Dante #12 (Final): Purgatory Cantos 26-33

This is not from yesterday, but what is Lucifer doing in the last layer of hell? If he just stays still, what's the purpose of him being there?

He's there to cry. He's there to feel eternal regret and remorse for betraying God. So, we had a discussion of the angels and there were a lot of things I got wrong. And I did more research and there was a very interesting comment on YouTube that I found very helpful. But the idea is this: God creates both angels and humans with free will. The difference though is that angels are perfect from the beginning. So they are beyond time and space. They know the past, the present, and the future.

We discussed a little bit about divine inspiration and the poet kind of channeling the divine. How do I want to say this? So prior to the Christian poets, then we're dealing with muses. Do you believe that the pagan poets are viewing the muses incorrectly, and they're divine, or the muses are divine, or they just mislabeled? Or is there no problem there, or is there an evolution?

Right? So if you look at all the great epic poems that we have, whether it's Homer or Virgil or Milton or Dante, they all believe, every one of them believes, they're channeling the divine. Okay. They're not engaged in the act of creation. They are engaged in the act of revelation. Right? The act of creation is, you know, you just take something and you just build it. Okay? But the act of revelation is like imagine a big boulder and you already know inside it is this beautiful angel, right? Okay.

Well, I had a dream that I could talk Yeah.

Great. We love dreams here. Yes. It's great that you guys are dreaming more. Yes. [laughter] Yeah, so I have to say it was a really confusing dream for me. And I don't know how I can really connect it to Dante, but I think it started with me wanting to have dinner with my father and my best friend and we wanted to set up dinner and then there was an electric cable missing for the grill or something. So, I went and tried to find it and then after a while I ended up in a forest and I had a rope in my hand and it got stuck in a tree or something and I wanted to get the rope and so I got back to the house and tried to get to the rope and then some guy from, I think, a TV series, he kind of distracted me and talked to me and said, "Hey, I have a bigger ladder.

Okay. All right. So, with dreams, we shouldn't put too much emphasis on the vision. Okay. What's really important about the dream is the emotion you felt during the dream. This is how, really, for Dante, the cosmos interacts with us, through our emotions. Okay. It channels an emotion into us and our soul feels it, our soul reflects it and then our soul tries to interpret it with time and space and that's why we have these visions. What's really important is the emotion that you felt in this dream. Do you remember the emotion?

Yeah, I would say anxious probably the most. I was really anxious that I would get lost, that I wouldn't be able to get the ladder or get the rope from the tree. So I would say probably anxiety was kind of the most Okay and that's probably the emotion that is most raw in you right now.

And once you have this emotion, then you have to continue to reflect on why you have this emotion and where this emotion might take you. Did you want to say something? Yeah.

I want to ask, do you remember which TV character?

I think his name is Phil from Modern Family or something.

Phil from Modern Family. What does he signify to you?

I don't know. I only see him when I watch YouTube shorts. So, I actually think the ladder and the rope seem very symbolic to me because what you said reminded me of the Jacob's ladder story, and Marc Chagall actually has a painting, a very beautiful, colorful painting of that.

Maybe seeing that painting may relieve what anxiety you have. You know, just going a step further, but I actually think I find the ladder to be very positive because it's as if you're at the beginning of purgatory. You're embarking on your journey. I mean, it's normal to be anxious.

Yeah. No, I actually think it's healthy to be anxious at your age. I mean, it's just your age, right? It's like, you know, you're beginning to leave your family and embark on your own independent journey. So you're anxious and it's just normal and healthy to be anxious at your age. Okay. Any more questions or thoughts or dreams before we begin?

Yes, Fred, Just one quick question.

I was reading some translation notes in a version of the Comedy last night and they were talking about how Dante kind of moves away from Plato's tripartite soul and takes more of the Aristotelian soul, where it's one soul with three natures inside, and I just wondered if you could explain a little bit more about it because I Didn't really, I couldn't grasp how, obviously he doesn't talk about three souls in this one, but I don't really understand how to interpret that.

Okay. So, what you read is a very popular scholarship consensus on Dante, which is he's heavily influenced by Aristotle, especially Aristotle's ideal of the mean, where the ideal path is the path that balances two extremes. That is something that Andy talked about previously. So Aristotle has a huge influence on Dante and Aristotle actually is really influential at this point in history because Thomas Aquinas is a heavy Aristotelian, he's a heavy promoter of the ideals of... I don't know how well people knew Plato at this time in history.

Oh, yeah. No, no, I'm finished. I'm finished. Yeah. Which I would love to hear from you on our last day at some point, kind of how you think Dante has influenced and ushered in the Renaissance, because you know, by the way, I'm very touched by you sharing your creative process and also what you think would be the creative process for Dante, and so how has this the Renaissance if it's not a synthesis of the past. So I'd be very curious about that. I also want to just mention a few mea culpas.

So I want to mention that also the Last Supper painting I may not have seen, I may have seen it as a copy in the Vatican, and it's actually in Milan. Yes.

Not Florence. But I want to mention that because I think part of what Dante has inspired all of us, or inspired me at least, is that we're not that different. We're not that different. And what has really captured me are the concepts of free will and the democratic principle that everyone, no matter what and at any point in time, you have access, right, to the divine Right, that's the answer, the divine.

Okay, so there are about a million ways in which Dante influenced the Renaissance or created the Renaissance, okay, but I'll just point out the major ones. Okay, first of all, he taught us to stop looking downwards and start looking upwards, right? That's especially relevant in our age when AI is so dominant, when we've been taught that AI is going to liberate us from work, when AI will be the panacea for all society's ills. AI is going to solve cancer, AI is going to solve climate change, AI is going to solve poverty, so just focus on AI and we'll be saved. Okay, and Dante would be horrified, disgusted by this idea because he's telling us that what matters, what makes us human, is our access to the divine.

Exactly right. So Aristotle told us what matters is cause and effect. What matters is what happens here. Don't worry about what happens there. Plato's the opposite. Right? So yeah. So right now we live in very much an Aristotelian framework. We need to return to a much more Platonic framework. Okay. I mean it is just horrible how today we're like, go to college and study computer programming. That's the future. Ignore liberal arts. Ignore philosophy. Ignore art, art history. Ignore the great books. That's the past. And if you are truly enlightened, okay, I'm telling you right now, if you're going to university, ignore that stuff.

Right. And I would also add that you should teach what you know best, right? Because you have a responsibility to give students the best education. So if you know Western civilization really well, then teach it. And what Dante would say is once the spark of learning is embedded in the student, the student is naturally going to go overseas and want to learn more, right?

Not if they don't have any jobs, right? Not if they're unemployed. I mean, you ask yourself what is AI doing? Is AI really liberalizing education or is it censoring knowledge?

Okay. So you're right in that, you know, that's a propaganda. Yes. AI will liberate knowledge and give it to everyone. But what I'm seeing is that AI is heavily censoring knowledge and access and it is trying to basically reduce humans into human slaves. Right? We have this gig economy where more and more people are now working as delivery workers. You're working as a delivery worker. Do you have time to go get an education? Okay. So that's point two. Dante made elite education accessible to everyone, right?

I'm not pessimistic about our world even though never before in human history has there been so much human suffering, right? The level of corruption, the level of materialism, this is unprecedented in human history. But as you point out, all the great artists, all the great ideas came through the forge of pain and suffering and tragedy. And that's why I'm so hopeful. I mean, being with you these past two weeks has made me extremely hopeful about the future because I see the spark in you and I see that once given the right opportunity, once given the right education, the spark will just glow and glow and it will illuminate all of humanity.

I love your question and I would say with the Yale hat on, prior to these live streamings we've had Open Yale Courses and also right now Yale College education is entirely free for anyone whose family's income is under $200,000 US. And so there is that democratic principle but of course we're constrained by physical space and so that's why we go virtual Which is great.

Yeah.

So I would also say that education is not about degrees and credentials. It shouldn't matter if you're a Yale graduate or not. Look, Professor David Brahmage was here on Thursday and he was extremely impressed by everyone. You guys aren't at Yale, right? So a great education, it's not about if you're at Yale or Harvard, it's about how much you want to learn. And I would also say that okay, maybe a Yale education is limited, but Dante is not limited to you. Look at this website that we have.

All right. Any more? Bruce?

Okay. So yeah, I think my question is just, what about the future, because as we know the AI technology right now is spread everywhere. So people just worry about themselves at the present but what about the future? Do you think that in the future people really can go to Mars and go to some outer space so that they don't need any kind of the dantings or classical original idea but instead they want to create a new culture, but we can call novelty, or do you think such novelties really can abide by the law of dings, it means that there's, well, there's a way? So yeah, this is my confusion and this is my question Look, my attitude about technology is really, really clear and it's been consistent for the past few years.

I think people like Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Steve Jobs, they're all hustlers. They're all scam artists. The idea of us going to Mars, it's impossible. We will never get there. Okay. There's no evidence that we have the technology to get to the moon. All right. I mean, you actually do your research, the evidence. Yes, Anna.

Imagination. If he has an imagination that we will one day live, because if we read 2001: A Space Odyssey and all kinds of science fiction, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, it's all about imagining, you know, the impossible, I guess, right, on Nike, right I would argue that Elon's real desire is not to get to Mars, his real desire is to make a trillion dollars, right?

There's a difference. I mean, if you were really committed to, let's get to Mars, that'd be one thing, but is he really committed to going to Mars or is he really committed to making $10 trillion for himself? And all his actions suggest that money is actually more important to him. So I am very skeptical about these people. When I read Dante, I see genius.

Yeah, I want to add a comment. So, they're saying that for a billionaire to win to heaven is even harder, how to say, it's harder than a camel to win through the needle. I think that's why they are so afraid of death. So, they want to live forever.

Yeah, I think so. Right. It's like I'm not afraid to die because, well, I don't have anything to fear. But if you're a billionaire, you know in your heart what you've done to get that billion dollars, right? And you're afraid of God's judgment. Yeah, they're very, very passionate about living forever. Okay. They put a lot of money into living forever. That's where I think all the research, all the money is really going. Longevity. Okay. Any more? Okay. So today we finish the Divine Comedy.

I think Virgil will start acting super weird because he's close to heaven and he knows he's not supposed to be here or something, and so Dante will just lose the trust that built through Inferno and then he's seeking someone else and then Beatrice comes in and he just transfers his trust from Virgil to Beatrice.

Right. Okay. So this is what's called an epiphany, right? Where in the ending you want an epiphany, a realization that, oh wow, Virgil was wrong for me. The right person is Beatrice. Okay. And then Virgil becomes a central character because Dante needs to make a choice between Virgil and Beatrice and ultimately he decides Beatrice. Yeah, that's a great plot line. Yes. Anyone else? Andy.

So I'm thinking learning doesn't have an endpoint. Virtue doesn't have an endpoint. And so it's not like we go through purgatory and then we know everything and we're perfect. That's God.

So I feel like, imagine I won the Olympics, then I've got to essentially do it again, but I do it from maybe a place of glory or something like that. So I would see heaven at the top of purgatory and getting into heaven is just more just from a place of Right.

But how's Dante feeling at this point?

How's my what? How is Dante feeling at this point?

I mean, you're feeling accomplished, but

You're feeling like you've got another mountain to climb, Right?

Dante feels, well, he's pretty ecstatic because he's seen features again, but he's also very accomplished, right? He's done the impossible, right? He's climbed Mount Purgatory as a human.

You don't love your wife the most on your wedding day and then you're like, I did it all.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. But you would say there'd be a wedding. Would there be a wedding between Dante and Beatrice? Maybe an allegorical wedding. Okay. Yeah. A wedding, right? Exactly. Right. So you would expect a wedding of some sort between Dante and Beatrice. Sure. Okay. Great. Anyone else? Let's expand. Yes. Yeah.

Just like Statius, when he was ready for heaven, the earth shook and So you know just something that's joyful.

It may not be an earthquake but, you know, something that's Yeah.

Exactly. That's beautiful. Exactly. Cosmos celebrating of some sort, right? A cosmic celebration. And it could be the heavens open up and there's pure light. It could be another earthquake, right? It could be raining or something. Okay. But the heavens are celebrating that the two are together just as, you know, towards the end of Paradise the heavens are having sex as the two are together. Okay.

Like it was all a dream and then his life is changed until he dies, Right?

No, we're talking about the end of Purgatory. And so, we know heaven's coming, because Peter will take Dante to heaven, but I'm saying how would you transition this? How do you end Yeah.

Well, I guess just thinking as a counterpoint to him making a choice between Virgil and Beatrice, there'll be, I suppose, a clever way in which he doesn't really have to make a choice, that the leap of faith just happens and that he's so changed that It just seems a bit confusing that he would get to a crossroads and then have to make a choice, I think, or he would flow into Beatrice.

So maybe just an embrace, right? Dante sees Beatrice and they hug each other, right? It's a hug. It's an embrace. Okay. Yeah, sure. Oang.

I think just like Inferno, maybe Dante will be out of consciousness again and be born again.

Okay. Maybe he'll just faint, right? Maybe he'll just faint. Okay. And this will signify a rebirth. Yeah, sure. Okay.

Could there be a final big conflict with Virgil and Virgil really reveals his true [clears throat] colors?

Okay. Yeah, maybe a fight, right? Where Virgil turns into Lucifer or something. Yeah. Okay. Possibly. Okay. We're just using our imagination. Do Maybe Dante will feel a bit ashamed because during this journey he's been kind of a passive traveler through purgatory and hell, with Virgil being his guide, and during this journey Dante himself has lost his faith in Beatrice and lost his direction multiple times.

Right. I'll say if I haven't done it, I'd feel a little bit ashamed to be.

Okay. Maybe he's anxious. Okay. Maybe he's anxious. Maybe he's afraid. Okay. Possibly. Sure.

Right. Crystal.

Yeah. So, I was wondering, I think maybe Virgil will try to create conflict between Dante and Beatrice because, as you mentioned originally, maybe because Beatrice is pretty, and then Virgil's like, sure, fine, I'll be his guide. And then now Dante's ascending to heaven and then maybe he's kind of jealous and whatever. And also I feel like, because in Inferno we were assuming if it were a Hollywood movie, I'm thinking if we are doing a Hollywood movie right now, there might be a slow-mo that is kind of like the Creation of Adam, where Beatrice has her hand like this and then Dante's kind of like as to have it in a slow That's beautiful.

Yeah. Like a slow-motion embrace, right? And they're not really embracing but they're just touching each other a bit. Yes. Okay, great. So, first of all, Virgil refused to let go of Dante, right?

Then maybe he will become translucent Like glowing or whatever, like a pearl, you know, so something light.

So maybe a transformation, right?

Yeah, of some sort, whereas you say he was once a beggar and now he's a prince.

Yeah. But I also think that this has happened before where we guessed all this cinematic Hollywood version but it didn't happen. Okay. That's what I think.

Right. Okay. It's impossible. It's impossible to predict what's actually going to happen. But I think the idea of a metamorphosis for Dante is very important. Right. He becomes a butterfly, right? We're expecting a metamorphosis because he's been through these seven terraces and now he is a cocoon and he's about to fly, right? So, we should expect him to become a butterfly. Yes. Julian, I feel like he would distract himself one last time, because, you know, throughout Purgatory, he always, you know, got distracted a little bit, especially in the first circle from his fame.

Okay. Yeah. So maybe one final doubt, right? Something to actually keep him back. So maybe, you know, if we're actually writing the Hollywood movie and we're actually filming it, then, you know, Beatrice comes from the heavens like an angel, okay? She just descends from the heavens and the heavens open up. It's pure bliss, pure light. The sun is singing. There's a rainbow, okay? Birds are flying, okay? It's just pure bliss. And Dante wants to go to Beatrice, but for whatever reason, he turns away. Okay. Yeah, sure.

Okay, maybe He's the last one left.

With the Hollywood movie, we would expect a transformation for Virgil as well, right? Okay. So, not just Dante, but also Virgil, because honestly, regardless of how we feel about Virgil, he has come across as heroic in the Divine Comedy, right? He has taken Dante through hell and purgatory. He took Dante on his back and climbed up Lucifer. So, he is an extremely courageous, heroic individual. Yeah. I think Virgil will become, in the Greek sense, the ultimate tragic hero, the great person with that dramatic flaw that's going to cause... Right. So then we're supposed to sympathize with him or feel bad for him that he, you know, yeah, either do the seduction of the emperor, making him, you know, writing poetry for empire, or it's also his conscious choice, but you know there's this sense of inescapable fate for him that he ought to be the tool for the empire in Spy.

So, yeah. So, it's possible, it's either or. Okay. He either rises or he falls. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Crystal, did you have a I was saying maybe there will be a scene where God is asking Virgil, are you sure you want to return to hell?

And then he is like, yeah. And then he walks Yeah.

Okay, great. Okay. Yeah. So, we need a resolution. Okay. For the Virgil storyline, right? The resolution is Petra says, "Virgil, I want to thank you so much for doing this. You've accomplished your mission and we would like to give you entryway to heaven as a reward." And Virgil's like, "Nah, no, thank you." He walks away. Okay. And this would really reveal the true character of Virgil, right? Yes.

Okay. Right. So we expect one final climax, right? And the climax could be, you know, Virgil and Beatrice fighting over Dante. It could be Dante turning away from Beatrice. Yeah. But there'll be a climax to this, right? Okay. Anyone else? Yes. Thank you. Oh, sorry. What's your Solomon.

Okay. Yes. Like Dante to utter words of poetry, like poetry within poetry, or words of praise towards God or Beatrice.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much. That's a great, yes. Okay. So this is the climactic poetry. So we can expect Dante, because he's cleansed himself of his sins, is now at the height of his poetic powers, and now he is going to create this beautiful poetry praising Beatrice as a consummation of their love. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Yes, in the Hollywood movie they would definitely do that, right? Where Dante is now transformed. He's now a prince, he's now a butterfly, and now he is at his poetic genius, at his poetic height, because he's climbed so far.

Yeah, maybe like, you know, Gatsby, because when Gatsby just faced death, he's not only about to think about his sin, but he just thinks about his lover. So maybe Dante is just like Gatsby, you know, he can see the green light and it calls him to go to the heaven. So yeah, maybe that is for sure.

Yeah. So exactly. Okay, anyone else? Okay. So that's great. This is fantastic. And this would be a fantastic ending to Purgatory. And spoiler alert, we're completely wrong. None of this happens. Not one of these things happens. And this is what confuses scholars. And quite honestly, when I read the end of Purgatory, I had no idea what's going on. It's just completely confusing. And so, in the final class, what we're going to do is, as a group, we're going to co-create.

He stops and enjoys their praise.

Exactly. Right. He stops. He talks with them because it's like a fan asking for. What does he do here? What does he do here? Yeah. Fred.

He's looking at how they're like hugging each other quickly, and although they're both burning, he's really amazed that they're just quickly hugging and then moving. Quickly hugging and then moving.

And so why is he doing that?

Because maybe he doesn't understand how shades can touch each other or interact in that way. He's never really seen it before other than with the blind people who have to rely on each other. And he's probably thinking, if this is the circle of lust, what does it really mean for their punishment? And also, why are they happy and sort of friendly with one another?

Right. He's trying to figure out what's going on, right? And how's that different from before?

Yeah. He was more just amazed and was just thinking about himself and looking at their punishment. But I guess it seemed quite apparent to him what was going on before, like the punishments were more clearly linked.

No, no, no. I'm saying, right? So the difference is, before, Dante was focused on his shadow, right? Now he's focused on knowledge. And this goes back to Plato's allegory of the cave, right? Where you're trapped in a cave because you focus on the shadows. If you want to go into the light, you have to focus on knowledge. Does that make sense? Okay. So this shows us the character arc, how Dante is now changing as a person. He's much more focused on his mission. He's much more focused on the light, on gaining knowledge.

Line 34. As ants in their dark company will touch their muzzles each to each, perhaps to seek news of their fortunes and their journeyings. No sooner is their friendly greeting done than each side tries to outcry all the rest even before he starts to move ahead. The new group shouting "Sodom and Gomorrah," the other, "That the bull may hurry toward her lust, Pasiphae hides in the cow." Then just like cranes of whom apart to flee the sun fly north to Riphean mountains while the rest to flee the frost fly toward the sands.

Okay. So, sorry, this is not open to interpretation. Clearly these people are homosexuals. And they have to atone for the sin of lust. And there's two pieces of evidence. First of all, when Caesar is in his triumph, people shout at him "Queen." That's clearly a reference to homosexuality, saying that Caesar is gay. He's had sex with a lot of men.

A sign of what?

Okay. We are in a terrace of lust, guys.

Right? Yes, Fred. Well, a kind of simple interpretation is that it's pure lust and pure admiration and want to possess beauty, because you're not in love with somebody for a procreative purpose. And in a way, it allows you to be in love with yourself. Okay. Crystal.

I'm not trying to express my own view, but just recalling what we mentioned before, like homosexuals tend to seek those sort of intimate relationships more than heterosexuals. So maybe that is why he is concerned, just like what we discussed in the previous seminar.

Right, but it's not intimacy, right?

I think homosexuality ultimately represents this elitism or narcissistic or, you know, exclusiveness, like we only want to hang out with our own kind, and he thinks that that is the issue other than procreation, obviously.

Yeah, the key is procreation, right? Because when you enter into a relationship with a woman, you're going to have a baby, and you're kind of forced to devote yourself to the family, whereas homosexuals, well, you can just go from relationship to relationship to relationship, doesn't really matter. So that's Dante's concern. All right. Andy, so I've actually been researching this since we were in Inferno. And an important thing to know is that the sodomites in Inferno are in the realm of violence, in the realm of lust.

And so you have male teachers and priests who are taking advantage of the youthful and fresh Young men.

And so it's sodomy because there's no young women there. We're not talking about lesbians at all, because there's no, and he doesn't bring it up. We don't have, oh, these women behind closed doors are doing these other And so we're often told it's, oh, it's violence against nature.

But in Hell it seems to be you're taking away either duties like academia for Aristotle or Plato, or duties of Christ in the church, and you're doing that, or you could be doing rape, which would be violence there. And here I think it's really progressive, life-realm changing, that you can be a gay person and still get to Because these are consensual adults.

It's just you cannot rape people and you cannot take advantage of your position of power on a young boy.

Yeah, thank you so much, Andy. Yes, exactly. Okay. So I would also add that at this time in history, people want the Inquisition to happen. There's popular support for the Inquisition. Today we learn the Inquisition is about rooting out heresy. The major complaint that people were filing during the Inquisition was exactly this, like, my young boy who I trusted to the priest is getting, you know, right? So this is a huge issue at this time in history. And that's why the Inquisition was actually pretty popular among the common people, because it was the only way to redress this issue that was pretty common back then.

Line 82. "Our sin was with the other sex. But since we did not keep the bounds of human law, but served our appetites like beasts, when we part from the other ranks, we then repeat to our disgrace the name of one who in the bestial planks became herself a beast. You now know why we act so and you know what our sins were. If you would know our names, time is too short and I don't know them all. But with regard to me, I'll satisfy your wish to know. I'm Guido Guinizelli, purged here because I grieved before my end."

Wait. So, sorry, I made a mistake. Actually Dante did not know Guittone, but he's obviously a huge fan of Guinizelli. Okay. And so Dante here meets two really famous poets, and Dante is humbled by the fact that Dante is trying to pay homage to them and they don't care, because all they're concerned about is redemption. Like, I don't care about my former fame. I'm just focused on my own personal salvation, redemption. All right, let's go on.

Okay, stop. Again, the idea of a character arc, right? How Dante is changing as a person. And so there's a wall of fire and Dante is scared, right? Because it's a mental leap, you know, like I'm going to walk into fire and I'm a body, I'm going to burn to death. And Virgil's like, "No, it's nothing, trust me." Right? And how does Stan He doubts.

He doubts. Okay? Do you understand? And this is really the first time that Dante doubts Virgil. Before, Dante put his complete faith in Virgil, and they were doing really crazy things like climbing down Lucifer, and Dante's like, wait a minute, here's Lucifer, isn't he going to kill us? And Virgil's like, no, just trust me. And literally Dante would put himself on Virgil's back and put his complete faith in Virgil. Right. But for the first time, at this critical junction, when the only thing in between him and the end is a wall of flame, Dante doubts Virgil.

Well, yeah, he reminds him of Beatrice on the other side of this wall.

Yes. Okay. Virgil reminds Dante our real goal is Beatrice. And then this reassures Dante and allows Dante to cross. Now, you see how this is a journey from Virgil to Beatrice. Okay. Yes. I can't get my head around how Virgil is so confident, even though he's from hell. How does he know, or how can he be so confident in trying to convince Dante if he himself wouldn't be able to do this? If he himself is from hell, from the depths of Right?

And this is something we've discussed before, right? How does Virgil know all this? How does he know that this wall of fire is actually innocuous? It's harmless. And he has complete faith that if I just walk into it, I'll be fine. And he himself is from Limbo. And so he's not worthy enough to be in this wall of fire. How would he know this stuff?

He knows that the fire is about revealing truth, and lust is probably one of the hardest things to let go of, because you think, I'm reducing the extent of my love. I have such great love. To let go of lust, I'm not sure how much love will be left. But Virgil knows that Dante only has one P left and that it's really the right thing for him to do. So in this case, even though he's dangling the eyes of Beatrice before Dante, I think he's being the most honest about, just relax.

Because he knows that fire reveals truth and So, Julian, yes.

So but Virgil is also going through this fire, right? So is he himself cleansing of his sins?

So this is something that you need to appreciate. At any time, Virgil can go to heaven. Do you understand this? At any time there's nothing stopping him from going to heaven. Nothing. Do you understand? He has all the knowledge. He has all the ability. What he lacks is the will. Do you understand? Okay. This is what Dante's telling us. He knows how to do this. He knows how to get to the Garden of Eden. He knows how to climb to the Mount of Purgatory.

It's all about free will, you understand? Okay. So even if you have the capacity to go to heaven, even if the door is open to you, you still have to choose whether or not to walk into the door.

It's an allegory of the education and elitism that we talked about earlier.

It's all there for you.

Yeah, exactly.

These are all low-hanging fruits.

It's more whether you limit your own Oang, I have a question.

So I'm wondering what's your take on Dante's attitude towards Virgil when he first met Virgil and to this point? Is he viewing Virgil as a tutor or a competitor? Look, it's entirely one of love, you understand? Nothing else. Just pure love for Virgil. It's like you love your father. Do you understand? Nothing else. There are some other things in place, but at the heart, okay, Dante just loves Virgil completely. All right. Let's Line 55.

A voice that sang beyond us was our guide, and we attended to that voice, emerged just at the point where it began to climb. "Venite, benedicti patris mei," it sang within a light that overcame me. I could not look at such intensity. "The sun departs," it added. "Evening comes. Don't stay your steps, but hurry on before the west grows dark." The path we took climbed straight within the rock, and its direction was such that in front of me my body blocked the rays of the sun, already low behind us. And we had only tried a few steps when I and my sages sensed the sun had set, because the shadow I had cast was spent. Before one color came to occupy that sky in all of its immensity, and night was free to summon all its darkness, Each of us made one of those stairs his bed.

Okay. So this is the third and final dream that Dante has in the Divine Comedy, and the dream is this. There's Leah and Rachel. Do you guys know the story of Leah and Rachel?

Jacob. Okay.

Oh, you Oh, it's the older sister that Jacob didn't want to marry, but he married her after the wedding night.

Oh, too bad. It's the wrong girl. And then he worked another seven years for Rachel, who's way more beautiful, and waited for him also faithfully. And yeah.

Okay. All right. So the story, it's really important for you guys to appreciate the story. Otherwise it's impossible to interpret the dream. But Jacob, who is the founder of Israel, the patriarch of Israel, gets into a fight with his brother Esau. And Jacob is forced to run away, and he goes far away and he meets a relative of his named Laban. Laban says, "You're a relative and I want you to stay and work for me and I'll give you shelter." And Laban sees that Jacob has already fallen in love with Rachel.

Rachel is in one of the highest places.

He doesn't know that yet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Leah, since she didn't get her husband's love, she tried to give birth to as many sons as possible. And that's what made Rachel really mad. It's like, wow, God, you side with them to give them so many sons. And so Leah obviously is kind of elevated in that patriarchal society. But I think maybe the garden or the flower has to do with planting seeds and having, I don't know. And then Rachel is like, "Oh, I'm just beautiful. I look at myself, you know, because I'm pretty, so my husband's going to love me anyways." But she was upset until she has Benjamin.

Okay. Anyone else? Damian.

Maybe it's like revenge, because Jacob had to work in the fields. Now Leah has to pick up flowers and Rachel Okay, we have to connect this with the reality Dante is living in.

Remember how there are three dreams. The first dream is of the eagle carrying him, snatching him.

Because Beatrice is the ultimate goal. It's almost like the monad reflecting itself, and to get to that final center, you need to do the work, get tricked, and then just do it all again just for the Okay.

But let's go into Dante. He's been through hell. He's been through Purgatory. What is he thinking now? I mean, he doesn't say it. He doesn't think it, but he feels it. What's he thinking? What's he feeling now?

Will he be tricked again? Or I'm sure it's worth it, but maybe I have a millisecond of doubt sometimes. I think he's really excited. Right. He's been through hell. He's been through Purgatory. He's done everything that is required of him. And what is next for him?

Heaven. Right. Beatrice. Beatrice is waiting for him. So what's he expecting To see Beatrice?

But what's he expecting when he sees Beatrice?

Wedding with A wedding, right?

That's why Leah and Rachel are here, because Leah and Rachel married Jacob, and he sees himself as a new Jacob. It's like, okay, I'm going to get married now. Do you understand? Okay, so it's not really about the vision that matters. It's about the emotion embedded within the vision. So this is one of longing, right?

Would you say Leah could be Virgil?

I think that's No, I don't think Virgil is here.

I think, you know, the focus on Rachel, right? "Rachel never deserts her mirror. There she sits all day. She longs to see her fair eyes gazing, as I to see my hands adorning. Her content with seeing, I with labor." So it seems Rachel is in the process of waiting to be with Jacob. All right. Great. Does that make sense? Okay. But why is Rachel looking in the mirror?

And she never deserts her mirror.

Yeah. I mean, okay, all this makes sense, right? Yes.

I think it's this contrast, kind of like Mary and Martha. So Rachel is content with seeing, I with labor. It's almost like Rachel is natural beauty and Leah is like plastic surgery. It's like she's laboring, like she's putting flowers all over herself to make her worthy of the wedding, to plot the wedding, while Rachel is just like, I am.

Okay. All right. So something for us to appreciate is what dreams are, what visions are, is that you take a particular story that is commonly accepted and you change it in a way because you're embedding your emotions into it. So never in the Bible does it say that Rachel looks in the mirror. Never does it say that.

It's narcissism.

It's narcissistic. Do you understand? Okay. So there's a conflict. There's a paradox here in that Dante wants to be with Beatrice, like he's like, this is going to be a wedding, right? And that's why he dreams Rachel and Leah, but there's this narcissism that is embedded in the story, right? Where Rachel, his true love, is looking at herself. So what was this narcissism doing in this, okay. And I'm married. So I'll tell you the answer. I know what the answer is.

No, I know. No, no. Like, I'm married, okay? So I'll tell you exactly what I'm expecting. I'm expecting my wife to praise me every single day. I don't care. Like, that's why I'm getting married, because my wife praises me every single day. Do you understand? Okay. And that's the beauty and the paradox of the Divine Comedy, where Dante's telling you, I'm expecting to meet Beatrice, but what I really want is for her to say, Dante, you worked so hard to get here.

Okay. And yes, It's extremely realistic.

Like on the wedding day, my husband got mad at me for not attending to him even a little bit.

And I was like, man, I'm the bride. Nobody looks at the groom. You wear something, nobody cares what you wear. And he's like, "Oh my god, on the wedding day, you don't care about me." And you know, but it's very human nature, I guess. Even on the wedding day, right? Like, yeah.

Yeah. And look, I've been married for 10 years and every time my wife says something nice about another guy, I get really upset. It's really strange, because look, I mean, she's like, you know, Jack Ma's a really smart guy. I'm like, who the hell is Jack Ma? You know, I get really upset, like I'm better than Jack Ma, right? So this is such a beautiful depiction of true human nature. I get very upset when my wife praises another man, even though, you know, it makes no sense.

Line 109. "And now with the reflected lights that glow before the dawn, and rising are most welcome to pilgrims as returning their near home, the shadows fled upon all sides. My sleep fled with them. And at this I woke and saw that the great teachers had already risen. 'Today your hungerings will find their peace through that sweet fruit the care of mortals seeks among so many branches.' This the speech, the words that Virgil spoke to me, and there were never tidings to compare and offering delight to me with ease."

Okay. All right. So these are the very last words that Virgil will speak to Dante. What Virgil says to Dante is, I've brought you here but now you are on your own. You are now completely in control of yourself. You don't need me anymore. So what is Virgil saying to Dante here?

Well, I remember in Paradiso. So doesn't he miss Virgil? Like he No, but I'm saying, what does Dante hear in this and what does Dante think?

Why doesn't Dante know this is goodbye? This is clearly goodbye to us, right? But it's not to Dante. Yes.

Because it's hard for him to perceive that the mentor, the prophet, the father, you know, the all-knowing guide now is going to leave him, because it's unacceptable. It's like, you know all the truth more than me, more than I do. What is he expecting?

Let's go together, Yeah.

Yeah, this is the moment that the student becomes the master, right? So he doesn't realize that Virgil doesn't have the will to get into heaven. He assumes the best and there's some reality here.

So what is he finally expecting to happen?

Them to go together.

They're going to go to heaven together. Do you understand? Right. Statius is going to heaven, I'm going to heaven, first Virgil goes to heaven too, right? In his mind, he's already seen all this. He's seen a wedding with Beatrice where Beatrice praises him to the sky and says like, "You did it, Dante. You're my hero. You're the greatest in the world." And he's expecting Virgil to preside over this marriage and then they'll all go to heaven together and live happily ever after as a family.

Canto 28. Now keen to search within, to search around that forest dense, alive with green, the divine forest which tempered the new day before my eyes, without delay I left behind the rim and took the plain, advancing slowly, slowly across the ground where every part was fragrant. A gentle breeze which did not seem to vary within itself was striking at my brow, but with no greater force than a kind wind, a wind that made the trembling boughs, they all bent eagerly to find the direction of morning shadows of the holy mount.

This is the Garden of Eden, and it's an inversion, right? Where in the Bible, the Garden of Eden is where we were banished from paradise. And here, the Garden of Eden is where we will enter paradise. This is where Beatrice will descend from heaven and pick Dante up to bring him to heaven. And within the Garden of Eden, there are two rivers. This goes against the biblical tradition. What are the two rivers of the Garden of Eden in the Bible?

Yeah. That's brilliant. Exactly. Right. Yes. Okay. So think of pollution, right? You can't go in being with any remembrance of your sin because you might pollute everyone else. Yes, that's a great idea. Anyone else? Yes. So what was your name?

Skyler. Okay. But I think it's quite important for you to remember your sins or remember your mistakes and remember your moral missteps, because that way it teaches you what is wrong and how that hurt other people, so you remember not to do that in the future. If you forget all of your sins, won't you maybe accidentally do them Okay.

So, okay. Anna.

I want to respond to Scarlet that Because you have already done that.

You have already repented your sins for a million years in Purgatory. You know, enough is enough. You know what I mean? But if you keep repenting, then you feel like you're unworthy of heaven and then you are stuck at the lowest level in heaven again. And then that loses the whole point of going to heaven.

Okay. Yes. Fred.

Yeah, I think I really like the two rivers because I think that Dante is preempting the phrase "Et in Arcadia ego," where it was a common thing in Romanticism where the poets would complain that even when they were in paradise, their ego would still be there and that would still be the source of problems. So in this case, the forgetting river is super crucial because it's the only way to cleanse the ego. And also that it's important, and we've just seen that they've been through Purgatory, but I don't think you could commit more sins in heaven.

Yes.

Again about the river, I thought it's very interesting. In all cultures, in Chinese culture, when you reincarnate you go to hell and drink a potion that makes you forget everything in your past life so that you're ready for rebirth. And so I think it's a similar, you know, universal idea that you need to forget. Yes, exactly. David.

I think this is a very insightful paragraph into Chinese, you know, into character, because it also mentioned you have to remember what you did right, because that will give you a structure of how to behave. So this is a very well-balanced structure where you have to both, or you have to, yeah, you have to both forget but also have to Yeah, this is like positive psychology, right?

Like be positive, that's what they want in heaven. Did you want to say To say what Anna said, you have to forget.

I think forgetting your sin symbolizes that you have now reborn yourself, then you're ready for heaven and you're ready to drop the past behind and totally forgive yourself.

Yes. Exactly right. Okay. And I would also point out it's free will, right? Where everything is governed by free will. You choose to be in Purgatory. You choose to do penance, but you cannot actually choose to forget things. And so this is, oh yeah. Yes. Edward.

Is it also a blessing to the soul as well? Because through some lens, doing these sins is like a trauma to yourself.

So it finally allows the soul to be Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. Andy.

I wonder if memory is a process of time and you're going to a place outside of time.

In paradise.

Yes. Exactly. Yeah, your memories aren't really relevant in paradise. Yes. Francis.

There's a physical aspect where if you forget your sin, then you're super light and you can physically reach heaven. Whereas the little amount of sin would just create heaviness inside you.

Exactly. You're right. Yes. So the memory of the sin is the last vestige of your physical body, right? And they are corrupting your soul or they are tainting your soul. Yes. Anyone else? Skyler.

I just want to ask a question. So if forgetting your sin makes you lighter and I guess better, would it be a good idea to forget your sins on earth? Like, if we're on earth and then if we forget all of our sins, would that make us Okay.

Does anyone want to respond to this?

Bruce.

Yeah. Actually, I always think like you said, because when I was young, I thought I can do anything I want. I don't care about what saying or what kind of god or what is. I'm me. I'm just myself, right? I can do whatever I want. But after a while, especially when you just experience a lot of things, you can see that greed, this sexual desire, torture you in the night, you even cannot find sleep, and you can just have dates with many more boyfriends or girlfriends, even have sex with all of them.

Thank you, Damian.

I don't think you should forget your sin on earth or there would be no Okay.

So, David.

You know, in the real world, unlike in the Dantean literary world, I don't think there is any water you can drink just to cleanse yourself of memory of things.

You really have to do a lot of good deeds and to replenish yourself of good memories in order to flush out the few things you have done.

Okay. So yesterday we discussed the idea of the soul, right, and how we said that what the soul is, is you have a physical body and the soul is really something that exists in the spiritual realm. So it is like energy fields or whatever. So that's how memory works, because when you do something it may not change your physical body but it does change your spiritual body, your soul. And you know, Fran used the word trauma. That's what sin literally is.

Like baptism too, right? You have to Go into the river and baptize yourself to wash away your sins.

This is literally baptism. This is literally baptism. So Matilda in the Garden of Eden is going to baptize all the souls in these two rivers before they actually ascend to heaven. So this is the process. Any more questions or comments? All right guys, let's continue to Canto 29. And I want to apologize that my mic wasn't on for three minutes. So anyway, we're in Canto 29. "Her words were done, but without interruption, she sang like an enamored woman. Thus, 'Beati quorum tecta sunt peccata.' "And just as nymphs who used to walk alone among the woodland shadows, some desiring to see and some to flee the sun, so she moved counter to the current as she walked along the riverbank, and following her short footsteps with my own steps, I matched her pace.

Okay, so now Beatrice has arrived and with her arrival there is a parade. What we call a triumph. Model of Rome, the Roman triumph. And so Beatrice is coming, and when we come back from the break we'll see if these predictions are correct, and spoiler alert, none of them are correct. All right. So we'll take a break and come back. Okay.

Okay. Good afternoon. So we have a special guest and Carol will introduce. So I'm delighted to have Renee Newman from Yenching Academy here with us today. I've never met him, but he has so kindly agreed to come here to read the Italian part of Dante to us, as a friend of Melania, who is my second son Damian's Latin teacher. And so thank you to Melania as well, who is on a flight right now. Renee is on full scholarship to do Yenching Academy and is a graduate of King's College London in international affairs.

Thank you so much, Carol. So yeah, I mean Dante is maybe the highlight of our syllabus of Italian literature and we start studying it when we're very young. So starting from when we're nine or 10, and it really makes up a huge part of the syllabus until we graduate, actually, in high school. So for almost 10 years we studied it, and we go through all of it multiple times. Wow.

And yeah, especially in Tuscany I think we also attribute even more importance to it than in other regions, of course.

Because we feel even closer to it. And yeah, it's always a pleasure to read it. So thank you so much for being How's the language of Dante similar or different to how Tuscans speak today?

So it is interesting because it's definitely not the language that we speak today. It's a bit different. There's some words that we wouldn't use today. We can understand them and maybe some old people might use words that are a bit more similar to, sometimes a bit more, what we consider formal.

But they're actually, you know, in some way more similar to the language that Dante uses, but at the same You know, there's also many words that we need to look up sometimes because they're really different from the Italian that we speak today, but at the same time it's also very important to remember that the Italian that we speak today in Italy, Italian really is a construct.

It's not really a language that always existed, right? So the Italian that we know today is only an extension of the Tuscan dialect. Oh, wow. That was imposed onto all the other regions, because Italy was divided until very late in history compared to other European countries, until 1861.

So it's like Putonghua in It's basically pretty much like Putonghua, and they chose the language of Dante.

Actually, Dante was the reason, like the fact that Dante had written in that language, in Tuscan Was the reason, and also actually because there's different types of Tuscan.

So it was actually the type that Dante brought in that they picked as the reason why they picked our dialect as Italian, pretty much to be the language of the country.

Yeah. So [laughter] And definitely there are some words that I think we as Tuscans understand, it's easier for us to understand than other regions for sure, because there are some words, even our more, there's some still regional words that only in Tuscan we use and that Dante also uses, that in other regions maybe they're a bit less common.

Yeah.

Okay. Wonderful.

Yeah. I have a lot of questions, Renee, but my first question is, how do you feel about Dante? Do you like the Divine Oh, I love it.

I love it. Yeah.

Well, because it is, regardless of one's religion, because of course we know it's a very religious text, but regardless of one's religion, it has so much historical significance and it encapsulates so many important episodes of Italian history, but also European history. And I believe really it should be taken for much, much beyond just religious significance, like also, yeah, historical, but also I think it transcends so many fields and disciplines, and it's so important.

So when you say religious significance, do you mean that this is primarily a Christian text? Is that what you mean?

Well, I think the vision of, you know, hell, purgatory, and heaven is definitely, I think, more, it can be more associated with Christianity than maybe other religions like Buddhism, where also maybe we can of course draw some comparisons with other religions, but the way certain environments in the afterlife are described so accurately in the Divine Comedy, I think they do feature a lot of characteristics of Christianity.

So in school, how is the Divine Comedy taught? So you do 10 years of it, and then is there a final examination where you're tested on certain aspects of the Divine Comedy, or So it sometimes is in the final exam.

So every year the Ministry of Education chooses certain topics for the final examination, and sometimes they do choose to feature some parts, of course not all of it because you know how long it is, but they do choose to feature them and have some parts where they test students about their knowledge of it. But not always, but we do have oral examination, written examination throughout the year about that, not necessarily the final one. Do you read the entire poem or just aspects of We read the entire poem.

At least that's what the syllabus wants us to do. But then, well, sometimes the syllabus is also very long in Italian literature, but yes, we read at least like 70 or 80% of it if So for you, you all read.

Yeah. Yeah. We do read all of it. Yeah. And are you asked to memorize the poem or do you just read it?

We sometimes, really, the thing is, even this, and also relating to your previous question, it depends sometimes on the teacher's own method. So there is some part of the syllabus that is compulsory for the whole country, but at the same time, for example, whether we have to learn it by heart or not depends on each teacher's method. In my case our teachers wanted us to memorize the most important parts. So like at the beginning, the starting, the ending, and then some of what we consider to be some of the most important passages, and yeah, but now I wouldn't be able to, it's been a long time, I wouldn't be able to And what is your favorite part of the Divine Comedy?

Do you have a section you particularly enjoy? Well, is it too cliche to say Paradiso, or actually I think even Hell also has a lot of parts that I really enjoyed. That's a good question. I'm not sure. I think there's many parts that I really, really enjoyed. But also it's been a while now. So it's been many years.

Okay. This is going to be a hard question but I'm really curious. Are there any outstanding questions that have plagued educators about the Divine Comedy? Are there any outstanding theological or literary questions that Italians argue about all the time?

Mhm. Well, I believe some people think that they were always struck, since it was composed, by how specific it is on certain very, very tiny details, that, you know, there's all types of theories on how Dante managed to come up with such specific, nitty-gritty details. And so some people think that it was a dream, and the dream that he remembers very vividly when he wakes up. So to such an extent that he can actually describe it so well. Other people think that he actually did this journey, that he actually went there.

And other people of course say it's all an invention, but I think there is a consensus that it is incredible how specific it is sometimes. And it's really hard, because sometimes, when you have to make up a story, it's so easy to just invent, to make up anything, right? But it's not when it comes to details, right? Actually, to make up a story with so many details is not an easy feat.

And he managed to do this.

So I'll tell you this. For most of my life, I'm 50, for I think for 45 years of my life, 46, I was a very ardent atheist. I refused to believe in God, an explanation for everything. And I read the Divine Comedy and I'm like, God exists, because without God there's just no way he could have written this. So the Divine Comedy brought me to God, because again I can't explain what's going on without the idea of God. But so that's one controversy, like how did he create this, and something that we struggle with also in this class.

The sort of spirit of that time.

And that embodiment of the values of that moment in history, and with all of the different factions, and the fact that it's ranked in such a specific way, right? Like who goes into which circle of hell. Yeah. And it's really like a ranking of what's the least worst thing and the worst.

And then in heaven, they're all saints of course, but then there's also a ranking, a very specific ranking. We have so many drawings as well with all the layers and everything.

Right. What do you think is the main message of the Divine Comedy? Well, the message might sound, I think, it's about judgment, everything. I think judgment is such an important part of it, because it's not a type of judgment that is temporary, like in maybe Buddhism. It is a judgment that is permanent, except in the case of Purgatory I guess, the one that we read today, that's the only non-permanent one, but in hell and in heaven the souls are going to be there forever, for eternity.

Because it would, and besides, I think it definitely transcends just the Christian beliefs. It contains many Christian beliefs but it is so all-encapsulating that it definitely transcends this.

So today we're going to read Cantos 30, 31, 32, 33 of Purgatory. These are the last four cantos of Purgatory. How familiar are you with these four?

I studied them but a long time ago, so I'll try my best to read them as best I can.

Okay, and I mean, I don't want to be presumptuous, but these four cantos are pretty confusing, right?

They are really troubling, confusing. It doesn't really fit into the larger framework of the Divine Comedy.

Is that fair to say?

Well, Purgatory is, we actually know this in high school when we study it, that Purgatory is actually the trickiest one. It's trickier than both hell and heaven.

Because of all its nuances, and definitely, yeah, the hardest one to understand and the hardest one to read as well in terms of language that he Okay.

So this is one of the four hardest cantos of the Divine Comedy. Is that fair to say?

Well, yeah, sure, for sure.

Okay. Well then we'll do it, guys. This afternoon, collectively, we're gonna figure out what these four cantos are saying. All right? And you can tell us if we're just crazy or not. [laughter] But we're gonna do it. Have faith, guys. We're going to try to figure out what these four cantos are doing. All right? So let's start. To start, I want to explain what's going on. So remember that Dante has climbed up the Mount of Purgatory. He has not And the Garden of Eden, Beatrice is coming.

Okay. So let's read a couple. Sorry about that.

No worries.

Okay. All right. This one or the other one first?

Yeah. So let's read this first, okay? And it shows you the depth of scholarship as well as the intricacy of Dante's craftsmanship.

Okay? So, Beatrice died in June of 1290.

It is now either the end of March or early April of 1300 and thus about 2 months fewer than 10 years since she died. If the act Okay.

So this is scholars talking about the day that Dante climbs up Mount Purgatory and meets Beatrice. At what day does this happen? Keep on going.

If the action of the poem indeed did begin in Dante's mind on Friday 25th of March 1300, this day is Wednesday 30th of March 1300. Literally a perfect day, a 10 composed of three, for a recent study of the numerological aspects of Beatrice, see Carlo Vete D.

Yeah. So do you see how perfectly this is constructed? Dante is conscious of numbers. He thinks that numbers are divine in nature. Three is, as we know, a particularly divine number. There are 33 cantos in these three different sections and he uses terza rima, right? So three is a particularly divine number and you can see that the meeting with Beatrice is a divine day.

And I guess this is Beatrice's number in Vita Nova, Dante's other poem, and her number is nine or 3 squared.

That's right. That's right. So Dante is very mathematical, he's very conscious of numerology. Okay, let's go to the next note.

Okay. So this is a procession of the church triumphant and it's structured in a certain way. Can you just read it?

Sure. The first, 24 books of the Old Testament. The second, the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The third, one griffin. The fourth, three theological virtues, faith, hope and. Fifth, four cardinal virtues, prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice. The sixth, two authors of the Book of Acts and major epistles, Luke and Paul. Seventh, four authors of lesser epistles, Peter, James, John, Jude. The eighth, one, Apocalypse, John. A total of 43.

Okay, so it's 43, but remember there's Beatrice, right? So that's one. That's 44. And then overhead over them are 100 angels. You have 144. Does anyone know why 144 is a very special number in Tribes in Israel?

Yes. Right.

12 times 12.

What else? I forgot.

Yes. But that's exactly correct. Okay.

So they say at the end of days 144,000 will ascend to heaven. These are the 12 tribes of All right.

So again, you see how meticulous and precise Dante is with numbers. This is not accidental, by the way. You can't possibly just make this up and then, oops, it aligns. No, no, he is intentional about this. And there are these numbers scattered throughout the Divine Comedy. So you can literally just spend your entire life analyzing the numerology of the Divine Comedy. We're not going to do that because this is an angel class and we're much more concerned about the themes.

It's just a very small comment, but also the 4 plus 3 is seven, and seven in numerology is very like completion.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you can make entire diagrams on this. And so there are all these literary paradoxes in the Divine Comedy, but there are also all these mathematical puzzles in the Divine Comedy. If you just assemble them together, it reveals a greater truth. Again, we're not going to do that because it's quite exhausting, but it just shows you the depth of the level of construction in the Divine Comedy. And again, this class is meant to be the beginning of a long journey. And I hope that in the future you guys will refer to scholars like Robert Hollander in your journey.

Okay. What is paradoxical about these lines? Why am I singling this section out? What's a paradox here? Where are they?

They're in the Garden of Eden.

In the Garden of Eden. Yes. Damian.

Eve was banished from the Garden of Eden. So why is she here?

She's not here. Yeah. But what is Dante doing right now?

Imagining her. Imagining a woman that is What is his emotional state?

Super excited and happy to see, about to see their teacher. But What's the word in here that tells us how he feels?

I should have savored, or like No, the emotion.

Indignation. Yeah, just indignation. Indignation. He's angry. Why is this a paradox? Yeah. Why are you angry? Right. You should be happy. You should just focus on the here and now. You just focus on enjoying yourself. Why are you complaining about what Eve did? I mean, isn't all forgiven? Right? This is a paradox here. Why should he not be angry? Anna.

Angry. Maybe he finally went to the Garden of Eden to see how beautiful it is and to be mad at Eve. Like, why would you forsake all this? That's why he has the just indignation.

That's what he says. But I'm trying to figure out why he's Well, he shouldn't be angry because he's just been through the terraces, right?

He's been through the terrace of wrath. His anger should be purged from him. But he goes to the Garden of Eden and he's looking around. He says this, angry at what we've lost.

He's rebuking arrogance, which is hope and free will in a way, or I don't know, there's a paradox here. I don't know if I can.

Yeah. There's lots of paradoxes here, right? Does that make sense? Okay. And so what I will argue is, to unpack this paradox, you need to figure out what these four cantos are. So remember this paradox. It makes absolutely no sense that he's been in the Garden of Eden, he's about to meet Beatrice, and now he's pissed off about Eve eating the fruit which caused him to be banished from the Garden of Eden. Why is it that at your happiest time you're still angry, right?

Oh, I don't know if I'm skipping ahead, but there's this concept of felix culpa, which is, it is essential for this fall to happen, for us to get to Jesus. [laughter] Right?

But in the other case, he shouldn't be angry at all. Right? He just thinks, well, you know, we were redeemed at the end. We're in the Garden of Eden now. Anyone can come. So Eve is forgiven. So why is he angry, right? It's all part of the divine plan. Eve had to eat that fruit so that Jesus could come so that we could all be redeemed. And now all has happened. So instead of being angry at Eve, why don't you celebrate Eve, right? And just forgive Eve.

It's just. It's righteous. It is justice. I should be angry. I am right to be angry at Eve. This is a paradox for us. Yes. I think it's also that if Beatrice had died in childbirth, it was Eve's punishment that all women should feel pain during childbirth and it's especially that that made her die. I think he's angry as well because she found any veil beyond endurance and life is one of the veils.

So it's that he's almost angry that Beatrice is dead. Even though I'm meeting her now, it's such a pain that it's not in the real world.

That's a great point. Yeah, I completely forgot that. But Beatrice did die in childbirth and Eve was punished by God, and the punishment was to have painful childbirth, right? And it is, you know, the greatest pain in the world. It is hell on earth. So, but Renee, I want to ask you, the translation "just indignation," is this a correct translation? I am, yeah, I was actually surprised that they translated "just," because "just" would be more like "giusto," or used back then I guess it could also be said, but "just" is like a good, it's more

A good type of, a good type of

Zo, for example, is also like, I mean, I think back then definitely it meant indignation, now it has a bit of a different meaning, less negative than It's more like, yeah, that's actually what it is.

But back then of course certain words that we could still use now have had a different meaning of Okay.

So I want to confirm. Okay.

Mandelbaum. Allen Mandelbaum. And he's one of dozens of translators of Dante. But what he's saying is that Dante thinks that it is just for him to think that Eve was arrogant and to rebuke her arrogance. Is this a correct, I would, yeah, I would say so, on which one, it's "just," as we said, indignation, yeah, made me rebuke. Yeah, it is also an interesting word for us to hear in Italian, like when someone is, well, "adito" now has also a different meaning. But "alimementoto" definitely sounds like, I mean, back then it would be closer to arrogance for sure, or And so the tone and the language it conveys anger as an emotion.

Is that Yes.

It's some kind of, I think maybe passionate anger, like as in "dementoto," it has the same ardent Ardent, it has the same emotion as fire, basically, right?

So this definitely conveys passion, it conveys a strong Like a, you know, fiery feeling.

All right, okay, so again, there's the paradox there. Why are you so angry now? Now you're in the Garden of Eden. Isn't this all part of the divine plan, right? Shouldn't you be thankful? And plus, you're not a woman, right? You're a guy. So what are you complaining about? I mean, there's lots of paradoxes here. All right, let's go to Canto 30. And again these next four cantos are just really troubling for scholars as well as students of Dante.

I'll do 12 maybe and then you'll do 12. "When the first heaven's seven stars had halted, those stars that never rise or set, that are not veiled except when sin clouds our vision, those stars that there made everyone aware of what his duty was, just as the bear below brings helmsmen home to harbor, then the truthful band that had come first between the griffin and the seven stars turned toward that chariot as toward their peace. And one of them, as if sent down from heaven, sang out aloud, 'Veni, sponsa, de Libano,' three times, and all the others echoed him.

Well, I think, oh, sorry. Yeah. I

Yeah, I think he spends so many lines talking about just that, the emotion of when he sees her, and I think there would be no other way of making it convey such a feeling that is not just, it's more than just sheer joy or sheer surprise, or I think there is no single word, not even just a set of short words to convey it. And that's why so many lines are spent on it.

Okay. So this is really when all his emotions converge together, right? His greatest fear, his greatest excitement, his greatest happiness, his greatest sadness, they all converge together and it is such an overwhelming emotion. He's never felt like this before. His entire soul, it's vibrating. It's shaking to its core. And what's the first thing he wants to do? Turn to Virgil.

He wants to turn to Virgil. You understand? That's how much he loves Virgil. He loves Virgil. I know I've been talking trash about Virgil this entire time, but Dante still loves Virgil as a father. So he wants to turn to Virgil. And what should Virgil do in response?

Comfort him.

Right. Hug him and say, "Dante, I'm with you. Go ahead. We came all the way here, right, through hell, through Purgatory, and now I want to be with you in your moment of your greatest triumph."

And I will be with you. Okay. So maybe we won't translate until a certain section. Yeah, sounds good. Line 49. "But Virgil had deprived us of himself. Virgil, the gentlest father. Virgil, he to whom I gave myself for my salvation. And even all our ancient mother lost was not enough to keep my cheeks, though washed with dew, from darkening again with tears."

Okay. So stop. So Renee, could you translate for us these next six lines and tell us, when you speak it, what emotions do you feel?

No, I mean, yeah, that's exactly it. I think the emotion is Dante loves Virgil. There's actually no doubt about it. Where is Virgil? Where is he?

I was just doing a sign for self-integration, where Virgil has left Dante completely and Dante has integrated him as completely as he can.

But I mean, we were expecting some sort of resolution, right? Some sort of confrontation between Virgil and Beatrice. Some sort of conflict where Dante has to choose between Virgil and Beatrice, or even maybe a happy ending where Beatrice welcomes Virgil to the heavens and Virgil's given a choice, but he's just completely disappeared. He's run away. That's not bad writing, right? What's going on here?

Who's talking then?

Dante is talking. Right. Dante felt Virgil beside him. So he turns to Virgil to say, "I've never been so nervous in my life, Virgil." And Virgil's gone. Well, first of all, why is Virgil gone?

Yeah. But if you've accomplished your mission, what's the least thing you would expect?

He wants someone to thank him.

Thank you, Virgil, for taking Dante through heaven and hell. Yes.

So previously we were hypothesizing that he might be a little bit jealous. I feel like some of the times if you're jealous, you don't actually want to be in a scene and then you just choose to leave it behind and then just not see the scene.

Dante loves Virgil. Does Virgil love, I think he loves Dante. I think he does.

They climbed on Satan.

Yeah. They've been through a lot, man. They climbed on Satan. They've been through Purgatory. It's been a lot. Once that happens to you, two people love each other. Yes. I think of the wedding scenario where the father brings the bride to the groom and then he has to go, he's like, I hand you over, and you know, so I feel like maybe it's that kind of scene too, where he kind of gave birth to Dante and There's no handover though.

Oh, okay.

He just disappears. He just runs away.

Yeah. Maybe because, you know, as men they don't want to say goodbye. Maybe they would love to give you a hug. But actually Virgil, I'm saying, on the one hand he wants to give a hug maybe, but Let's do the counterfactual.

Let's just say Virgil stays. What would happen?

What would happen next? Yeah. Yes. Anna.

A confrontation with, do you want to come to heaven? No. Oh, awkward. So then he just avoids that conversation and goes away.

Yeah. I think what happened is that Beatrice would say to Virgil, "Virgil, I want to thank you so much for this. I came down to Limbo and I asked you for a favor and you so generously and so selflessly guided Dante through hell and Purgatory and I can't thank you enough," and Virgil was like, huh. Right, you're kind of stuck, right? Because now what is he going to say, come with us to heaven? And Virgil's like, so he's made the conscious decision, I don't want to go anywhere near heaven. What?

This reminds me actually of a Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, or yes. You know, when he's not supposed to turn, and there's actually, in the myth of course he turns and he sees and she disappears, because the pact was for him not to turn, the deal was for him not to turn and they would live happily together after, but then he turns, he doesn't resist, and he's just about to get out of the cave. But here actually it is as if, I don't know, I kind of see a bit of this, leaving him without, disappearing with no goodbye or no, and that he's not even supposed to turn back to him and to turn behind once you're ascending to heaven.

Okay. I understand. I understand. You're saying that Dante should have turned his head back and talked to Virgil, but I'm still trying to figure out why.

Shouldn't have. He shouldn't. I think it was supposed to be like this.

Right. I'm trying to figure out why Virgil's disappeared.

Yes. I think it's a reflection of Dante's acknowledgement that Virgil is indeed a very thoroughly manly fatherly figure, because a real father, an effective father, eventually has to make a very, very clean cut in the father-son relationship in order to send a son to some greatness. And I think even Dante's own father, who kind of disappeared from Dante's life also relatively early in Dante's life, I think also gave Dante a kind of paradigm that his mentor would send him onto his journey but, you know, won't accompany him all the way down.

This is like your father not showing up at your college graduation. You graduate from Yale. It's the biggest thing you've ever accomplished. And your father's like, I don't want to go because I don't want to burden you, I don't want to make you more dependent on me. No. No. Virgil just ran away, I guess.

Well, I mean, mine is a little bit similar with him, because I believe maybe Virgil will make Dante feel hesitant.

Okay. Okay, guys, stop this. This is the wrong direction.

It's almost that this moment is so divine and so beautiful that Virgil's soul is still too dark to be able to be included in this moment.

Yes. Okay. So it's almost like Virgil's afraid of the encounter between Dante and Beatrice, right? Because remember how he feels about love, it's one of control, one of possession, right? He doesn't actually believe in true love. He only believes in control. So he doesn't want to see Beatrice and Dante together because then he recognizes that true love exists and it's divine. Anna.

The one who hates love in a way, so it will be awkward for him to stand.

Yeah. He wrote the Aeneid in order to, love is a disease, right? Love can only lead you to hell.

And now hell And now he's in hell but Dante is going to heaven.

Love is leading Dante to heaven. All right. So this is convicting to him. Right. So rather than face the fact that he could be wrong, he's like, "Screw this. I'm going to run away."

All right. What else? So that's one theory. Yes.

How about, you know, I think Beatrice stands for love. So I think that Virgil stands for reason. Maybe Virgil is just so fearful. They are just being so scared by being controlled by love. So that's the reason they leave. So maybe, as you point out, Virgil and Beatrice just, it's like magnets, right? Like polarities, right? They just repel each other. Okay.

Because heaven's where true love is. And Virgil doesn't want to see that.

Who is Virgil most afraid of? He's afraid of God, right? Why?

He wrote the Aeneid.

Okay, so think about this. God gave the gift of poetry to Virgil. God chose you, Virgil. No one else chose you. And then Virgil was like, I'm gonna go make a billion dollars doing this. So the last person he wants to see right now is God. Yes.

I want to say, I think that the explanation that we study in Italy, or at least, I mean, maybe it depends also on the teacher, sometimes interpretations can also vary, but I think it's complementary to what we've just said, that Virgil cannot, at least we learn that Virgil cannot enter heaven because heaven is only for the pure, and Virgil, because, I mean, as we said, he's not only not, like people from the outside who have already, how do you say, been judged cannot access it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's wrong then. I'm telling you what you learn is wrong, because what we learn in this class is there's a man named Ripheus, right?

Okay. All right. So what we learned in this class is that Dante is very clear about this. What takes you to heaven is not your belief. It is your actions. And it's your actions that reveal your belief. Right? Because if you live a life of hope, love and faith, then that's Christian. It doesn't matter if you were born before Jesus. And because you live this life, it means you have faith in Jesus. Then that faith saves you automatically. Yes, Edward and Fred.

Could it also be like the ultimate feeling of jealousy for Virgil? Because I don't know, but I don't think in his life he had a Beatrice. Did he have a true love in his life?

If he wrote the Aeneid, obviously not.

Yeah. [laughter] Yes.

Fred.

I think another thing that is blocking him from heaven, or blocking him from being at this ceremony, was that for Virgil the extremes of good and evil, the extreme of good is about following the destiny set out by the gods, and piety. And I think for him there's no piety in heaven because the story is over. The game is over. The race is run. So for him it's impossible to conceive of goodness that can never be not good, because his whole thing with the Aeneid is fluctuating between following your destiny and being lazy, and following your destiny and being lazy.

Yes. Exactly. That's a great point. Yes. So Virgil can't even conceive of the idea of heaven. If he conceives it as heaven, he can basically invert it, right? For him, heaven would be hell. So he's like, "Why do I want to go to hell? I'm perfectly happy in Limbo. That's my heaven because I'm master of hell." Right? Okay. So there are many reasons but this is again a very important paradox for us. Why does Virgil run away? And obviously there are many different interpretations.

Okay. Line 55. "Dante, though Virgil's leaving you, do not yet weep. Do not weep yet. You'll need your tears for what another sword must yet inflict." Just like an admiral who goes to stern and prow to see the officers who guide the other ships, encouraging their tasks, so on the left side of the chariot, I turned around when I had heard my name, which of necessity I transcribe here. I saw the lady who had first appeared to me beneath the veils of the angelic flowers look at me across the stream.

Okay. Stop. All right. So Dante is obviously heartbroken that his father has run away at the moment of his greatest happiness. And now Beatrice has come and she's basically like, "Forget him. He's not important. You will need everything for the next challenge." How does Dante feel about Beatrice? Right. Yes.

He might think Beatrice is very mean.

I think so. That's exactly how it feels. Why? What metaphor tells us that he thinks that Beatrice is just being too stern or too mean?

Just like an admiral who goes to stern Exactly.

Right. That's a simile, right? She's just being a boss, right? She's just being imperious. She's just ordering me about. That's how much he loves Virgil. Do you understand this idea? He loves Virgil so much that the moment that anyone says anything bad about Virgil, he gets really angry. Even if it's coming from the love of his life, Beatrice. So again, this is meant to be a tragic moment for Dante. What Dante wanted more than anything else is to ascend to heaven with Virgil.

Line 67. "Although the veil she wore down from her head, which was encircled by Minerva's leaves, did not allow her to be seen distinctly, her stance still regal and disdainful, she continued, just as one who speaks but keeps until the end the fiercest parts of speech. 'Look here, for I am Beatrice, I am. How are you able to ascend the mountain? Did you not know that man is happy here?' My lowered eyes caught sight of the clear stream. But when I saw myself reflected there, such shame weighed on my brow.

So how is Dante feeling at this Shame, right?

Regret. All he cares about is the fact that he's lost Virgil. Even Beatrice saying, "Focus on me, Dante," he still can't look at her. He is just so sad that his friend Virgil has abandoned him. Keep on going.

Even, line 85. "Even as snow among the living rafters along the spine of Italy will freeze when gripped by gusts of the Slavonian winds, then as it melts will trickle through itself, that is, if winds breathe north from shadeless lands, just as beneath the flame the candle melts, so I, before I'd heard the song of those whose notes always accompany the notes of eternal spheres, was without tears and sighs. But when I heard the sympathy for me within their gentle harmonies, as if they'd said, 'Lady, why shame him so?' then did the ice that had restrained my heart become water and breath, and from my breast and through my lips and eyes they issued, anguished, still standing motionless upon the left side of the chariot.

Scolding him.

Because after Beatrice died, Dante married another woman. Well, I mean, true. But would Beatrice be angry about that? What's he angry about? He's just upset that Virgil left. He's crying and like, "Sure, sure."

Dante is upset that Virgil has left. And then Beatrice is saying, "Hey, let's get going, man." And then Dante is kind of shocked because he's expecting this praise, this love, this adulation from Beatrice. And instead, and so he falls, he's confused, he's in shame. The angels fly to Beatrice and say, "Relax, Beatrice." Dante's been through hell. Literally been through hell. Like, let's give him a break. And Beatrice is like, "You guys shut up, too." [laughter] Why is she pissed? She's pissed. Why is she pissed?

I guess trust Virgil that much, or love, because I mean in this speech she is talking about Virgil, right?

No, no, like, okay, what she said in the speech is this, right? When we knew each other, you loved me so much and I put you on the right path. Then I died and then you went on the wrong path. You went on the path so wrongly that I had to come down and ask Virgil to help you, to set you on the right path, and you had to go through hell to see the consequences of what it means to go on the wrong path.

And meshed in the wealth and gibs and all the politics and all of that.

Yeah. So that's one possibility, right? So there are different possibilities. He married, but then that makes Beatrice seem really petty, right? Because Beatrice married someone else. So what's Dante going to do? Just be chaste all his life, Right?

So I think he's angry about that. It's possible. Dante participated in internal politics, but that's just the times. Yeah. Fred. So I guess she's complaining about the double standard that he seems to have set with his love for her, that it was her goodness and beauty while she was alive that gave him a good spark. And she's saying, "Well, I died and if Dante knew I'd gone to heaven, how come I'm not an even bigger inspiration than before?" Like she's saying, "My goodness and beauty had grown and yet I was less dear to him, less welcome." Like I should have been an even stronger star now that I died.

Okay. So let's continue this. This is correct. But I want to elaborate on this. So when Beatrice was alive, what did Dante write

To seduce her or prove his artistic This is according to the love tradition, right?

So he's trying to express his love, for her love, to Beatrice. After she died, why did he write poetry? To save himself.

To save himself. How? Channeling all of the spirits of his hero and his love in order to instruct the rest of the world, Right?

In which case, he wouldn't have to go to hell. In which case, Beatrice wouldn't have to come down to hell and get Virgil to help him. Right? Problem solved. So obviously he did something wrong, right? So when Beatrice was alive, he wrote poetry to express his love for Beatrice. After she died, why did he write poetry? Yes.

Probably for fame and power.

Exactly. That's where he went wrong. He forgot what the point of poetry was. It's not for fame and power, because if you did that, who would you end up being?

Virgil. Does that make sense, guys? And we know because in the beginning of Purgatory, Dante fell in love with his own shadow, right? And he fell in love with his shadow so much that whenever he saw his shadow, he was really happy and he walked really slowly so that the other shades could see his shadow. Do you understand this idea? This is where Dante went wrong. When she was alive, he could focus all his attention on her and that's what made his poetry divine. She died, then all he thought about was competing against his fellow poets and proving that he was the best, right? And so he started to write poetry in order to prove he's superior to everyone else, and that's where he went wrong, and that's why she had to get Virgil to lead him through hell.

No, no, no, I'm finished. Yeah.

I was going to say I was very struck by the fact that he retakes this analogy of the mom and the child.

And I think this analogy precisely corroborates your point that Of this transition from when Beatrice was still alive, they were kind of equal, right?

In the way still both human beings alive. Now Beatrice is kind of in a different sphere and it's as if she was his mom. And in the first part when he's sad about Virgil disappearing, he's like, oh, as if going as a child going to his mom, crying because he's afraid, but actually his mom is, and so in that first analogy his mom is actually Virgil. But then in the second, when he retakes the analogy, it's Beatrice that is his mom. And so she's like, I am, you know, I'm like your muse, and you lost me when I died, but the fact that I died, and your faith, shouldn't prevent you from using me, having me as a muse even after my death.

So he lost his faith in some That's right.

Exactly. Yes. Okay. So now let me ask you this question. Why is she doing this? I mean, wouldn't it be better to first praise him, right? And then point out that, oh, you could improve in this way, right? That's how we're taught to criticize people, right? Don't do it directly. Don't scold people. Don't be angry at that person. First praise this person and then maybe towards the end you're like, oh, but you know, there's this one little thing. Why is she just pissed? Yes, Bruce.

Yeah, maybe because, you know, if people die and they have been prayed for by the family, so I think that Dante just cannot lie, you know, you can call it, I think Dante is trying to drag her legs. Do not let her go to heaven, because yeah, because I have to pick up, right, she has to pick up Why is she pissed at Dante?

What was she doing this? Yes.

So linked to free will, where there's two options. It could break him and so he would just take another path, or then by his love for Beatrice he would listen to her and try to improve on himself, whereas if she would come and just be loving him there wouldn't be no choice, he would just love her back, whereas he's conflicted.

I agree with that, but I'm just saying he's been through Inferno and he's been through Purgatory already, man. Why does he need to improve himself? How else can he improve himself? Why does he need to improve?

Also, before it was he was seeking a fake image of Beatrice. So now he's here, he needs a choice again. Whereas I'm Beatrice now. Do you want to go with me or do you want to just, because I'm not the Beatrice you thought I was, just go away?

Yes. Okay. Exactly. Yes. Yes, Andy.

Could it be because he's maybe treating the peak of Purgatory like the finish line when the finish line is Yes, that's what Beatrice is saying to Dante, is like, this is the beginning, man.

The real challenge is up there. So get your head in the right order. If you're still stuck on fame, you're not going to be able to do anything in heaven. Remember what matters, what brought you here is your love for me. So focus on that, Dante.

So she can't let up even a tiny bit. And also, my mind's not working fast enough, but I'm thinking there has to be something of the Rachel and Leah dream in this interaction, where she's saying, "Look, don't get your knickers in a twist now that you've had sex with Leah. You know, there's still seven more years or Yeah.

Okay. Anyone else? Yoo.

Yeah. Maybe just like asking a friend out, a girlfriend out, and if you get a date and the girl is just always complaining, why you just don't pick me up earlier, and why you always, you know, maybe just try to show up.

Okay. So let's think about this. So Beatrice is scolding Dante and the angels around her are saying, like, Beatrice, Beatrice, calm down, and Beatrice is like, shut up, man. Why does she do that?

Excuse me. She's mad.

Yeah. And not only that, but why is she mad?

She's mad. And it's like, I'm right to be mad. Do you understand? Just indignation, right? [laughter] Just indignation. I could be off base here. I wonder, a poet has a muse and they spend years and years, don't they? Spent so many years writing his love to Beatrice. Beatrice in real life, this moment is their third time of ever Yeah.

Basically. Yeah.

And so does a muse, I understand she's in heaven. God is love. She loves him. But does a muse often love their poets back or are they just objects of love? And so is it possible that he's coming up and he's like, "I love you." And she's like, "It's the third time we've met, man." Like, got a long way to go. [laughter] I think there are multiple factors at work here, but I think Beatrice thinks she deserves Dante's love because if you're the muse, right, you're the one who gave Dante this poetry in the first place.

I wonder if a few reasons. First of all, Dante couldn't let go of the fact that Virgil has left is one thing. So basically if I'm the wife and my husband is mourning over his best pal, guy bro, you know, homie, who kind of took over the joy of our wedding, then I'll be pretty pissed, because then I'll be like, well, I'm the bride and why is Virgil the homie the center of my husband's heart? And then yeah, and then the other one about going, God is the ultimate one, but he's like, the wedding day seems to be, for him, the end of the thing, that will piss me off too.

Okay. So the fact that Beatrice is angry at Dante suggests what about Beatrice? How does Beatrice feel about All that she cares, in a way?

She loves him.

Yeah. Dearly, and he's not returning that same amount of love. So I know this is hard for us to appreciate. What Dante is saying here is that just indignation comes from a place of love.

You understand? This is really important, guys. You understand these next four cantos, you need to understand this.

Right? Righteous indignation comes from a place of love. Only because you have love that you get angry. Right?

If you're Beatrice, you're like, I don't really care about this guy. Right? You're just doing your job. Why are you angry? And you should hear this.

Yeah. I feel like If I'm angry at you, that's because I love you.

Exactly. I think coming from moms and teachers, you have such expectation for your students. And when they are bright and then they make stupid mistakes, You get more mad than ever because you have so much expectation.

Like if I don't care about you, like just

Go to community college, you know, Yeah.

So you're harsh because you love.

Like I get angry a lot, right? Because [laughter] I'm expecting you guys to perform and to learn. Yes, Bruce.

Because I've heard there's some girl student just said if you just want to test whether the boy loves you or not, you just piss him off. [laughter] Let him get angry and try to find out if he can comfort you back or he just gives you the reason, tells you some reason stuff, then get rid of him. He's not really the person that falls in love with you. But if she just comforts you, like, I'm sorry, it's my fault, it's my fault, forgive me, then I think she cares about you.

Okay. All right. So let's continue.

Canto 31. "Oh you upon the holy stream's far shore," so she, turning her speech's point against me, even its edge had seemed too sharp, began again without allowing interruption. "Tell So did we finish the last panel?

What line were we at? Sorry.

Oh, really? Sorry.

Okay. All right. Sorry.

Sorry. Sorry. [clears throat] So sorry about it.

No, no, we didn't.

Okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. No worries, man. Let's go. Canto 31. Wait. 31. Okay. "Oh you upon the holy stream's far shore," so she, turning her speech's point against me, even its edge had seemed too sharp, began again without allowing interruption. "Tell, tell if this is true, for your confession must be entwined with such self-accusation." My power of speech was so confounded that my voice would move and yet was spent before its organs had released it. She forebore a moment. Then she said, "What are you thinking?

Okay. So Beatrice is saying to Dante, before, you loved me, this love led you to the goodness, to God, right? And then after I left, you betrayed me and started to love other things. And then Dante says, "Yes, I was fooled by shadows. I was fooled by the loveliness of shadows." And you can interpret this many ways. It could include different women but I think the best way to interpret this is fame. That's really that's real obsession. Fame. Okay. Keep on going.

Line 37. And she, "Had you been silent or denied what you confess, your guilt would not be less an evidence. It's known by such a judge. But when the charge of sinfulness has burst from one's own cheek, then in our court the whetstone turns and blunts the blade's own cutting edge. Nevertheless, that you may feel more shame for your mistake, and that in time to come, hearing the sirens, you may be more strong, have done with all the tears you sow, and listen, so shall you hear how unto other ends my buried flesh should have directed you.

So what's she saying here? She's saying that yes, she died, but then what has Dante done? She dies. And what should Dante do now?

Yeah. Why?

Like Romeo and Juliet. That's true love, she's saying.

So is she saying Dante should have killed himself?

He should have probably gone to a Something like that.

Yeah. Right. But because he knew he would probably get distracted, and if he really loved her, he would try and set himself up so that he would never lose.

No. No. So she's being very explicit here. After I died, you should have kept on loving me. Why? Yes. To pray for her.

Well, I mean, you could still do that if you're married to someone else or if you are writing poetry. I mean, it's hard to pray for a woman if you're married to someone else, I guess. To link it to Purgatory, where the more you think about someone, the faster is the way for, and I think he didn't think enough of Beatrice after her death.

Okay. No, no, she's being very explicit here. You should have kept on loving me To stay focused on your mission.

You should. No. Okay. What she says explicitly, okay, we're running out of time, but she's explicit about this. You should have kept on loving me because I am the most beautiful thing in the whole universe. Dante, joking, but she actually literally says this. Okay, "Nature or art had never showed you any beauty that matched."

She's literally about this, like, I am the best in the universe. Dante, what are you doing, man? Have you no taste? All right. So again, this is shocking because this is not what we're expecting, right? All right. Yeah, keep on going.

Line 64. "As children when ashamed will stand, their eyes upon the ground, they listen silently, acknowledging their fault repentantly, so did I stand, and she enjoined me, 'Since hearing alone makes you grieve, so lift up your beard, and sight will bring you greater tears.' There's less resistance in the sturdy oak to its uprooting by a wind from lands of ours or by a wind from Iarbas's lands than I showed in lifting up my chin at her command. I knew quite well when she said 'beard' but meant my face the poison in her argument.

Okay, so this is a griffin, right? Two natures, one person, that's Jesus. So that's why people think the griffin is "Beneath her veil beyond the stream, she seemed to surpass her former self in beauty, as here on earth she had surpassed all others.

The nettle of remorse so stung me then that those among all others, things that once most lured my love, became most hateful to me. Such self-indictment seized my heart that I collapsed. My senses lacked. What I became is known to her who was the cause of it. Then when my heart restored my outer sense, I saw the woman whom I'd found alone standing above me, saying, 'Hold, hold me.'" Okay, so Beatrice scolds him, right?

And basically says, "I'm the most beautiful thing in the world, Dante." And what happens to Dante? How does Dante feel about this? What's his response? Yes. I guess he probably feels immediately pretty bad, ashamed, and repentant. But I guess he's kind of getting a hint of happiness because he realizes if she's so mad at me, it's okay. She's embracing me, but slowly. She's like rebuking me in preparation for an embrace. How does he feel about her saying I am the most beautiful thing in the world?

So he looked around like, oh wait, she's right. She's so beautiful that everything that I hold dear is like dirt to me. It's like what's to me She's right.

Okay. And this shows that What really matters.

Who he is is his love for Beatrice. And this is where he's purged now. This is the completion of Purgatory. He has now completely purged of all sin. And what has purged from all sin? His love for Beatrice. And remember how in Paradise it's his love for Beatrice that's going to carry him all the way to God. Did you want to comment?

No. I mean, no, there was something earlier I wanted to say as well. I forgot my point. Yeah, maybe I can add.

Yeah. So the comment about how mad she is about stuff makes me think about Shakira, that she got so mad that her husband cheated on her with a very ugly woman. She wrote a song that you traded a Rolex for a Casio. Yeah. So I think it's kind of the same indignation that is showing.

Yeah. And so what Dante is saying, and it's really interesting, is that true love leads to just indignation but just indignation leads also to creativity. Right? It leads to poetry and creativity.

Yeah. I remember my point. I was going to say that it's especially striking to compare what Beatrice is feeling now to what her usual status in heaven is, which is, I mean, she's in the, what, I don't know the English word, but Yeah, the red rose, yeah, exactly.

And there, I mean, people are described to be in such a high sphere of heaven that they don't even, should even experience this kind of emotion. That's right. That's right.

And because they're so overwhelmed, in a good way, of course, with God's light That they are kind of in a different dimension, let's say, of being, of emotions and of feeling.

And now she's kind of, I think she's being stained, not necessarily in a negative way, by more human emotions again when she sees Dante. And as you said, this feeling of anger shows that she actually feels love for Dante, because otherwise she would feel indifferent.

That's right. Okay. So this is really interesting. So we are in Purgatory and her first speech is one of anger. Do you remember in Paradise her last speech? Do you remember her last speech in Paradise? What emotion was that speech? Do you guys remember? Anger. Okay. Remember how in her last speech she's like, you Italians are hopeless. You Italians, we send you Henry VII to redeem you and you guys turn away from him and you guys are hopeless. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, divine judgment is coming.

"Then when my heart restored my outer sense, I saw the woman whom I found alone standing above me, saying, 'Hold, hold me.' She plunged me up to my throat in the river, and drawing me behind her, she now crossed, light as a gondola, along the surface. When I was near the blessed shore, I heard 'Asperges me' so sweetly sung that I cannot remember, much less transcribe it. The lovely woman opened wide her arms. She clasped my head and then she thrust me under to that point where I had to swallow water.

Okay, so remember the idea here is that what redeems Dante at the end of the day, it's not going through Inferno and Purgatory. That is part of the process. It's not going through those seven terraces of Purgatory. What redeems him is remembering his complete and utter love for Beatrice. It's love that redeems him. This is really important. But he had to go through this process in order for Beatrice to awaken this love in him. Okay, so now we go to Canto 32. And here I want Carol to read all of it and then Renee will translate for us.

This is a rewriting of the Book of Revelation by Dante. Thank you.

All right. And so this is the "My eyes were so insistent, so intent on finding satisfaction for their 10-year thirst that every other sense was spent. And to each side, my eyes were walled in by indifference to all else with its old net. The holy smile so drew them to itself, when I was forced to turn my eyes leftward by those three goddesses, because I heard them warning me, 'You stare too fixedly.' And the condition that afflicts the sight when eyes have just been struck by the sun's force left me without my vision for a time.

Okay, stop. So this is now the Book of Revelation. Dante is rewriting the Book of Revelation, starting at lines 109. "Never has lightning fallen with such swift motion from a thick cloud when it descends from the most distant limit in the heavens as the bird of Jove that I saw swoop down through the tree, rending the bark as well as the new leaves and the new flowering. It struck the chariot with all its force. The chariot twisted like a ship that's crossed by seas that now stormed starboard and now port.

Okay. So could you start from line 109? Renee. Okay. So this is the Book of Revelation. My delight. Foreign. Okay. So Renee, have you guys studied this section? What is this section saying?

I don't remember if this not, but Okay.

So this is the Book of Revelation. And so Beatrice is telling Dante, observe what's happening, because this is the past, the present and the future. And so if we believe that the griffin is Jesus, the griffin is what takes a chariot to earth. The chariot is now the church, right, the beings of the Catholic Church and all this imagery, it's showing us the history of the Catholic Church. So starting in line 109, sorry, 112, the bird of Jove sweeps in and attacks the church.

The Antichrist. Okay. The Antichrist. The dragon is the Antichrist. It's Satan basically, but it's a pope that pretends to fight for the church, but which corrupts the church. So now the church is being corrupted from within. And the history keeps on going and it shows the constant corruption of the church. And then towards the end, we have a whore emerge. This is of course the whore of Babylon. And emerging with the whore is a giant that ultimately beats her out. Beats her up. And what scholars agree on is this represents Florence, the see of Florence which exiled Dante.

But what does anger do in a place of love? Do you understand? It totally makes sense because Jesus got really angry all the time in the Bible, but most of the time it was because he went into the temple with the Jewish people and he's yelling at them because he's like, "You have turned my temple into a place of a market."

So he goes into a rampage and throws stuff. So it's kind of like what's retribution to the church is what Jesus is doing to Okay.

Let's do a thought experiment. Let's imagine Dante writes this and a Buddhist monk reads this and he's disturbed by the anger in this Divine Comedy. And so they have tea together [snorts] and the Buddhist monk says, "Why can't you show compassion to the people on this planet, these kings, these queens? Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, right? Because all this is an illusion. So show sympathy, show compassion to these people. And it is your mercy, your forgiveness, your love that is divine, right?"

Yes. Everything is an illusion. But then you have to go to the consequence of it. If there's no just indignation or retribution, then people will keep acting that way.

Anna.

God is ultimately compassion and love. But yet God is mad all the time in the Old Testament. So anger, wrath, retribution does not conflict with love because it is exactly like a father punishing or disciplining his kid. It's out of love.

Okay. But then the Buddhist monk is like, wrath, anger is poison, right? The more anger, wrath you have, the more poison you become. So what good can come from your anger and your wrath? Yes.

It's cleansing again, because there's wrath in hell obviously, as we know, right? And the way to not engage with wrath is walk around it, otherwise you add to it. But it almost seems to be an exception when it comes to God himself that's having wrath all the time. Right. So then the question, paradox, is why is God mad? Right.

Right. No, but then the point is don't be mad. God will be mad. Let God handle it. Right.

So just cleanse yourself of your anger. Don't get angry. Focus on compassion. Yes. Because Dante essentially in exile is mad at Florence and what the church is doing and he probably heard this from a lot of people, like, leave retribution to God and he will do the justice, but like we've discussed before, he's so mad at people who are so heavenly bound that they're no earthly good. So then he's mad that no consequence is coming to the Catholic Church at this point and so he wants it to, you know, do something about the Well, that just shows Dante as a very petty person then, right?

It's like he wants vengeance. Yeah. Yeah. Carol.

If there's no just indignation then Dante wouldn't have written the Divine Comedy.

Exactly. Exactly. It is this just indignation that propelled his creativity. It's what led him to write the Divine Comedy. Love leads to just indignation. His love for Florence leads to his anger that he was exiled by Florence. And now he's like, I want God to punish the Florentines. And this anger is what leads him to write the Divine Comedy. But then we have a paradox, which is, okay, but then why is there wrath in hell and why is there wrath in Purgatory? Clearly it's a sin, right? That's confusing though.

I feel like anger would just be an expression of yourself, but it wouldn't lead to change of other people, just change for yourself. Because Jesus's anger, for example, for the Jewish people didn't really change the Jewish people, right? It only expressed his anger for the people. And maybe made his disciples maybe believe in him more, but it didn't change anything for the people he was angry about.

So I feel like anger wouldn't really be the solution.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you're agreeing with the Buddhist monk. Anger is not the solution. Yes. Edward.

Is it that wrath is wrong but wrath can be justified if it's divinely aligned?

Okay. What do you mean by that?

Like in regular ordinary life, wrath, for I know because I'm annoyed and frustrated about something, this is a problem of me projecting on someone else. If it is truly, and I suppose only God can judge this, if it is truly from a place of pure love and therefore divinely aligned, then wrath in this context can be justified.

Okay. All right. Sure. Fred.

I have to say that I don't think there's any wrath in paradise. I think to human minds divine justice and just the action of the just to human mind seems like anger, and probably if you were God and really powerful you'd think, how should I come across such that my message has an effect, but I really don't think God or in fact Beatrice is that angry, they just are trying to take the path of greatest efficacy. So there's wrath in Purgatory, wrath in hell, but the wrath in heaven is just what Dante perceives as anger.

Okay. So again, the thing about the Divine Comedy that's very important for us to remember is that we have the intuition to understand everything. So if we're not able to express ourselves clearly, if it's not Occam's razor elegant, then we're not approaching the truth enough. So I understand. Yes. Maybe when I'm interpreting it properly, but no, I think there's something else going on. Damian.

The anger in heaven might have come from a place of love, but the wrath in hell and Purgatory might be coming from your temper.

I've been wrestling with this idea of, if the world around us is poor, is unjust, a lot of Dante's individuality would be to just be aligned with God and stuff like that. But Dante's wrath seems to be in this same scenario of, the Catholic Church is led by the Antichrist And that's an unjust situation on earth.

Yes. And where we're like, hey, I don't like this president or there's this bad social situation going on, Dante's taking that for the most ultimate cause, which is the Antichrist is leading the flock astray. And so I need to not just get myself aligned with Christ, but I need, or with God, but I need to fix this social situation as Yes.

Exactly. That's exactly right. Did you want to add Yeah.

I was just going to say that at least the way we're told it's in Paradise, there is no anger. Of course souls are able to feel anger, like Beatrice for example, but there is no need for anger in Paradise, and Paradise is kind of the destination, the ultimate destination of what everyone should aspire to, and my understanding of this is that anger is only good in so far as it is a means to set people on the right path towards a destination of no anger.

So again there's a lot of anger in Paradise. I want to elaborate on Andy's point because Eddie got it completely right. Look, compare and contrast. Back in Dante's time the corruption of the church was like the Antichrist. Let's go and do something about it. Right? Today look at the world around us. Right? Blatant corruption, blatant inequality. Donald Trump is president for God's sake. And we're like, "Let's go watch porn, guys. Oh, let's play video games. Let's, you know," that's literally what we're doing.

The pope. Dante thought the Antichrist was the pope. Pope Boniface. Look, yeah, David.

I think by putting the church militant behind the church and putting, you know, the conflict and anger and chaos right at the end of Purgatory reveals Dante's eventual pessimistic attitude toward human society. Although he believed in the harmonious development, eventually salvation of the individual, maybe he has still quite a, you know, and calling his work Commedia, he still thinks that human society is not able to save itself. Okay, all right, okay, so let's talk about wrath. This is really important for us to understand. So wrath is punished in hell, right? Anger is punished in hell by what? Boiling. Right?

I'm just thinking about the future. Anger is super useful, but I find that because young people today are getting more and more sensitive, anger makes them dissociate. So I'm thinking that in my mission for the future,

I probably want to try and scold people into being better and not be angry at You're taking action.

That's right. That's what we should all be doing. Don't be like, there's nothing I can do about it, and don't be angry because angry makes me look bad, and people say, "Oh, don't be angry." You know, go see a therapist, right? Like, oh, are you angry? You should be on Valium. Oh, are you angry? Oh, yeah. I'm more asking how would you advise people in my generation to present their anger, because I feel like being angry now drives people away even more. So I'm thinking that even if I'm angry inside I don't want to hide my anger, but I have to be so seductive to people to change them now, because any condemnation immediately shuts people off.

Yeah. Continuing on his question, what I hear a lot is the "how dare you" meme, like is how people now show anger, and I think that's not, you know, the right way to channel, so it's a follow-up to his question.

Look, clearly I'm an angry young man. I'm not young anymore but I'm clearly an angry person and I'm angry because I have three kids who are growing up in this screwed up world, right? We're led by idiots. There's so much corruption, inequality in this world and all they're doing is screwing things up even more, right? And so I'm angry. I have three young kids and I'm like, you know, I need to channel this anger into creating a better world for my three young kids. And the only thing I can do is teach, right?

We'll finish at four. Okay. But that's what Dante is saying here. Be angry. Anger comes from a place of love, but channel your anger into action that benefits humanity. And that's why he wrote the Divine Comedy.

Yeah. I think something that we need to be particularly aware about, especially today for youth, is that there is a tendency, at least in my opinion, at least as far as I've noticed, there is a tendency that is becoming more and more widespread to make extremes look good, or to think that it's fine and okay and even wise and reasonable to pursue extremes, or that it's a cool thing. And I think if there's something we should at least try to go back to, it is to appreciate nuance always. And I don't know, personally a lot of the anger I see in youth today, because as we said, the world is so screwed up, right, and there are so many problems, arguably more than in the past few decades, we need to resist the temptation to, you know, just because we are so angry, to just be radical.

Okay. All right. Thank you for that. So this is the last canto, guys. We've come to it. We've come to the very last canto. We've done it. We've read the entire Divine Comedy. All right, but here we go. The very last canto of Purgatory.

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. All right. So that is it, guys. We have done the complete Divine Comedy. Any questions about today? Are we clear about what Dante's message is? I know this is what you were taught in school, but you know, we do things differently here.

Maybe if you could reiterate, explaining what is the sense of, because first you read heaven first or hell.

We read Paradise first. Paradise, then Inferno and then Purgatory.

We finished with Purgatory. Yes.

Yes. So maybe I was just wondering if you could explain briefly about that.

Yeah. So for us what's really important is for us to appreciate the cosmology of Dante. And to do that you have to actually go to Paradise first because then he tells you everything about how he believes the cosmos works. Right? You start off in hell, you're confused because you think the teacher is Virgil and a lot of things that Virgil says are actually not true. If you end up in Paradise first then you can see that Virgil is not a reliable guide. And then, yep, Bruce.

Yeah. Because as you know in this chapter we can know from this chapter about Revelation, but Revelation actually is also kind of prediction. It's kind of a prediction to human beings. So I think maybe it's your time for you to try to predict the future according to this.

Just like Revelation does. Yeah.

Right. Okay. So I want to finish with one final remark and that is how Dante designs the Divine Comedy. So we've been to Purgatory. Now I hope by yourself you go to heaven. At the end of heaven, where do you go after heaven?

And that's it, right?

Okay. Yeah. That's what most people are taught. But again, Dante is revolutionary because he doesn't believe that. So let's look at the last two words of Purgatory. What are the last two words? The stars, right? And Italian is the same, right?

As also the Inferno and everything.

Okay. So here in Purgatory, it's the stars, right? And in Inferno, what's the last two words? The stars, right? In Paradise, what's the last two words? Why would it be like that?

Yeah. There's infinite, right? The journey never ends. One destination only leads to another. Then when you finish that journey, then a new journey starts. So another reason why I want to do Paradise first is to show you this journey will never end. Hopefully you'll go home, go back and read Paradise again, and then when you repeat Paradise again, you'll see it completely differently. So it's meant to be a loop. It's meant to be eternity, but it's also meant to be infinity. Yes, Damian.

I'd just like to ask, what did the pope do to make Dante hate him so much?

So at this time in history, the Catholic Church is divided into many different factions, and they're fighting over who should be the legitimate pope. And right now there are two major centers of Catholic power. There's one in Rome of course where the Catholic Church is based but there's also one based in Avignon which is sponsored by the Holy Roman Emperor. And this is leading to wars throughout the entire of Italy. And so Dante is concerned about the factional struggles within the Catholic Church. But also at this point in history, the Catholic Church is extremely corrupt.

So I'm drawn to action definitely by the study and reading of the Divine Comedy. My action is basically directed towards increasing the free will of everybody in the world, trying to fight against wrong ideas, biases that are forcefully spread on people and that they pick up. What would your tips and short advice be to me and other people who are trying to act towards this end? So if I want to increase the free will of other people, there's teaching, which you do amazingly, but I don't know if I'm a teacher.

Okay, so this is a great segue to our next section. The final section, which is self-reflection. So maybe, yeah, we can engage in a process of self-reflection and if you need to run or something. Okay. All right. So we are finished with the Divine Comedy and I just want to hear how you think you've changed or felt these past two weeks. So would anyone like to start? And I'll answer your question eventually, Fred. But first I want to go through this reflection circle and then we'll discuss what's next.

Say what I learned in these two weeks. So I have to say that before I attended this program I really regarded those literary works, right, and a long time ago it's like, I may recall that's quite distant for me, and after joining this program I think I know the reason why those works are masterpieces and can be really famous and well spread to the world, because I quite understand about their wisdom. For example, I know some kind of motivation that truly comes from my heart that can lead me to do something in the world rather than being manipulated by some other social factors.

It's a dead end.

It's a dead end, I'm telling you right now, it's a dead end. Oh, really? Let's say, I know that maybe a few days ago we talked about that AI might be alchemy. And I will try my best to not let this come true in the future. Okay. All right. Thank you. Who's next? Who would like to? If you don't speak I'm just going to call on you.

By the way, I had a dream yesterday night. I don't know if we have time to share it but Go ahead, share it.

I found it quite interesting and at first I thought it was quite limited, but it is interesting. So it started from me meeting a very good friend of mine from primary school. So it's been almost seven or eight years I didn't see him. And it was a good friend. So a positive energy and also nostalgic. So I go to his house and we start talking just like, yeah, catching up on time. And he started talking about his girlfriend he had and he got a bit, and yeah, it didn't quite end well for him.

Okay. Right. Okay. Thank you. It's very interesting.

Yeah, it is.

Okay. All right. Anyone who's next, Skyler? Yes.

Yeah. So before, my understanding of the Divine Comedy and Dante is, you know, it's something that you have to learn in history class. It's very important. That's all I knew about it. But after reading it, I think I have four main takeaways. First of all is, you know, love is the answer to all. And if you let love guide your actions, it's kind of like your intuition, where that way it's always going to leave you on a path that your heart desires. So for example, when we're reading the Divine Comedy and some things you don't understand, you think of it from the perspective of, you know, your mother or your wife or your children.

My second takeaway is I really think that reading Dante, because it's so foundational in Western thinking, especially after the Renaissance, has helped me as a Chinese person gain more thorough understanding of Western culture. It's kind of like if you are a Westerner and you read Lu, you know, that way you understand Chinese culture more and the things that it values. For example, the emphasis on free will and really using your free will. You know, in the Divine Comedy, if you don't use your free will, you are literally going to hell.

That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Skyler. Okay. Damian.

I think personally reading the Divine Comedy gave me more faith in God.

Okay. Wonderful. Great. David.

So I just created this just a few minutes ago. So I think there are so many layers of, you know, [clears throat] understanding the lecture theory. I think on the fundamental level this lecture gave me experience that is basically the first induction into the world of literature, because before going into this lecture I thought the Divine Comedy is just a traditional moralistic installation where you have a very well structured universe of different figures that will give you a very clear idea about the medieval or late early, you know, a great wise man's admonition as to how to lead a righteous life. But then I realized that below this surface of the structure, each individual, each actor or each protagonist has their own life and their own complexity.

Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Yes. Okay. Great. Who's next? Julian. Yeah. So, I'm going to make it, I have three points, so not so long. One thing I really appreciate about Dante and that you always pointed out is his paradoxes, the use of paradoxes in his language. Like, every time We talked about something he wrote, it was always a paradox.

And that's really interesting because that's how you can combine different truths. That's how you can combine differences. You can remove differences that we have in today's world. And you will see past, like you can use your imagination to see past these differences that you have with other people, and so yeah, they become paradoxes that you have to basically overcome and think about. Then also for me the point of [snorts] being able to resonate with Dante himself a lot.

Very important.

Edward.

Yeah, there's probably a lot to say. I think one of the main things I've appreciated from this study is obviously having the chance to go through the whole Divine Comedy and reflect, you know, on my own life. Normally in life you might do one thing wrong or one thing good and you might reflect on it, whereas going through the journey with Dante almost forces you to look at, yeah, your own life in a lot more detail.

There is that feeling of hope and that You know, you can relate to Dante.

He's made mistakes. Virgil's made mistakes. You know, a lot of people in the book have made mistakes, but there is always hope. So I suppose that's applying the Divine Comedy on. Then the second stage would be you also look at the world differently. It probably makes you, even though we already know, makes you realize, I would say we live in quite a sick society in that, you know, there's a lot of sins that we see in the piece but they just happen every single day, whether it's in politics, business or general entertainment.

We use metaphor to comprehend and discuss concepts that are maybe too big for us to fully understand. So we say things like life is a baseball game or the universe is like the ocean and we connect them to things that are small enough that we can see, touch and understand. Most all of literature is a metaphor for the human condition and they usually just deal with one single aspect of it. This is love. This is a book on loss or redemption. We've discussed a lot about Paradise Lost here.

We're not in Paradise. And so we come here and we do the hard work. Every year I give myself big challenges for mind, body and spirit and Dante gets to cover two of them.

Great. Thank you. Ivy, I would like to hear from you. Okay. What are your feelings after taking this course? I wish to study classics in university and before this I always believed that the Greek civilization is basically the foundation of, where people respect the gods and they fear the gods and everything is at the mercy of external forces that we cannot control. So the Greek civilization is basically a world of fear and just fear. But I also remember before this course started I watched your videos on YouTube and in one of the videos you mentioned that both Homer and Dante, their works are focused and based on love.

Thank you. Great. Carol, let's, sorry, sorry, we're just running out of time, but okay, really makes me more religious in a sense, more pious I guess, to reconcile all the theologies. And also it makes me think about that Dead Poets Society where the teacher says, you know, science and law and medicine, it's how we live, but music, literature, poetry, all these are what we live for as humans, and it really makes me feel like, yeah, poetry is what would do it all. So yeah, thank you.

Okay, great. So one of the things that amazed me the most during this seminar is your ability to get into the author's mind, what you call close reading. I think this is a high level demonstration of close reading, right? And I always wondered how could you find all those hidden details in history and then connect the dots together, right? Like for example, when you're reading, you mentioned before, when you're reading Frank Jacob, right?

Thank you. Okay. Oh.

So before I came here I had already read the Divine Comedy but it's in Chinese and I feel like I was very confused, especially for the, but I feel like even if I can't understand it, I feel like the image you have in your head is very beautiful and it is divine. And when I came here I feel like the learning journey of the Divine Comedy is just like Dante. At first I'm very afraid to ask any questions or to express my opinions. But over time I feel like I've gradually gained a deeper understanding of the Divine Comedy and the connections between these ideas and my own life and how I should become in the future.

Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Crystal, then Bruce.

Okay. So I'll try to be quick here but basically I think this is a very rewarding experience for me to be able to engage in such a diverse cohort with people from different backgrounds, different age groups, from different career paths and whatever, to discuss the same work. And before I came here my perception of the Divine Comedy is basically that it's a fiction and it's very imaginative, basically Dante's going on this imaginative journey where he goes through these three different regions and whatever. But then I was kind of impressed to see that there are a lot of real life connections that still apply today.

Yeah. Thank you, Bruce.

Yeah. Okay. So I've been reading a lot, I've written many more words but I don't want to read it because I think there are two things. The first one is collectivism, because as we know, as been told in China, and all of the things about collectivism, which means you have to love your country, you have to love your family, love your company, and all of the things good is really good, it really can help me a lot by, you know, being a good person, right? But there's another kind of thing like individualism, which I think maybe we need more in China, because after so many people just get lost, lost their job, you know, drop out from the, who they sometimes just feel hopeless.

Thank you. Okay. Fred.

I haven't been here for a very long Okay.

I guess the question was how has it changed you? Well, it's made me realize you have to do things in the real world and it's important just to get to places and do things and speak to people. A lot of theorizing is useless. And I'm very glad that I got to sit in this room because I guess people who started from the beginning weren't really watching the live streams. But I was watching the live streams and I just had a vision of what it would be like to sit at the desks and I just really, really, really wanted it to happen and then it happened.

And so I thought I would feel so nervous even answering a question, but it felt so natural, and it's difficult to explain that other than love and learning and all these good things make what would otherwise have been nervous situations feel natural. Hey, Thank you.

Okay. Carol. Yeah. So I love the star metaphor because I believe in Latin, and perhaps in Italian as well, the word for desire Is desiderare.

And actually the short form of it is "de sidere," which means from the stars. And I think this whole journey has reminded me and possibly more of you that we're all from the stars and that desire is that calling to go back. And I really love Francois's imagery of, and you putting the web, Indra's web, in my mind, and actually for me my vision is actually to catch and to build community.

Which actually was also something inspired by videos I watched from you, and catching fish. It's almost the imagery of the Indra's net. There seems to be a lot of souls caught in the web and in the nets and some are freer, some are less free. And I want to help free people. You can go freely in [laughter] and out, but you know, hopefully retrieving your route back to the stars.

And that's my vision and it was actually a lucid dream.

Wow. Okay.

So, thank you. Thank you very much for this experience.

All right. So first of all, I want to express tremendous gratitude. This is the last day and I'm feeling nothing but gratitude for everything, to everyone. So my intention for organizing this seminar and working with Carol is I want to read Dante in full and I want to understand Dante, because I've taught Dante for the past four years but I've always cheated. You know, I've always skipped around, looking for patches that conform to my particular perspective. And I said to myself, that's not really fair. What I want to do is I want to read Dante in full.

Yeah. But again, Carol and our team are amazing. So Carol, could you thank your team?

Yes. I want to thank our IT and AV staff, because we do realize that there are issues every day, but they've really tried their very best and it's around the clock because there's also uploading and we know where we are. The networks are slow here. I want to thank Yanglio, Peter Su, and the person who cleaned the whiteboard. Just every single person. And you know, she was the one who cleaned up all your water bottles and replenished all your water bottles every day and set everything up. But I do want to thank Jiang for summoning, and you know, actually if this were an occultist experience you're the priest and you helped to summon this for us and you helped to lead us on this pilgrimage.

So you know it seems like I did a lot of work but let me tell you I am not exhausted. I am not at all exhausted. I feel so energized. I feel so hopeful. I feel a deep sense of gratitude. So Fred asks, so what's next? What can we do? And I mean, we're already doing a lot. Okay, so I know, we're just a classroom, but you know, there are a lot of people watching this online and they are going to be inspired by our example. The love of the Divine Comedy is already implanted in your heart.

Are we the first generation of neo If you want to be?

Yes. Yes. Okay. All right. So thank you so much. And let's stay in touch. And again, this is just the beginning of something wonderful. Okay. All right.