Virgil tells Dante to look down, for they are beginning to pass over some engravings in the road that portray various scenes of pride. The first is Satan being cast down. The second is Briareus the Titan, laying slain after attempting to storm Olympus. Third is Apollo, Pallas, and Mars with Zeus, standing and looking over the slain Titans. Fourth is Nimrod dumbfounded by the results of his Tower of Babel. Fifth is Niobe, whose children were killed for her blasphemies against the gods. Sixth is Saul, dead from suicide rather than allowing himself to be killed by his enemies. Seventh is Arachne in misery after having challenged Athena to a weaving contest. Eighth is Rehoboam, whose pride severed Israel in two, and who, while attempting to assert control, was driven out.  Ninth is Alcmaeon, who avenged his father by killing his mother, who betrayed her husband for a necklace. Tenth is Sennacherib, who taunted God most high and was then killed by his sons in the temple of his false god, after having suffered a humiliating defeat by the angel of the Lord. Eleventh is Tomyrus revenge on Cyrus for having arrogantly killed her son. Twelfth is Holofernes, the Assyrian envoy who presumed to banish the worship of Jehovah in Israel, decapitated and routed in battle. Thirteenth is Troy, defeated and palaces gutted, brought low for its pride. 

Dante notes the sublime skill of workmanship that made him feel as if he had seen the events just as well as those who lived through them. Then he laments the pride of men, who walk through life without every really looking at what they are doing, symbolically displayed in his passage over these historical instances of pride judged.  

An angel approaches the two travelers and Dante again uses a metaphoric description to tell the time- roughly noon. The angel invites them forward, then touches Dante's forehead with his wing and ushers him forward to a stairway cut into the rock. Dante likens it to the ascent up to the San Miniato al Monte church in Florence, but also notices that the ascent is more relaxed than the last one. He asks Virgil why this is, and is told that the six remaining P's have faded, but when they too are gone, like the first one is, Dante will not only not be tired, but he'll actually be delighted to move upward. The first P, pride, is the basis of all the other sins, so with that removed, all the others have faded somewhat, hence they move much more lightly up the mountain.  

Canto XIII  The second level: envy  Having ascended the staircase, Virgil and Dante find themselves on the second ledge, but there is no one there. Virgil decides to continue moving counter-clockwise rather than wait for someone to direct them, and after about a mile in, they hear voices coming from overhead, as if angels are flying over, and announcing things. The three phrases they hear are: 1) They have no wine; 2) I am Orestes; and 3) Love your enemies. Virgil explains that this level purges envy, and the cure for envy is love, so these phrases are repeated. The first is from Mary's declaration to Jesus at the wedding of Cana, and symbolizes her seeking help for the welfare of others. The second is from Greek mythology when Orestes, having killed his mother and her lover for their betrayal of his father, is apprehended, and his friend steps forward claiming to be Orestes instead. The third is Jesus' commandment to do good to your enemies, which is the opposite of envy, which is resentment aroused at the fortune of others. 

As they move forward, they see a group of penitents calling out to various saints for help. They are covered with horsehair cloth mantles, and their eyes are sewn shut with iron wire. They are forced, through their blindness, to lean on each other to avoid falling over the edge, and so see the benefit of loving your neighbor, rather than being resentful towards him.  

Dante addresses them to see if there is an Italian with whom he could speak, and Sapìa Salvani, a Sienese noblewoman answers. She acknowledges she was not, despite her name, wise. She found more joy in the misfortunes of others than in her own fortunes. And if it weren't for the prayers of a saint named Pietro Pettinaio, she wouldn't have made it to Purgatory. She asks who Dante is, being that he is still alive and his eyes are open. He says he is alive and asks her if she has any requests for him. She asks him to pray for her, since his entire journey must mean that he has received favor from God, and asks that her family also know her fate and pray for her. She ends with a backhanded prophecy, saying her family would be found among those vain Sienese hoping to establish a port at Talamone, but who would lose hope even more than they did in their fruitless search for the Diana, a legendary underground river/spring that the Sienese sought for years. 

Canto XIV  The second level: envy cont.  The canto starts with two of the souls asking who Dante is. They aren't named until half-way through the canto, but they are Guido del Duca and Rinieri da Calboli. Dante responds that he was born by the river that runs through Tuscany, but says giving his name would mean nothing since he is still relatively unknown. Guido notes that he must be speaking of the Arno. Rinieri asks why he hides the name of the river like one who is speaking of horrible things? Guido responds that he doesn't know why, but the name of the Arno valley actually deserves to perish from its source on Mount Falterona (which he says is in the Appenines and gives a brief description of the mountain chain), to where it empties into the Mediterranean sea. Virtue is like an enemy to those that live there, who all flee it as if they had seen a snake. He is unsure whether it's due to mere chance or human manufacture, but whatever the reason for it, the inhabitants have so changed their nature that it would almost seem that the witch Circe had turned them into pigs. He then describes the geographical and moral descent of the river. In the first portion of the river's descent, through the Casentino valley, the residents are called ugly swine. Next he describes the residents of Arezzo as snarling dogs whose bark is worse than their bite. But as the river turns north towards Florence, the snarling dogs turn into wolves, where the valley is more cursed and unfortunate. Finally, the river passes Pisa, where Dante says the inhabitants are like foxes, so full of deceit and treachery they fear no ensnarement themselves. 

Guido continues on with what he describes as a prophecy from the Spirit. He speaks of a grandson of his friend there, Fulcieri da Calboli, who will hunt and kill the wolves of Florence. The devastation though will be so great that it will not be of any honor to him. This causes great pain to his friend Ranieri. 

Dante wants to know who these two men are, and Guido, stating that he will tell Dante who they are, even though Dante himself did them no such favor. He states that he was so full of envy while alive that it showed physically on his face if he ever saw someone happy. He notes that he was reaping now the harvest of what he had sown on earth, and asks a general question to humanity: Why do you set your hearts on what requires you to exclude from others? Since envy is the resentment over the good fortune of others, humans see the collection of goods to themselves as a zero-sum game. If another has it, it's at my expense, which means that the envious heart is required to exclude others in order to grab as much for himself as possible. 

He then introduces Rinieri, by stating that they were both from Romagna, where the territory is so full of vipers that even if it were to be cultivated, it's too late to clear them out. Guido then launches into a list of great leaders in the 'good ole days', none of which would have any meaning for us today, but he is so disheartened by the lack of honesty and goodness in Romagna that he is actually happy that many of the evil lines are dying out. He then tells Dante he has said enough, and asks him to move on. 

Dante and Virgil do move on, and as they get aways around the mountain, they hear first a voice like thunder saying: "Whoever finds me will kill me". These are the words of Cain after the Lord banished him from Eden, and it is meant to act as a warning to the consequences of envy. The second is "I am Aglauros, who became a stone"; from Ovid's retelling of Aglaurus, who was so jealous of her sister's relationship with Mercury that she tried to block Mercury from going to her, and was turned to stone as a result. Virgil explains that such things are meant to act as a bit in the mouths of men, restraining them from going to such places. But men take the bait, and are then pulled all over the place by Satan. Virgil notes that heaven calls to us, and we can actually see its eternal beauty move all around us, but instead, we set our eyes only on earthly things, which causes Him to discipline and punish us. 

Canto XV  The third level: wrath  Dante starts the canto off with a roundabout way of telling us it was around 3 in the afternoon. He says that from the time of the dawn to the third hour (so three hours), in that sphere which always looks like a child playing (the heavenly sphere of the 'sky', so "in the sky"), the sun had about that much time (3 hours) in its course across that sphere (the sky) before evening. Sunset would have been around 6p, so it was three hours before that, or... 3pm. He then mentions they had been traveling around the mountain and were headed towards the sunset, when he gets hit with a very strong reflected light. He then uses 9 lines to explain the light reflects back up at the same angle it comes down at, and so he got hit in the face with this reflected light. He can't figure out what it is, and Virgil lets him know an angel is coming. The angel ushers them up a stairway that is less steep than the previous climbs, so both Dante and Virgil move up from the second level where envy is judged to the third level. On the way up, Dante asks what it was that the 'spirit from Romagna', Guido del Duca, meant when he said that men set their hearts on something that necessarily requires excluding others. Virgil explains that with envy, whatever portion or amount there is; if it is divided, then the possessor has less. Which the envious person can't stand. So an envious person must exclude others in order to keep as much to himself as possible. But in the heavenly understanding, the more one considers possessions not to be "mine", but "ours", the more each one has of that good. Dante questions how it is that if an amount is divided among more men, any one of those could consider they had more, since the amount possessed by each would diminish according to the number of people it was shared with. Virgil notes that he is thinking purely in material terms, which is why he gets darkness from true light. Since God gives us much love as he finds among men, then the more men love and share, the more they will be given, and this just continues to grow, as men continue to love more. Virgil then says Beatrice will explain this even more fully, but for Dante, continue to pursue the removal of the sins as he moves through purgatory. 

At this point, they arrive up at the third level where Dante immediately is taken into three ecstatic visions. The first is the vision of Mary asking the boy Jesus why he worried his parents so by remaining at Jerusalem. The second is taken from Greek mythology where Pisistratus wife is indignant that a youth of the city, in love with their daughter, would dare to approach her and hug her. She demands the father exact revenge on the youth for his presumption. Pisistratus replies that if she wants revenge against someone who loved her daughter, what could she want against those who actually hate them? The third vision is of Stephen, the first martyr in Acts. Each of these visions reveals an example of meekness and mercy. When Dante comes to, Virgil tells him he has gone half a league in this state, and when Dante starts to explain the visions, Virgil lets him know that he already knows them, and that they were given so that Dante would open his heart to the waters of peace that spring from the eternal fountain; or open himself to the peace that comes from God. At this they see a dark smoke coming towards them and the canto ends with the two enveloped in this smoke. 

Canto XVI  The third level: wrath cont.  The canto starts with Dante and Virgil enveloped in the thick smoke. Virgil offers his shoulder for Dante to lean on, and as they move through the smoke, and Dante hears voices all praying and singing in unison. Dante asks Virgil about this, and Virgil says they are all untying the knot of wrath.  

At this point, a voice calls out and asks who is speaking, since he speaks like one who is still alive. 

Dante asks the spirit to follow him, and the spirit agrees to for as long as he is able. Dante explains that he is still alive and has been granted access through all three eternal realms, even up to God's courts. So Dante asks the spirit if they are going towards the ascent to the next level.... but also asks the spirit to tell him who he was in life. He says his name was Marco, and he was a Lombard. He knew the world and loved the courtly values that people these days are no longer interested in. This statement causes Dante to inquire about the nature of why humans go off course. Dante mentions that some blame the stars, essentially blaming a deterministic universe, others blame human conduct. Marco responds that the world is blind, and Dante, still in the world, is blind as well. He says the world always wants to assign blame elsewhere, so they blame the stars or impersonal forces. But if that were true, free will, and any punishment or reward for behavior would be unjust. Heaven started the world turning. Humanity was given light (reason) to see both good and evil, and a free will. If free will endures the fatigue of its first battles with sin, and nurtures good choices, it will conquer all. Though free, men are still subjected to God, and he creates men with a mend that the stars don't control. If this present world is off course then, look no further than the actions of men.  

The nascent soul is considered by God before it is made. It is a tabula rasa, knowing nothing except that, having been made by a joyful maker, it seeks joy in things that entertain it. As it savors things that bring it happiness, it can be fooled and run after those things, unless it is guided by something to direct its desires. So then a law is necessary to restrain it, and a king is necessary to discern where to lead the people.  

In Italy, we have laws, but no longer any emperor to lead the people. The shepherd (the pope) that currently leads Italy is capable of thinking about rule, but that isn't his job and he isn't fit for it. The people, seeing the popes grabbing at temporal goods, lose sight of what they ought to be aiming at, and run after the same things- earthly, material goods, and don't concern themselves with caring about the spiritual and eternal values. Evil rule then is the reason why the earth has become corrupt, not the stars, or some external influence outside humanity. 

Rome had given the world two lights by which to establish justice and peace: a temporal emperor, and a universal church. But the Pope extinguished the emperor and joined the sword to the shepherd's hook through an unnaturally forced effort. These two don't go together and as proof, you can know the plant by its fruit. 

Marco then goes on about his own homeland, Lombardy. He mentions that one used to find valor and courtesy there before Frederick II and the argument with the Pope reduced Frederick's influence in Italy. Now, anyone who is ashamed of his life can pass through Lombardy without having to worry about meeting upright people. There are still three old men whose lives serve as an open rebuke to the current times: Currado da Palazzo, Gherardo da Camino, and Guido da Castel, each upright and honorable men. But the Church, taking on herself both spiritual and temporal power, has fallen into the mud and soiled both her spiritual and temporal leadership.  

Dante notes that Marco has reasoned exceptionally well, but he, Dante, doesn't know of the good Gherardo he was speaking of. Marco can hardly believe that Dante, a Tuscan, would not know of Gherardo, but Marco realizes that he is about to exit the smoke, and he is unable to appear outside of it before an angel that is there, so Marco takes his leave, turns away and here, the canto ends. 

Canto XVII  The third level: wrath, and then the fourth level: sloth  The canto starts with Dante coming out of the smoke and finding the sun almost setting. But then he also finds himself once again drawn to some visions within his own imagination: Procne, who in Greek mythology was punished for her wrath by being turned into a nightingale; Haman being impaled in the book of Esther for trying to exterminate all Jews because he felt slighted by Mordecai; and Lavinia, lamenting her own mother's suicide because the queen couldn't accept Aeneas as a son-in-law. Each are examples of anger punished. But as Dante is coming out of his visions, an angel appears, too bright for them to look on, pointing the way up to the next level. As Dante and Virgil reach the next level, the sun is setting, and they are unable to go on. Dante asks Virgil what sin is punished on this level, and Virgil explains that it is "love of the good, shrunk from its duty"- or sloth. 

Virgil then launches into an explanation of how we, created in love, and patterned after God, who is said to be love, have corrupted this love into various sins. 

Virgil starts with two forms of love: natural (instinctual or inherent love) and 'of the soul' (what can be freely chosen). Animals operate in an instinctive natural love, but only humans have both natural and love directed by free will. Natural love is always correctly directed because it comes from God and isn't freely chosen. But our souls can direct its love towards the wrong object, love things to strongly, or not love what we should enough. As such, the source of even our sins is love, but love directed the wrong way, or in disproportionate measure. 

Virgil argues that everything is really immune from self-hate, and that it can't really conceive of being cut off from God, so no creature truly hates God. Therefore, the only thing left is one of these forms of corrupted love towards our fellow men. The first is to love excellence in order to hold it up over others- this is pride. The second fears others rising up over him, and so loves for others to be brought down, which is envy. The third is to be so touchy that one is only satisfied by revenge, and so loves to plot evil for others, which is anger. These three misdirected loves are wept over and expiated by those in the three levels below. 

Next, Virgil wants Dante to understand the others, that run to some good, but in a corrupted order. 

Everyone at least vaguely understands that there is some good out there (the first good- God) that will satisfy the soul, wants it, and so strives for it. If you see this love, but don't really pursue after it, then it is sloth, and is punished on this level.  

Then there are other goods (secondary, or created goods), which can't bring true happiness because they aren't God, who is the essence of every root and good fruit. Love that abandons itself to this is mourned over in the three circles above. Virgil notes that Dante will want to know how this is divided into three, but Virgil will speak no more for now, for Dante must learn it as he goes. 

Canto XVIII  The fourth level: sloth cont.  The canto starts with Dante considering the arguments from the last canto and wondering if he should pursue it further, when Virgil encourages him to speak. Dante then asks for some clarification about how love leads to both good and evil works.  

The basic argument Virgil makes is that the soul, a combo of the intellect and will, is created to love easily, and is disposed to everything that pleases it. You perceive things from reality, your mind opens it up and the soul turns towards it and may open itself towards that thing, which is love. This is all natural. But just as fire climbs ever higher, so the soul, when the captured soul enters into desire, it won't rest until it brings joy to the thing it loves. Clearly, depending on the things the soul loves, whether good or evil, actions will be good or evil. 

Dante then wonders why, if this is all natural, a soul can be held accountable for simply doing what is in its nature. Virgil responds that there is some aspect of this that will have to be taken by faith, and that Beatrice can explain it further. But the substance of man, the thing that makes him an individual human, holds a particular power or strength. This strength has two components: intellect and will. You don't see them except for the effect, just like you know a plant is alive by the green in its branches.  Noone knows where the primal love of desirable things comes from, but the combination of the intellect and will counsels our decisions and means that we must give assent to our actions. From this, the rationale for merit comes, because we understand our choices, deliberate, and choose either good or evil. So while love springs from necessity, where we direct that love is up to us. Beatrice understands this all as free will and will explain it to you. 

At this point, it is almost midnight, and Dante is starting to fade into sleep, when suddenly, a group comes racing up behind them. Dante likens them to the incited crowds of a Bacchan orgy. But two in front yell out: Mary hastened to the hill country, drawn from Luke 1 when Mary went to visit Elizabeth after hearing she was pregnant; and Caesar hastening to Spain to conquer Lerida. Then they add that they must apply themselves to doing good, which reinvigorates grace.  

Virgil asks them how to get to the next level up. One tells them to fall in behind them, explaining that he was the Abbot of San Zeno in Verona. He then gives a little prophecy about Alberto della Scala regretting that had had power over that monastery given what will happen to him when he dies, because he left an evil son in charge there in place of the true shepherd. After that, the man had gotten too far away and Dante could no longer hear him. 

Bringing up the rear were too more who denounced sloth by citing the examples of the Israelites who died in the desert because they were unwilling to head up to the promised land, and the men of Aeneas camp who preferred to stay in Sicily than follow their glorious destiny. 

By that time though, Dante is losing his ability to stay awake and he falls asleep, ending the canto. 

Canto XIX  The fourth level: sloth cont.  The canto picks up just before dawn with Dante dreaming of a stammering woman, described as cross-eyed, lame, stumps for arms, and washed out skin. But as he stares at her, she is transformed into a beauty. At this point her stammering is transformed into clear speech and she begins to sing in such a voice that Dante would find it difficult to pull away. She declares herself to be the Siren that pulls sailors from the high seas and turned Ulysses from his journey, and whoever stays with her will always be fully satisfied. At this point, a holy woman appeared and threw the witch into confusion. She calls out to Virgil, who grabs the Siren and exposes her for who she is, so that her belly gives of a stench. 

The siren is clearly a representation of earthly goods or other things that, when man stares long enough, begin to bewitch him and his own staring converts them from base things to something supremely desirable.  

Virgil, having exposed the witch, tells Dante to get up because the passage up to the next level is close by. An angel beckons them both and as they pass through the opening, they hear 'blessed are those that mourn'.  

Sloth, which was defined in canto 17 as 'love of the good, shrunk from its duty'. We understand sloth today as just "slow", but in the context of sloth as a sin, it is a neglectful attitude in pursuing good. For this reason, the beatitude at the exit of the fourth level is 'Blessed are those that mourn', because while sloth is a failure to delight in Godly things that bring true delight, and conversely a focus on the immediacy of earthly delights that ultimately bring sorrow, the remedy would be a mourning that endures the suffering of the earthly things, with a view to an eternal, Godly perspective. 

As Dante and Virgil head up, Virgil notices Dante moving with his head turned to the ground and lost in thought about the dream with the Siren. Virgil tells him that she is an ancient witch, the sins of which are repented of in the levels above them, but that Dante himself saw how man frees himself of her- divine grace would have to strip away the deceivingly attractive façade to reveal the ugly reality behind it.  

The fifth level: avarice  The travelers reach the fifth level, where they see people everywhere lying face down, and sighing "my soul clings to the ground". Virgil immediately asks where the passage is to the next level, and one of the penitents says keep their right sides to the outside of the mountain and they'll get there quickest. 

Virgil intuits that Dante wants to speak to the spirit and so gives his assent. Dante asks who he is and why he is on his face, and if there is anything the spirit would like Dante to do anything for him when Dante returns to the land of the living. 

The spirit, in answer to the first question, says he is Pope Adriano V... well, he doesn't actually name himself, but he alludes to his family and birthplace, from which we can ascertain that it was Pope Adriano V. He declares that a little over a month in to his term as pope, he realized that, while he had attained the highest office possible, he had no peace in his heart, and he was converted when he noted his false life and love was sparked in him.  Prior to that point, he was utterly avaricious, for which he is being punished as they can see. 

In answer to the second question, avarice is a love of earthly goods, and since the avaricious are so fixated on earthly things, here as punishment, their faces are glued to the earth. And because of their love of things useless, meaning their work on earth had no point, here they are bound hand and foot. 

At this point, Dante, in respect for his office as Pope, begins to kneel, but Adrian reprimands him and lets him know that he, even though a pope, is a servant of God just like anyone else. Then he mentions that if Dante had ever heard the phrase from the gospel where Jesus says of those in heaven "they neither marry", he would understand why. The gospel reference is in response to the Sadducees question about who a woman's husband would be, if she had been married and widowed several times. Jesus tells them that people in heaven are like the angels- not married- because every believer is 'wedded' to Jesus. Pope Adrian V is then saying that every believer is a servant to God alone, not subject to the earthly hierarchies. 

In answer to the third question, Adrian says he no longer wants to discourse with Dante, but he has only one person on earth, his niece Alagia, who would still pray for him. 

Here the canto ends. 

Canto XX  The fifth level: avarice cont.  The canto starts by saying Dante wanted to stay longer to hear more, but couldn't. He likens this to having to pull a sponge from the water before it has soaked up all it could. But he moves on stepping gingerly to avoid the prostrate penitents as he moves along the inner portion of the road.  

Dante curses the ancient she-wolf, symbolizing greed, that we met in Inferno canto 1, as claiming more victims than perhaps any other sin, and asking how long until God comes back to clear up the mess and banish sin. 

As Dante and Virgil move through the bodies, he hears praises of Mary for her humility in accepting the manger as the birthplace for her child; the consul Fabricius who turned down bribes and died poor; and Saint Nicholas, whose generosity saved some young maidens from being prostituted.  

Dante comes closer to find out who it is that recalls such worthy figures, and offers to bless the soul with petitions to help him on his way with prayers when he returns to earth. The soul declines any favors but replies that he is Hugh Capet, father of the lineage of French kings. He laments the avarice of Charles of Anjou in particular, who he lambasts as an avaricious man through fraud and deceit. He notes another Charles that will come in treachery and cause division in Florence, leading to Dante's own ouster. Then he mentions a third Charles (the second) who will imprison a pope and in doing so, commit the same measure of crime that was committed against Jesus. 

Then he notes that the praises Dante had heard are what they all utter, only he happened to be uttering it a bit louder at the time Dante passed, and so was heard. He also notes that at night, they no longer utter praises, but curses against the avaricious: like Pygmalion, who killed his brother-in-law to grab his wealth; Midas, whose greedy wish became his curse; Achan, the Israelite who kept spoils back that were supposed to be destroyed and was stoned to death for it; Ananias and Sapphira, who, in the book of Acts, held back profit from a land sale and tried to deceive the church; Heliodorus, the treasurer of the King of Syria, who was sent to seize the Temple of Jerusalem's treasure and was kicked by a horse; Polymnestor, who killed Polydorus to get his wealth, and finally Crassus, the triumvir with Caesar and Pompey, whose avarice was well known- he was killed and his mouth filled with molten gold. 

Then Dante and Virgil move on when the mountain is shaken strongly and a heavenly choir sings "Glory to God in the highest". Dante and Virgil move on, but the canto ends with Dante wanting to know more of what just happened. 

Canto XXI  The fifth level: avarice cont.  The canto starts with Dante still wanting to know what had just happened on the mountain, but as Dante and Virgil move down the road, they are aware someone has come up behind them. The soul greets them, and Virgil returns with a greeting that lets the stranger know that he, Virgil, is in eternal exile. This causes the soul to wonder how it is that Virgil has escaped hell? Virgil responds that Dante is among those that will go to heaven, but since he is still alive, he needed a guide to lead him through the realms since he is unable to see as they, the shades, do.  Virgil then asks about the earthquake and the shouting. The soul replies that nothing happens on the mountain beyond what divine will orders, including any meteorological events. But at the moment a soul feels itself purified from the sin it is being purged of, the mountain trembles and the shout follows. He explains that every soul, of course wants to ascend, but it also feel in itself, that it must pay according to divine justice the penalties for its sin, and so won't move until it feels itself free to do so. The answer satisfies Dante, who had been longing to know.  

Virgil asks who the soul is, and why he had been required to lay there for so many centuries. The soul mentions that he lived in the time when Titus had destroyed the temple in 70 AD, and avenged the blood of Jesus on the Jews who killed him. He was a famous poet, but not a believer. He had been brought to Rome from Toulouse (Dante had his info wrong, the poet was actually from Naples), and his name was Statius. He had a famous poem about Thebes, and was in the middle of a work about Achilles, when he died. But Statius reveals that his love of poetry was sparked by Virgil's Aeneid, and Statius himself would have gladly spent another year in purgatory for the privilege of living when Virgil lived. 

At this Virgil turns to Dante and gives him a look to not say anything. Dante has a hard time controlling himself though, and a slight smile escapes. Statius asks Dante why, and finally Virgil gives Dante the ok to tell who he is. Dante tells Statius that the guide with whom he has been speaking is the same Virgil. At this, Statius kneels and tries to hug Virgil's feet, but Virgil tells him to knock it off, since they are both no more than shades. Statius acknowledges this, but says that the very fact of his forgetting this, bespeaks his love for Virgil. Here the canto ends. 

Canto XXII  The sixth level: gluttony  The canto starts with the entrance to the sixth level, and while Virgil, Dante, and Statius climb, Virgil and Statius converse. Virgil lets Statius know that he actually knew of Statius love for him because another soul was in limbo that had related this to him. Virgil asks Statius how someone with so much wisdom could have been in the level of avarice for so long. Statius replies that it wasn't avarice, but its inverse: profligacy, that was his sin. Both are punished on the same level. Statius also reveals that it was Virgil's own writing that prompted him to become a Christian. One of Virgil's lines caused Statius to reconsider his sin and repent, and another verse, mentioning a 'new progeny descending from heaven', along with the preaching of the Christians, caused him to turn to the Christian faith. But sadly, he was afraid, so he hid his faith and pretended to be a pagan. It was this that caused him to spend so much time in purgatory. 

Then Statius turns and asks Virgil about who else is there in limbo. A list of names follows that I won't bore you with, but they finally all arrive up at the sixth level late in the morning. They continue to head counterclockwise around the mountain when they come upon a tree in the middle of the road, tapered upwards. It has sweet apples, and is watered by a stream that pours over the leaves and dissipates. Voices proclaim that one can't partake of this fruit. Then several examples are given of holy living in the past, where self-denial is extolled. This is the level that purges the sin of gluttony. 

[thetldrplace]

On Contradiction- Mao Zedong

Another essay from the Selected works of Mao Zedong- August 1937 

First off, the marxist use of contradiction needs to be understood as 'opposing natures that are interconnected and interrelated'; not as 'mutually exclusive statements or states', as defined in the law of non-contradiction. We use the verb to contradict, as meaning to deny a truth by asserting the opposite, which is closer to the Marxist usage. It is an opposite, but in the sense of a flip side of a coin... maybe that's a better way to understand it. Mao gives some examples that clarify: advance and retreat during war. One side advances, while the other retreats. Those are both opposite natures, but there is no advance without the other retreating. Now Mao (along with Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, so he claims) insists that this discovery of Marx is the universal truth of everything, so that literally nothing exists without it. The main point is that we aren't to look at things as static, but constantly in motion.  

Mao lists 6 philosophical problems that need to be clarified in order to come to a fundamental understanding of materialist dialectics. 

1 There are two outlooks: the metaphysical and dialectical conceptions of the world 

The metaphysical outlook is idealist and sees the things as isolated, static, and one-sided. It sees the universe and its components as eternally isolated from each other and immutable. Movement is created from external forces. 

The dialectical materialist conception is to understand a thing in relation to other things, since each thing is interrelated and interacts with the things around it. The fundamental cause of movement isn't external, but internal contradictions (opposing natures) within the thing. These contradictions are also the fundamental cause of its development. Changes in the nature of the thing are due chiefly to the development of the internal contradictions in society. 

2 The universality of contradiction 

There is nothing that does not contain contradiction, and without contradiction, nothing would exist. Life consists precisely and primarily in that a being is at each moment itself, and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves. 

3 The particularity of contradiction 

While all things have contradictions, each form of motion has its particular contradiction. Mao lists several examples: positive and negative numbers in math, action and reaction in physics, dissociation and combination in chemistry, forces of production and relations of production in social sciences, offense and defense in military sciences, etc. The main point is to identify the particular contradictions of the thing studied so that it can be understood. 

4 The principle contradiction and the principal aspect of a contradiction 

There can be many contradictions in the process of development of a thing, but there will be a principal contradiction whose existence and development determine the influence and existence of the other contradictions. Mao gives the example of capitalist society: the proletariat and bourgeoisie form the principal contradiction. Other contradictions between the remnant feudal class and the bourgeoisie, between the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie, etc are all determined by the principal contradiction. In any complex situation where there are many contradictions, every effort must be made to determine the principal contradiction. Once that is identified, all problems can be readily solved. 

Every contradiction is made up of two contradictory aspects, which are uneven. The nature of a thing is going to be made up primarily of the principal aspect of a contradiction- the aspect which has gained the dominant position. 

5 The identity and struggle of the aspects of a contradiction 

The contradictory aspects  in every process exclude each other, struggle with each other, and are in opposition to one another. But no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation: without the opposite aspect, each loses the condition for its existence. So each is the condition for the other's existence, and this is the first meaning of identity. The second, and more important meaning is their transformation into each other. 

"Under socialism, private peasant ownership is transformed into the public ownership of socialist agriculture; this has already taken place in the Soviet Union and will take place everywhere else. There is a bridge leading from private property to public property, which in philosophy is called identity, or transformation into each other, or interpenetration. 

"To consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the people is in fact to prepare the conditions for abolishing this dictatorship and advancing to the higher stage when all state systems are eliminated." 

All contradictory things are interconnected and transform themselves into each other. This is just how things are in objective reality. But the identity of opposites only exists in necessary given conditions. 

6 The place of antagonism in contradiction 

Antagonism is one form, but not the only form, of the struggle of opposites. Before a bomb explodes, it is a single entity in which the opposites coexist in given conditions. The explosion takes place only when a new condition- ignition, is present. 

"It is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power. Social revolution is not only entirely necessary but also entirely practicable, and the whole history of mankind and the triumph of the Soviet Union have confirmed this scientific truth." 

Mao writes this: "At present, the contradiction between correct and incorrect thinking in our party does not manifest itself in antagonistic form, and if comrades who have committed mistakes can correct them, it will not develop into antagonism. Therefore the Party must on the one hand wage a serious struggle against erroneous thinking, and on the other give the comrades who have committed errors ample opportunity to wake up." 

Dave Notes: 

I'm not convinced the Marxist materialist dialectic is all that useful. I feel like Mao's characterization of its opposite is a caricatured straw-man version in general, and probably inapplicable in many instances. In other words, the opposite side isn't really so one-sided as is portrayed by the worshippers of Marx. 

But even granting the premises for a moment: they state that contradictions are inherent and nothing exists without contradiction. But then seem to be looking forward to a communist utopia where no contradictions exist. Perhaps I'm reading this incorrectly, but that's a logical contradiction. 

Also, while Mao occasionally gives some examples of how this works, some of the examples he gives seem like real stretches, and most of his examples are Marx's assertions about contradictions in capitalist society. 

 But in the last section I note the ominous statements about comrades who have committed incorrect thinking, which if persisted in, would necessitate the Party engaging in a serious struggle against them. 

This runs into one of the core necessities of any totalitarian system: the necessity for one person to decide what exactly counts as orthodoxy. This is NOT a democratic system. Communists don't vote about what will be official policy. As Mao makes clear, there is right thinking, and the rest is wrong thinking. But given that any two people will disagree over some things, these totalitarian systems always come down to needing one person, or at most, a very small group of people, to make the decision on what exactly is going to count as orthodoxy. The outside opinions are then going to be considered heterodox and wrong thinking. And as we can see from Mao's writing here: such wrong thinking will have to be seriously purged from the party.  

[thetldrplace]

On Practice- Mao Zedong

This is a recap of Mao's On Practice, written in 1937.

I've taken this from the "Selected Works of Mao Zedong", published by the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute.

Mao means to combat two errors he saw in the party: dogmatists who were more interested in theory than in practice, and empiricists who restricted their 'knowledge' to their own limited experience, refusing to look further. 

Mao says there are two stages to knowledge. The first is the perception of what is happening. This is a knowledge based in the reality of what is. Human knowledge can't be separated from practice.  

The second stage is to form concepts that grasp the essence, the totality and the internal relations of things. From these, one forms judgments and references. 

Mao says the dialectical-materialist theory of the process of the development of knowledge, basing itself on practice and proceeding from the shallower to the deeper, was never worked out by anybody before the rise of Marxism. Marxist materialism solved this problem correctly for the first time. 

"Marxist philosophy has two outstanding characteristics: one is its class nature, the second is its practicality. Theory depends on practice, and in turn, serves practice. The truth of any knowledge or theory is determined not by subjective feelings, but by objective results in social practice." 

"The people with real personal knowledge are those engaged in practice the wide world over. If you want knowledge, you must take part in the practice of changing reality. If you want the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. But one cannot have direct experience of everything: as a matter of fact, most of our knowledge comes from indirect experience, for example, from past times and foreign lands." 

Two points must be emphasized: the first is that perceptual knowledge is dependent on rational knowledge, and the rational is reliable precisely because it has its source in sense perceptions; the second is that knowledge needs to be deepened. "It is necessary through the exercise of thought, to reconstruct the rich data of sense perception, discarding the dross and selecting the essential, eliminating the false and retaining the true, proceeding from the one to the other and from the outside to the inside, in order to form a system of concepts and theories. It is necessary to make a leap from the perceptual to rational knowledge." 

"Marxist philosophy holds that the most important problem does not lie in understanding the laws of the objective world and thus being able to explain it, but in applying the knowledge of these laws actively to change the world. Marxism emphasizes the importance of theory, precisely, and only, because it can guide action. Knowledge begins with practice, and theoretical knowledge is gained through practice, and must then return to practice." 

"the objective world which is to be changed also includes all the opponents of change, who, in order to be changed, must go through a stage of compulsion before they can enter the stage of voluntary, conscious change. The epoch of world communism will be reached when all mankind voluntarily and consciously changes itself and the world." 

My own notes: 

The idea that one looks around at the world, sees what is happening, and then formulates hypotheses about why the phenomena occurs is the scientific method. Mao formulates it in Marxist terms as perception leads to theory, but it's the same process. It's also perfectly rational that one should discard hypotheses that don’t bear out in reality, and in so doing, one will come to a closer notion of the truth, truth being defined here as 'that which corresponds with reality'.  

The odd thing to me is that while the Marxists say these things, they don't really seem to ever turn the focus to the real-world examples of Marxism itself. Even in 1937 when Mao was writing this, it was already apparent that much of what Marx thought would occur in the capitalist world, was not occurring. It should also have been apparent that the beliefs about communism as a functional system were also false. When Mao wrote that truth is determined by objective results in social practice, these things were becoming evident already after 18 years of socialism in Soviet Russia. The Marxists should have "reconstructed the rich data of sense perception, discarded the dross and selected the essential, eliminated the false and retained the true", yet they were so married to their theory of Marxism, that they were blinded to the failures of their own system. While they proclaimed to be the most scientific, the most committed to reality, they were in fact committing the very error Mao himself condemned by being wedded to unproven ideas. Marxists said that "social practice alone is the criterion of the truth of one's knowledge....man's knowledge is verified ONLY when he achieves the anticipated results in the process of social practice".  

Yet, in actual practice, communist systems were notorious for lying, manufacturing data to support their predetermined conclusions, and shutting down any dissenting voices that would contradict the official narrative.  

Now perhaps I'd give the Chinese communists in these days some credit along these lines when they ditched communism for a market system. I know the ostensible reason was that the markets would have to develop to the point where socialism would then take over, but I doubt anybody really buys that, particularly when the CCP has been overseeing the effort on its watch. But they could only claim faithfulness to the dialectical materialist process then by ditching Marxism in favor of markets.

[thetldrplace]

Polybius- the Histories, Book Six

Book Six covers the Roman constitution, and his thoughts on government in general, the Roman constitution, and other constitutions in comparison was THE reason I read the book.

The other books/chapters cover the history of how the Roman republic came to dominate the entire Mediterranean world. Polybius starts from the beginning of the first Punic war (war between Rome and Carthage), and gets to Hannibal's invasion and Rome's defeat at Cannae. The rest of the writings have been lost.

Polybius outlines three kinds of political systems: kingship, aristocracy, and democracy; the best would incorporate some of each of these constitutions. There are also negative versions of each of these.  

Kingship refers to monarchy which has the subjects' consent and which governs by rational principles rather than fear and coercion. 

Aristocracy- rule of the best, is presided over by a select group of supremely moral and wise men. 

Democracy is where the majority prevails, but retains the traditional values of piety, care of parents, respect for elders, and obedience to laws.  

The opposites to these are tyranny, oligarchy, and ochlocracy, or mob-rule. 

In a natural course of events, the first to arise is monarchy. In the face of human catastrophes, humans band together, and under these circumstances, someone with exceptional strength and mental daring will assert command over the others. The rest will assent to this and follow the most aggressive and strongest. After a while, group feelings of kinship and intimacy form ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, based on the importance of duty. If the ruler consistently supports the good and right, and his subjects see his rule as appropriate, they stop being frightened and accept his rule. They will work together to support him and defend him against assaults and schemes. From then on, his descendants will find favor not by their physical prowess, but by their application of wisdom and judgment. 

What naturally happens in descendants is that once society is secured and adequate supply is obtained, rulers are tempted to indulge their appetites and set themselves apart, which arouses people's disgust and hostility, which in turn sways the kings against the people and just rule becomes tyranny. Those most noble and high-minded are the first to feel the insolence of the ruler, and so conspiracies to replace the ruler come from them.  

The common people will first accept these high-minded men as champions against the unjust tyranny, which brings about a new era of aristocracy. At first, these men made the common good their top priority, and managed affairs responsibly and properly. But their sons, with no conception of hardship, and just as little of political equality or the right of citizens to speak their mind; and being surrounded by their father's powers and privileges, change aristocracy into oligarchy. 

Sooner or later, someone will speak up against the ruling oligarchs and notice that the majority of people are with him. Knowing that past monarchs have gone bad, and the current ruling class has shown them that government can't be entrusted to a few, the remaining principle is to rely on themselves. So democracy is instituted.  

The first generation, familiar with oligarchic excess, will be fully committed to equality and the right of every citizen to speak. But by the third generation, the principles of freedom and equality are too familiar to be important, and some will want to get ahead of others. They will squander fortunes on bribery and corrupting the general populace in all sorts of ways, in the longing for power. The common people, greedy for largesse and willing to accept it, then overthrow democracy and replace it with violence. Once people are accustomed to eating off other's tables and expect their daily needs to be met, them, when they find someone to champion their cause, a man of vision and daring rises, they band together and set about murdering, banishing, and redistributing land, until they are reduced to a bestial state and once again, a monarch arises over them.  

Lycurgus of Sparta (8th or 9th century BS, but perhaps even mythical) had recognized this tendency and set about to take the best elements of all three in order to prevent any of them growing beyond the point where it would degenerate into its congenital vice. Kings were prevented from becoming overbearing by the fear of the citizen body, who were assigned a fair share in the government; the common citizens were deterred from disrespecting the king by fear of the elders, all of whom were bound to cleave constantly to justice, because the criterion for selection for the council of Elders was virtue. 

The Roman constitution was arrived at more by trial and error, but the result was the same. 

The three areas of the Roman constitution are the consuls, the Senate, and the common people. 

1) While the consuls are in Rome, before taking their armies out into the field, they are responsible for all matters of public concern, since all their officers are subordinate and carry out their orders. 

The consuls draw up the agenda of issues requiring the Senate's attention, and they're responsible for carrying out the Senate's decrees. 

It is the consuls' responsibility to see that all matters of state require validation by the people in the sense that they convene assemblies, present bills, and preside over the people's decision making. 

When it comes to war, the consuls' power is nearly unlimited. 

2) The Senate's most important role is that it controls the treasury; it is responsible for all state revenues and almost all expenditure. With the exception of money withdrawn for use by the consuls, questors must gain formal Senate permission to spend money for any particular purpose. 

All crimes committed in Italy  require public investigation and fall under the jurisdiction of the Senate. 

The Senate sends delegates outside Italy to arbitrate disputes, etc. When delegations from abroad arrive in Rome, it is the Senate's job to decide how to treat them, etc. 

3) The people's part may seem small- they control rewards and punishments. The people weigh in on the political decisions, and ultimately decide whether treaties are ratified, the nation goes to war, legislation is assessed positively or negatively. Negative assessments will always come back on those that propose things the people don't like, so it acts as a check and balance to the overall political work. 

A consul, after setting out with his forces, would seem to have absolute authority, but in fact he still needs the Senate and people. He is incapable of concluding his business without them. He needs a constant stream of supplies, which requires the Senate. His initiatives will come to nothing without Senate support. The Senate can also thwart, or obstruct, his plans and projects. The Senate can award, or deny, a triumph. 

The people also have a say over his treaties because they have the power to ratify or not. Consuls also have to undergo audits by the people while in office. 

The Senate too needs to defer to the people in its political sphere. The people validate the Senate's decrees. The people can decide whether or not to pass laws depriving the Senate of some of its authority. If one of the tribunes of the people vetoes the Senate's deliberations, it may not be allowed to even assemble or vote at all. 

The people likewise depend on the Senate and must defer to it. All the properties that fall under the control of the Roman state are managed by members of the general populace. 

Polybius then spends a lot of time detailing how the Roman military works, which I won't recap here. 

He closes out the book/chapter comparing the Roman constitution to others. He particularly mentions two that were believed to have excellent constitutions: Thebes and Athens. But Polybius notes that Thebes 'glory' was due not to their constitution, but the excellence of a few men at the time, after which the state declined precipitously. He makes a statement with regard to Athens that I found interesting: "the best analogy for Athenian democracy is a ship without a captain. On such a ship, the crew do their duty outstandingly well as long as fear of the open sea or the threat of storm induces them to cooperate with one another and obey the helmsman. But when there is no cause for alarm, they start to ignore their superiors and to fall out with one another." 

He then looks at the governance of Sparta and Crete, but notes: "It is my view that every state is the product of two factors, which determine whether its institutions and constitution are good or bad. These factors are customs and traditions. When customs and traditions are good, they make private citizens respectful and restrained, and give the state an equitable and fair character, but when they are bad, they have the opposite effect. Therefore, just as we can confidently infer that the citizens of a state with good customs and traditions will themselves be good and will have a good system of government, so it also makes perfect sense to conclude, when we came across a state where individuals are rapacious and public policies are unjust, that the traditions, local customs, and entire system of government are bad." 

He dismisses Plato's ideas on government since they were only theoretical and never put into practice. It would be inappropriate for discussion to compare it to the real world until it proves it can act in the real world. 

While the Spartan constitution proved excellent in Sparta, it fell apart with Spartan military ambitions. At that point it proved it couldn't scale up. For this reason, Polybius considers the Roman constitution superior and more dynamic. 

He addresses the Carthaginian constitution, saying it's original form was good: the suffetes were kings, the Council acted as the aristocrats, and the common people had their own areas of responsibility. 

The particular area of comparison is in warcraft. Carthage concentrated on naval power, and ignored their infantry. The reason is because Carthage uses foreign mercenaries. This means Carthaginian freedom always relies on the commitment of mercenaries. 

One further note worth recounting is Polybius' concern with cultural approaches to money. In Carthage, nothing that leads to profit is considered disgraceful, whereas in Rome, nothing is more disgraceful than accepting a bribe or seeking profit from shady transactions.  

[thetldrplace]

Purgatorio: Cantos 1-11

There are 33 cantos in the Purgatorio, so I'll post the recap in three sections of 11 cantos each. Here's the first 11 chapters.

Canto I  Dante starts off by saying his little ship of ingenuity would raise its sails to run through better waters, leaving such the cruel sea of hell behind. Now he enters the second realm where the human spirit purifies itself and becomes worthy to ascend to heaven. He tells his poetry to rise up from the subject of the dead, and invokes the holy Muses, particularly Calliope, and mentions a story of the daughters of the king of Thessaly, who challenged Calliope, muse of epic poetry, to a singing contest. Of course Calliope wins, but in retribution for their presumption, she turns the daughters into magpies and references the moment when the daughters knew they were beaten by hearing Calliope herself sing. Dante hopes his poetry would rise up to the level of providing that kind of impact to the reader.  

He mentions that the sapphire blue color of the eastern sky came as a delight to his eyes again, after having emerged from the pitch-black tunnel up out of hell. Venus was brightening the sky, and as he turns to the south, he sees four stars that had not been seen since Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden. The four stars are metaphorically the four virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. 

One commentary on this is that the northern hemisphere has been widowed and deprived of their sight. The realm of purgatory offers sinners the opportunity to work towards freedom. Interestingly enough, purgatory, as an official doctrine of the Catholic church, dates only to 1274 at the Second Council of Lyon. Dante himself is writing less than fifty years after that, so he treads on essentially completely new ground. The idea of purgatory may be inferred from a few places in the bible, but it is never mentioned specifically. 

Then they run across Cato of Utica, who questions how they managed to escape hell. 

Cato the Younger, as he is known, was an influential senator in the late Roman Republic. Interestingly enough, two conspirators against Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, are reserved for two of the three worst positions in Hell. While Cato, also a conspirator, is here in Purgatory. Also, Cato committed suicide, which was among the sins punished in the seventh circle of hell. But the difference would be that Cato was also a supreme Roman patriot. Even his suicide was an honorable escape for patriotic reasons. His opposition to Caesar was done in defense of the Roman republic, and he had stood many times against powerful generals who wanted to undo the republic. For these reasons, Dante has placed him here, rather than in hell. 

Virgil tells him that Dante was at the point of being lost in life when Beatrice contacted him (Virgil), and sent him to rescue Dante. But the way of salvation was first through hell, and now up through purgatory. Virgil tells Cato that Dante seeks freedom, which he, Cato, knows is dear, since he too lost his life for the cause of liberty. But just so Cato knows, the heavenly edicts have not been broken of the dead rising from hell, since Dante has not yet died; nor is he (Virgil) in violation either since he was in limbo, not hell proper. He then states that he lives there were Cato's wife Martia lives, and that he, Virgil, would gladly take news of Cato's favor upon Virgil and Dante back to her. 

Cato says while he once would have done anything for Martia, he is no longer moved by her desires, since she is in hell. But, if Beatrice from heaven wills their journey, then he would certainly help. 

This interaction between Virgil and Cato signals a real difference between hell and purgatory. While the souls here are being purged of their sins, they are still saved. Virgil is not. This is not his realm and he has not been here before. He attempts a human connection as part of negotiation, but is immediately told that has no power here.  

Cato tells Virgil to take him down to the shore and get a reed to wrap around Dante's waist, and to wash his face, since it would not be fitting to have some of the grime of the sin of hell still clinging to Dante when they appear before the angel guardian. The reed would be a symbol of humility since it is pliable, but strong.  

Then Cato vanishes, and Virgil leads Dante down to the shore, picks out a reed, and washes Dante's face with the dew that was still on the plants. 

They are at the shore when Dante notices that another reed had sprung into place where Virgil had plucked up the one that he girded around Dante. 

Here the canto ends. 

There is a cool rhyme over the last two terzinas that recalls the difference between Ulysses' attempt to gain this mountain on his own, and Dante's arrival here by Divine will. 

navicar sue acque     (navigate her waters)  com'altrui piacque    (as Another pleased)  cotal si rinacque        (such a one is reborn) 

Canto II  Canto 2 starts off with a confusing scheme for telling time, which apparently will be really important throughout Purgatorio. "The sun had reached the horizon where the meridian circle covers Jerusalem": so the meridian circle is the imaginary circle that runs around the circumference of the sphere. If that circle was at Jerusalem, which is considered the most important point in Dante's scheme, since it was where Jesus was crucified, then the sun being at the horizon would mean it was setting in Jerusalem, and therefore dawn where our travelers are in purgatory, which, if you remember, is directly opposite Jerusalem. Dante confirms this by telling us night is rising out of the Ganges, which is another point meant to denote east of Jerusalem. Noting that the "Scales" (the constellation Libra) are being dropped from night's hand when she surpasses, is to be understood that as the night is now longer than the day, the autumnal equinox has just been passed. Like I said, it's a really elaborate way, utilizing the constellations, to tell us that it's basically around 6am. Anyway.... Dante sees some lights coming in the west over the ocean, and little by little, it becomes clear that the lights are the wings of the angel piloting the boat bringing recently deceased spirits to the shores of mount purgatory. 

Virgil yells out for Dante to fall on his knees and fold his hands for Dante will now see the angel of God who can travel between such distant shores merely with his wings. He comes ashore and more than a hundred spirits jump out on to the land, at which point the boat turns around and heads back for more. The new arrivals, not knowing what to do, see Dante and Virgil and ask if they can point them in the right direction. Virgil says he and Dante are pilgrims just like them, and only recently arrived themselves, though through a much more arduous route. The group of spirits then notice that Dante himself is still alive and gather around him. Then one, Casella, a fellow singer and poet, recognizes Dante as a friend. Dante asks how has so much time been taken from him? I assumed this means Dante feels he has died "before his time", but I was mistaken. Casella had apparently passed some three months ago, and Dante was asking what took him so long to get to the shores of purgatory. Even Casella's initial response would seem to confirm my original understanding, when he assures Dante no wrong was done to him. I would have thought he was telling Dante, 'I wasn't murdered or anything like that', but while Casella never divulges the reason why, he simply says that he was denied entrance to the boat three times, which I think means he accepts that the angel did him no wrong in making him wait, but Casella himself accepts that the angel can choose as he wills since his choice is righteous. The three months wait may be reference to a papal bull granting some sort of absolution since it was the year of the Jubilee. At any rate, something caused Casello to have to wait three months before he would be accepted on the boat, but here he is. 

There is an odd bit too where those waiting to go to mount purgatory gather at the mouth of the Tiber river. 

Anyway, Dante asks Casello if, since Dante is exhausted from the journey up from hell, he would sing some lines from some of his love poetry, which used to comfort Dante so much while still in the world. Casello launches off into a song and everyone gathers to listen... when Cato shows up and says "What are you DOING??!! What negligence!! why are you standing around here??? RUN to the mountain and get these obstacles that are keeping the Lord from being made known to you stripped off!!"  

At that point, everyone beats it outta there, running towards the coast to gird themselves with the reeds.  

Canto III  Ante-purgatory: the excommunicated  Canto 3 starts where canto 2 left off, with the new arrivals scattering quickly while Dante holds tight to Virgil. Virgil has been stung by Cato's rebuke, but after initially starting off in a rush, like the others, he slows down to a more dignified pace. At this point, Dante is a head a little bit, and notices that there is only one shadow, his own. He panics and thinks maybe he has outrun Virgil, and when he turns around, Virgil comforts him and explains that 1) he will not abandon Dante, and 2) his own body is buried now at Naples, having been removed from Brindisi. So this spiritual body that he has right now will not cast any shadow, just like light passes right through the bodies in heaven. Then he answers a question that probably many have been wondering about: how is it that bodies can be tortured in hell, and purified here by physical punishments? Did I say he answers it? Not really. He says it's beyond human comprehension to understand what kind of bodies are assigned to this state and its foolish to think that man could traverse such infinite ways as could hold contain the trinity. Then Virgil mentions that if man were able to grasp such things, it wouldn't have been necessary for Mary to have given birth to Jesus. The implication here is that man, in his fallen state, no longer has access to God, and man's own mind has been corrupted. Jesus came to restore the path to God, and though salvation doesn't immediately restore the ability to understand such things, perhaps in our restoration to the fullness of glory, it will. 

But Virgil laments that Dante has already seen such (Aristotle and Plato), that desired to understand such things, but without reaching it. The could have been satisfied, but now they suffer eternal grief in Limbo, knowing that they will never reach it. Then Virgil is overcome by grief and can't go on. 

They come to the foot of the mountain and meet so steep a cliff, that they could not scale up it. Virgil is looking down and trying to figure out a way up, and Dante, looking up, notices a group of people proceeding so slowly, that it seemed they weren't even moving. Dante lets Virgil know there is a group approaching and may the group could advise them how to best begin the ascent. 

Virgil approaches them and asks how ascent would be possible. But the group is excessively shy. Dante likens them to sheep that are timid and will only act in concert with others without knowing why. 

One does approach them, but the group notices that Dante is casting a shadow on the wall, which causes them to draw back. 

Virgil then explains that yes, Dante is still human, and not dead yet, but that the group need not be afraid of him and Dante, since they could only be here by Divine will. The leader of the group then signals for Virgil and Dante to enter in before them. 

Then one calls out to Dante and asks if Dante recognizes him? Dante looks but can't place him. He declares he is Manfred (King of Sicily), and asks, since Dante is still alive and will return to the world, to approach Constance, Manfred's daughter and the Queen of Sicily and Aragon, and tell her the truth. 

Manfred then recounts that after being mortally struck in battle, he repented of his gross sins and was saved. The pastor (Archbishop) of Cosenza, (perhaps Tommaso d'Agni), had been sent by Pope Clement IV against him, and if the Archbishop could have recognized the repentance on his dying face, he would have let Manfred's body remain near Benevento, rightly buried, rather than carried outside the kingdom in a procession with the lamps extinguished (the sign of one who was excommunicated) and left exposed. 

Manfred then explains that excommunication doesn't remove one's salvation, as long as there is repentance, but that one who dies under the church's curse, will remain outside the margins of Purgatory thirty times the length of his curse... unless that time is reduced through the prayers of saints still left on earth. So Manfred would like Dante to approach his daughter Constance and ask for her prayers to lessen the time.  

Canto IV  Ante-purgatory: the negligent  This is a confusing and complicated canto, perhaps meant to be so by Dante as analogous to the difficult climb up. It starts off with 12 lines debunking the Platonic theory of three souls. 

Dante explains that when you are so locked in to a subject, you tend to forget everything else, and you even forget time. This would contradict the theory that there are three souls, because when so engrossed, you forget everything else. Therefore the soul must be unified. Ok. 

He mentions this because he himself was so engrossed in listening to Manfred that he lost track of the time and the sun had climbed 50 degrees in the sky. But as they were walking along, the group of excommunicates point out to Virgil and Dante that they have reached the place Virgil asked about: where can they ascend the mountain? Of note is the fact that here, the souls actually help the travelers with no bargaining or strong arming needed. They didn't need to go out of their way, but they do. This is a much different experience than in hell.  

Dante explains, using several difficult to reach Italian sites, that the ascent up this mountain was much harder than that. Dante is of course exhausted, but he is exhorted on by Virgil. As they reach up to a ledge, Dante turns to survey how far they've come. And here, from lines 38-85, Dante goes on a very confusing and complicated explanation of the Sun and various constellations to demonstrate the time.  

As Dante and Virgil are looking to the east, the sun is hitting them on the left side, or, from the north. Which it would only do in the southern hemisphere. Virgil then says that if Castor and Pollix (the twins that make up the Gemini constellation), were with that mirror (the sun) that conducts its light up and down (the sun rises and sets), then Dante could see the ruby Zodiac (the sun with those constellations) veering even closer to the Bears (the constellations Ursa Major and Minor).  

Right now they would be in Aries, but a few months later would be at the summer solstice with Gemini. 

Then Virgil explains that Dante should imagine both Jerusalem and Mount Purgatory on the earth, with their positions related such that they would both have the same exact horizon, and yet be on opposite hemispheres. Clearly this means they're antipodes, on exact opposite sides of the earth. 

Dante responds that he's never had a clearer sense of it than now, and then proceeds to add more "knowledge" to the situation by invoking the medieval concept of the universe as a giant revolving sphere (the celestial movement) which has a circumference mid-way that astronomers call the equator, and the equator always separates summer and winter, moving northward in the southern hemisphere and southward in the northern hemisphere. Well, thanks Dante! 

But moving on from that riveting topic, he asks, like many of us did as children on long road trips, "how much further 'til we get there?" Virgil lets him know that this mountain, unlike most mountains, is hardest at first, and then gets easier, until finally, it'll feel like you're sitting in a canoe moving downstream. And this, Virgil says, he knows fo' sho'.  

At this point, someone says: Maybe you'll have to sit down before you reach that point. Now Virgil and Dante didn't know there was anyone else there, so they look around a rock and notice a group of souls resting in the shade. The picture is of a bunch of lazy, shiftless bums loitering here. So Dante comments that one of them looks like laziness could be his sister. He replies that if Dante is so valiant, then head up the mountain by all means. Dante then says he recognizes him as "Belacqua". There are some guesses as to who Belacqua might be, but others see him as a fictionalized character. Belacqua asks a lazy question and Dante asks him why he is still just sitting here? Is he waiting for someone or just still lazy? Belacqua says it's pointless for him to proceed since he can't enter yet. Apparently, having waited for as long as he could before repenting in life, he now has to wait outside purgatory the same amount of time before he can start his penance. Unless... the prayers of those still covered by grace help him out.  

Virgil has heard enough though and starts back up the mountain because.... the sun has touched the meridian and it's already sunset in Morocco. Yep. Time to get going then.  

Canto V  Ante-purgatory: the late repentant, who died by violence  Dante is moving on, following Virgil, when someone else notices that he is not casting a shadow. Dante apparently stops and is chastised by Virgil for holding up his progress simply because the souls there are noticing this. Virgil tells Dante to be like a strong tower, not swayed by any wind that blows. Virgil says that those who are constantly thinking one thing then another are also swayed by whatever the latest thought is, so that they lose their original goal. Dante takes it to heart and keeps moving. 

But the two travelers meet another group that are singing a hymn called the 'Miserere' verse by verse. 

They too realize he casts no shadow and send two of their rank to inquire. Virgil lets them know that he is indeed still alive, and that Dante may be of some assistance to them. The messengers return and very quickly they all rush forward to see Dante. Virgil tells Dante to talk with them, but do so while he continues on. The group asks him to hold up a little, and they each of their number were killed violently, but repented at the last moments of their lives. They implore Dante to look them over, see if he knows any, and give them some news of the world of the living. Dante says he recognizes no one but swears he will do what he can.  

The first to speak doesn't identify himself, but the details can be traced to Jacopo del Cassero. He asks Dante to have those in his hometown of Fano pray for him that he might purge his many offenses. He tells how he was persecuted by Azzo VIII d'Este, and killed as he fled. He says he was killed in the "bosom of the Antenori", which would be Padova, which, according to the legends, was founded by the Trojan Antenor. 

The second to speak identifies himself as Bonconte of Montefeltro (the family, not the town). He says Giovanna and the others don't care for him, by which he probably means his wife, Giovanna, and a surviving son and daughter, would not be praying for him, so he walks here in Purgatory with his head down. 

Dante asks Buonconte what deliberate force or blind chance pulled him so far from Campaldino that his burial place is unknown? Campaldino was the battlefield where he died, on the plain in Casentino between the towns of Poppi and Bibbiena. 

Buonconte relates that there is river called the Archiano that runs there, with a source above the Hermitage, which is a monastery in the hills. He then says that were the name becomes 'vain' or useless, meaning where the stream joins the Arno, he was stabbed in the throat. Buonconte flees the battle on foot, but bleeding out. He loses his sight and voice, but calling on the name of Mary before he dies, he fell. An angel of God comes to take his eternal soul, but a demon challenges the angel by asking if Buonconte gets to go to heaven for having shed one little tear in his dying moment? But since that is indeed the case, the demon threatens to do something drastic with the dead body. So the demon summons the weather into a storm, then pours down such rain on the valley from Pratomagno, the mountain ridge on the south, to the 'great yoke' (the main ridge of the Apennines), that the valley quickly fills with water and the flash flood overwhelms everything, carrying the dead body down with it, until it is trapped and buried in the debris downstream in the Arno. 

Then a third voice, Pia, asks Dante to remember her after he has returned and rested. She was born in Siena, but apparently murdered by her husband in the Maremma.  

This canto answers a question about the kind of person taken in salvation. If we contrast this with the soldier, Guido da Montefeltro, who had decided to repent of his earlier warrior deeds and life, and take orders as a monk. But he was pulled back into sin by Pope Boniface, who had even promised Guido absolution if he helped him, and tacitly threatened excommunication if he didn't. Guido gives him the evil advice to ensnare the Pope's enemy, and then at death, the demon disputes Guido's soul and argues logically that one can't "repent" and yet willingly choose sin.  

Despite Guido's efforts and the Pope's promises, they held no sway. While in this canto, even if at the last moment, we see the truly repentant are saved.  

Canto VI  Ante-purgatory: the lone soul, Sordello  Dante starts off with a simile about how, after a game of dice, the loser stays behind replaying in his mind how he might have done things differently, while the rest head off with the winner. One guy goes in front of the winner, another claps his arm around him, another tries to get him to the side to ask the winner if he would remember him well. They're all hoping he'll throw a little coin his way. But the winner keeps on his way, listening to all around him... and giving a few coins away so that they'll back off, and in so doing, he keeps the crowd at bay. Well.... in that same way, Dante, having been pressed in by the crowd of the negligent wanting Dante to return to their loved ones and ask them to pray, he makes some promises and then gets free.  

He names a few of those he spoke to, but they won't mean much to us today. But once free, he questions Virgil about something Virgil once wrote: that the prayers of the dead won't change the decrees of God. But if this is true, then the requests of that crowd they just left would be in vain. Or, Dante asks, is he unclear about what Virgil wanted? 

Virgil says that his writing is clear enough, but the requests of these in purgatory are also valid. If one considers it rightly, God's justice in making these wait isn't undone, because the prayers of the living satisfy the requirements demanded by the souls wait. 

Virgil continues that from when he was writing, prayers weren't directed towards the true God, so they could have no such effect. But Virgil also encourages Dante not to let go of such a deep question until Beatrice, who will be a light between truth and intellect, explains it all to him. 

Virgil says that Dante will meet her at the top of Mount Purgatory.  

Upon hearing this bit of knowledge, Dante is ready to go, and notes that they're already burning daylight. Virgil says they'll go as far as they can today, but the fact that they won't get up the entire mountain today is different than what he believes. 

Then Virgil notes a solitary soul in the distance that will show them the way forward.  

This solitary soul seems completely unaffected by the passing of Virgil and Dante until Virgil approaches him and asks him the quickest way up. Apparently, the soul must have recognized Virgil's accent, and asks where he is from. When Virgil mentions Mantua, the soul rises up and exclaims that he too is from Mantua, and hugs Virgil. This love of country stirs Dante to weigh in on the sorry state of Italy.  

It should be mentioned that the sixth canto of each poem is dedicated to politics. In Inferno, Dante discusses Florentine politics, in Purgatorio, he discusses Italian politics, and in Paradiso, it will be 'world' (European) politics.  

He launches off by calling Italy a servant girl, an inn of grief, a ship without a captain, no lady over the nations, but a lady in a brothel. Dante contrasts the patriotism of Sordello with the inhabitants of the cities of Italy, who are always at war, who gnaw away at each other, even those of the same city. 

He charges Italy to search her coasts, and then the interior to see if there is any peace anywhere. 

Then he uses a horse metaphor, asking what the point of Justinian resetting the bit (codifying the ancient Roman law), if the saddle is empty? (there is no leader over the land). Then he says it would have been less shameful if there was no law, since as it is, they have this ancient venerable law, but no one follows it.  

Then he switches to the Church- those who should be devout, and says they should let Caesar sit in the saddle and leave ruling lands to the secular, while the church focuses on the spiritual, as the scripture teaches. 

Then Dante moves to Albert of the Hapsburg family, Holy Roman Emperor, but German, and as such, more concerned with Germany than with Italy, which he has basically ignored. For this, Dante speaks of a just judgment that would come over his family for abandoning their duty towards Italy. 

Dante references several families: the Montecchi and Cappelletti (the famous Montagues and Capulets of Romeo and Juliet); He mentions the Monaldi and Filippeschi parties in Orvieto, and then calls him to come down and see the oppressed state of the nobles, particularly dire is the state of the once prosperous Aldobrandeschi family lands, called Santafiora. 

Dante mentions the sad state of Rome, left alone with no true ruler. He calls the Emperor to come down and see if the sad state of affairs in Italy doesn’t move him to pity, or if nothing else, at least concern for his own name and the shame that lands under his care left undone would engender. 

Dante then questions God to ask if maybe there is some grander plan for a greater good that would arise from this state, something beyond their understanding. 

Then he levels some sarcasm at Florence by saying of course they need not concern themselves with his digression thanks to the efforts of its people. Lots of people know what justice is, but they're afraid to shoot their arrows without getting counsel first... meaning they aren't sure if doing the right thing will get them in trouble. But at least they can state what would be just! 

Other people elsewhere don't want to get involved in politics, but in Florence, they don't even have to be asked, they'll say "Load me up!" 

He tells Florence to be happy because they're rich, live in peace, and have understanding. These are the plain facts. Even the ancient Athenians and Lacedaemons, who first codified laws, and who were so civilized, had nothing on the current Florentines, who apply such refined measures that what they've produced in October has already run out by mid-November!  

How many times have they changed laws, currency, offices, customs and even replaced citizens?? 

If they'd just see the light, they would see they're like the sick lady who could find no rest on her feather bed, but just kept turning over trying to avoid the pain. 

Canto VII  Ante-purgatory: the late repenters- Princes preoccupied with cares of state.  After Dante's diatribe against Italian politics, we return to the narrative. Sordello is so happy to see Virgil that they repeat the happy greetings three or four times. Then Sordello thinks to ask who they even are. Virgil replies that he had lived and died prior to Jesus, in the time of the emperor Octavian, so that even though he wasn't particularly sinful, he had not confessed Jesus as Lord, so he was not allowed entrance to heaven. Sordello is stunned but finally asks how they came there. Virgil mentions that he was moved by heaven to come there, and they've come through all the circles of Hell. Then he asks Sordello to tell him the quickest way to the entrance of Purgatory proper is. 

Sordello says they can't ascend at night, but he would take them to a place where they could rest comfortably until morning. 

Virgil asks about this: you can't ascend during the night. Sordello says you can move around or down, but not up. Virgil asks why this is: are you blocked by someone, or do you just lack the power to do so? Sordello says the darkness itself seems to block the will with inability. 

So they move to a sort of hollowed out spot in the mountain side where a group are hunkered down to spend the night. They are singing the hymn Salve Regina. Dante describes the place being of brilliant colors. When they arrive at a ledge above the group, Sordello asks Virgil and Dante not to request to be among them, but they would be able to note who they were from the ledge. 

Now starts the fun part of identifying the historically (a generation prior to Dante) relevant characters. 

The first pointed out, seated above the others, is one who has the look of a man who has neglected his duty, and who isn't singing along. This is Rudolf I of Germany, who never came to Italy despite it being one of his claimed lands. Dante says he could have healed Italy from the wounds that killed her, but he didn't, and now it's too late for others even to revive Italy. 

There is another comforting him, Ottokar II, King of Bohemia. Dante says that even as a swaddling babe, he was a better person and king that his son Wenceslaus II, when his son was full grown. 

Then Sordello points out a guy with a small nose, Philip III of France, in close counsel with another guy who has a benign look, Henry I of Navarre. Philip "died fleeing and pulling petals from the lily". Philip pulled an ill-advised invasion of Aragon, and was beaten. While withdrawing, dysentery hit his camp, he contracted it, and died. The phrase I translated as 'pulling petals from the lily' is literally 'deflowering the lily' in Italian. But rendering it that way in English sounds like he took some maiden named Lily's virginity. 

Dante goes through a list of other political figures at the time, making mention that justice and moral courage are rarely imparted to subsequent generations. This would have been a smear on the family lines of noble houses. Dante notes that good sense and justice are given by God and God alone. 

Canto VIII  Ante-purgatory: the evening with the late-repentant princes.  Dante and Virgil are at the close of the first day on the mountain of purgatory, and Dante is fading into sleep, when he sees one of the men rise and call the others to listen: then he sings Te lucis ante, the hymn, and the others join in. While they sing, Dante notes two guardian angels descend, dressed in green, with green wings, who come to rest over the edges of the group. Sordello tells the travelers they are there to protect against the serpent, who will soon come. Dante gets a little freaked out by this but Sordello tells them to come down into the midst of the group to speak, for this would be a blessing to them. 

Immediately one of them locks eyes with Dante and it turns out to be Nino Visconti, a patron of Dante's. Nino asks him how long he has been there, and Dante reveals that he was still alive, and had travelled through hell, hoping to learn how to amend his life and be able to gain heaven. At this information, the men draw back and one of them, Corrado Malaspina, is called to come quickly. Corrado asks Dante to please have his daughter Giovanna pray for him, since his wife has remarried and he supposes she no longer cares enough to pray for him. He gives a terzina's worth of invective on the fickleness of women's love, then prophecies that she's going to be sorry for having chosen her current husband, who will come to ruin. Dante looks up and sees three new stars, which symbolize faith, hope, and love. These in turn symbolize Dante's readiness to enter into purgatory proper the next day. 

Sordello then notes the snake has appeared, but the angels quickly chase him away. Corrado Malaspina asks for any news of his family. Dante says that they are world famous and they remain an honorable family. Corrado tells him to go now, but mentions that before seven years are up, Dante will know the Malaspina's hospitality himself, not just through reputation he has heard from others.  

At this the canto ends. 

Canto IX  At the entrance to purgatory  The canto starts off with one of Dante's confusing descriptions of the day, which references the mythological story of Aurora (the Dawn) and her lover Tithonus, and the constellation Scorpio. 

About three hours after nightfall, (around 9pm) Dante is asleep. He dreams of an eagle that circles overhead, but then suddenly swoops down and picks him up, carrying him up high into the atmosphere. 

He awakes, he tells us, just like Achilles, when his mom took him from home, wondering just where the heck he was, when he sees Virgil, who explains that while he was asleep, Saint Lucia came and carried Dante up near the entrance of Purgatory. At this, Dante relaxes, and both he and Virgil head up toward the gateway. There they meet a guardian who tells them to come no further and explain who they are, what they want, and where their escort is. Virgil explains that Lucia set them there and told them to approach, at which the guardian tells them to come forward. They pass over three steps, representing sincerity in confession, contrition, and ardent love. Virgil tells Dante to request that the guardian unlock the door. He does and then throws himself down at the guardian's feet. 

The guardian inscribes 7 P's on his forehead and tells Dante to make sure he washes these from his forehead while inside. The guardian has an ash colored robe, and carries two keys: a golden key which symbolizes absolution, and is more precious, since it can only work through the power of Jesus' blood. The silver key symbolizes the power of the confessor to judge the condition of the penitent, and it requires great skill and understanding to use. The keys were given by Peter, who told the guardian to err more towards letting men in, than excluding men. For it would be better to accept a few who were unworthy, than shut out those that should be let in.  

As Dante and Virgil enter, the guardian warns Dante not to look backward with any longing, or he would be returned outside. 

The canto finishes with a description of the metal doors opening with such a thunderous rumble, but also somehow mixed with the choir of the hymn 'Te Deum laudamus' (We praise you, God). 

Canto X  The first level: pride  The pilgrims enter into purgatory, and are immediately brought through a time-consuming narrow passage that may, if I've understood it correctly, have the mountain actually receding and advancing, requiring some skill to navigate the path. They reach a ledge, that doesn't seem to show any way up, but as they are looking about, Dante notices that the walls are filled with three scenes carved into the white marble. The first was a depiction of the Annunciation of the birth of Christ, showing the angel Gabriel speaking to Mary. The scene is so realistic that Dante says he can practically hear the words "Here is the Lord's handmaiden" as he looks. Dante is transfixed by this scene when Virgil tells him to look  beyond this one scene, since there are others. The second scene depicted is the ark being carried to Jerusalem. The same scene depicts both attempts: the first carrying the ark with the oxen and cart, and the second with David dancing. This is perhaps to show the difference between the presumption to carry the ark in the non-prescribed manner, and then David's self-abasement in his dance during the second attempt. 

Dante again can almost hear the singing and smell the incense in the depictions. 

The third scene depicts Trajan's mercy and duty towards a bereaved widow. Again Dante is moved by what he calls the "visible speech", meaning the depiction is so convincing that he can literally hear the story happening. 

Virgil then points out a group of penitents coming towards them. These are the proud, and they are so stooped over with their heavy stone weights. Dante addresses the Christian reader, asking what it is that we should have to be so proud of, when we are almost no better than maggots, born by mere circumstance. How do we so exalt ourselves, trusting in steps that literally lead us backwards away from God.  

Then he notes that just like when you see a roof support carved in the figure of a man, who has his knee in his chest as if he is shouldering a great weight, you're almost convinced that he is really in pain, even though it's not true. So were these men; bent over to greater or lesser degrees- but even the most patient looked as if he could not take any more. 

Canto XI  The first level: pride cont.  The canto starts with an expanded version of the Lord's prayer recited by the penitents in the first ring. They are praying half for themselves, but in part for those still alive. Dante says they prayed while the moved under the weight of their own pride, while purging the fog of their sinful ways as they went. Dante encourages us that if they pray for us, we should be praying for them. 

Virgil wishes them well and asks for the shortest way up to the next level, since Dante is still alive and climbing is tiresome for him. 

Then Omberto Aldabrandesco answers and tells Virgil and Dante to come along and he would show them the way up. He tells Dante that he is here for his own arrogance for his heritage, and that he died because of his arrogance. He acknowledges the justice of his own punishment. 

Then another man, Oderisi da Gubbio, looks at Dante, who recognizes him as the artist famous for illuminating manuscripts. Oderisi downplays his art as underneath that of Franco Bolognese, who we know next to nothing about. Oderisi says that he would not have been so kind in life, where his fame was the only thing that mattered to him. For that pride, he pays the price here, and in fact, he's only here (rather than in hell) because while he was still alive, he turned to God. 

Then Oderisi launches into a speech about the short duration of human glory. He mentions Cimabue having the world's attention, until Cimabue was displaced by Giotto. Guido Guinizelli was displaced as the supreme Italian poet by Dante's friend Guido Cavalcanti, both of whom would perhaps be displaced by some other poet.... probably Dante suggesting that he himself would overtake them both. 

Dante mentions the passing glory of worldly fame, and then writes that it would make no difference if you lived to old age or died as an infant after a thousand years had passed, and even that thousand years is like the movement of an eyebrow when compared to the movement of the heavenly spheres. 

Oderisi then mentions another in front of him, Provenzan Salvani, who was once the most acclaimed man in Tuscany, and is now barely mentioned.  

Dante notes that these words stir him to humility and 'smooths the great tumor', or deflates his swelling pride. Then he asks about Provenzano. Oderisi answers that he tried to grab all of Siena for himself, (though he was only a private citizen) and for this, he pays the price for one who dared to take so much for himself. Dante then asked how he got there so fast, if the normal path for those that waited to repent is to serve the length of their life in ante-purgatory before entering in. 

Oderisi relates that while at the height of his power and pride, he went to bat for a friend of his who was thrown in prison by Charles of Anjou. Provenzano had stood fast in Siena's main square, effectively humbling himself for his friend. For this, he was granted access earlier. Oderisi also prophesies that Dante himself will be treated to such by his own friends, speaking of Dante's coming exile. 

[thetldrplace]

Inferno: Cantos 29-34

Canto XXIX  Eighth circle, tenth ditch- counterfeiters/falsifiers  Still considering the inhabitants of the ninth ditch, where the sowers of discord were condemned, Dante says his eyes were reeling so much from the huge number and diverse injuries being suffered there, that he wanted to cry. Virgil questions why he would stop and stare, because he didn’t do this at the other ditches, and just think how many there would be if Dante tried to number them all in the 22 mile circumference of the ditch. But the moon was already "under our feet", meaning it was about noon, and there was still much to see in a relatively short time. As they were moving along, Dante tells Virgil that had he paid more attention, Virgil might have allowed him to stay longer, because he had noticed a family member there. Virgil answers that he had in fact noticed him, but not to waste any time thinking about him. He, Virgil, had noticed that this family member- Geri del Bello, was pointing at Dante and making threats, but while Dante was engaged talking to Bertram dal Bornio, he left. 

Dante laments that Geri had been murdered violently, but no one had taken it upon themselves to avenge the death, which would make Geri contemptuous.  

At this point they reach the edge of the tenth ditch. Dante notes that if all the hospitals of Val di Chiana, between July and September, the Maremma, and Sardegna, all places known for malaria, were emptied out and the sick placed together in a pit, it wouldn't be as bad as what he saw in this tenth ditch.  

As they come over the ledge and descend, Dante says the minister of the most high Lord, infallible justice, punishes the falsifiers registered there. 

Anthony Esolen, who did one of the translations I use, writes that these are the quacks, charlatans, imposters, and clever artists of bunk. In life, they needed dupes to prey on. Here they are afflicted with nauseating diseases that cause them to endlessly scratch themselves. 

Then Dante uses another simile and says that if all the people of Aegina (a Greek island, where, according to Greek mythology, pestilence destroyed the people except for one, who prayed to Jupiter, who then transformed the ants into men) who were sick from the pestilence, it wouldn't have matched the gloom seen there in that place. Some were laying on their backs, some on their stomachs, some dragged themselves, crawling along. Dante and Virgil move through watching and listening to the afflicted, who were unable to even lift themselves up. They see two propped up against each other, and while there, they scratch so furiously at their insatiable itches, that their bodies are covered with nasty, spotted scabs, which they scrape through with their fingernails.  

Virgil asks if there are any Italians (Latins) among them, and they stop and proclaim that they themselves are Italians. Virgil then encourages Dante to ask them whatever he wants. Dante starts off saying that if they would like their memory to survive in the world, reveal who they are despite their vulgar and tedious pain.  

The first (Griffolino) says he was from Arezzo. He says he was burned at the stake by Albero of Siena, but what he was killed for is not what he is in the tenth ditch for. He had told Albero that he could fly, as a joke, and Albero, having lots of desire to fly and little in the way of common sense, tries to get him to show him how. But Griffolino knows it can't be done and Albero is pissed about it, and had him tried for heresy, for which he was condemned. But Minos, who can't be wrong in his assessments of the sin, damned him for alchemy. 

Dante then says: "or fu già mai gente sì vana come la sanese? Certo non la francesca sì d'assai!". Meaning: Were there ever a people so vain/empty as the Sienese? Certainly not the French so much!" 

I think the idea of vain is both in arrogance and empty headed, so I translated it 'stupid'. 

Then another guy, understanding Dante, pops in with "Except: 

Stricca (unsure who this is), who knew how to temper his expenses; 

Niccolò (Salimbeni), who extravagantly used cloves, a very expensive spice, for his food. Salimbeni was one of the members of the Squanderer's Brigade; 

Caccia d'Ascian, another of the brigade who squandered vineyards and a huge estate; 

L'Abbagliante (The Dazzling One), Bartolomeo dei Folcacchieri, of whom we know little, other than he was fined for drunkenness in a tavern in 1278. 

These four are the exceptions to the general rule of the Sienese being the vainest (stupidest) people. 

Then the speaker identifies himself as Capocchio, who faked metals through alchemy. Capocchio was burned at the stake for heresy by the Sienese in 1293, so he had a good reason to hate 'em too. 

While in life, these Sienese preyed on their foolish fellows, they probably wish now the Sienese had not been quite so foolish to have fallen for their quackery, now abundantly punished. 

Canto XXX  Eighth circle, tenth ditch- counterfeiters/falsifiers ; cont.  Dante leads again with several similes. The first tells of when the goddess Juno (wife and sister of Jupiter) was jealous and angry with Semele, a princess of Thebes, and one of Jupiter's lovers. She caused King Athamas' consort, Ino, Semele's sister, to go insane. In his insanity, he kills his son Learco by dashing him against a rock. When Ino sees this, she jumps off a cliff into the sea while holding the other son.  

The second is after the destruction of Troy, Hecuba, the widowed queen is taken captive. Her daughter Polyxena is sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, and then as she wanders to the seashore, she finds her son Polydorus washed up, having been murdered by the king of Thrace. She then goes crazy and begins to bark and howl like a dog. 

But Dante says that the furies, neither in Thebes, nor Troy, were ever so cruel as two he saw racing around the tenth ditch, biting whatever they could reach, like a pig let loose from the pig stye. 

One reached Capocchio, and bit into the back of his neck, dragging him away and scrapping his stomach along the hard ground. 

Dante asks who these two were, and he is told by Griffolino that the first is Gianni Schicchi. Schicchi was from the Cavalcanti family in Florence. When Buoso Donati had died, his nephew Simone persuaded Gianni Schicchi to impersonate the old man on his death bed, dictating a will to the benefit of Simone. Gianni's take was a prized mare from the Donati's stable. 

Dante is told the second is Myrrah, (From Ovid's Metamorphoses) a legendary Levantine beauty who fell in love with her father and tricked him into sexual intercourse by disguising herself.  

At this point, the two enraged spirits take off, so Dante looks around and sees another one, who is described as being in the shape of a lute- meaning fat, but skinnier as it goes towards the head... or at least he would look like a lute if that part of the human body that forks- the legs- were cut off. The spirit here looks like one who suffers from dropsy, or edema; the disease where fluid builds up in the body and distorts it. 

The tenth ditch holds four different types of falsifiers, each with different types of affliction:  

The alchemists in the previous canto were punished with itching scabs; the impersonators here with hydrophobia, the counterfeiters with dropsy, and the perjurers with fever. 

Master Adamo sees Dante and Virgil traveling along and tells them, who travel through this wretched level without punishment, to listen to his story. He relates that while alive, he had whatever he wanted, but here, he is so parched that he longs for even a drop of water. Part of his punishment is that he can't escape the image of the cool waters of his native Florence, which dries him up even more. 

He was in the employ of the Count of Romena, when they convinced him to counterfeit Florins by degrading the Florin from 24 carat to 21 carat gold. Thus he "falsified the alloy sealed by the Baptist"; John the Baptist was adopted as a symbol of the city of Florence, and was burned at the stake for this in 1281. 

He says he would give up a look at the Branda fountain, a famous spring in Siena that would certainly quench his thirst, if he could only see Guido, Alessandro, or any of their brothers, here in hell with him. And, if he could trust anyone of the raving lunatics in the ditch, one of them is in fact already there. But what would it be worth to him, since he can't move? He swears that if he could crawl even an inch in a hundred years, he'd already have set out to look for the guy among the disgusting mass, despite the entire ditch being eleven miles long, and at least half a mile across. It was because of those brothers that he has now become part of the "family" stuck together in the tenth ditch.  

Dante then asks who the two souls are who are steaming next to him, as if they were wet hands in winter. 

Adamo says they were here when he first rained down and they haven't ever moved, nor does he think they ever will. One is Potipher's wife, who falsely accused Joseph, and the other was Sinon, from Troy. They burn from a high fever which gives off a nasty steaming stench. 

Then Sinon gets pissed that he is being so darkly named, punches Adamo in the stomach, which sounds like a drum. This starts an amusing back and forth- an example of "tenzone", where dueling poets would respond to each other leading off with something from what the other previously said. Dante, our poet supreme, has to show himself capable in all poetry's various formats, I guess. 

Adamo responds by punching Sinon in the face, and telling him: even if movement has been taken away from me since I weigh so much, I still have an arm available for such tasks. 

Sinon says: your arms weren't so available when you were sent to the stake to burn, but it seems they were pretty available for counterfeiting coins. 

Adamo says: You spoke the truth there. Too bad you didn't tell the truth when the Trojans requested it. (Sinon was part of a conspiracy by Ulysses with the Trojan horse, to infiltrate the city. Sinon lets himself be captured, then advises the Trojans to take the horse in, the Trojans accepting his advice because Sinon has lied that Ulysses would sacrifice him to the gods in order to win the war.) 

Sinon replies: Sure I lied, and you counterfeited money. I'm here for one sin, while you've outdone ever demon in hell. 

Adamo: Hey perjurer, remember the horse and be pained that the whole world knows about your sin! 

Sinon: and you be pained that thirst dries out and cracks your tongue and rotten liquid puddles in your guts right before your eyes! 

Adamo: I hope your mouth is ripped to shreds by your disease, so that, if I'm thirsty and bloated, you'll have a burning thirst and your head aches and it would take only a few words for you to be jump at the chance to lick the pond of Narcissus! 

While I've not gotten to Purgatorio in Italian yet, I've heard that this theme of Narcissus will come up again there, which would seem to say that this is a more important element than you'd be led to believe by the reference here. 

Dante says he was so engrossed listening to them when all of the sudden Virgil angrily butts in and says: Keep watching this and before long I'll be in a fight with YOU! 

At this, Dante is so ashamed of himself that even now, it makes his head spin just to think about it. He gives another simile: you know when your dreaming, and you dream of something bad happening to you, so you think, 'I hope this is all just a dream'…. So that you wish it wasn't what was happening... well, in the same way, Dante says he wanted to apologize, and he did, but it didn't seem like enough. But Virgil tells him "Less repentance has washed away even greater sins than yours, so let it go. But.... if it happens that fate puts you again where two people are arguing the same way, know that desiring to listen to that is a base desire. 

Canto XXXI  Eighth Circle- edge of Ninth Circle  Dante leads off with two terzinas letting us know "The same tongue that first bit me, so that both my cheeks reddened in shame"; speaking of Virgil chewing him out for being so engrossed in the base insults in the last canto; "….then applied medicine to me; as I had heard the spear of Achilles and his father would be the cause first, of pain, and then, healing". Apparently, the "lance of Achilles" was supposed to have the property of being able to heal, with a second touch, the wound it had caused with the first. So Dante uses it as a simile for the way Virgil had at first wounded him, then healed him with words of encouragement. 

So they are up out of the tenth ditch and it looks like something neither day nor night, but with a thick dark air that Dante can't really see through. He hears a loud blast from a horn though, which he follows back, since it seems like it came from behind him. He gives another simile that Roland, from the French epic poem "Le Chanson de Roland", who blew his horn so hard that his veins burst and he died, did not blow his horn so terribly at the rout suffered by Charles the Great in his holy war to defeat the Saracens. 

Then Dante begins to see a bunch of tall towers, but when he asks Virgil what land this is, Virgil tells him he is getting too far ahead of himself with his imagination, and that he would soon see how the distance tricks the senses. Then Virgil decides to forewarn Dante that these aren't, in fact, towers at all, but giants, who are stuck from the waist down in the ground. 

Dante mentions that the giants buried remind him of the Montereggioni fortress in the province of Siena, which is encircled by a high wall with a 'crown' of towers surrounding it. 

Dante says of them that Nature did well to quit making such living beings, or else they might have been drafted by Mars, the god of war, for his purposes. Then he notes that while Nature didn't turn from making large creatures, like elephants and whales, but did so much more discreetly with those than the titans, since when one adds reason of the mind to ill will AND power, humans would find no safe haven. 

Dante then says the head of the giant they had come upon was about the size of the pine cone at Saint Peters in Rome, which, I humbly add, I've been to see, and is about 13 feet tall. The bones of the giant, were in proportion to the head. I translated it as the limbs of the giant. The giants were buried up to the waist, and the poem mentions, somewhat cryptically, that three "Frisians" could not have lived up to the task had they boasted about being able to reach it. So apparently the frisians were known as being among the tallest men in Europe. So if they were to stand end to end, they still wouldn't have quite reached to the hairline. Dante says it was around 'thirty large palms", which one commentary estimated would be around 22 feet tall. Add the 13 feet of the head and you have around 35 feet tall... and that's only half of the giant. So maybe 70 feet tall in total.  

The giant turns out to be the biblical hunter Nimrod, who founded the country of 'Shinar', where the tower of Babel was built. 

Nimrod blurts out some gibberish- “Raphèl maì amècche zabì almi”, that sort of sounds vaguely Hebrew, but isn't. Apparently lots of people through the ages have tried to make some sense of this, but the text below would make it clear that it isn't meant to be understood by us. Virgil says outright that no one can understand Nimrod's language and Nimrod can't understand any other, so no time should be wasted in trying to communicate with him.  

They move on and meet another giant, Ephialtes, one of the titans. Dante wants to meet the "immeasurable" Briareus, but Virgil says he's too far away. But, they are going to Antaeus, who can speak and is unchained. Ephialtes shakes himself at that point and the ground shakes stronger than any earthquake Dante could remember, which causes Dante to fear for his life, with only the chains that bind Ephialtes keeping Dante from complete dread. 

Virgil and Dante then approach Antaeus, and Virgil tells him to set them both down onto the floor of the ninth circle, with the incentive that Dante is still alive, and can tell of Antaeus when he returns to the land of the living. Then he tells Antaeus not to make them seek out Tityus or Typhon. At this, Antaeus extends his hand for Virgil, who holds Dante so tight that they are bound together. 

Dante gives another simile for what it felt like when Antaeus was reaching over him: Like one standing under the leaning side of Garisenda tower (in Bologna), and a cloud passes over it, it gives the impression of the tower actually leaning over you, and so Dante felt like this, and wished that there were some other way down, but it was all over quickly and Antaeus set them down on the bottom, where we are told Lucifer and Judas are devoured. 

Canto XXXII  Ninth Circle- Caino; traitors- betrayers of kin  Dante again leads off with a disclaimer that he doesn't really have the ability to describe what is seen in this level. He says it's not something to be taken lightly when trying to describe the "fondo", the bottom, or what I called the basement, of the universe, nor is it fit for children, those who would call out for mommy or daddy.  

As Dante is looking up at the high wall surrounding the pit, he hears someone say: watch where you step: tread so that you don't kick the heads of these tired, miserable brothers with your soles. Dante then looks down and sees spirits buried up to their heads in ice so clear it looks more like glass than water. He says that even on the Danube in Austria during winter, nor on the Don river (in Russia) under the frozen sky would have such thick ice as was here. He mentions that if mount Tambernic (possibly a mountain in Slovenia) and mount Pietrapan (in Tuscany) had both fallen on this ice, it wouldn't have made even the edge creak. Basically.... really thick ice. Ok.  

Then Dante gives a simile: like frogs, when they croak with just their noses out of the water, in that season of the year when the peasant girls dream of gleaning (summer), so in this same way, the agonized spirits were there in the ice, up to where their shame appears (the face), "putting the teeth in note of stork"… is how it reads literally, but it means chattering like a storks bill would. Each of them had their faces downward, and the testimony to the cold was given by their mouths , with the chattering teeth, and testimony to their sad hearts was given by their eyes. 

Dante looks down and sees two spirits so tightly pressed against each other that their hair mixed together. He asks who they are and one responds, "why are you staring so hard at us?". This one, we find a bit later, is Camiscion de' Pazzi. The two he asks about are Napoleone (a Guelph) and Alessandro (a Ghibelline) degli Alberti, counts of Mangona.  

Camiscion says they came out of one body, in other words, they were born of the same mother, and you could search all of Caino and not find anyone more worthy of being set in this 'gelatin', a euphemism for the ice. Caino is the name of the region they are in, and it's for those that betrayed family, named for the biblical Cain, who killed his brother Abel in a fit of anger of God's rejection of his sacrifice.  

When Camiscion mentions that Dante could find no one more worthy of imprisonment there, he also adds others that are there: 

He whose chest and shadow were broken by one stroke from Arthur's hand- Mordred; 

Focaccia- nickname of Vanni de' Cancellieri, a white Guelph from Pistoia, who killed one of his own family; 

Sassol Mascheroni- the one who blocks Camiscion's view from seeing any further- a Florentine who murdered his cousin to gain an inheritance. 

Camiscion himself murdered his in-law, Ubertino de' Pazzi to gain control of several fortresses. 

He says he is still awaiting Carlino, 'che mi scagioni'… the verb scagionare means to demonstrate that someone is not culpable for what he has been blamed. But clearly, Camiscion IS guilty, or else God wouldn't have put him in the lowest region of hell. What Camiscion seems to mean here is that Carlino's guilt is so much more, that Camiscion would look like an innocent in comparison.  

Dante then looks around and sees a thousand more of the faces looking dog like because of the cold. He says it brought a shudder on him, and even today, seeing a frozen body of water brings the same reaction.  

As the continued traveling towards the center where every heaviness is gathered, Dante shivers in the eternal shadowy chill. 

Ninth Circle- Antenora- betrayers of country  Then Dante meets the second person he talks with. Dante leaves it undefined whether this was on purpose or not, because he says he doesn't know whether it was "will, fortune, or destiny" that he should have gotten a good kick in on this guy. The guy himself responds testily, which, I suppose I would too if kicked in the head, with "what'd you kick me for? Unless you've come to increase the revenge for what I did at Montaperti, why harass me?" So this is Bocca degli Abati, who betrayed the Guelphs during the battle at Montaperti. He pretended to be a Guelph, but in a crucial moment, chopped off the arm of the standard bearer, so that the standard fell, which led to chaos on the Guelph side and ended in a rout by the Ghibellines. 

Dante asks Virgil to hold up a moment so Dante can clear up some questions he has, then he interrupts Bocca's swearing to ask who he is that rebukes others in this way? 

Bocca responds with: "who are YOU who goes through Antenora (the section of the betrayers of country) kicking others in the face, which, even if he were alive, would be exaggerated?" 

Dante says he IS alive, and if Bocca wants to be recognized in what Dante would write, he would do well to name himself. Bocca says he wants the exact opposite, so get out and don't give him any more sass, 'cause he (Dante) has no idea how to flatter people at this level. 

Dante has had enough and grabs a hunk of Bocca's hair, and threatens him with: you'd best tell me what I want to know or I'll rip your hair out! Bocca says to go ahead, even if you rip all his hair out, he's not gonna give Dante his name, or anything else of use.  

At this point, Dante starts tearing chunks of hair out and Bocca howls in pain. 

So a neighbor screams: "What the hell, Bocca? Isn't it enough that you've been yapping your jaws, and now you're gonna howl too? What the devil has gotten into you? 

The guy, Buoso da Duera, gives up Bocca's name to Dante, so Dante leaves off ripping out more hair and swears he'll tell the story of Bocca's disgrace up in the world. 

At this, Bocca gives up the other guy, by saying, Fine, write whatever you want, but when you do get out of here, don't forget to mention Buoso da Duera, here because he sold out the Ghibellines, when he was commissioned to raise an army to oppose Charles of Anjou, but instead, took the money and let the French pass through.  

Then Bocca gives up a few more names: Tesauro dei Beccheria, who was beheaded for working to return exiles to Florence; 

Gianni de' Soldanier, a Florentine Ghibelline who defected to the Guelphs; 

Ganelon was the traitor who plotted with the Saracens to have Roland ambushed at Roncesvalles; 

Tebaldello Zambrasi, a Ghibelline who turned traitor to Faenza because it's leaders had played a prank on him, so he opened the gates at night to allow Bolognese Guelphs to enter. 

Dante and Virgil move on and see two spirits sunk together so that one was gnawing on the other's head, possibly referencing the Bible where it says the leaders "devour my people as they eat bread" (Psalms 14:4) Dante stops to ask him why he would do such a bestial thing, promising that if the shade can convince him of a good cause for it, he would write it. 

Here the canto ends. 

Canto XXXIII  Ninth Circle- Antenora- betrayers of country: cont.  The guy we had been introduced to at the end of the last canto, who was gnawing on someone else's head, stops what he is doing in response to Dante's question, and takes time to tell his tale. The only reason he agrees to it is "if my words will be the seed that bears the fruit of infamy to this traitor I gnaw". He announces himself as Count Ugolina della Gherardesca, and his victim is Ruggieri degli Ubaldini, the Archbishop of Pisa. Ghibelline Pisa was besieged by several powerful Guelph cities, and chose the Guelph Ugolino as their leader, hoping he could secure a peace. He ceded several of Pisa's castles to the Guelphs, maybe from diplomatic prudence or necessity, when he was challenged by his Grandson Nino Visconti. Eventually, the two came to a truce, and Ugolino tried to shore his political power up by striking a deal with the Archbishop, and three families: the Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi. They expelled Nino, and Ugolino retired to the country to wait for Nino's banishment. 

Ruggieri was made the leader, and recalled Ugolino, but when Ugolino noted his own treachery had put Ruggieri on the throne, he came with an army, was defeated, and subsequently imprisoned, where we pick up his story. 

He says he was imprisoned in the Muda. Muda means 'moult'... like when birds lose feathers, probably because it was high up and that's where the birds would go.  

Ugolino has a dream where the Archbishop appeared as master and lord, and hunted the wolf and it's cubs (he and his family) into the hills between Pisa and Lucca. "With lean, trained, and eager dogs, the Gualandi, Sismondi, and Lanfranchi families, Ruggieri set himself at the head of the hunt. In short time, the father wolf and his cubs were exhausted, caught, and torn to shreds. 

Ugolino awakes in prison, aware that the dream was an insight into his own plight. He was locked in the tower with his 4 sons until they one by one starved. After they were dead, Ugolino says he ate them to stay alive. Ugolino's details makes it sound like they were little children, but clearly, they had to have been grown, since he had a grandson, for which his betrayal for political purposes has landed him down here in hell.  

This telling of the story effectively met Dante's parameters for mention in the divine comedy, so he includes the story, not with sympathy for Ugolino, but for his sons, who had not deserved the punishment as did the father. 

Dante writes an invective against Pisa by calling the town a vile disgrace to the people of the beautiful land where "Si" is uttered. By this he means Italy, not Pisa and its surroundings... because he immediately says that since Pisa's neighbors would do nothing against their vile behavior, he wished the islands of Capraia and Gorgona, two islands a bit off the coast, would move, stop up the mouth of the Arno river, which runs through Pisa, and drown the entire region.  

Ninth Circle- Ptolomea- betrayers of guests/friends  In the first section, Caina, those imprisoned in the ice look down. In the second, Antenora, they look forward. In this section, they face up, which causes their tears to flood their eye sockets and freeze over, forming a hardened glass visor over their eyes. Dante also notices a wind, which he can't understand where it would come from. Virgil tells him he'll see the cause soon enough. 

One cries out asking Dante to break the frozen tears from his eyes temporarily and he would tell his tale. Dante promises him that he'll do so, and if not, he would go to the bottom.  Dante is, of course, playing a trick on the him, since he has no intention of granting this guy any favors. The trick is that the guy thinks Dante is promising he'll allow himself to be sentenced to an even worse punishment if he doesn't grant his wish, while Dante knows he is traveling to the lowest level as a temporary visitor anyway, so he can accurately state that he'll go to the bottom if he doesn't do what he promised, with no actual harm to himself. Fitting for someone who is in hell for betrayal.  

The soul says he is Frate Alberigo, who "gave fruit in that cursed garden, so that here, I get a date for a fig." He was a Guelph of Faenza, who had invited several relatives, with whom he had carried a bitter feud, to dinner. He called for fruit to brought out, which was the signal for assassins to come in and murder the guests. Getting "a date for a fig" has been interpreted as, since dates where more expensive than figs, he was getting back more than he paid out; or receiving a worse punishment than what he used against others. 

One of the video series I watched on the Comedy is by an Italian who says this betrayal was so famous in Italy, that it spawned a saying: ricevere "il frutto di Frate Alberigo", to get 'the fruit of Fra Alberigo', which meant- I've been betrayed. 

The interesting part of the discussion is that after this, Dante says, wait, you're already dead? To which Alberigo says he doesn't know what is happening with his body up in the world, since for those in Ptolomea, the soul falls here "innanzi Atropòs mossa la dea"; "before Atropos (the mythological Fate who cuts the threads of individual human's lives) sets it (the soul) in motion"… so before the person dies. He explains that as soon as the betrayal takes place, the soul is sent to hell, and a demon takes over the body, governing things as if the man were still alive, until the body dies. He mentions another such soul nearby, Branca Doria, whose soul had already been down in hell for many years.  

Dante says he doesn't believe this, at which point Alberigo references the shade in the ditch where the Malebranche demons tortured them in boiling tar, Michele Zanche, and says that this one here, Branca Doria, had him killed and left a demon in his body. Then Alberigo tells Dante to fulfill his part of the bargain and clear the hardened tears from his eyes. But Dante betrays him in a just recompense calling it a courtesy to Alberigo to act the villain towards him. 

Then he inveighs against Genova, calling them alien to every morality and full of every defect, and wondering why they hadn't just been scattered over the earth, rather than being allowed to congregate in one place. He continues that he found a Genovese, Doria, who had already been sent to hell to be locked in the icy Cocytus river, and yet his body is inhabited above by a demon. 

Here the canto ends. 

Canto XXXIV  Ninth Circle- Judecca- betrayers of benefactors  Virgil declares the standards of hell are advancing towards them, to start the canto. At this point, Dante can make out what seem, from the distance, to be structures like windmills, and, because there is no other shelter there, shields himself from the cold wind by hiding behind Virgil. Here the condemned souls are buried completely in ice: some lying down, others erect, both head up, and head down, and others bent over like a bow.  

Virgil stops Dante to tell him that they have reached the center, Dis.  

Dante says, again, that he doesn't have the words to really render the scene. He was somewhere between dead and alive as he came upon Satan. Satan is sticking out of the ice from his chest. He is so huge, that Dante was closer to the giants, who were around 70 feet tall, than the giants would be to Satan. Satan is brutally ugly now, with three faces: the front is red, the right is yellowish white, and the left is black. Below each face is a set of wings that flap, creating the wind that freezes the ninth circle.  

Each mouth contains a sinner: Judas Iscariot is the prime, who is chewed head first, and has his skin scraped bare. The others are Brutus and Cassius. 

Then, as quickly as that, Virgil says: Well, we've seen everything so let's get out of here. Dante holds on to Virgil's neck, Virgil climbs onto Satan's hairy side, and starts making his way down Satan's body, until at one point, he turns and then seems to start climbing again. He's exhausted, so as they go up, he pushes Dante through an opening in the rock onto a ledge, then climbs up and sits down next to him for second.  

Dante looks and, expecting to see Lucifer as he had, is disconcerted to find that what he sees is a pair of huge legs sticking up in the air. Virgil tells him to get up 'cause they have a long road ahead. Dante stops him and asks him to clear up some confusion. He asks what happened to the ice, why they are now looking at Satan's legs, and why it went from evening to morning? Virgil tells him they've passed to the other side of the center of the earth. So now, they're standing on the other side of the small sphere that makes up Judecca, and under the land, including the particular hill, where Jesus was crucified.  

Then he gives a somewhat confusing account of how Satan was tossed from heaven on the opposite, or southern, hemisphere, causing the land that used to stick up on the southern hemisphere, to cave in and be filled with water, and the same land to be displaced higher in the northern hemisphere, creating the land there. 

Within this cavern system created by Satan's downfall, a stream has made a whole in the rock, with a relatively gentle slope. The cavern is unlit, but they can trace the stream by its sound. They make their way up without resting and exit to see the stars once again, and here the canto... and first poem, end. 

[thetldrplace]

Inferno: Cantos 22-28

Canto XXII  Still in the eighth circle, fifth ditch, which contains the bribe-takers, the pair set off accompanied by the ten demons. Dante says he has seen all kinds of military actions, and their calls, but never anything like this. Dante is fixed on searching the tar to see every kind of person he can, but as the demons approach, each sinner dives underneath so that won't be gaffed. One missed his opportunity though and gets caught. Dante asks Virgil to find out who he is, so Virgil engages him. The man says he was from the kingdom of Navarre, which is in present-day northern Spain, right next to the Basque region. The sinner (traditionally seen as Ciampolo) explains that his mother got pregnant by a rogue, so she sent him off to work as a servant to the king, Thibault. The demons tire of delaying the torture while Virgil questions him and begin to get impatient. They warn Virgil to hurry it up before they tear him apart. Virgil asks if there are any Latins, (Italians) there in the pit. The sinner says yes, and he wishes he were still down there covered up. Then the demons rip some meat off of him. After that, the demons calm a bit, and Virgil continues, asking who the other was that got away while he, Ciampolo, was caught on shore? Ciampolo says that was Friar Gomito, from Gallura, a region in the far north of Sardegna, who was exceptionally corrupt. He had several of his master's (Nino Visconti) enemies in hand, but for bribes, let them off for nothing. The Italian says di piano, meaning "softly", but apparently it comes from the Latin de plano, a legal term meaning "for nothing". He mentions that Gomito had other duties too but there too he was no small-time bribe taker, but the king of bribe takers. 

Then he mentions another Sardinian, Michel Zanche, of Logodoro (region just to the south of Gallura), and between the two of them, they can't stop talking about how great Sardegna is. 

Finally, Ciampolo mentions that the demons are baring their teeth at him and he was about to get it. He offers to call up seven others in his place if they would let him go. One of the demons says "Listen to this malice this guy is proposing... but he's doing it just to buy time and try to escape. To which Ciampolo replies: I am that malicious, if I'm willing to bring greater pain to my fellow sufferers. But one of the other demons says he is interested, hoping to get more sinners to rip apart. He says he will let Ciampolo whistle and they will wait up top in hiding while they come up. They are working out the details of how this will happen when Ciampolo notices they aren't watching him, he takes his chance and dives back under the pitch where they can't see him. 

Alichin, the demon who had proposed letting Ciampolo exchange himself for seven others, tries to stop him from escaping, but can't get there in time and pulls up. But Calcabrina, one of the other devils, pissed by being taken in, follows after Alichin and sinks his claws into his compatriot demon. Alichin however, is also a predatory creature and they get into a fight that drags them both into the pitch. The heat makes them let go of each other, but the tar covering their wings means they can't get out alone. The others quickly assemble to get them out, but the demons were already, we are told, cooked inside the crust that had formed on them.  

While this is happening and the demons are distracted, Virgil and Dante leave and head off on their own. 

Canto XXIII  Still in the eighth circle, fifth ditch, Dante and Virgil have left the bickering demons and taken off by themselves, without saying anything to the demons. Dante gives a simile that had me scratching my head. He mentions Aesop's fable of the frog and the mouse. The fable is essentially that a mouse comes to a stream he can't get across. A frog offers to take him across with the intent of drowning the mouse halfway across. But while the mouse is struggling, a bird comes and grabs them both. OK, with that in mind, Dante says this: 

Vòlt’era in su la favola d’Isopo  lo mio pensier per la presente rissa,  dov’el parlò de la rana e del topo;  ché più non si pareggia ’mo’ e ’issa’  che l’un con l’altro fa, se ben s’accoppia  principio e fine con la mente fissa.  This recent scene turned my thoughts   to Aesop’s fable, where it talks about  the frog and the mouse;  the words ‘now’ and ‘presently’ are not so similar   as the one with the other, if we put together   beginning and end with an attentive mind. 

This is supposed to bring some clarity, but it sort of does the opposite. First, at least for me, was the confusion over "the one with the other". But after looking at this enough, and confirming with a bunch of translations, it seems it should be read as: 

"the words ‘now’ and ‘presently’ are not so similar   as that fable and the demon’s brawl, " 

The italian uses two words 'mo' and 'issa' that both mean 'now', to say that not even these two words that mean the same thing are not as similar as the fable to the demon's brawl he witnessed in the previous canto.......  

"if we put together beginning and end with an attentive mind." 

Here's where some of the fun starts. The fable has several different interpretations, none of which anyone is sure about which Dante is referring to. We're encouraged to put together the beginning and the end "with an attentive mind"…. But that hasn't helped scholars through the years figure out what he means. So... I'm gonna ignore it too. 

But as Dante is thinking, he is becoming more certain that those demons will be pissed and coming after he and Virgil shortly. He finally confesses this to Virgil and suggests they ought be hiding. Then... Virgil pops off with another difficult simile: 

In Italian, it reads: 

E quei: «S’i’ fossi di piombato vetro,  l’imagine di fuor tua non trarrei  più tosto a me, che quella dentro ’mpetro 

That literally reads: 

If I were lf leaded glass,  The image of your exterior I couldn't take  More quickly to me, than what inside I fathom 

Trying to render that into something that makes sense to me, I came up with: 

“If I were a leaded glass mirror,  I couldn’t grasp what your physical form   communicates quicker than the inner implores. 

I feel like what this means is: even if I were a mirror, I couldn't have caught your physical reflection any faster than I understood what you were thinking. 

Anyway... apparently, they're both on the same page as far as understanding the impending danger of hanging around much longer. And just then, the travelers see the demons coming for them. 

Virgil grabs Dante, holds him to his stomach, and jumps down the embankment, to that he is protecting Dante while he slides down on his bank to the next ditch. The demons get there a moment too late, and can only watch as they see Virgil and Dante, but are unable to cross the boundary into the next ditch. 

Eighth circle- sixth ditch, which holds the hypocrites. 

In this circle, Dante sees people who look like they are painted. They wear capes made of a blinding shiny gold on the outside, but the capes are heavy lead on the interior. They are so heavy that the sinners can proceed only very slowly. Dante mentions that with every step he and Virgil took, they were alongside new sinners. 

Dante asks Virgil to find some sinner he can talk with, whose name or deeds are known to him. One hears him speaking Tuscan and says that he can answer any questions. When Dante slows up, the man and his friend are taken aback by the fact that Dante is still living. They wonder how he can be down there with no heavy mantle like they carry. They then ask who he is. He tells them he is Tuscan, and asks what they have done to merit such punishment. They were two members of the Frati Godenti, Jolly Friars, who, by rule of their order, were forbidden office. But they were invited to rule the divided Florence. Catalano was a Guelph, Loderingo was Ghibelline. They initially helped, but it turns out, they were being orchestrated by a pope, who was moving them to bring back Guelph families and exile Ghibelline. Dante begins to heartily condemn these men when another sight catches his eyes: a man crucified to the ground with three stakes. Catalano notes Dante looking at the guy and explains that he is the one who counseled the Pharisees that it would be better for one man to die for the people, than for the people to catch trouble from Rome. So this would be Caiaphas. It is noted that his father-in-law and the others that followed his counsel, which brought such evil for the Jews, are also here. 

Virgil breaks in and asks where they might get out of this ditch. The friar says it's actually pretty close by. There was once a bridge that arched over each of the ditches, but it broke in this place. However, the ruins that fell into the bottom, could be climbed up on to get over the ridge. At this, Virgil realizes he had been duped by Malacoda, who had not told him the truth, and he says this out loud. The friar then responds in a kind of smart-assed way that he once heard at school that the devil has lots of vices, among which are that he is a liar and the father of lies.  

Virgil takes off and Dante follows after him. 

Canto XXIV  Eighth circle, seventh ditch- thieves. 

Again, Dante is on with the star signs etc to declare something about the time of year.  

"In that early part of the year when the sun's rays are tempered under Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 18) and night lasts about half the day" (length of day and night are about equal) 

Then he gives an extended bit on the time of year: 

"when the hoarfrost on the ground looks like her white sister (the snow), except her quills aren't so long," then he goes on about a peasant with no fodder around, getting up and seeing the countryside and thinking- well crap, it's all snowed in. He beats his thighs, (presumably to help keep warm?) then goes back in and grumbles. But after a while of being at a loss, he thinks again, goes outside, and then noticing it wasn't actually snow, it was only frost, and has perhaps melted away, he takes heart, and leads his flock out to pasture. 

THIS, he uses as a description of himself, after seeing Virgil's face, being bummed about the climb ahead to get out of the sixth ditch, where the bridge had collapsed in a heap (or maybe because of how he had been treated by the demons... unsure why Virgil appeared upset). Because even though the bridge had collapsed, and there was a pile of rubble that could be climbed to get out of it, it was apparently no easy climb, so Virgil's first instinct was to be troubled. Then Virgil changed his tune, scouted the way up, and set to climbing. He lifts Dante up and then they start working their way up the ruins of the fallen bridge. Dante notes that landscape of Malebolge here. Because the site tilts down towards the center, the inner ledge of each ditch is shorter than the outer ledge. Dante notes that except for this fact, he probably wouldn't have been able to make it up the side. He was so drained that he could only sit down once they had gained the top. But here Virgil tells him he needs to shake off this need to sit down and get going, since fame doesn't come to those sitting in comfy chairs or lying under covers. He will need to conquer his exhausted body with that spirit that can overcome all.  

Just a note about this: Virgil encourages Dante to get moving.... with earthly fame as the motivator. Earthly fame, under the Christian understanding, is a sinful motivator, but of course, Virgil isn't a Christian. Interestingly enough, in his simile, he makes the comparison that without earthly fame, a man's life would be remembered no more than smoke in the air or foam on the water. But this is meaningless in a context of heaven and hell. Jesus points it out: what would it profit a man if he should gain the whole world, but lose his own soul? Our earthly efforts aren't to be about gaining treasures on earth, and this would include fame, not as a physical good, but nonetheless an earthly good, for the prize is to be known on earth. Instead, we are to seek God, who will bring us into heaven not for our glory, but for His. 

Dante mentions that the bridge over the seventh ditch is much steeper than the previous. He was talking while he walked to keep from thinking about his weakness, when he heard a voice from inside, ill-suited to forming words. Dante gets to the top of the bridge but can't see down into the darkness. He asks Virgil if they can descend closer to the bottom, and at the base of the bridge, he can see snakes everywhere. Running among the snakes were a bunch of sinners, stripped naked, and terrified. They are said to be "sanza sperar pertugio o elitropia"; without hope of 'pertugio', which is a narrow opening, and 'elitropia', which was, for Dante, a type of magical stone that would render the bearer invisible, and had curative powers, both of which would be handy in this scenario. Their hands were tied behind the backs by the snakes, who had latched on to their midsections by the heads and tails in knots. This is a sort of nasty parody of the garden of eden: with humans back in their original unclothed forms, covered in snakes, which was the form of Satan in the garden, rather than fig leaves. 

In the description of the snakes, Dante refers to Lucan, who describes all kinds of snakes from the Libyan desert, and in the passage that follows, Dante refers to Ovid's Metamorphosis in his description of the Phoenix.  

Dante sees one guy running by, and a snake launches itself at him, bites him where the neck and back join, and the guy catches on fire, burns, and turns to ashes. But then the ashes collect themselves, come back together, and the guys original form is recreated.  

Then Dante gives a simile of the phoenix, that is reborn. He follows that with another about a guy who falls and doesn't know how, (probably epileptic) who when he comes to, is completely dazed as to what happened, suffering from anxiety, then he gathers himself, and takes a deep breath. This is what the sinner looked like.  

Virgil asks who he was, and he replies that he recently "rained down" (was thrown down) from Tuscany. He lived a bestial, not even human, life, and his name was Vanni Fucci. Dante knows of him as a wrathful, killer. So he tells Fucci not to evade the truth, and be honest about how he got there. Fucci addresses Dante without trying to falsify his story. He admits that he stole from the church and let others take the blame for it. But then in a spiteful turn, tells Dante that in Pistoia, the Black Guelphs will first be driven out, but then Florence, will change leadership and with that, will come a new mindset too. Mars, the god of war, will "draw mists from the Val di Magra" (Maroello Malaspina, a black guelph), which is "enveloped in dark clouds" (symbolic of being accompanied by many other black guelphs), and a battle will be fought over the plains of Piceno, near Pistoia, which will break up, or split, the fog (which is white, probably representing the white guelphs), so that every white (guelph) will be injured.  

Then Fucci ends it with "I've told you this just to bring you pain". He had told Dante before the prophecy that he would do this: "so that you won't enjoy this sight (the sight of Fucci in hell) too much." 

Canto XXV  Eighth circle, seventh ditch- thieves; continued 

At the end of Vanni Fucci's speech, Fucci being the sinner from the end of the last canto, he raises his hands and makes the 'figs' gesture. Fico is 'fig' in Italian, but the feminine form- fica, is a rude word for the vagina, roughly equivalent to pussy or cunt. This sign is no longer used (surprising given the number of hand gestures Italians use) but it has been said it consisted of putting the thumb between the pointer and middle fingers, to imitate the shape of the vagina. So making this rude gesture upwards, he then screaming out: Togli, Dio, ch'a te le squadro! - Take that God, I aim them square at you! 

Dante then mentions that from this moment on, the snakes were his friends. Meaning they turned on Fucci. One wrapped around his neck as if to say: Non vo'(glio) che più diche- "I don't want you saying any more", or, as I translated it- "You're done talking here", and another wrapped around his arms, then tightened so he couldn't budge. Then Dante imprecates against Pistoia and says, why don't you decree to incinerate yourself so you won't last any longer, since you surpass your ancestors in evil.  

Then he notes that he had not seen so arrogant a soul in all of Hell, even the one who fell from Thebes- Capaneus in canto 14. But Fucci's punishment comes pretty quickly when Cacus, the mythological monster, comes running after him calling: Where is he? Where's the bitter one? 

Cacus is described as a centaur, but his back is covered in snakes, over which also sits a dragon that burns up anything it happens across.  

Cacus is in hell for theft too, because he stole some prized cows from Hercules' herd. Dante says he doesn't take the same path as his brothers, who were those that chastised sinners in another circle, but since he committed the theft, and did it in such a deceptive manner, he is consigned here. He led the cows away backwards into his lair under Mount Aventine, so that Hercules would be thrown off by the tracks heading the wrong way. But he was caught and "quit his sinister deeds under the club of Hercules, who perhaps hit him a hundred times, of which he didn't feel ten"…. Meaning he was dead before the tenth blow, but Hercules continued to beat on him to vent his rage. 

The next passage is going to show a strange metamorphosis. While Dante and Virgil watch Cacus chase after Fucci, three spirits arrive under the bridge. One calls out "who are you? Where did Cianfa (Donati- a cattle thief) get to?" 

Dante then addresses the reader and says we may be slow to believe what he is going to say; he himself had a hard time accepting it. 

A six-legged serpent launches himself at one of the three. He grips on to the man's stomach with his middle legs, and his arms with the front legs, and then bites the man engulfing one cheek, then the other. His back legs latched on to the man's legs, and the serpent's tail wrapped under the man's crotch, went between his legs and up the man's back. They began to fuse together like hot wax, and their color's mixed so that neither was what it was before. One of the other two says: Geez (omè), Agnel(lo Brunelleschi), how you are changing! You're no longer either one or two! 

The two heads were already one, with features of both mixed inside. Then two arms were made from four prior limbs, the thighs, legs, stomach and torso became limbs that were not there before, and each of the former countenances were undone. The perverse image seemed to be both, and neither, and went away very slowly. Then a little serpent raced up and bit on to the belly button, then fell down stretched out. Both the former man, and the serpent that had bit him, stood staring at each other, but were immobile and seemed tranquilized. Smoke poured out from the man's bite, and the serpent's mouth, and the smoke then merged.  

Here Dante tells both the poets Lucan (who, in the Pharsalia, tells of Sabellus, who was bitten by snake and began to dissolve; and Nasidius, who was bitten and swelled to explode in his breastplate) and Ovid (who tells how Cadmus, founder of Thebes, was changed into a serpent; and the nymph Arethusa was changed into a fountain), that he has a better story to tell; in other words, he has witnessed a more astonishing metamorphosis than they described. It was also mentioned that while Dante tells both Ovid and Lucan, "Taccia", or "be quiet", he also shushed Virgil earlier. So in one canto, Dante has told three of the most famous poets, and literary heroes of his, to be quiet. 

He then describes that the serpent split his tail into two, while the man put his feet together and his legs fused. The serpent's forked tail now took on the look of legs, with soft skin, while the former man's skin hardened into serpent skin. The arms of the former man then withdrew into the armpits, and the short legs of the former serpent lengthened until they were the length of a man. The hind feet of the serpent then twisted together and became a penis, while the former man's penis, was split into two members that became legs. 

The smoke veiled them and hair grew where it needed and was removed where needed. The former man then fell to the ground like a serpent, while the former serpent then stood up, all the while never removing their burning gaze from one another. The one now upright drew the extra material that was his snout back towards his temples, and the excess was converted into ears. The leftover skin in the front was changed into a nose and lips. Meanwhile the one laying on the ground had the opposite happen, his ears withdrew and the excess material pushed outward to form the serpent's snout. The tongue now split into two, while the tongue of the upright one was united. 

The snake, now completely transformed, hissed and took off along the floor of the ditch. While the other spit out words behind him. I'm unsure how exactly this looked. The Italian reads: 

L'altro dietro a lui parlando sputa; literally it means "the other behind him talking spits". 

Most of the other translations read it as the new 'man' followed behind the snake spitting and talking. 

Some of the old italian commentaries say he spoke the word 'spit'. The thing that came to my mind when I read it was: the new man remained behind him spitting out words.  

My understanding was supported by one, if only one, of the commentaries I saw, by Giovan Battista Gelli (1541-63): "che gli sputava parlando dietro, cioè gli sputava parole dietro, che vuol dire parlare (chè così si usa dire alcuna volta nella nostra lingua)".  

He says here that the phrase is understood as he spit words behind him, which is another way of saying "he spoke", a phraseology which is sometimes used in our language.  

I suppose it doesn't make too much of a difference, but it would change the picture of what is happening.  

Then the serpent that had become a man said to the other: Let Buoso (dei Donati) run all fours along the street, just like I had to. 

Dante mentions that this is how the seventh ballast- a creative way of saying the material that filled the bottom of the seventh ditch- would morph and change. 

Dante says that while this is all very confusing, and his mind seemed distracted, he couldn’t help but notice Puccio Sciancato, and another "was he (Francesco de' Cavalcanti) that you, Gaville, weep over". 

The people of Gaville murdered Francesco de' Cavalcanti after he committed some unknown crime along with Buoso dei Donati. 

Canto XXVI  Eighth circle, eighth ditch- evil counselors 

Dante leads off with a sarcastic little speech to his hometown Florence: Enjoy yourself Florence, you're so great that you beat your wings over land and sea (meaning the city spreads its influence far and wide), and more and more people in hell know about you (since more Florentines are being added to the ranks of hell-bound citizens). I found five of your members among the thieves, which made me feel more shame- your honor is NOT increasing! If it's true that our dreams are closer to truth as we near morning (apparently, this was something people believed in the middle ages: that as one got closer to the morning, dreams were more likely to be true), then very shortly you, Florence, will feel what your neighbors in Prato which for you. If it were already done, it wouldn't have happened too soon, so bring it on. Then Dante says something here: ché più mi graverà, com' più m'attempo ; it translates to "the older I get, the more it weighs on me". But what did Dante mean? There are two basic ways of understanding it: The older I get, the more the fact that Florence hasn't been destroyed yet bothers me; and the second is; the older I get, the more it weighs on me that Florence has so many problems. Most early translators thought it was the first, but apparently, as time as gone on, the second understanding has supplanted the first. I have no idea which it would be, but I'd probably lean towards the older interpretation since they were closer in time and culture to the original, but that's me. 

Then Dante says he and Virgil start off climbing again, which wasn't possible without using both hands and feet in the effort.  

Then Dante laments that he is aggrieved because he would have to, given what he had seen, hold back his own genius. Why? He may be tempted to run too far in front of virtue. This sounds like boasting, and it is, but Dante was well-regarded in his time, and this work, the divine comedy, was so well known and studied that even today I can check on what 20 others had to say about the passages, because they had written down extensive commentaries on the work within the first few hundred years. I'm not sure if there is a better known work of literature, outside of the Bible that has more commentaries on it. But at any rate, Dante describes what he sees in the eighth ditch of Malebolge with a simile.... natch. 

Like a peasant who would go up on a hill during the summer season, and as dark sets in, sees a bunch of fireflies down the hill, so Dante noticed the eighth ditch was lit up with all kinds of fires.  

Dante then makes a biblical reference when he says: "As the one who avenged himself with the bears saw Elijah's chariot depart when the horses carried it straight up to heaven....". This is the story of Elisha, who had received the "double portion", or inheritance, of Elijah's ministry. After having performed some miracles, he was rewarded by the local punk kids throwing rocks at him, and telling him "Go on up, you baldhead", at which point, he calls down vengeance on them and God sends some bears to maul them. Dante uses the imagery of Elijah being unable to see Elijah as he ascended, he could only see the flame as it ascended.... so while he could see flames on the floor of the ditch, the flames enveloped and hid the sinner.  

Dante mentions he is up on the bridge holding on to a protrusion in the rock, otherwise he would been unable to stay there without falling in. Virgil sees him and tells him, "Inside the flames are spirits, each one enveloped by that (the flame) which he is ignited". Dante says he could see that, but he has a particular interest in a flame that seems split into two, as if it were horns. Virgil tells him that is Ulysses and Diomedes, who are punished together, just as they were angry together in life. Virgil mentions two fraudulent activities they committed. The first was the "the ambush of the horse", or the story of the Trojan horse; and the second was stealing the statue of Pallas from the Palladium. 

Then Dante pleads with Virgil: I'm seriously begging you, and begging again, and let this be like a thousand beggings, that you don't make me wait any longer, and that horned flame would come over here. You can see how I'm bowed down before you with this one desire. This sounds very childlike: Please, pretty please, I promise that if you just do this for me I'll never ask you anything ever again! 

Virgil grants it, but tells Dante to just listen, since they're Greek and they might not want to open up to someone who isn't Greek speaking. Virgil calls them over and asks them nicely, if he has merited any favor from them, for one of them to explain where he was lost and went to die. 

Here Ulysses launches into a speech that goes until the end of the canto. Recalling that this ditch is for those that defraud through evil counsel, the salient point is that he will lead his men into destruction for through a search for glory. It should be noted however that the type of fraud this ditch holds is not explicitly said until the next canto. 

Ulysses starts off from when he left Circe, and how family ties were not enough to keep him at home because he burned for adventure, and wanted to know more of the world, both of valor and vice. He convinces his men to set off through the strait of Gibraltar with a speech: You've come through countless dangers to reach this point, beyond which are lands unknown. Our lives on earth are short and you don't want to lose the opportunity of experience "behind" (beyond) the sun (further west than the Strait of Gibraltar). Consider what your descendants will say; you were not meant to live like brutes, but to pursue manhood and understanding. This last sentence is considered to be one of the most important. The earliest commentors considered these to be the spirit with which the middle ages were passed, and the renaissance was entered in: Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza; "You weren't made to live as brutes, but to pursue manhood and understanding, or knowledge." 

This little speech fires them up so they set off and turn to the south. Through some five months they journey southward seeing the stars "de l'altro polo" (of the other pole, the south pole), and their own usual constellations they would see in the northern hemisphere were now on the horizon. They saw before them a huge mountain, dark in the distance, so high that there probably none other like it. This is supposed to be the mountain of purgatory, which Ulysses was not meant to see, so as they come up to it, a whirlwind springs up, causes a whirlpool and sinks the ship, "com'altrui piacque" (as Another (God) pleased). 

Here the canto ends. 

There is a parallel between Dante's own journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise, with Ulysses' journey. But Dante's is commissioned by God. Ulysses took his journey by presumption and desire for human glory. The Strait of Gibraltar was the point of passage beyond which he wasn't supposed to go, but he stirred his men up with visions of glory to seek out knowledge beyond what they were meant to have. This is reminiscent of the sin of Adam and Eve, trespassing beyond what they were given in order to gain the knowledge of good and evil.  

Canto XXVII  Eighth circle, eighth ditch- evil counselors; cont.... 

Ulysses had finished his speech on the last line of the previous canto. Now the flame is still and goes away. But the travelers are immediately approached by another flame, that has a 'confused' sound coming from within. Dante likens this to a bronze bull, that was commissioned by the tyrant of Agrigento, Phalaris. The hollow bull was a torture device built by Perillus, which, utilizing some acoustic innovations, when a fire was set underneath the bull, would heat it up and would make the screams of the victims inside sound like the bull itself was bellowing. Perillus was himself the first victim. So the voice from inside the flame is likened to the bellowing that would have come from that bronze bull. But the sound having made its way up to the tip of the fire, it caused the flame to move like a tongue, and subsequently was able to speak. The speaker never gives his name, but it is known to be Guido da Montefeltro. He begs Dante for information about his homeland, Romagna- whether it is under war, or at peace. Dante notes that the tyrants there always have war in the hearts, but as of when he had left, there was no current fighting. Then he runs through, what to modern readers, are some rather cryptic descriptions of the major towns in the Romagna region.   

Ravenna's the same as it has been for many years; Guido il Vecchio (the eagle) broods there, controlling the port city of Cervia. 

The "land", not named, but Forlì, had withstood a siege by the papal armies and the French, the the same Guido da Montefeltro, led a surprise attack and defeated the French, which were heaped up and referred to as the bloody heap, or pile. Forlì is said to be under the green claws (the family crest of the Ordilaffi had a green lion with paws up and claws out). 

The old mastiff of Verrucchio, covering the area around Rimini, is Malatesta il Vecchio, the new is his son Malatestino. They are bulldogs because, they won't let things go, even after they've gotten their prey. They "made of Montagna the bad government"; they killed the Ghibelline Montagna, by what Dante calls- making a juice with their teeth. Apparently, this means, like the dogs in the simile, they made a bloody mess of the conquest. 

The rivers of Lamone and Santerno designate the cities of Faenza and Imola, which were under a banner that had a lion on a white shield, which, Dante tells us, were prone to change parties from "summer to winter", meaning.... whenever it was expedient. 

Then "that which the Savio (river) bathes its side"… meaning the city of Cesena, is between tyranny and being a free state. Ok, that historical and geographical section aside, Dante says- be no more difficult with me than I've been with you, which is to say, not at all. Tell me who you are, that your name would endure in the world. 

Guido apparently doesn't believe this because he starts out by saying "If I believed my response were to someone that would ever return up to the world, this flame would be still and move no more. But since no living person ever returns from this pit, if I've heard correctly, I'll respond with no fear of infamy. 

He explains he was a man of arms, but then became a "cordigliero", one who wears the cord... a Franciscan friar, believing that this would make amends for his former lifestyle. And it would have, so he claims, had not the "high priest" (the Pope), may evil (Hell) take him, dragged him back into his former sins. He confesses that his actions were not leonine, not brave and courageous, but fox-like, meaning he was more subtle and scheming. He knew the clever tricks and hidden ways so well that his methods we well-known far and wide. When he reached the point in life when one should be settling down, the things that had formerly pleased him became nauseating. He repented, confessed, and surrendered himself... which would have done him good... but the prince of the new Pharisees (the Pope) was at war with the Lateran, which refers to Pope Boniface VIII's conflict with the Colonna family. Guido complains that this Pope wasn't engaged in trying to win back the Holy lands with war against the Saracens or Jews, but instead, was busy fighting other Christians. These were not the Christians who had turned traitor to the faith and helped the Saracens retake Acre, nor were they merchants among the Muslims, which would have been against Papal orders. But the Pope disregarded his own high office and sacred orders, as well as the "harness on me that used to make belts thinner". This refers to the custom of fasting, the 'harness' that the Franciscan order placed on its members to help them put to death the flesh, making them thinner in the process.  

Dante says, as Constantine, when he was sick with leprosy, had gone to mount Soracte and asked Pope Sylvester to pray for him and heal him, so Boniface VIII called Guido as a master, to 'heal the fever of his pride', which kind of sounds like the Pope wants to get better, but what it means is that "fever" is the heat of avarice, and the Pope wants a cure, something that will fix his longing and bring him his desire, which is to bring down Palestrina, the seat of the Colonna family. 

Guido says he remained silent since it sounded to him like something a drunk would say. But the Pope gives both a carrot and stick. The Pope tells Guido: don't be suspicious or worried about committing crime. I will absolve you of anything going forward. Then he adds, I can lock and unlock heaven. This is from the biblical passage where Jesus tells Peter he will give him the keys to heaven. The Popes understood this as them having the power, being in the line of Peter, of being able to declare who would, and would not, enter heaven. This is both a carrot- if you do this for me, you'll be absolved of any wrong, which I can do because I'm Pope... and if you don't do this for me, I can also excommunicate you, because I also have THAT key. This persuades Guido that it would be better to give the pope what he wanted than not. He tells Boniface, since you would wash me of whatever sin this will be, the advice I give you is: be long on your promises, and short on keeping them. 

Then we jump to the point of Guido's death, where St. Francis comes to collect him, as one of the members of his order. But then a demon jumps in and says: don't take him, he should go down with me, since he gave fraudulent counsel. (Here the sin of the eighth ditch is finally named outright), and ever since then, I've been in his hair... or waiting patiently right behind his back.  

Then the demon says that the Pope can't absolve someone who doesn't repent, and furthermore, repentance does not square with someone willfully committing the sin, because the law of contradiction would not allow it. 

Guido is devastated and shaken by this, but the demon, as it grabs him, says: "perhaps you thought I wasn't a logician! 

Then Minos grabbed him and wrapped his tail around him eight times, and threw him down to the present place. With that, Guido finishes his speech and departs in sorrow. 

The canto closes with Virgil and Dante moving over the next ditch, where those sowed strife and schism are consigned. 

Canto XVIII  Eighth circle, ninth ditch- schismatics/sowers of discord 

Dante leads off this canto with a disclaimer that human language can't really capture the carnage he saw in this ditch. He reasons that if one were to gather all those that had fallen in the various wars that occurred in the region of Puglia: Aeneas and the Trojans around 500BC; the dead from the long wars against Hannibal and the Carthaginians, particularly at Cannae in 216BC where Dante mentions a huge pile of rings, which were the rings collected off the dead Roman soldiers; those that tried to resist Robert Guiscard in 1170AD; and the battle of Ceperan (Ceprano) near Benevento in 1266, and 1268, where Manfred was abandoned by his Pugliese troops, and defeated by Charles of Anjou; Dante mentions all these and says that if all the dead and wounded, those with lopped off limbs and sliced open bodies, were brought out en masse, they still wouldn't equal what he was seeing in this ninth ditch. 

The first of the condemned he sees, he likens to a barrel, that had one of its middle staves broken into, or maybe the bottom piece hacked up. This person was sliced across the midsection so that "between his legs hung his guts; the organs were seen outside and that disgusting sack that makes shit out of what we gobble up". He sees Dante checking him out and then opens his torso up with his hands and says "See how Mohammed is mangled!". Then Mohammed lets us know that "the others you see here were disseminators of scandal and schism", so they are split open here. More about this at the end. 

Mohammed then questions Dante and Virgil asking them, what are you doing up there on the ridge? Are you trying to delay your punishment down here for a few moments more? 

Virgil then explains that he has not been sent here by his sins, but travels through to gain a full experience, for which he, Virgil, is his guide through the various levels of Hell.  

At this point, more than a hundred stop their travel, walking the circumference of the ditch, to take a look at this marvel: a living person able to traverse hell. 

Mohammed then suggests to Dante that he, if he goes back up to the world, might warn Fra Dolcin to stock up on food. Dolcin was the leader of a sect called the Apostolic Brothers, who preached communion of goods, including wives.... in a foolish attempt to avoid the worldliness of town and mercantile life. Pope Clement V called a crusade against him, so Dolcin and his followers fled to a mountain stronghold and withstood a siege from the towns of Vercelli and Novara, until a harsh winter forced him to surrender. Mohammed isn't really trying to warn a fellow human of impending disaster in an attempt to convince him to change his ways. The advice is malicious, because he knows what will happen. Even then in death, he is an unrepentant sower of discord. 

Then having halted his circuit to talk with Dante, continues on. 

Then another comes up, with a mangled face split into two, and says he is Pier da Medicina, of who we know little. But he tells Dante that he should warn two "of the best of Fano", Guido del Cassero and Angiolello da Carignano, to beware. They would be called to a meeting by Malatestino Malatesta, duke of Rimini, who would give the sailors on the ship orders to tie up the men, put a weight on them, and toss them into the sea. The description of this incident is a bit cryptic. 

Then Pier turns to a companion, Gaius Curio, who can't speak since he has had his tongue split in his face. Pier says Curio "was chased out, drowned the doubts of Caesar, affirming that one prepared always suffers loss when he delays". Curio had taken a bribe to join Caesar's army in the civil war against Pompey. Caesar hesitated to cross the Rubicon, which would be seen as declaring war on the Roman senate, when Curio counseled, "Do not delay, putting a thing off always harms those who are prepared". 

Then another came up and, I believe referring to himself, says "remember Mosca (dei Lamberti) too". He was a leader of an important Ghibelline family.  He was engaged to a young girl in the Amedei family, but broke it off and married an Donati instead.  The offended Amedei met with the Lamberti to figure out what to do, at which Mosca said: "cosa fatto capo ha", or "a thing that's done has an end". The result was years of bitter rivalry between the Amedei (Ghibellines) and Donati (Guelphs) and the civil discord that tore Florence apart. He is portrayed then as a modern-day Curio, urging the powerful to do what they must have understood in their hearts as something not to be done. 

Finally, they meet a condemned man, Bertram dal Bornio, carrying his severed head by the hair. He was rumored to have spurred the young English king Henry II to rebel against his father. 

The last four lines of the canto are: 

Perch’io parti’ così giunte persone,  partito porto il mio cerebro, lasso!,  dal suo principio ch’è in questo troncone.  Così s’osserva in me lo contrapasso  Because I severed people so united,  Alas, I now carry my head severed  From its beginning, which is in this trunk.  As such, observe the just retribution in me 

This is the only mention of the term "contrappasso" in the inferno, but the concept is important. It literally means "opposite punishment". (it looks like counter 'step', but passo comes from the latin patior). The idea is "just retribution"; that whatever sin was committed in life, the punishment will mirror the sin. The biblical principle is "an eye for an eye". The punishments in Dante's hell are meant to fit the crime committed in the world, in the sense of an obvious emblem and symbol of the sin. What the sinners did in life, they have now become, with the self-deception stripped away. 

Though this was unnamed in the previous cantos, the effect could be seen and understood, so that, while unstated, it was also understood.