Okay. Good morning. Welcome back. Any outstanding issues from yesterday or any questions you have?
Okay. Sure. I was pondering the issue of why we don't confront our anger, these types of emotions, directly and head on.
Reminded that sometimes we need to go all the way down to be able to get back up.
And to myself at least, and this is particularly personal, I think part of going to Inferno is also to see the full length and consequence of all these emotions, because just like the mirrored flame you talked about yesterday, sometimes when you have a negative emotional reaction to something, it's because there's something in you that reacts to that. And so I think sometimes you don't go tackle some problem head on, but you need to dive deep into it, really, really deep, in order to emerge from the other side.
That's right. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yes.
So the whole journey into helping these beings, is it reasonable to assume that Dr. writer was inspired by the being to help his lover Yeah.
Exactly. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Exactly. So Dante is trying to create a renaissance, right? He's trying to delve deep into the memory of Western civilization, into human civilization, and recall all these great traditions that have been lost over time. Not only Orpheus but also Dionysus, basically the great legends of the Greek tradition. And again, most of these things are lost, but even though the memory has been lost, the feeling is still there, right? So he's trying to conjure up this nostalgia. Exactly. Yes, Orpheus is very important for Dante. Okay, any more comments? Okay, so with regards to yesterday, I want to make two So yesterday I was asked a question.
I said that Mary's child, if she had a child before Jesus and if this child were to die as an infant, then this child would be next to God. And I want to explain my logic here, because what Dante's trying to convey, and this is a really important thing you must understand about Dante, is he's saying that God's justice is perfect. Meaning that with enough love and with enough imagination, you can reason out the logic of everything that God does, and it'll be convincing and understandable to everyone around you. Okay. And so the logic is this.
Mary is the queen of heaven. And she's the queen of heaven because she is the best of us. Okay. She is the person who is able to give birth to a god, Jesus. And she is so perfect. We have to assume that her mother is perfect as well, or her mother is also very virtuous. That's why Anna the mother is also in heaven and in the highest sphere next to God. So if we just work out the logic, if Anna is virtuous, the most virtuous, which allows for Mary to be even more virtuous, perfect in virtue, then we're going to assume that whatever child Mary has will also be extremely virtuous, given the fact that the child is born of Mary, but also given the fact that Mary will parent this child, right?
And so it is entirely possible for the child to screw this up and just become an adult and just do a lot of bad things. That's possible, but if the child dies as an infant, then you have to assume that this child will be a virtuous person as well and will deserve a seat next to God. You have to make that assumption according to this logic. So if the child dies as an infant, then God, in his infinite wisdom, in his perfect justice, will assign this infant a seat next to him.
Okay, does that make sense? Logically, again, everything has to be explained logically and you can actually reason this out. All right. This is important because yeah, go No, but this is regarding the unborn child, right?
Prematurely dying before they are able to reason. I feel like Dante is bringing this up towards the end as we reach the pinnacle of heaven.
This is the pinnacle of heaven.
Yeah. As we are in the pinnacle of heaven, I think Dante is, I wouldn't call it humility, but Dante is admitting that there are unknown unknowns, primarily around the question of free Mhm.
Because free will, consciousness, until today it's not a figured-out subject, right? And free will, as we talked about with regard to God, God gives us free will, but God probably wasn't the one who created free will. That means free will transcends, it might be something beyond, I don't know.
Beyond the beyond, God's reasoning even.
Because if you're trying to generate something like we've discussed, God wants to, it's probably not something that you can create on your own, It's like energy, right?
The reason why we mind energy, that we need energy, is because it's not something that we can come up with from scratch, Right?
Okay. Yeah. So I think where I agree is there are no absolutes in the universe. Okay. There are a lot of things that are special cases, and in these special cases you have to really use your love and imagination to figure these special cases out. Okay, the infant case is, again, the hardest theological problem in the universe. Okay, so this is to address the issue of why would Mary's child be granted access to the Empyrean. Okay. The other issue that we discussed last class is why would Virgil agree to being Dante's guide?
And I was being tongue in cheek. I said, "Well, it's because Beatrice is really hot." And there's some truth to that, but it's never that complicated. It's never that simple, right? Because if you actually read the passage, what Beatrice said to Virgil is that if you were to do this, then God will reward you. God knows about this. We have a special permission from God to help Dante, even though he's still not dead, ascend to heaven. You will guide him from hell to purgatory, and then I'll pick him up in purgatory, and then I will take him to heaven.
Okay? And so Virgil has the opportunity to enter paradise, but we know for a fact he doesn't. He's not in paradise. So this creates a question for us. How is it that Virgil is granted access to paradise? Because all he has to do is guide Dante. Okay, we know that Dante accesses paradise. So Virgil succeeds in his mission. And we know that God has already made Virgil this promise. You helped Dante reach paradise and you went to paradise as well. But Virgil is not in paradise. So this creates a mystery for us.
Okay? And that's why I wanted to read it in this order, because you recognize that there must be something about Virgil, okay, that does not allow him to access paradise. So why couldn't he access paradise given the logic of this class so far? Yes.
So this is something I've been curious about since the first day, but since you talked about Virgil not being able to access paradise, this kind of brought this up to me. So, God is love, God is light, and you are a measly teacup. Is it possible for the teacup, it's like the sun, okay? It's like the sun, like the sun's rays nourish us and help us, but too much time out in the sun and we start to blister and we start to get sunburn. Is it possible for some people, knowing the nature of angels, to purposefully, to voluntarily turn away from God to live in the shade?
So look, the answer to the question of why did Virgil not enter paradise: the answer is he did not want to. He chose not to go to paradise. He chose to stay in hell. And there's something really important to appreciate if you are to understand the ultimate message of the Divine Comedy. Okay, all right, so let me provide some background before we start. The thing that Dante and Virgil both understand is that poetry is what gives birth to civilization. Okay? Poetry is what teaches people how to think, how to feel, and how to imagine.
Part 210:21
Without poetry, there can be no civilization. And the classic example of this is Homer, which we will not read. And by the way, this is something really important for you guys to appreciate. Dante did not read Homer. He did not have access to the Iliad and the Odyssey because in this world they spoke Latin and Homer is written in Greek. Okay? So he couldn't actually read Homer, and it was very hard to access a Homer manuscript at this time. But Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this will give rise to probably the greatest civilization in human history, the Greek civilization.
Okay, Athens. Classical Athens, from about 450 to 350 B.C.E., will basically create the framework for Western civilization. This is a time of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, Herodotus, basically everyone. Okay. And a lot of things that were taught back then, we still teach. If you go back to biology class at this time, it would not be that different from biology class today. Okay, it's pretty amazing to think about. What then will happen is that Alexander the Great will then conquer the world. Okay, basically Persia, which was most of the world at this time, and he will take Greek civilization as far as India.
Now, Alexander the Great is interesting because he's really the first great world conqueror in history, and there's a lot of debate as to how Alexander was able to accomplish this, but the main reason is, and I know this is hard for you guys to appreciate, but no one before him wanted to do this. Okay, let's think about this logically. Before, war was about extortion, right? Either you give me land or you give me money or you give me, you know, hostages, or I will come and invade you.
So it's basically an extortion racket. So when Alexander was threatening Persia, basically the person said to him, we'll give you half the empire, okay, half the empire, which is a lot of land, we'll give you like a trillion dollars, but don't invade us. And usually this was enough to buy peace, right? But Alexander was like, "I don't want your money. I don't want your land. I don't even want your throne. I want" And again, before, nobody who was king, nobody who had an army, would think like this, because you have an army to feed.
They want women. They want land. They want riches. And so we have to appease your army. Right? Like no, all I want is glory. I want to be remembered forever as the world's greatest conqueror. So I don't want any of this. And so you're like, where did he get this idea? And the answer is the Iliad, Homer, Achilles, right? If you read the Iliad, Achilles is very clear. He's like, I'm on the beach of Troy. I know I will die here in a couple of years. I know that because I was given this prophecy.
I don't care, because I was told that by coming to Troy I will be remembered as the greatest warrior in human history. Okay, that's what I want. I want the And so that's why Alexander did what he did, and he was able to bring Greek civilization as far as India. Okay. And so what is the basis of Greek civilization? To understand Greek civilization, you do need to understand two ideas. Okay. These two ideas are the basis of Greek civilization. They are arete and eudaimonia.
Arete means excellence. Okay. And the idea of arete is that what matters is to stand out from the crowd. What matters is to demonstrate your excellence to the world. And you can do that in two ways. You can do that one on a battlefield, by being a great hero, in which people will celebrate you and sing songs about you like Achilles, right, a great warrior on the battlefield. But another way of doing it is to be a great speech maker, to stand in front of your peers, your colleagues, and give a speech that rouses them to action, that convinces them to do good, that sways them to your opinion. Okay, so these are the two main ways in which you do that, either through speech making or through war fighting.
Okay, war fighting, the exemplar is Achilles. Speech making, the exemplar is Odysseus. Okay, so these are the two main ideas undergirding Greek civilization. Greek civilization, because of these two ideas, is able to become the greatest civilization in history because everyone's trying to be the best. Everyone's trying to transform the world. Okay, just as what Dante told us, right? To live a life of faith, hope and love. Well, at this time, they were trying to live a life of arete and eudaimonia. Basically the same thing. And this is what made Greek civilization so compelling and what allowed Greek civilization to spread around the world.
Then what happened, of course, is the rise of Rome. And the Romans were different. The Romans became the greatest empire in the world because they focused only on war. All they cared about was defeating their enemies. They were able to do that because of the focus on the idea of piety, obedience to the fathers, to the senators, to the history of Rome and to the gods. Okay. So this is a very different conception of the world. But the problem, of course, is that once the Romans encountered Greek civilization, like, wow, Greek civilization is so much more sophisticated, so much more cultured than our civilization.
They knew that because of Homer, because they learned Greek, they read the Iliad, they read the Odyssey, and they were like, this is what civilization should be about. This is beautiful. Okay. They memorized the Iliad and the Odyssey as part of their education and it became to act out Greek civilization. And so the leaders of Rome at this time, mainly Augustus Caesar, the emperor, the first emperor of Rome, the son of Julius Caesar, he recognized that over time Roman civilization would be conquered by Greek civilization.
Territorially, militarily, the Romans have conquered the Greeks. But over time, culturally, the Greeks will conquer the Romans. Okay? So what do you do about this? What you have to do is confront Homer directly. Okay? You need a new poet. You need a new epic poem in order to replace Homer. And that, of course, is Virgil's Okay? So Augustus Caesar sponsored Virgil's writing of the Aeneid. In fact, they wrote it together. Okay? Because whenever Virgil finished a particular part, he went to Augustus Caesar and Augustus said, I think you should do this.
I think you should do that. Okay. But it was a co-authored work together, because we have to, in order to fully appreciate Dante. And so with the Aeneid, with Homer, love was at the center of civilization. Okay. Now with Rome, it is piety or obedience that gives rise to civilization. Obedience is the main organizing principle of civilization. And this becomes the framework also for the Catholic Church, right? Paul and Augustine will work together across centuries to create the theoretical framework for the Catholic Church. And basically you create obedience by instilling fear in people.
And so Europe descends into the Dark Ages because fear becomes the main emotion at this time. Okay. People are focused on not doing anything wrong so they can go to heaven. Right? That limits their creativity. And Dante recognizes this. And so what he's going to do, even without having read Homer, okay, is resurrect Homer and create the Divine Comedy. Okay. But the challenge for Dante is much greater than for Homer. Homer could come, and at this time this is the Greek Dark Ages. There's really no central authority.
Part 320:16
A lot of the civilization was destroyed in the Bronze Age collapse. So it's a blank slate. Okay. So he could come and he could recite his poetry and people would be inspired by it. He had no opposition. Dante is different. Dante has to fight an empire which has a church as well as a god, which is Virgil. Okay. So what you want to do ideally is basically construct your cosmology. Okay, which is Paradise, right? We've already read Dante's cosmology in Paradise. We now know exactly what he thinks.
Then what you need to do is go convince people, right? You engage in debate, and then you hopefully spread. Okay. The problem, of course, is you can't do that at the time in history. The Catholic Church is dominant. So you can't actually spread what you believe. You can't actually debate people. Okay. So the Divine Comedy has been constructed in a way so that Dante can spread his cosmology, but in a way that people don't know he's doing it and in a way that convinces people. All right.
So what he has to do is basically agree with Virgil, make Virgil the hero of the Divine Comedy, then he has to subvert Virgil, okay? Or maybe subversion, show to us that maybe Virgil is not God, maybe he's fallible, maybe he's just wrong. And then that will then allow him to now promote his cosmology. Okay?
It's cosmology, and that's why the Divine Comedy is constructed in the way that it is. He starts off with hell, which celebrates Virgil. He goes to purgatory, in which a lot of ideas of Virgil are being subverted, and then now we can ascend to paradise, which then allows Dante to reveal to all of us his cosmology. Okay, does that make sense? Okay, now it sounds very simple, but you actually do this in practice. You can appreciate how hard it is to do, right? Because ideally you want to first create your cosmology, then figure out how to convince other people.
But Dante has to start the other way around. Okay? Meaning in his mind, he already needs to figure out the cosmos before he writes anything down. Okay? And that's what he does. So, having read the Divine Comedy, I can tell you that it's the Divine Comedy that convinced me there must be a God. Before I read the Divine Comedy four years ago, I was an atheist. I was utterly convinced the world, the universe, is emergent. It's materialistic. It's all random. There is no God. There can't be a God.
But having studied it, it is impossible for me to explain how Dante was able to do this if he did not have divine inspiration, if he was not guided by the Holy Spirit. Okay? If there was not the universe showing him the path, because not only do you have to construct this way, but you have to maintain consistency throughout the process. Meaning you have to drop basically Easter eggs from the very beginning showing that Virgil is compromised. Okay. Otherwise, it won't work that way. All right. Yes.
I agree that the Divine Comedy is a great work. However, I don't think it's a divine work. I don't think its existence proves the existence of God, because this is what a world builder does. The Easter eggs and the structure you're talking about, this is very similar to what modern world builders do. They establish a framework first and then they write about their world. So if you're saying that this is a great book, I agree. But if you're saying that it proves the existence of God, not so Okay.
So okay, that's about criticism. Okay. So two points. First of all, Dante did not call his work Divine Comedy. He called it Comedy, not divine. Divine came later. Why would all these great poets want to add divine to it? Okay. So if you talk to someone like T. S. Eliot, if you talk to any great poet of the 20th century, they will tell you there are two great poets in human history. They are Homer and they are Dante. Maybe some will say Shakespeare, maybe some include Milton, but they all agree there are two great poets of human history.
They are Homer and they are Dante. And the divine was added later on. Okay, remember at this time in history, you can't call anything divine because it's heresy, right? The Catholic Church is going to chop off your head. How dare you say something's divine? Only the Catholic Church has the authority to say what is divine or not. All right? So it was not called divine at the time. It was added on later. That's point number one. Point number two is that what's interesting is that if you talk to scholars, there's widespread disagreement about the construction of these great poems.
So for example, Homer, there are many scholars who do not believe that Homer was a real person. They thought that Homer was a collection of individuals, very much like the movie-making process, where you might have a director but you also have a cinematographer, you have an editor, you have a collection of individuals. Okay. Some even argue that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not written by the same person. Emily Wilson, who translated both the Iliad and the Odyssey, if you go to Yale today, directs studies. The translation you actually read of Homer is translated by Emily Wilson, but I read her preface to the Odyssey.
When I teach the Odyssey I actually use Emily Wilson, and she said that, well, I personally think that Homer was not one person. It was a committee. It was very much a collective process. And I'm sort of surprised by this, because if you look at any great work of art, it's always an individual genius at work. Okay? There's never an example of a great painting or a great piece of music or a great piece of literature where it's a collective effort, where two individuals are working together.
It only leads to chaos. Okay? Let me finish please. Okay.
The Bible.
The Bible is a great work of religion. But if you read the Bible, okay, you will know that it's complete chaos. There are certain parts of the Bible, for example Genesis, which is great literature. And we all agree that a lot of the Bible was written by a person called the Yahwist, J. Okay? If you just go spend some time and look at the scholarship on the Bible, okay, they all tell you that Genesis was written by at least four people. All right, and the story of Adam and Eve was written by one person, only one person, who is a Yahwist.
And if you read Harold Bloom, The Book of J, he makes the argument that J was a poet. She was not, it was a she. She was not a priest. She was not a theologian. She was a poet. Okay. So whatever part of the Bible is extremely poetic, this includes Genesis, it also includes the Gospel of Mark, it was written by a poet. Okay. And if you actually do literary analysis, you can actually see the spark of poetry in certain aspects of the Bible.
Yes.
I'm just going along with the hypothesis that, okay, say Dante has a framework, right? Dante is a world builder. I don't know. I'm not a scholar in this. So what exactly is Dante's framework, is my question. Right? If we assume the hypothesis that Dante started out with the framework, what exactly is the framework? Is it mathematical in nature? Is it scientific? Is it experimental? What is it?
Okay. All right. So let's go back to Homer. Okay. Homer had to be a real person. And the reason why is, if you actually read the Iliad and the Odyssey, and I suggest you do because they're both tremendously beautiful works of literature, the people inside them are real people, okay? They are real people, and you could feel as though you could meet them in real life and have a conversation with Achilles and have a conversation with this and everyone else in it. And the same thing with the Divine Comedy, where you can actually meet Beatrice and she's a consistent real person.
You can meet Dante, you can meet Virgil, and they're all consistent people with real psychology. Okay. And Harold Bloom, again, the criteria he uses in order to judge the authenticity of a character is, does this person hear himself or herself talk? Meaning, is this person capable of self-reflection? Okay. An example of this is where Virgil is telling Dante, so Beatrice promised me access to heaven if I help you. And then he hears himself say, "Wait a minute, but that seems like I'm selfish. That makes me seem very egotistical." So then he changes and says, "Oh, but I didn't care because I was so enraptured by her beauty that I agreed anyway." Okay.
Part 430:24
So that's what happens when the character can hear himself talk, right? I say this but oops, I see the effect on that person, so I'm going to make changes to it. And if you read Homer and Dante, that happens with characters all the time, when during the speech process the person is also dissociating and analyzing his or her own speech. Okay, and that's what makes it authentic, and that's why it had to be written by one person only, because only an individual is capable of doing that.
Okay. Does that make sense? All right. Okay. So let us continue. Oh, we're now at Canto 3. Okay. And again, the reason why I want to read Paradise first is I want to show you that this world is complete. These are real people. And even in Inferno, we can see foreshadowings of Paradise. We can see how Dante is subverting Virgil as an authority. And he has to subvert Virgil in order to promote his ideas. Okay.
"Through me the way into the suffering city. Through me the way to the eternal pain. Through me the way that runs among the lost. Justice urged on my high maker. I was made by divine authority, the highest wisdom and the primal love. Before me nothing but eternal things were made, and I endure eternally. Abandon every hope, who enter here."
Okay. So this is a very famous sign, a warning to people who enter hell. Okay. So if you want to come to hell, abandon every hope, who enter here. Okay. Let's keep on going.
Verse 10. "These words, in dark letters, I saw inscribed above a gateway. And I said, 'Master, their meaning is difficult for me.' And he to me, as one who comprehends, 'Here one must leave behind all hesitation. Here every cowardice must meet its death. For we have reached the place of which I spoke, where you will see the miserable people, those who have lost the good of the intellect.' And when with gladness in his face he placed his hand upon my own to comfort me, he drew me in among the hidden things.
Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries were echoing across the starless air, so that as soon as I set out, I wept."
Wait, stop. Okay, right. Abandon every hope here. Okay. Turn to hell. You must abandon hope. What does Dante mean by hope?
The hope that one day he can see Beatrice again.
No, no. I'm saying more generally, how is hope defined by Dante? Yes. But what is arrogance? The ego. Yes. Okay. Yes. Did You hope of getting out of it?
Yeah. Just the ego. Okay. Abandon your sense of self. Abandon every sense of agency and autonomy that you have. Okay. That's what allows you to enter hell. You understand? Okay. Abandon hope. Abandon your ego.
Yes. Hope would also connote a relation to time. You hope for the future. You don't hope for and so this is still beyond time and space that you spoke about earlier.
Yes. Yes. Right. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. But this is a provocative idea, where you're taught that your ego is what leads you to hell, right? Your lust, your desire, that's what leads you to hell. But we know that Dante defines hope as arrogance. So abandon your arrogance, those who enter here, right? Abandon your belief that you can escape hell, can redeem yourself from hell, then you can be here. Okay? Does that make sense?
I wonder who wrote these words. Was it Virgil the writer, or sorry, was it Dante the writer, or was it Virgil, or was it like a classical inscription written by Homer or Most of this will be Dante.
Okay. And where it is someone else, Dante will reference. Okay. Because again, Dante is a very arrogant person. He wants you to recognize the originality of his poem, right? Okay. So this is Dante. And again, the idea of hope is consistent, right? We know from heaven that hope is arrogance, the assertion of self, the belief that you can change the world for the better. And what Dante is saying here is, if you want to enter, you have to believe you have no agency.
You have no control over anything. That's a precondition for entering hell. Okay. Does it make sense?
I would like to highlight that it's actually on the person to decide whether he wants to enter, right? This is sending a message to the person who is entering hell.
That's right. Okay. Do you understand? If you in your heart don't believe you should be here, if you in your heart believe you can still escape hell, you can do so, because the fundamental law of the universe is free will. Yes. Yeah. A little bit confused, because in hell, just like you said, Dante just gave up, right? His hope. But there's still somebody who's just stealing the house, just like Caesar or some kind of emperor, you know, even the godfather. Do you think that they all just gave up their hope?
No. Well, look, I'm not trying to make a theological argument, okay? I'm just trying to say what Dante's idea is. For Dante, everyone in hell is there because he or she chooses to be there. He chooses to be there because he or she has given up his or her free will. Does it make sense? Okay. It's a choice you make. Whether it be in heaven or hell, it's a choice you make. Okay. Let's keep on.
"Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements, accents of anger, words of suffering, and voices shrill and faint and beating hands all went to make a tumult that would whirl forever through that turbid timeless air, like sand that eddies when a whirlwind And I, my head oppressed by horror, said, 'Master, what is it that I hear?
Who are those people so defeated by their pain?' And he to me, Okay, so defeated by their pain.
Okay, the construction of the words signifies these people have given up. You understand? Defeated by their pain. These are defeated people, right? And this goes against what we understand about people in hell, who are people who just do tremendous Okay, does that make sense? There's a clear difference. Okay, let's keep on going.
Verse 34. "And he to me, 'This miserable way is taken by the sorry souls of those who lived without disgrace and without praise. They now commingle with the coward angels, the company of those who were not rebels nor faithful to their God but stood apart. The heavens, that their beauty not be less, have cast them out, nor will deep hell receive them; even the wicked cannot glory in them.' And I, 'What is it, master, that oppresses these souls, compelling them to wail so loud?' He answered, 'I shall tell you in few words. Those who are here can place no hope in death, and their blind life is so abject that they are envious of every other fate.
The world will let no fame of theirs endure. Both justice and compassion must disdain them. Let us not talk of them, but look and pass.' And I, looking more closely, saw a banner that, as it wheeled about, raced on so quick that any respite seemed unsuited to it." Okay. So again, all these three different realms, whether they are hell or purgatory or paradise, they all parallel each other in structure. Okay. So in Paradise it is Beatrice who is communicating with Dante, teaching Dante. Here in hell it is Virgil that is teaching Dante.
Part 540:20
Can someone explain to me the difference in the way that Beatrice teaches and the difference in the way that Virgil teaches? Do you spot the difference?
Maybe because of ego, because Beatrice does not want Dante to give up the ego, but Virgil just wants him to give up.
I guess it seems that Beatrice inspired more imagination from Dante, whereas Virgil just answers his questions very directly.
Exactly. You understand? Yes. Okay. The major difference is this. Beatrice is trying to be a teacher. As a teacher, you have to ask questions of your student. You have to welcome questions. You have to help provide clues that inspire a student to come up with his or her own conclusions. Okay? Virgil is just like, this is the answer. Memorize it. You understand? It's a very stark difference. Okay. Virgil has Yes. I'm reminded of something that another professor of mine once said. The worst game to play in the world is guess what the professor is thinking. Okay.
Okay. All right. Look. All right. So, do you guys understand the difference? Okay. Beatrice is trying to guide Dante into self-understanding, which helps us develop our own self-understanding. Virgil is just trying to explain the rules of the universe. And for Virgil, these rules are absolute. So you just must remember these rules. Okay? Virgil has a very clear explanation for everything. And Dante just must remember this. Okay? And this is a pattern. This is how Virgil will talk to Dante. And it mirrors how people are taught at this stage in history.
It mirrors how people relate to the Aeneid. Okay? Because if you read the Aeneid, it's different from the Divine Comedy, it's different from Homer, in that if you read the Divine Comedy, it leads you to ask a lot of questions. It inspires you to action. Whereas the Aeneid is just obedience, passive acceptance. Okay? It inspires you to basically just sit down and obey. Okay, so that's the attitude of Virgil. Okay, let's keep on going.
Verse 55. "Behind that banner trailed so long a file of people, I should never have believed that death had undone so many souls. After I had identified a few, I saw and recognized the shade of him who made through cowardice the great refusal. At once I understood with certainty this company contained the cowardly, hateful to God and to his enemies. These wretched ones, who never were alive, went naked and were stung again, again by horseflies and by wasps that circled them. The insects drew their faces with their blood, which, mingled with their tears, fell at their feet, where it was gathered up by sickening worms.
And then looking beyond them, I could see a crowd along the bank of a great river, at which I said, 'Allow me now to know who are these people, master, and what law has made them seem so eager for the crossing, as I can see, despite the feeble light.'" Okay, so here in hell, these people, these souls, are lining up to cross into the Inferno.
Okay, they have to cross the river Styx first. And while they're waiting, they're being stung by these insects. And so what's their response? What are they doing? First of all, if you were being stung by mosquitoes, right, there are all these insects around you. What would you do? Yeah, you would do something about it, right? You'd use bug spray or you'd start swatting them, right? What are they doing about it?
Don't know, well, they are just crying about it.
You understand. Okay, so it's this passive "abandon hope," right? I cannot alter my right. So that's what hell is. Hell is just positivity, compliance, obedience, acceptance. That's what hell is. All right. And not only that, but Dante uses a word you would not expect from these people. Okay. Line 74. What is this word? Like, you would not expect this word in hell.
Yeah. Eager, right? You're like, what? People are eager to enter hell. Okay, let's keep on going. Verse 76. "And he to me, 'When we have stopped along the melancholy shore of Acheron, then all these matters will be plain to you.' At that, with eyes ashamed, downcast, and fearing that what I said had given him offense, I did not speak until we reached the river." So, how is the relationship between Virgil and Dante different from the relationship between Beatrice and Dante?
To Dante, Virgil's just a guy, and Beatrice is like Dante's true love. I think Virgil is also less patient, because he is given a task and then he just wants to complete his task as quickly as possible, but Beatrice is more like, oh, I love this guy, so I want to teach him and make him better. So there's like a Yeah.
But I don't think Virgil's motivation is to complete the task. What's Virgil's problem? Why is Virgil being impatient? Why are teachers in your school, where you are, why are they impatient?
Because we're not listening to them.
Exactly. Okay. Do you understand? Because you're not Okay. All right. Let's keep on Yeah.
Yes. Like I think that's mistaking the symptom for the cause. Like you're being disobedient so they become impatient. I think there's a root cause to all this. And I think it's the explanation that we heard before, like it's just a job. Okay, we already established that Beatrice promised Virgil access to heaven if he completes this task, right? We already know that Virgil will choose not to go to paradise. So why do you think Virgil chooses not to go to paradise?
So I was wondering about this, because Virgil seems to be coming from a Roman multi-god framework, it seems. So is there a chance that Virgil sees himself in this Roman classical framework, where he's inside now Dante's Christian framework, and is displeased with it?
Yeah. Yeah. Virgil. Yes.
Maybe Virgil's already abandoned hope.
No he hasn't, right? Because what? And how do we know he has not abandoned How about obedience?
Because Virgil just has obedience to Rome, to the authority.
No. No. Okay. Okay. Let's answer this question. Okay. Virgil has not abandoned hope. How do we know that?
Because he was willing to take on this Exactly.
You understand that? Okay. If you have abandoned hope, you say, I'm not capable of this task. Leave me alone. Okay. This is a really important idea to understand. Hope is the assertion of the ego. Okay. So he has to have an ego to think that, oh, I can lead this guy out of hell. Okay. You haven't been able to escape hell, but you're able to help this guy escape hell. That's ego. Okay. So if Dante, sorry, if Virgil has abandoned hope, then what is he doing in hell?
Go back to the teacher analogy. There are some really good teachers who could be at a really good school, and they choose to be at a bad school. Yeah. Yes.
Like I said, maybe he chose to be there. Maybe because he came from a polytheistic background, and I hate to get into semantics here, but maybe he's just not willing to accept this Christian framework of the world. And so he would rather stay in hell, where he doesn't have to face, you know, the one God every day.
Part 650:10
Okay. All right. Okay. So let's make this really simple. Okay. You've all had teachers, right? You've all had teachers. Some of you are even teachers. Why do teachers teach differently? There are some teachers who want you to ask questions, who give you space to explore, who want you to make mistakes. There are some teachers who are like, we have a teaching plan, 45 minutes, every minute is planned already, let's just do it, and don't ask questions. Okay. What's the difference between these two teachers?
The amount of imagination they inspire.
Okay. Well, the effect is different. But I'm saying, what's motivating these two teachers? Yes. I think one genuinely cares about their students and one really doesn't.
So why is he teaching that?
Yeah. Yes.
One is more for the material drive, like to get a salary, and the other is maybe on another level, where they actually want to inspire the student.
Okay. I've worked as a teacher. Okay. And I can tell you most teachers, I mean, they're not doing the job for the money, because the money sucks. Okay.
I'm not saying all teachers. I'm saying most teachers, the money just sucks. Like, okay. I mean, yeah. Go ahead.
As a teacher, the first style is probably when the student is more promising and you want this person to go further, like he can figure it out by himself. So you ask more questions. And sometimes when students really don't have time for that and you have an exam coming, and if they're not that smart, then you're like, hey, here's the answer, remember it, so you at least get a B+, you're never going to get an A anyway. That could be a reason, but the second one could also be more authoritarian, like this is the truth, swallow it, just like God gives to Ezekiel, like, you know, don't make it wrong, just do this, this is the answer, yeah, memorize it. Go ahead.
From my experience as a student, I feel like if the teacher's skill is not that great and they don't really understand the material that well and they don't have a strong ability in the course, the material itself, they're afraid of you asking questions and they're really bad at improvising answers to questions. So they just stick to the script and what they've prepared. But if the teacher is very knowledgeable in their field, then usually they're more open to discussion.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Anyone else? Yes.
Because what teachers teach is not about themselves. It's about the authority, about the school that wants them to teach. So there must be some teachers who just do their job well because they are paid to teach you, but don't try to, you know, have a willingness to teach you. Yeah. Yes. At the back.
If you're open to questions, your goal is to transfer the information. Whereas if you're closed, you just want to drop the information, and just like, yeah, I've done my job, I just dropped the info. Whereas asking questions is more about transfer, and you want your students to get the most out of what you said.
Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, look, it's very simple. Okay. For those teachers who allow questions to be asked, it's coming from a place of love, right? You want students to learn. But for teachers who care about the results, it's coming from a place of control. Does that make sense? You want to be able to control the situation. And that, I think, is the difference between Virgil and Beatrice. And it'll become much more clear as we go along where Beatrice is coming from a place of love.
She genuinely wants to understand, and so she's going to be patient. They're going to have long debates. Whereas for Virgil, he's coming from a place of control. Okay? He wants to be able to control how Dante thinks. He wants to be able to impose his worldview onto Dante. Okay. So that's why there's this impatience, where, you know, Dante might ask a question that confuses Virgil or might create dissonance in Virgil's worldview. So then Virgil gets impatient, and Dante senses it and has a sense of fear. Okay.
Okay. Right. So this is going to be an ongoing dynamic throughout Inferno. Yes.
I just have a question. Do you think it's possible that Virgil is also in some ways pretty jealous of Dante, because they're both poets and Dante is kind of the chosen one, and also you mentioned earlier that Beatrice is very pretty and she asked Virgil to help and Virgil's like, sure, and so maybe he's a bit jealous of Dante, and that's also one of the reasons why he wants to be in the upper position, controlling him.
Any response to this? I don't think so, because if you just try to be God, it must give up the hope, right, you give up your ego. So how come on the one hand you give up ego, give up hope, on the other hand you also want to have envy or, you know, have some kind of feeling like But we said Virgil did not give up on his hope, I think.
Okay, no, I mean, if you were jealous of this guy, would you push him in the water?
Yeah. You know, I would think Virgil would just say, "No, right. I'm not going to help this guy." And also you need to understand, it's really hard for you to appreciate, but at this time in history Virgil is literally God. Every child is forced to memorize Virgil in school. No one knows who Dante is. Okay? No one knows who he is. No one cares who he is. And Dante told Virgil already, "Wow, you're my hero. You're my god. I've been reading you since I was young.
I'm a poet because I aspire to be like you." Okay. So they can't possibly visualize, oh my god, he's better than I am. It's beyond his imagination. Okay. All right. Let's keep on going.
Verse 82. "And here advancing toward us in a boat, an aged man. His hair was white with years. He was shouting, 'Woe to you, corrupted souls. Forget your hope of ever seeing heaven. I come to lead you to the other shore, to the eternal dark, to fire and frost. And you, approaching there, you living soul, keep well away from these. They are the dead.' And when he saw I made no move to go, he said, 'By another way, by other harbors, not here, will you come to the shore for passage. A lighter craft will have to carry you.'" Okay, so hell is literally the worst school in the world.
It's literally the worst school in the world. It's very materialistic. There are lots of rules, and the students are treated like crap, and the students have given up all hope. And the riverman, the ferryman, who is supposed to take the souls across the river Styx in order to enter hell.
He sees Dante and says, "Wait a minute here, Dante. You're not dead. You have a body. So don't get on my boat, because the rule is very simple. Only souls are allowed to get on my boat. Go somewhere else." Okay. Keep on going.
Verse 94. "My guide to him then: 'Charon, don't torment yourself. Our passage has been willed above, where one can do what he has willed, and ask no more.' Now silence fell upon the woolly cheeks of Charon, pilot of the livid marsh, whose eyes were ringed about with wheels of flame. But all those spirits, naked and exhausted, lost their color and they gnashed their teeth as soon as they heard Charon's cruel words. They execrated God and their own parents and humankind and the place and time of their conception, of their seed and of their birth.
Then they all gathered, huddled in one throng, weeping aloud along that wretched shore which waits for all who have no fear of God."
Okay. All right. So Charon is like, "Dante, you're not dead. Get out of my boat." And Virgil's like, "We have the support of God." And God commands Dante to get on his boat. And Charon's like, "Oh crap." Okay. But he agrees. Why is this a paradox?
Why does this make no sense?
Because I feel like Charon is a mythical figure in Greek mythology. So if he's present, then this underworld is like the Greek underworld. So he's not supposed to be afraid of the Christian Yeah, that's exactly right.
Like, who cares? This is the underworld, right? God has no authority here. So why does he obey? The paradox is this, right? Why is Charon, a Greek mythical character, obeying the Christian God?
Part 71:00:21
It's a paradox. He obeys and he is afraid. Okay. So he fears God. But he's not supposed to fear God. What's going on here? Yes.
Who's Charon again?
Charon in Greek mythology is the ferryman who takes you across the river Styx into hell. Okay. So why is he obeying?
So at the end of City of God, Augustine deals with this concept of hell and of evil. And he says that hell is not evil because hell was created by God and hell is a place of justice. And we have this concept of hell where Satan's the ruler of hell, but God is the ruler of hell because God created hell. And so I guess that's why he would be afraid of it. It's because God is the ultimate authority.
Yeah. But in Paradise, we learn that there are certain spots where God's light doesn't shine. And one of these places is hell. So God doesn't really have much presence here in hell. Yes.
There's a difference between doesn't shine and doesn't shine at all. Right? There is still this infinite testimony. There's still this tiny presence of God in hell, and God created hell because otherwise he would not be God. Right? Because this patch of hell does not belong to him. So this patch of hell must still be connected to him in some small way.
Okay? Okay. Look, let's not overthink things. Okay? There's a problem with too much education. You tend to overthink things. Dante is a democrat. He believes that anyone regardless of education is able to reason out certain things by himself. Okay? So try not to be too sophisticated and just ask yourself what's going on here. The paradox is this. The paradox is that Charon should not be afraid of God. He should not obey God. But he does obey.
It's a riddle. Yes.
Could it be that he's not actually submitting to God but submitting to Virgil, because it's Virgil's words, Virgil's command. So Who's speaking?
It's Virgil. Do you understand? It doesn't matter what Virgil is saying. It's Virgil speaking. So Charon is submitting to Virgil, not to God. You understand? So who's the real master of hell? It's Virgil. Virgil is the master of hell. Okay. Here Dante is telling us Virgil is the master of hell. Okay. Yes.
Is that why he chose not to go to Exactly.
You understand? Do you understand the logic of this? Because you are emperor of hell, and you go to heaven, and now you are servant to Does that make sense?
Yeah. Because from our imagination I thought Lucifer is, you know, the godfather in hell, but how do you say that Virgil, or you mean Virgil is kind of an avatar of a demon? Well, again, this will be revealed to us over time. Okay, but look, what we know is Virgil knows hell really, really well. Okay? Because he's able to guide Dante throughout hell. That's number one. Number two is the people in hell seem to obey him. Right? That's number two. Number three is we know for a fact that he has the option of ascending to heaven, but he chooses not to.
Okay? So again, Dante doesn't tell us outright, but he forces you to make this conclusion based on what you've read. Okay. Yes.
So I feel like there are two things I want to talk about. The first part is in answer to your question about why Virgil is suddenly Satan. Like I didn't say Virgil is suddenly Satan.
I said that he seems to be master of hell. I was answering the question. I was saying that it seems like he is an emanation of the primal force of blind obedience that is the master of hell. Like he's just an avatar here. He's not the actual king of hell, and there is no actual king of hell in physical body down to walk with us. And the No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You're getting it confused theologically.
Let's move on. I have another question. So in this interaction between Charon and Virgil, it is also an indication that basically all the people in hell are more obedient than people everywhere else. So it's just a reflection of the general passivity of people in Okay, so we have to be very careful.
Okay. Satan is Satan not because he is the paragon of obedience. What is Satan really? What is his problem? Yes.
Satan is Lucifer, who used to be an angel of music in the heavens, and he was more beautiful and talented than all the other angels. So he grew proud and decided to not listen to God.
Exactly. Okay. So the problem is not obedience. The problem is pride. People in hell are distinguished not by their obedience, they're distinguished by their pride. That's why Charon is so rude to Dante.
But when you enter hell, don't you have to abandon your pride or your ego?
If you're the soul, right? But Charon is one of the demons of hell. You understand? He's the one who controls hell, right? So if you're a soul entering hell, you must abandon all hope. You must be completely passive. But the people in charge, right, they're proud. And so what we will learn as we go on is that there's actually a lot of infighting in hell. Okay? So maybe certain people obey Virgil, but others don't obey Virgil. Okay? But Virgil doesn't care, because he's like, "I'd rather be emperor of hell than servant in heaven." And who else fought this?
Who else believed this?
Yeah. Right. Okay. That's why he's in hell. Yes.
So this is something I don't get. In a historical framework, Virgil is human. Virgil has a soul. And Dante definitely knows that Virgil is human and has a soul. So if Virgil is down here, that means that his soul must have ended up down here. But you just said that all souls who enter hell must become passive. So why is he being so active now?
Okay. All right. So in Dante's imagination, Virgil is eternal. He's immortal. Why? Because people read his poetry, right? So Virgil has become the poem, the Aeneid itself. Virgil is just the expression of the poem, the Aeneid. Okay. Does it make sense? All right. We have a lot to do. Okay. So let's keep focused. Let's just try to get as much on as we can. Okay. Let's go.
Verse 109. "The demon Charon, with his eyes like embers, by signal gathers them, has all embarked, and with his oar strikes anyone who stretches out. As in the autumn leaves detach themselves, first one and then the other, till the bough sees all its fallen garments on the ground, similarly the evil seed of Adam descended from the shoreline one by one when signaled, as a falcon called. So do they move across the darkened waters, and even before they reach the farther shore, new ranks already gather on this bank."
"My son," the gracious master said to me, "those who have died beneath the wrath of God, all these assemble here from every country, and they're eager for the river crossing because celestial justice spurs them on, so that their fear is turned into desire. No good soul ever takes its passage here. Therefore, if Charon has complained of you, by now you can be sure what his words mean."
Okay, so this is a really hard idea for us to appreciate. Okay, but the people in hell, when they cross the river, their fear is turned into desire. Okay, so maybe before they enter hell, they didn't really understand what hell is. They're afraid. They come to the river crossing and they really want to enter hell. Okay. So let's try to figure out what hell really is. And again, it's the inverse of heaven. Okay. Right. How is hell the inverse of heaven? What's the difference in Dante's conception?
Part 81:10:26
Hell is circles. Heaven is spheres. Yes.
No. But I'm saying let's figure out the governing principles of heaven. Let's figure out the governing principles of hell. Yes.
Hell is more about obedience, which is basically the Aeneid, and then heaven's more of a reflection of the Divine Comedy, which is creativity and ego.
Yeah. So the key is obedience. Okay. If you are someone of pride like Virgil, the way to express your pride is if people obey you. You understand? So hell is a place for two types of people. People who want to control the people and people who want to be controlled. And that's what hell is. And heaven is a place of perfect justice, of free will. Okay? You are there because you choose to be there, and then you choose to submit to God because God is perfect justice and you understand that.
Okay. Yes.
Again, this is something I'm confused about. So you said that you chose to submit to God. So how is "you chose to submit to God" and "you chose to submit to Satan" different in actuality?
Okay. All right. Again, we're running out of time, so I'll explain to you really quickly. Okay. You choose God because you have perfect knowledge of the world and you think that God is the best choice. All right? So it's one of knowledge. It's one of love. Why did you choose Satan? Because you're afraid. You don't know anything. You're afraid. You'd rather give up your free will than engage in a process of knowledge, of inquiry, of learning that enables you to understand the cosmos. That's why you choose Satan, because it's the easiest path for you to take.
One of obedience is a lot easier than self-doubt, self-discovery, okay? Debate. Does that make sense, guys? Okay. If you have perfect knowledge, you're going to choose God. I will choose to submit to God if you have perfect knowledge. But that requires a lifetime of learning, of debate, of But how could you give away your free will to Satan?
If you can give away God's most precious gift to Satan, then Satan is just as powerful as God.
Because it's free will. You can do whatever you want.
Yeah. And you can give it away whenever you want.
Yes. That's why it's called free All right.
Let's keep on going.
Verse 130. "And after this was said, the darkened plain quaked so tremendously that the memory of terror then bathed me in sweat again. A whirlwind burst out of the tear-drenched earth, a wind that crackled with a blood-red light, a light that overcame all of my senses. And like a man whom sleep has seized, I fell."
Okay, so this happens a lot. Okay. Basically, Dante gets blinded in heaven and then Dante has seizures in hell. Okay. You know, this is the question. Do you think Dante had You know, that is a possibility, right? Because back then if you had epilepsy, they really thought that you were seized by God and had these visions, right? Okay. So that is a question for us to think about. We'll never know. But yeah. Yes.
He most likely had schizo because he kept hearing voices talking to him.
Oh, okay. And you know for that for a Well, I know that he dreamt of an entire other personality, Beatrice, as an adult, mind you.
Not as a kid with an imaginary friend. So there's some kind of disorder here.
Okay. Well, clearly there's a disorder, but what it is, we'll never know. Okay. All right. Let's keep on going to Canto 4, Canto 4. "The heavy sleep within my head was smashed by an enormous thunderclap, so that I started up as one whom force I stood erect and turned my rested eyes from side to side, and I stared steadily to learn what place it was surrounding me. In truth I found myself upon the brink of an abyss, the melancholy valley containing thundering, unending wailings. That valley, dark and deep and filled with mist, is such that though I gazed into its pit, I was unable to discern a thing.
'Let us descend into the blind world now,' the poet, who was deathly pale, began. 'I shall go first and you will follow me.' But I, who had seen the change in his complexion, said, 'How shall I go on if you're frightened, you who have always helped dispel my doubts?' And he to me, 'The anguish of the people whose place is here below has touched my face with the compassion you mistake for fear. Let us go on, the way that waits is long.' So he set out, and he had me enter on that first circle girdling the abyss.
Here, for as much as hearing could discover, there was no outcry louder than the sighs that caused the everlasting air to tremble. The sighing arose from sorrow without torments, out of the crowds, the many multitudes of infants and of women and of men. The kindly master said, 'Do you not ask who are these spirits whom you see before you? I'd have you know before you go ahead, they did not sin, and yet though they have merits, that's not enough, because they lacked baptism, the portal of the faith that you embrace. And if they lived before Christianity, they did not worship God in fitting ways, and of such spirits I myself am one. For these defects and for no other evil we now are lost and punished just with this: we have no hope and yet we live in desire.'" Okay, so we are now in limbo, okay, which is the first circle of hell, and limbo, it's actually a very nice place.
It's a very nice retirement community. But it's not heaven. Why are these people in limbo rather than in heaven? Yeah. They were not baptized as Christians. Okay. So again, this is Virgil being absolute. What he's saying is, unless you were baptized, you could never ever access heaven. And this again, at this time in history, is what the Catholic Church teaches.
It's Virgil who said that, because I'm not baptized, I belong Exactly.
Okay.
It's him castigating himself, not the laws of the universe, it is No, no, no, no, no, no.
Virgil is being absolute here.
Oh, he's being absolute here.
Yeah. Yeah. They have merits, but that's never enough. No matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, no matter how virtuous you are, if you lack baptism, the best place you can hope for is limbo in hell. Okay. Yes.
I have a question, because in the stanza it says that people cannot be perfectly baptized. What does that mean? If it means that only the baptized may be not enough. It must be baptized perfectly. So what's the difference?
Wait, wait, wait. Where does it say that?
The people should be What line are you referring to?
Perfectly baptized.
What line are you referring to?
Where does it say perfect?
Yesterday. Yesterday we saw that.
No, no, no. Refer me to the line.
Okay. Okay. I mean today. I can't remember exactly, but No, no, no, no.
Guys, guys, we're referring to Virgil. You have to tell me what the line is. Line 35 says Because they lack baptism.
There was no perfect word in it.
There's no perfect word here. It's that simple. Okay. If you were baptized as a Christian, you are allowed to go to heaven. If you're not baptized, you don't go to heaven. It's pretty simple. Okay. Yes.
So we just talked about the infants, right? And we figured out why they were in heaven despite maybe not being baptized. So are these all grown people down here? Are there infants in this bunch?
There are infants. That's a question. There are infants in here as well. Okay. There are infants here as well. And Dante will explain this. All right. Let's keep on going.
Line 43. "Great sorrow seized my heart on hearing him, for I had seen some estimable men among the souls suspended in that limbo."
Okay. So again, Dante doesn't understand this. How is it possible that in a just world where God is perfect justice, if you are not baptized, you could be a great man but you can't access heaven. Okay. Keep on going. Verse 46. "'Tell me, my master, tell me, Lord,' I then began, because I wanted to be certain of that belief which vanquishes all errors, 'did any ever go by his own merit, or others', from this place toward blessedness?' And he, who understood my covert speech, replied, 'I was new entered on this state when I beheld a great Lord enter here.
Part 91:20:34
The crown he wore, a sign of victory. He carried off the shade of our first father, of his son Abel, and the shade of Noah, of Moses, the obedient legislator, of father Abraham, David the king, of Israel his father, and his sons, and Rachel, she for whom he worked so long, and many others. He made them blessed. And I should have you know that before them there were no human souls that had been saved.'" Okay.
So Dante asks, is there an exception to this? And then what Virgil says is yes, there's only one instance, there's only one exception, and that's when Jesus came to hell for three days. He took with him all the great souls of the Bible, including Adam, Moses, David, everyone. Okay. They were not baptized because they were Israelites. They were Jews, but because they were so great, Jesus forgave them and took them to heaven with him. But that's the only time. That's it. Okay? And again, we know this is not going to be true.
Over time, as we read the Divine Comedy, we're going to find a lot of exceptions actually, but here, because it's Virgil and because we're just reading the Divine Comedy, we think this must be true. Okay. So we are under the impression that everything he says is the absolute truth. Okay, keep on going.
Verse 64. "We did not stay our steps, although he spoke; we still continued onward through the wood. The wood, I say, where many spirits thronged. Our path had not gone far beyond the point where I had slept when I beheld a fire that overcame a hemisphere of shadows. We still were at a little distance from it, but not so far I could not see in part that honorable men possessed that place. 'Oh, you who honor art and science both, who are these souls whose dignity has kept their way of being separate from the rest?' And he to me, 'The honor of their name, which echoes up above within your life, gains heaven's grace, and that advances them.' Meanwhile, there was a voice that I could hear: 'Pay honor to the estimable poet.
His shadow, which had left us, now returns.' After that voice was done, when there was silence, I saw four giant shades approaching us. In aspect, they were neither sad nor joyous. My kindly master then began by saying, 'Look well at him who holds that sword in hand, who moves before the other three as lord. That shade is Homer, the consummate poet.
The other one is Horace, satirist. The third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan. Because each of these spirits shares with me the name called out before by the lone voice, they welcome me, and in doing that do well.' And so I saw that splendid school assembled, led by the Lord of song incomparable, who like an eagle soars above the rest. Soon after they had talked a while together, they turned to me, saluting cordially. And having witnessed this, my master smiled. An even greater honor than was mine, for they invited me to join their ranks.
I was the sixth among such intellects."
So Dante is saying that he is in the pantheon of the greatest poets. Okay, keep on going.
Line 103. "So did we move along and toward the light, talking of things about which silence here is just as seemly as our speech was there. We reached the base of an exalted castle encircled seven times by towering walls, defended all around by a fair stream. We forded this as if upon hard ground. I entered seven portals with these sages. We reached a meadow of green flowering plants. The people here had eyes both grave and slow. Their features carried great authority. They spoke infrequently with gentle voices. We drew aside to one part of the meadow, an open place both high and filled with light, and we could see all those who were assembled.
Facing me there on the enameled green, great-hearted souls were shown to me, and I still glory in my having witnessed them. I saw Electra with her many comrades, among whom I knew Hector and Aeneas, and Caesar in his armor, falcon-eyed.
I saw Camilla and Penthesilea, and on the other side I saw King Latinus, who sat beside Lavinia his daughter. I saw that Brutus who drove Tarquin out, Lucretia, Julia, Marcia and Cornelia, and, solitary, set apart, Saladin. When I had raised my eyes a little higher, I saw the master of the men who know, seated in philosophic family. There all look up to him. There all do him honor. There I beheld both Socrates and Plato, closest to him in front of all the rest.
Democritus, who ascribes the world to chance, Diogenes and Empedocles and Zeno and Thales and Anaxagoras, Heraclitus. I saw the good collector of medicinals, Dioscorides, I mean. And I saw Orpheus and Tully and Linus, moral Seneca, and Euclid the geometer, and Hippocrates, Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna, Averroes of the great commentary.
Avicenna and Averroes are Muslims, okay, these are the great Muslim intellectuals of the Islamic Golden Age. Keep on going.
"I cannot here describe them all in full. My ample theme impels me onward, so what's told is often less than the event. The company of six divides in two. My knowing guide leads me another way, beyond the quiet, into trembling air. And I have reached a part where nothing shines."
Okay. All right. Stop. Okay. All right. So what I'll do now is compare and contrast heaven and hell. Okay. At the very top of heaven is, of course, the Empyrean, right? The Empyrean. And the Empyrean is where God is. And beside God is the white rose, okay? Like the stadium where the greatest souls of humanity reside next to God. The queen is Mary. But then sitting beside Mary is Eve, and you have Anna, who is Mary's mother. You have Beatrice. You have Rachel. You have Rebecca. You have Lucia.
Okay. That is the highest level of heaven. Now in Inferno, which is hell, the highest level is actually limbo, because we're descending downwards. Okay. So the highest level is actually limbo. And in limbo we have the greatest heroes, thinkers, poets of humanity. Okay? We have Julius Caesar, we have Homer, we have Socrates, we have Plato, we have all the greatest heroes of humanity. Can someone explain to me why this is constructed the way it is? What is Dante saying here? Because they didn't believe in God or they weren't Christian.
Yeah, that's what Virgil says, right? But we know Virgil is not a reliable narrator. We have to use our own logic. We have to really think about the cosmology at work here. Okay. Did you have a question or comment?
Yeah, because just now you said that the great heroes just live in limbo, right? Because maybe they're just great heroes, you know, they don't need to love God, or maybe they don't even know God. They just Yes, I know that's what Virgil says.
Okay. But what I'm trying to tell you is that Virgil lies all the time. And what we know Yes.
I think these people in hell live through ego and so they wanted to be on top of everyone, whereas in Paradise they are within God. So they're in the Right. No. Okay. So what you're saying is that the people in limbo, people like Julius Caesar, Homer, are selfish and want glory. And the people in heaven, people like Mary, Rachel, they are without ego. Is that what you're trying to say?
It was more about how you consider yourself. I think in hell, you're above everyone. You want to be in control and have the level of hierarchy where you're just superior to them, whereas in Paradise you're within God, so you're inside of him, you're in the center of him, and you're all loving, so it's not about rank or anything.
Okay, yeah, so that's one explanation, where the people in hell, in limbo, are trying to win glory for themselves, whereas in heaven, these people, whether it's Anna, Mary, Lucia, Beatrice, or Rachel, are trying to spread love in the world. Yeah, that's one possibility.
Part 101:30:03
These people seem to be the smartest, strongest, most powerful people. And so in limbo, yes, they are.
And so that seems to be saying that you can't force open the gates of heaven with your logic, with your strength, with your power.
Exactly. Yeah, that's also another possibility. Okay. Yes.
Or maybe because they devoted their lifetime to doing great things and then they're selfless and they still have the hope that they could potentially save the people in hell. Is that a possibility?
Could you repeat that? I'm not sure I understand what
I'm saying, when they were alive they devoted their lifetime to doing something great, for example the poets acknowledge people of more knowledge, and then maybe they just chose to be in hell because they still have the hope that they could potentially inspire or save some of the people over No, actually, I don't Yeah.
Yeah. Because before Christianity, all of the great heroes had just been born. So that's why they put them into limbo, because this is before Christianity had been born. Okay, again, we're trying to understand Dante, and one way to understand Dante is to use your imagination and create contrast. Okay. So Dante puts Mary, Eve, Beatrice, Anna, Rachel, and Lucia at the very top. Okay. They are the greatest heroes. Yes.
Paradise is all ladies or women, and then here is mostly great men. And I think maybe there are some qualities that he sees in them that separate the sexes. So the women are more submissive. They worship God. They are not willing to be the center. By these men, they laid down the foundation of the intellectual world on earth. So they are the centralized power, authority or foundation. So they didn't want to center around God, to revolve around God.
Well, okay. Okay. So I need to correct her. Okay. These women are not submissive. Beatrice is not submissive. Rachel is not submissive. Rebecca is not submissive. They're all very strong women. Okay. All right. So I want to do this exercise. If you were asked to pick people who should be beside God in the Empyrean, okay, who would you pick? No, no, no, no, no. These people are pagans, right? Who would you pick? Well, Homer is a pagan. I'm just saying, if you just talk to any Christian and ask, okay, who should be next to God?
What names would you come up with?
Excuse me.
Okay. Augustine. Jesus. Jesus. Yes.
I think you need to pick people who are pleasing to God. We have to consider God's role in all.
Who is the most pleasing to God? David. Okay. Why is David not on this list? It's David. If you read the Bible, it's David. Okay. David has to be number one, more than Jesus.
Do you understand? If you read the Bible, it's David who's the most pleasing to God. That's why Israel is called the kingdom of David. Okay? So it's David, in the Jewish tradition, who's even actually more important than David?
Thank you. Why is Moses not on this list? Right? So you need David, you need Moses, you need Jesus, you can argue about Augustine. Okay. Who else would you have?
Thank you. Yes, Elijah. Right. Because Elijah, guys, actually ascended to heaven to be with God. Who else? Yes, Noah. Right. Who else? Abraham. Thank you. Because Abraham is the father of all three faiths.
Islam and Judaism. Okay. Why are they not on the list? None of them are. This is all very confusing. Do you understand? This creates a huge paradox for us. Why? Okay. In limbo we understand Julius Caesar, Homer, the greatest thinkers, heroes of antiquity. Yes, we understand that. But if that's the case, then logically in the Empyrean next to God should be David. He should be number one. Then it should be Moses, Abraham, Elijah. You can also say Enoch. Okay, if some of you know your Bible, Enoch should be on the list as well, right?
Because Enoch was the first to ascend to heaven. So what's going on here? Do you understand? If we are to create parallelism in structure, then if the people in limbo are the greatest of integrity, then in heaven, it should be the greatest of the Bible, right? But it's not. It's people who are barely mentioned in the Bible.
Rebecca, Rachel, and Anna, Anna's not even in the Bible. Okay. Beatrice is definitely not in the Bible. Okay. So what's going on here?
I don't know. Maybe because they don't really love God. They just obey God. It doesn't mean they love God.
Oh, David does love God. Okay. David loves God. And again, this is what the Bible teaches you. Okay. If you're a Christian, then you know God loves David the most and David loves God the most. Yes. Could it be like On earth they had a form of power and power corrupts?
Okay, that is true. But I mean, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Elijah, we all know their stories, right?
I think he didn't put too-high figures so as readers we don't compare ourselves to them, and so it gives us access to heaven.
Thank you. Yes. Do you understand? First and foremost, what makes Dante revolutionary is his democratic nature. Do you understand? Okay. Democratic and egalitarian. If you are to create a world of love, you need these two principles. Democratic and egalitarian. Okay. The people in integrity, right, in limbo, Julius Caesar. Who among us can be Julius Caesar? None of us. Okay. But who among us can be Beatrice or Anna or Rachel or Lucia? Well, any one of us. It's just our choice to make. The things that allow him to be Julius Caesar are unique. Who can be a Homer?
No one except Homer. Who can be a Dante? No one. Okay. But we can all choose to be a good person. And if we choose to be a good person, we will impact the world, the people around us, and be next to God. Do you understand? So usually poetry is written to put you in awe, to make you fear, right? That's what the Aeneid is about. But the Divine Comedy is meant to inspire you to ascend to greater heights, not just the educated. It's anyone. That's why the Divine Comedy was written in Tuscan Italian, not Latin.
Because Latin is a language of the elite. Tuscan is a language of anyone and everyone. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. So again, yes. I just can't understand, if this book is meant to be democratic, why does it have so many Like, it's really hard to read if you don't know anything about the Bible or everyone he's talking about.
Yeah, that's a great question. Okay. All right. So first of all, I hate to say this, but people back here in the year 1300, they're probably more educated than we are today. Okay? It's hard for us to read, but back then, if you're educated, you had access to a very wide classical education. Okay, I know this is not what you're taught in school. You're taught that, oh, back then people are living in the Dark Ages, they have no books. That's not true. Okay, you know it's not true because of Dante.
If back then you didn't have any access to this knowledge, how could he have written this? Okay, so back then most people didn't have access to education. Most people could only go to church, but for the elite, for people of a certain background, the middle class, basically, you had access to a much wider education than you have today. Okay, that's point one. Point two is that the Divine Comedy is meant to be an infinite universe unto itself. It's meant to be a place to explore for the rest of your life.
So having these different references, it's almost incentivizing you to do research on your own. Does that make sense? Right? Because he doesn't want a situation where you just read it once, you're like, "Okay, I got it. Thank you very much." No, he wants you to keep on going back and thinking about it, exploring it in order to fully appreciate it. Okay? And the way he does that is through beauty, right? I mean, it's like Leonardo da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa, right? It's not like you go, "Oh, all right." No, you want it in your house so you can look at it every day for the rest of your life because it's so beautiful, right?
Part 111:40:29
And the more you look at it, the more complexity, the more nuance, the more subtlety you see in the Mona Lisa. Does that make sense? Okay. So that's the intention. Okay. All right. But yeah, I mean, it's a very common misunderstanding that during the Dark Ages they lost the Greeks, they lost integrity, and so they had to bring it back from the Islamic world. That's not true. And just think about this: in any society the elite are educated differently from the common people, right? This is true history. The elite are going to have more access to education than the common people, mainly through tutors, right? Mainly through tutors. Okay. All right. Is that clear, guys? All right. Let's continue.
This is something I wonder about since you started reading all these names. If Dante is operating in the spirit of Renaissance humanism, if he is bringing back the Greeks, even though you said that's not entirely true, but let's say that he is bringing back the Greeks, why is he condemning all of these Greek heroes, all of these ancient heroes, to hell?
They're not in hell. They're in limbo.
Well, they are kind of in hell. You just said that limbo is a part of hell.
Virgil already told us, right? They are there because they lack the Christian Virgil, what Virgil said wasn't true.
Right? And so you can choose in limbo to adopt the Christian Do you understand? And when you read the Divine Comedy, you will find certain individuals who do that.
No, but that's when we get to Purgatory. Okay. You will find that there are certain individuals who should be in limbo, but because of their own choice they adopted the Christian faith, they ascended to Purgatory, and even one, Ripheus, will ascend to heaven. Okay. All right. Let's keep on going. Canto 5.
Canto 5. "So I descended from the first enclosure down to the second circle, that which girdles less space but grief more great, that goads to weeping. There dreadful Minos stands, gnashing his teeth, examining the sins of those who enter. He judges and assigns as his tail twines. I mean that when the spirit born to evil appears before him, it confesses all, and he, the connoisseur of sin, can tell the depth of hell appropriate to it. As many times as Minos wraps his tail around himself, that marks the sinner's level.
Always there's a crowd that stands before him. Each soul in turn advances toward that judgment. They speak and hear, then they're cast below. Arresting his extraordinary task, Minos, as soon as he had seen me, said, 'Oh, you who reach this house of suffering, be careful how you enter, whom you trust. The gate is wide, but do not be Okay, this is really interesting, right?
So Minos, the monitor, what he's doing is he's assigning people to hell. Okay. Minos sees Dante and Virgil and he says, "Be careful how you enter. Be careful whom you trust. Do not be deceived." What is he referring to?
Don't trust Virgil, maybe.
Yeah. Okay. I would think that, because think about this logically. He's saying don't trust anyone in hell. I'm done. Like, I'm going to trust anyone in hell, thank you very much. Who's the only person who can possibly be trusted? And it's Virgil, right? He's saying don't trust anyone. Okay? So it's a direct reference to Virgil. Okay? But it's impossible to see because it's a paradox for you, right? And so again, it's all nuance. It's all subtlety.
I'm not sure if you ever had, if you ever tried to convince someone of anything, I mean, you probably know this, right, Carol, where if you know your sons are doing anything bad, if you tell them directly they'll just keep on doing that crap, right? But you have to do it in a very nuanced way, you have to nudge that person, right? And this is what's happening here in the Comedy, where Dante is nudging us, right? Like, okay, I understand Virgil is great, but you know, maybe he's not that honest.
Okay, it's all nudging. It's all nuance. It's all subtlety. Okay, let's keep on going. Line 21. "To which my guide replied, 'But why protest? Do not attempt to block his fated path. Our passage has been willed above, where one can do what he has willed, and ask no more.'" Yeah, you see how Virgil gets angry now, right?
Because Virgil knows Minos is telling Dante, "Don't trust Virgil." And Virgil is saying to him, "Shut up,
Is Minos the Minotaur or the King of Yes.
Yes.
I thought he was the king of Crete. I just don't know why he's turned into a No.
No. Minos is not the No. King Minos is the king of Crete, right? The Minotaur is the monster that protects the labyrinth. So this is the Minotaur.
Let's go on. Verse 25. "Now notes of desperation have begun to overtake my hearing. Now I come where mighty lamentation beats against me. I reached a place where every light is muted, which bellows like the sea beneath the tempest when it is battered by opposing winds. The hellish hurricane, which never rests, drives on the spirits with its violence, whirling and pounding them, it harasses them. When they come up against the ruined slope, then their cries and wailing and lament, and there they curse the force of the divine. I learned that those who undergo this torment are damned because they sinned within the flesh, subjecting reason to the rule of lust.
And as in the cold season starlings' wings bear them along in broad and crowded ranks, so does that blast bear on the guilty. Now here, now there, now down, now up, it drives them. There's no hope that ever comforts them, no hope for rest and none for lesser pain. And just as cranes in flight will chant their lays, arraying their long file across the air, so did the shades I saw approaching, borne by that assailing wind, lament and moan. So that I asked him, 'Master, who are those who suffer punishment in this dark air?'" Okay, so we're in the first circle of hell.
Okay, we left limbo and now we are in hell proper, where everyone's being punished. Okay, in this circle, these are people who lust. And the great thing about Dante is he's so imaginative. Everyone who is guilty of a particular sin has a just punishment in hell. Okay. So these are people who lust, which means that they constantly change their emotions. Right? So the punishment is they're being whipped around in a whirlwind. Okay.
So they are not loyal to their own emotions and now they're just being whipped around in a whirlwind. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. Let's keep on going.
Line 52. "'The first of those about whose history you want to know,' my master then told me, 'once ruled as empress over many nations. Her vice of lust became so customary that she made license licit in her laws to free her from the scandal she had caused. She is Semiramis, of whom we read that she was Ninus's wife and his successor. She held the land the Sultan now commands. The other spirit killed herself for love and she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus. The wanton Cleopatra follows next. See Helen, for whose sake so many years of evil had to pass.
See great Achilles, who finally met love in his last battle.
Okay. All right. So something that is confusing for people is that Dante does not have access to Homer and the Greeks. Okay. And so when you talk about Achilles, he's not talking about Achilles from the Iliad. He's talking about Achilles from other mythologies written in Latin. Okay. So this is why it's a bit confusing for people. All right. So something really you guys need to appreciate is what Virgil is doing: he's naming these individuals in this circle of lust. And there's one person he doesn't name. "The other spirit killed herself for love and she betrayed the ashes of Sychaeus."
Part 121:50:05
Okay, he doesn't name this person, but he does name Cleopatra. He names Helen, names Achilles, he names Semiramis. Okay, so there's a thousand people. There's only one person he does not name. Does anyone know who this person is who killed herself for love and betrayed her husband, Sychaeus?
It's Dido. Okay, it's Dido. Who created Dido?
Virgil. Okay. So again, it's so interesting, the contrast, right? Because you have two great poets in the Divine Comedy. They are of course Virgil and Dante. Virgil and Dante.
And both of them will create two great female protagonists that are celebrated throughout history. Virgil will create Dido and Dante will create Beatrice. If you read the Aeneid, and we will read the Aeneid actually later this afternoon, parts of it. Okay. What Virgil does is he condemns Dido to hell. And then what Dante does is he will elevate Beatrice to heaven.
So there's absolutely no way that Dante admires Virgil, right? I mean, he may have read Virgil and be heavily influenced by Virgil, but ultimately embedded within the Divine Comedy is this cosmic battle between Virgil and Dante. Okay, we know because of how they treat their different heroes. All right. And actually we're running out of time. But what I want to do is read certain passages of the Aeneid. Okay. So you can see who Dido is and we can contrast this with how Dante treats All right. But are there any questions about Yes, I collected two questions from online.
Okay. The first one is, could Dante's whole journey be read as the movement from fragmentation to coherence? Hell is equal to misaligned desire. Purgatory is like purified desire. Paradise is something like individual will fully aligned with the divine order.
That is a great point. Yes, it is a journey, and it's one from disunity to one of unity. Okay. And it's obvious because in hell everyone's fighting each other. Okay? Even though Virgil is kind of in charge, not everyone obeys him and there's all of this going on, right? So Minos is saying, Dante, hey, this guy, Virgil, don't trust him. And Virgil's like, "Shut up." Okay? And we'll see a lot of this disunity in hell. But when we go to heaven, we will see that it is, we've been to heaven, so we know it is coherent.
We know that it is unified and everyone's speaking with one voice. Okay. On behalf of God. Yes.
The other question is, could an afterlife of complete nothingness for eternity be the worst version of hell?
Could you repeat that? I didn't catch that. Could an afterlife of complete nothingness for eternity be the worst version of hell?
After nothing
Of complete nothingness Of complete what?
How do you spell that?
Nothing. Yes.
Would the afterlife being nothingness be the worst version of hell?
Be the worst version of hell.
No Wi-Fi.
So okay. So there are two conceptions of hell, right? Hell as a place where you feel nothing, where nothing happens. It's just complete absence. People forget who you are. You cease to exist. And hell as a place where people are being punished for things that they did for all of eternity. What do you think is worse?
Yeah, it is much worse than just being annihilated. I think the person is saying annihilation of the soul, like you just go into nothing, but then you don't get punished for anything you did on earth. So I think suffering in hell would be much worse.
Yes, you said the first one.
Yeah. I think, I mean, at least in the second one you're being tortured, right? You've got something to deal with and you can still feel. I feel like the first one you literally can feel nothing. And I will choose the second over the first.
Yes.
I feel like this kind of sounds like the layer where the unbaptized are, because they're basically sighing and they don't receive physical punishment.
You know, that's a really No, no, no, no. I mean, limbo is basically a very nice place. Okay. It's not a punishment. Okay. All right. Yes.
Yeah. I think limbo is kind of like a waiting room, right? You don't know what happened.
No, it's not a waiting room. It's a retirement community.
It's a very nice retirement. That's literally what it is. Okay. Yes.
So Augustine would say that in hell you still have your ego, and your ego, this is the Schopenhauer idea, the will to live. Yeah. So the ego refuses to give up no matter what. So in hell, they couldn't even wrap their minds around this idea of an annihilation because you're going to be And so if they don't, they're in hell because they are turning away from God.
They would feel Whatever.
They don't want to be near God. And so they're in hell because it's the furthest place from God, but they don't want to be nothing because they still want to be an ego.
Yeah. So this is a really hard problem to solve, because I think intuitively being annihilated, being lost forever, where people don't remember who you are, it's actually the worst thing, because even if you're in hell, there is a bit of hope, right? You're still part of the cosmos, but to be annihilated means that your soul is now not dissipated. It's like you're gone forever. Okay. So I would agree with that thought, that the idea of annihilation is the worst possible thing to happen. And how do you live a life of annihilation?
What leads you to So bring back this Dante. What allows you to be forgotten? Come on. Yes.
Send you anywhere? Oh, or you lost your ego completely? You want to know why you were forgotten? No one loves you.
That's not because no one loves you.
You're not living by the principle of eudaimonia and arete. Okay?
Because you've lived a pointless life. You understand? Because in your life you just chose the easiest thing to do. No one remembers who you are. Maybe your family does, but over time your family will forget who you are. Okay. So it's implied in the Divine Comedy that most of us will be annihilated. Okay? Most of us won't even make it to hell, because you needed to do something with your life to make it to hell. And if you did nothing in your life, then that's actually worse than hell.
You'll just be forgotten. And in fact, if you read the Divine Comedy very closely, there are certain individuals that you think should appear in a certain place but don't, and that's a very powerful technique that Dante uses in order to criticize certain individuals. Okay. So, for example, in heaven, yes, I understand David should be next to God, but he's not next to God. He is in heaven, but he's not next to God. And he'll be using that a lot. Another thing is, remember the person that Dante is most responding to is, and Augustine is never quoted in the Divine Comedy, right?
It's almost a form of annihilation. Did you have a question? Okay. All right. Okay. So, yeah. So that's something that Dante will tell us. Okay. You have a responsibility to live your life to the fullest, because if you don't, you'll be forgotten, and that's even worse than hell. Okay. It's complete annihilation. Okay. All right. Thank you to the live stream for these two questions. We'll come back in an hour. Okay. All right. So welcome back. And to start class, I want to emphasize a point which is at the very heart of the Divine Comedy: a radical democratic spirit.
Part 132:00:25
So if we look at hell, it's basically an allegory of the world he's living in, right? Where everyone's fighting for power and where everyone is obedient and passive and afraid. So hell is the best description of the world he's living in. And for Dante, the answer is a radical democracy in which everyone has access to knowledge and to learning. For Dante, it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what the results are, what you achieve. What matters is how you choose to live your life. That's why at the very top of heaven are people like ROF, Rachel, Anna, ordinary people who didn't really accomplish much, but who chose to live a life of faith, hope, and love.
And that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to inspire people to live their best life regardless of their circumstances. And the reason why there are so many references embedded in the Divine Comedy is an act of faith, telling people, listen, all the knowledge you need to understand God is in here. If you make the effort, if you act with faith, love, and hope, you will be able to access heaven yourself. Okay? So at the very heart of the Divine Comedy is a democratic spirit.
This goes against the elitist mentality of the Aeneid, where the principal virtue that the Aeneid is trying to convey is piety, obedience. Don't think for yourself. Don't trust your intuition. Just obey the word of God. Just do what the gods tell you and things will turn out properly. Okay. So the Aeneid is really a struggle of one hero, Aeneas, to discover this truth, to discover that it's your emotions, your intuition, your imagination that leads you astray. What sets you on the straight path is obedience to the gods. Okay. Piety.
So how the Aeneid starts is, Troy is destroyed because of the Greeks, and Aeneas, who loves Troy, wants to rescue his people, but the Greeks are so dominant, right? And so Venus, his mother, appears and says there's a mission for you, and the mission is to take your son to Italy, and you and your family will build the empire of Rome. And Aeneas obeys.
He sees Helen of Troy and he thinks that it's Helen of Troy that caused all his misery. So what this is, I mean, the thing about the Aeneid is it's explicit. Okay, it's very hard to interpret the Iliad, but the idea is that Helen of Troy caused all this destruction, which means that love caused all this destruction, right? Love is a disease that destroys civilization.
And then Aeneas obeys and returns home, and he and his family are escaping. They're going to ships, and his wife Creusa decides to kill herself. Why? Because Creusa understands that in Italy Aeneas must marry into local royalty in order to found a new dynasty. So she must kill herself in order to make this possible. So that's what wives should do. If the husband needs to, you know, marry up, then you should just, you know, kill yourself, right? Now Aeneas goes to Italy, but the queen of the gods, Hera, she's called Juno in the Aeneid because of Latin, she's angry at Aeneas and she plots to destroy him.
Okay, so right away you understand all the chief villains in the Aeneid are female. Okay, whether it's Helen of Troy, whether it's Juno. And so Aeneas gets shipwrecked in Carthage. And there he meets the local queen, Dido. And Dido falls in love with him. He falls in love with her. And Aeneas just wants to settle down in Carthage and live a happy life. The gods get really angry at him and say, "Aeneas, we gave you a simple mission. Go to Italy. What are you doing here in Carthage?" And Aeneas obeys.
And Dido is heartbroken, and she's so heartbroken that she kills herself. Okay, but before she kills herself she makes a vow, and her vow is, we the Carthaginians will always try to destroy Rome. Okay, because he has broken my heart, and so as I die my final wish to my people is to always wage war on Rome. This is important because Rome will destroy Carthage, right? But what Virgil is saying is, well, the blame isn't on us Romans. The blame is Dido, because she's this crazy Okay? And love is just a disease.
All right? So again, thematically it's not that hard to interpret the Aeneid. And the Aeneid becomes a basis for Western civilization for about a thousand years until the rise of Dante. So what I want to do is read certain passages from the Aeneid. Okay. So let me set the scene. Dido and Aeneas already married. They already had sex. They're betrothed to each other. And the gods tell Aeneas, you have to go to Italy. So Aeneas, being a guy, decides, "Oh, I'll just sneak away.
Okay, I'm not going to tell Dido. I'm going to sneak away." But she's queen of Carthage and she kind of figures out very quickly, oh, Aeneas is trying to sneak away. He's trying to run away. Okay, so she confronts Aeneas and this is what she says. Okay.
"At last she sails in before he said a word. 'So, you traitor, you really believed you'd keep this a secret, this great outrage, steal away in silence from my shores? Can nothing hold you back? Not our love, not the pledge once sealed with our right hands, not even the thought of Dido doomed to a cruel death? Why labor to rig your fleet in the winter's raw, to risk the deep when the north winds are closing in? You cruel, heartless, even if you were not pursuing alien fields and unknown homes, even if ancient Troy were standing still, who would sail for Troy across such heaving seas?
You're running away from me. Oh, I pray you, by these tears, by the faith in your right hand, what else have I left myself in all my pain? By our wedding vows, the marriage we began, if I deserve some decency from you now, if anything of mine has ever won your heart, pity a great house about to fall. I pray you, if prayers have any place, reject this scheme of yours. Thanks to you, the African tribes, Numidian warlords hate me. Even my own Tyrians rise against me.
Thanks to you, my sense of honor is gone, my one and only pathway to the stars, the renown I once held dear. In whose hands do you leave me here to meet my death, my guest?"
Okay. So Dido is anguished and says, I love you. I gave you everything. Okay. I am all yours and you choose to run away. Once you are gone, I will have no honor. Everyone will laugh at me. They will come, all these different warlords that once were afraid of me, the warrior queen, they will come and they will kill me. They will steal my throne. They'll probably rape me. Okay, so pity me. Okay, it's one of anger, but also one of pity. All right.
Let's continue.
"'Guest,' that's all that remains of 'husband' now. But why do I linger on until my brother Pygmalion batters down my walls or Iarbas drags me off his slave? If only you'd left a baby in my arms, our child, before you deserted me, some little Aeneas playing about our halls whose features at least would bring you back to me in spite of all, I would not feel so totally devastated, so So she's lost all her honor.
She's lost her pride. She's lost even her ego. She's begging him, like, "If you're going to run away, at least impregnate me so that at least I have a memory of you." Okay, that's how desperate and pitiful she's become. Given this, how should you respond if you were in this situation? Okay. How should you respond?
Part 142:10:06
Well, the human response is to try to comfort her, right? To say, you know, I'm sorry. I love you, but the gods gave me this mission. I'm afraid of the gods, and so I'll come back or something. Okay, but you make something up, right? But Aeneas doesn't do that. Okay, let's keep on going.
"The queen stopped, but he, warned by Jupiter, now held his gaze steady, fought to master the torment in his heart. At last he ventured a few words. 'You have done me so many kindnesses, and you could count them all. I shall never deny what you deserve, my queen, never regret my memories of Dido, not while I can recall myself and draw the breath of life. I'll state my case in a few words. I never dreamt I'd keep my flight a secret. Don't imagine that. Nor did I once extend a bridegroom's torch or enter into a marriage pact with you.
Right. All right. Sorry. So he's lying. Okay. First of all, he did marry her, and also he is trying to keep his escape a secret. Okay. So the guy's a liar, but he's also a manipulator. Keep on going.
He's gaslighting her, basically. "If the fates had left me free to live my life, to arrange my own affairs of my own free will, Troy is the city first of all that I'd safeguard, Troy and all that's left of my people whom I cherish. The grand palace of Priam would stand once more. With my own hands I would fortify a second Troy to house my Trojans in defeat. But now Apollo's oracle says that I must seize on Italy's noble land. His Lycian lots say Italy. There lies my love.
There lies my homeland. Now if you, a Phoenician, fix your eyes on Carthage, a Libyan stronghold, tell me, why do you grudge the Trojans their new homes on Italian soil? What is the crime if we seek far-off kingdoms too?"
Okay, so this great hero Aeneas, he's just abusive, right? Because he's telling her, he's gaslighting her first of all, but he's also saying, if I had a choice, if it were really my choice, I wouldn't even be with you, okay? I'd be back in Troy doing something. Okay, that's where my heart is. So it's the gods who forced me to come here. It's the gods that forced me to go to Troy. If it were actually my choice, I would not even want you.
Okay. So of course, yeah, he's an Thank you. I know. But this is the Aeneid. And so Dido spends all her time in her room and she's not able to sleep. Okay. And so she embarks on a path to suicide. Okay. So can you read "Torn in spirit, Dido will not dissolve into sleep. Her eyes, her mind won't yield tonight. Her torments multiply over and over. Her passion surges back into heaving waves of rage. She keeps on brooding. Obsessions rule her heart.
And now what shall I do? Make a mockery of myself? Go back to my old suitors, tempt them to try again? Back to the Numidians, grovel and plead for a husband, though time and again I scorned what they're like?"
Okay, sorry. So some background. Okay, so Dido is from Phoenicia and she lost a power struggle against her brother. Her brother killed her husband Sychaeus. Dido escapes to Carthage and she builds this great city, Carthage, and all the local warlords, African warlords, admire her, and the legend is they propose marriage to her. In response, she decides to kill herself. Okay, she builds a pyre and she burns herself alive. And she becomes, in the eyes of the Carthaginians, the great warrior queen. Okay, someone who loves her husband so much, someone who loves her people so much that she would rather die than yield, than surrender, and because of her example, because of her legacy, she becomes the founder of the greatest empire of Africa at this time.
Okay. So this is how Dido is remembered historically. And what Virgil is doing is he's changing the legacy of Dido to make her this pathetic, you know, betrayed woman. Okay, keep on going.
"What then? Trail the Trojan ships, bent to the Trojans' every last demand? So pleased are they with all the help, the relief I lent them once. And memory of my service past stands firm in grateful minds. And even if I were willing, would the Trojans allow me to board their proud ships, a woman they hate? Poor lost fool, can't you sense it? Grasp it yet? The treachery of Laomedon's breed. What now? Do I take flight alone, consorting with crews of Trojan oarsmen and their triumph? Or follow them out with all my troops of Tyrians thronging the decks?
Yes. Hard as it was to uproot them once from Tyre, how can I force them back to sea once more? Command them to spread their sails to the winds. No. No. Die. You deserve it. End your pain with the sword. You, my sister, you were the first one, overcome by my tears, to pile these sorrows on my shoulders. Mad as I was to throw me into my enemy's arms. If only I'd been free to live my life, untested in marriage, free of guilt as some wild beast, untouched by pangs like these.
I broke the faith. I swore to the ashes of Okay, so as you can see, she is completely insane now.
Okay, love has driven her insane. So again, the idea here is that love is a curse. It's a disease. You fall to it and your mind will shatter. Okay. So she's basically decided to cure herself, and she wants to kill herself in a way that Aeneas will see, because her last will is to be remembered by Aeneas, right? And the way she's going to force her memory onto Aeneas is to kill herself in front of him.
The gods know what her intention is. So they warn Aeneas, like, "Get out of here now. Do not observe her death, because it will haunt you for the rest of your life." Okay. Keep on reading.
"Such terrible grief kept breaking from her heart as Aeneas slept in peace on his ship's high stern, bent on departing now, all tackle set to sail. And now in his dreams it came again, the god, his phantom, the same features shining clear like Mercury, head to foot, the voice, the glow, the golden hair, the bloom of youth on his limbs, and his voice rang out with warnings once again. 'Son of the goddess, how can you sleep so soundly in such a crisis?
So while Dido is going crazy and she's lamenting, what is Aeneas doing right now?
He's sound asleep, man. He couldn't care less, man. Keep on going. "Can't you see the dangers closing around you now, madman? Can't you hear the west wind rustling to speed you on? That woman spawns her plots, mulling over some desperate outrage in her heart, lashing her surging rage. She's bent on death. Why not flee headlong? Flee headlong while you can. You'll soon see the waves, a chaos of ships, lethal torches flaring, the whole coast ablaze, if now a new dawn breaks and finds you still lingering on these shores.
Up with you now. Enough delay. Woman's a thing that's always changing, shifting like the wind.' With that he vanished into the black night. Then, terrified by the sudden phantom and wrenching himself from sleep, Aeneas leaps up and rouses his crews and spurs them headlong on. 'Quick, up and at it, shipmates. Man the thwarts, spread canvas fast. A god come down from the sky once more. I've just seen him urging us on to sever our mooring cables. Sail at once. We follow you, blessed god, whoever you are, glad at heart, we obey your commands once more.
Now help us. Stand beside us with all your kindness. Bring us favoring stars in the sky to blaze our way.'" Okay, so again, Aeneas has been warned by the god.
So he's fled the scene. Dido has committed to killing herself and she will make a final prayer before she kills herself. Okay. Can you read please?
"That is my prayer, my final cry. I pour it out with my own lifeblood. And you, my Tyrians, harry with hatred all his line, his race to come. Make that offering to my ashes. Send it down below. No love between our peoples ever. No pacts of peace. Come rising up from my bones, you avengers still unknown, to stop those Trojan settlers. Hunt them with fire and iron now or in time to come, whenever the power is yours. Shore clash with shore, sea against sea, and sword against sword. This is my curse.
War between all our peoples, all their children, endless war."
Okay. So one of the great tragedies of antiquity is the destruction of Carthage. Okay. Rome and Carthage fought for dominance over the Mediterranean, and they fought three wars. In the last war, the third Punic War, Rome extinguishes, annihilates Carthage from the planet. Okay. And so at this time Carthage is a great civilization, and the Romans now have to explain why this happened, and now Virgil explains it's because love took hold of Dido, destroyed her mind, and it made her so angry that not only did they condemn her to death, but they condemned her entire people to death.
Part 152:20:41
It is because of this madness that the Carthaginians attacked Rome, and Rome had to defend itself, and Rome recognized that only by defeating and destroying all of Carthage can Rome ever be saved. Okay, so this is the madness of love. Not only will it condemn you to death, but it will condemn your entire civilization to death. Okay, so Dido kills herself. And now what's going to happen is that basically Aeneas has forgotten her, right? Because Aeneas has this mission from the gods, and he understands that in order to fulfill his mission, he needs a prophecy.
He needs to talk to his father, who is dead. He needs to go into the underworld to receive this prophecy. When he goes to the underworld, who does he meet? Dido. Okay. Right. So this is going to be their last encounter. And let's see what happens to Dido.
"And wandering there among them, wounds still fresh, Phoenician Dido drifted along the endless woods. As the Trojan hero paused beside her, recognized her through the shadows, a dim misty figure, as one, when the month is young, may see or seem to see the new moon rising up through banks of clouds. That moment, Aeneas wept and approached the ghost with tender words of love. 'Tragic Dido. So was the story true that came my way? I heard that you were dead. You took the final measure with a sword. Oh, dear God. Was it I who caused your death?
What an this guy is, right? He's like, "Was it me? Did you care for me? I didn't know." Okay. It doesn't get worse than this.
All right. Keep on going. "'I swear by the stars, by the powers on high, whatever faith one swears by here in the depths of earth, I left your shores, my queen, against my will. Yes, the will of the gods that drives me through the shadows, now these mouldering places, so forlorn, this steep, unfathomed night. Their decrees have forced me on. Nor did I ever dream my leaving could have brought you so much grief. Stay a moment. Don't withdraw from my sight. Running away from whom? This is the last word that fate allows me to say to you, the last.' Aeneas, with such appeals, with welling tears, tried to soothe her rage, her wild fiery glance.
But she, her eyes fixed on the ground, turned away, her features no more moved by his pleas as he talked on than if she were set in stony flint or Parian marble rock. And at last she tears herself away, his enemy forever, fleeing back to the shadowed forest where Sychaeus, her husband long ago, answers all her anguish, meets her love with love. But Aeneas, no less struck by her unjust fate, escorts her from afar with streaming tears and pities her as she Okay.
So Aeneas is trying to have a conversation with her but she does not speak. Okay. Why this is important is that at this time in history the difference between a free individual, okay, a citizen, and a slave is that a citizen has the right to speak. Okay, a citizen is literally someone who has the right to speak before other people. So losing speech, losing the capacity to speak, it is worse than death. It is slavery. Okay. So love has not only killed Dido and killed her civilization, but it's made her a slave.
Okay. All right. So let's think about this. Okay. This is the Aeneid. This is Virgil writing about Dido. Did Virgil know Dido in real life?
Oh, I mean, okay. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry, I phrased it incorrectly. Okay. Who is Dido? Who is she? We know who Beatrice is, right? But who is Dido?
Yeah, I understand that. Right. But when you write, you have to use a model, right? So who do you think Dido is really? Excuse me. Virgil's muse. I would say it's the opposite. Why?
If you have a muse, what are you doing? You're praising her, right? But here, Virgil is showing how mad Dido is. So who do you think this person
His ex, Right?
It could be an But I mean, clearly Virgil hates this person, right?
Otherwise, you can't write like this. So what did she do to make Virgil angry at her? Yes.
Maybe she is an example to him. He's trying to use her as an example to maybe not betray a bunch of people for your love.
Okay, so we've already established that in order for Dante to write about Beatrice, Beatrice had to be a real person. Okay, there had to be real emotions between these two people. So Dido is a real person and it could be an ex-wife, but something had to happen in order for Virgil to hate her this much. And what was it? Probably
Virgil was probably embarking on his own personal journey, but felt that she was impeding him by being overly No.
I don't think that's what it is. Yes.
Oh, I know it. She was unfaithful to Yeah.
She betrayed him, right? You understand? This sort of hatred can only be generated through treachery, right? Or possibly even denial, right? Where Virgil wanted her to be his muse. He wanted to write poetry about her and she's like, "Virgil, you're kind of ugly, man. Get away from me, please. You're stalking me now. I want to call the police. Don't bother me anymore. Okay." And so this love for her becomes But this creates an interesting paradox, because it was a similar situation with Dante, where Dante loved Beatrice but they couldn't be together, and then ultimately Beatrice died and Dante was not like, you deserved it. Sorry.
Sorry. I forget we have kids in the room. But he didn't do that, right? He was like, "No, I still love you, Beatrice." Whereas Virgil is like, "Yeah, you deserved it, man." What's the difference? Yes.
I just want to ask a question, because I feel like Virgil doesn't really hate Dido, because if you look at the line, Sychaeus, her husband long ago, answers all her anguish, meets her love with love. So basically, well, she is in the underworld, but it looks like she gets to live happily ever after. And also I feel like there is clear irony towards Aeneas's treachery. So I think, and also Dido's love for Aeneas is not natural love. It's actually forced onto her by the gods, by Venus and Hera.
So I feel like she is more like the victim in the Aeneid.
Yeah. Well, yeah. So everyone agrees that Dido is the victim here. Okay. But if it is true that she's happy where she is, what should she do when she sees, forgive him. Okay. But what should she do first?
You should talk to him, respond to him.
Okay. How Oh, you think I was still brokenhearted over you?
But no, I'm fine.
Yeah. I mean, she has to do something, right? Either slap him or punch him or curse him or just say, "Haha, I don't care about you anymore." Okay. But she needs to show him, because of her need for vengeance, that I moved on from you. The fact that she fails to speak, the fact that she fails to respond probably suggests she's basically lost her hope. You understand? Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. She's lost who she is. And that's what Virgil is saying. Love is toxic.
Part 162:30:08
Okay? And so I would also point out that Virgil has given her the worst possible punishment, because she's lost her pride. She's lost her sense of self. She's become a slave now, right? So I think the underlying emotion is Virgil Dido. Probably because Dido thinks he's ugly. But again, I mean, you know, it's a paradox, because again, Dante never consummated it with Beatrice, but he still writes poetry to her and he elevates her to heaven. And it's the opposite with Virgil, who never consummated with Dido, but in response he casts her to hell.
Right. How can we explain what's going on? Yes.
Maybe Dante sees Beatrice's separation from him as involuntary, while Virgil thinks that Dido just kind of refused him voluntarily. Okay. Yes.
The pursuit that Virgil might have wanted to pursue Dido, or whoever that person is in real life, and just failed to do so. And so there's this hate, which is true, but there's also some nuance of love in there because he couldn't get No, but I understand.
I'm saying that Dante had a similar situation, right? For Dante it was, again, separated, but he couldn't do much about
I guess Okay, so we know the story of Dante and Beatrice.
We don't know the story of Virgil and whoever this Dido is. Okay, so we're making certain assumptions, right? So I'm just saying, based on what we've learned so far, how can we most simply explain the Let me ask you this question. Yes. One's love, one's not.
Exactly. But can explain With love is not true.
I guess in Dante's terms, the love of God is not possessive. It is not territorial. It's not vengeful. So whatever Virgil had was not love.
Okay. So if Dante truly loved Beatrice and Beatrice says to you, Dante, you're ugly and I met this really hot guy, what should Dante's response be?
Like I'm happy for you. Exactly. Right. Do you understand? That's your only proper response. I'm happy for you, because all I care about is your happiness. Right. So for Virgil to say, you know what? You betrayed me. What does that tell us about Virgil?
He doesn't love this person. Okay. What does he really want? Control of this person. You understand, that's the difference between love and power. Love is about you giving. Power is about you taking, right? So the fact that this person either refused him or betrayed him made him so angry that he turned her into Dido in the Okay. But if you read it, you can't help but feel tremendous pity for Dido, and, okay, does it make sense?
So you're saying you can't help but feel pity for Dido. And I agree with that. I wonder, Dido is clearly symbolic of Carthage. Aeneas is clearly symbolic of Rome. Virgil had to take these back to Augustus and be like, "What do you think about my next chapter of the Aeneid?" And it seems like Augustus is like, "Yeah, great. Dido's in hell and we want Carthage in" But just looking at the literary justice of this, it's easy for a reader to be like, "Aeneas is the bad guy here.
He's the liar. He's a manipulator. He's a jerk. Dido gets unjust punishment, going to hell." So as the reader, we're siding with the symbolic Carthage. And so I understand that the Greeks were famous for the five-act play. Aristotle wrote the Poetics.
Romans were famous for turning away from And so they might be like, "Haha, we're the winners here.
We're so cool. We're such great writers."
Where Greeks would be like, "You're doing it. You're doing poor Yeah.
No, you're absolutely right. If you were any reader and you know the story, you can only feel sympathy for Dido, right? And that's why in the Roman tradition, you were not allowed to question this. Okay? You had to believe not only that Aeneas is the hero, you had to model yourself off him. And the only way to resolve this paradox, this contradiction, is by simply obeying. Don't question. Don't think for yourself, obey. If you think that it is Dido who is the hero of the story, and quite honestly, a lot of people do think Dido is the hero of the story, then it is because Satan has taken you.
Okay. It's because you're being possessed by right? Yes. So you are saying that in a polytheist age, in an age before Christianity, in an age before this dualistic thinking, either you're evil or you're good, the Romans were already damning people to Satan.
So the Roman culture believes that the organizing principle of society is piety. Okay. Obedience. And the very point of the Aeneid is to model yourself on him, right? So yes, intuitively you have problems with how Aeneas behaved, but that just shows you that your intuition is wrong. So stop thinking for yourself and just obey your teacher, obey your parent, obey the emperor. Okay? So that's the central message, and this becomes basically the central organizing principle for the Catholic Church, because Paul and Augustine will take this idea and they will systematize it and make it theological.
Okay. Does that make sense?
This is something that makes me curious. So you said, and this passage here, with this paragraph here, it's very clear why someone might feel sympathy for Dido. And something I'm wondering about is that Virgil is not a bad writer. He knows exactly what he's writing. So if he's trying to make Dido the bad guy here, why did he make her easy to sympathize with? Why did he not make her so evil?
Yeah, that's a great question. Okay. All right. So let me explain what's going on. So the thing about poets is they are prophets, meaning that whatever comes from them comes from the divine. Okay? That's why poetry is beauty and truth embodied, because the poet is just channeling the divine. But there are certain cases where the divine is under arrest. For example, you're called before the emperor of the Roman Empire and you're told, "Virgil, you're the greatest poet in the world. I'm going to give you a trillion dollars if you write the poem in the way I want.
And then Virgil's like, "Sure." And then while he's chanting the is like, "The divine is great. This is great poetry, but it's not what I want, man. And I'll give you $2 or I'll cut off your head. Your choice, man." Okay. And that is why the Aeneid is structured the way it is. It's a complete mess if you actually read it. There are a lot of contradictions. Aeneas is in the Aeneid because clearly the poet is not working just out of his own free will. He's working under a lot of duress.
In fact, let me finish. In fact, Virgil's last request before he died was, "Please burn this manuscript." Because he knows for a fact he's going to burn in hell for this. Okay. He knows. He said to Augustus, "Please burn this." Okay. Yeah. I want that $2, but now that I'm going to die, I know I'm going to go to hell. I'd rather you burn this. Okay. Yes.
Why would Caesar want you to pity Caesar? The emperor wants to create a new theology for Rome, right? So he needs a Bible. In the Bible, certain themes have to be explicit, okay? So that he can force these ideas onto people. Because it's poetry, because the poet is summoning the divine, a lot of this divinity cannot be fully processed. Does that make sense? So there are going to be passages that leak out that create Okay, and so in modern eyes we see Dido is sympathetic.
Part 172:40:19
We see that Aeneas is a jerk. But if you are an emperor, you have certain expectations, and so you're going to see this work in a certain way that conforms to your expectations. And if you read the entirety of the Aeneid, most of it, 90% of it, 99% of it is conforming to his expectations. Okay? He's not smart enough to actually know about the leakages because he lacks sympathy. He lacks empathy. Okay? The thing about politicians, powerful people, is they really lack empathy, which means that they lack the capacity to read with nuance and with subtlety.
Okay? Does that make sense? All right. Okay. So do you guys understand what's going on? Okay. All right. So it is not Virgil's intention. It is not Augustus's intention that we sympathize with Dido, but because it's poetry, it has a life of its own. And so there are certain parts that are beyond control. Okay. All right. So let's continue. Divine Comedy. Okay.
Canto 5, line 67. "See Paris, Tristan." And he pointed out a name to me, more than a thousand shades departed from our life because of love. No sooner had I heard my teacher name the ancient ladies and the knights than pity seized me, and I was like a man astray. My first words: "Poet, I should willingly speak with those two who go together there and seem so lightly carried by the wind." And he to me, "You'll see when they draw closer to us, and then you may appeal to them. By that love which impels them, they will come."
No sooner had the wind bent them toward us than I urged on my voice. "Oh, battered souls, if one does not forbid it, speak with us." Even as doves, when summoned by desire, borne forward by their will, moved through the air with wings uplifted still to their sweet nest, those spirits left the ranks where Dido suffers, approaching us through the malignant air, so powerful had been my loving cry.
Okay. Stop. Okay. All right. So at this stage, Dante is a student of Virgil, and Dante worships Virgil. But if we read the text carefully and critically, we know that not all is what it seems. Okay? And here in these few lines, Dante commits an act of rebellion against Virgil. He commits an act of defiance against Dido. Sorry, against Virgil. What is it?
Naming Dido.
Yeah, he names Dido. Okay, do you understand? Because remember what happened was that Virgil would go on about a thousand different people and he would name all of them, but he would not name Dido, because he hates Dido and honestly he's ashamed of what he did to Dido, right? And so Dante, what he's doing is, away from the speech of Virgil, he names Dido somewhere else to restore Dido. Does that make sense? You see that nuance here, right? So it's an act of rebellion. It's an act of defiance that paradise.
Okay. What is to come. All right. Keep on going. Line 82. "Even as doves, when summoned by desire, borne forward by their will, moved through the air with wings uplifted still to their sweet nest, those spirits left the ranks where Dido suffers, approaching us through the malignant air, so powerful had been my loving cry." Verse 88. "'Oh living being, gracious and benign, who through the darkened air have come to visit our souls that stained the world with blood, if he who rules the universe were friend to us, then we should pray to him to give you peace.
For you have pitied our atrocious state. Whatever pleases you to hear and speak will please us too, to hear and speak with you now while the wind is silent in this place. The land where I was born lies on that shore to which the Po descends together with the waters that follow it, to final rest. Love, that can quickly seize the gentle heart, took hold of him because of the fair body taken from me. How that was done still wounds me. Love, that releases no beloved from loving, took hold of me so strongly through his beauty that, as you see, it has not left me yet.
Love led the two of us unto one death. Caina waits for him who took our life.' These words were borne across from them to us. When I had listened to those injured souls, I bent my head and held it low until the poet asked of me, 'What are you thinking?'" Okay. So Virgil says to Dante, "If you really understand hell, you should talk to these different souls." Okay. So Dante talks to these two souls. These are two people from his own life in Italy. And they said that, "Well, you know, we fell in love and we eloped together, but my husband found out and he killed us both." Okay.
And so Virgil asks, "What do you think of this?" Okay, and let's listen to Dante's response.
Line 112. "When I replied, my words began: 'Alas, how many gentle thoughts, how deep a longing had led them to the agonizing pass.' Then I addressed my speech again to them, and I began: 'Francesca, your afflictions move me to tears of sorrow and of pity. But tell me, in the time of gentle sighs, with what and in what way did love allow you to recognize your still uncertain longings?' And she to me, 'There's no greater sorrow than thinking back upon a happy time in misery. And this your teacher knows.
Yet if you long so much to understand the first root of our love, then I shall tell my tale to you as one who weeps and speaks. One day, to pass the time away, we read of Lancelot, how love had overcome him. We were alone and we suspected nothing. And time and time again that reading led our eyes to meet and made our faces pale. And yet one point alone defeated us. When we had read how the desired smile was kissed by one who was so true a lover, this one, who never shall be parted from me, while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Galehaut indeed, that book and he who wrote it too. That day we read no more.' And while one spirit said these words to me, the other wept, so that because of pity I fainted as if I had met my death, and then I fell as a dead body falls."
Okay. All right. So the story is that Francesca and her lover, at this time in history there's something called courtly love, which is like, you know, just romantic poetry, you write romantic poetry, you declare your love to someone else but you don't consummate it. Okay. This is very common at this time, the love tradition where you profess your love but it's not consummated. It's not sexual at all. And so Francesca and her lover, they're reading this poetry, this romance, and then they have the urge to kiss each other, which pisses off the husband and they both get What is the difference between love and What is the difference between love and Yes.
Speaking from definition, one is emotion, a thing of a soul, and the other is a thing that is physical. But I think in this context it actually means love is when you wish the best for someone selflessly and lust is when you wish to possess them.
Okay. All right. Anyone else? So lust also comes from a place of power, right? Of control, right? Anyone else?
So love is like a strong emotion where lust is like an impulse, I think, an impulse to have sex or to, you know, follow your feelings.
Yes. Okay. So it's impulsive. It's just something you do in the spirit of the moment. You do it without reflection. Okay. But why is that a sin? Why would that be a bad thing?
Because you want to control others.
Not necessarily. Right. Yes.
Because lust, original saying, means that it's just not a real thing, just original. It means it can cause the thing. So maybe lust is something which can cause the people to make mistakes. Like you lust someone, means you want to have sex with someone, or maybe, but that is desire. This desire can let people do something badly, like rape or whatever. Yes.
Because when you lust for someone, that is an objectification of that person. You objectify them. They are no longer an Okay.
Part 182:50:07
All right. Could you explain some For example, let's say prostitution, right?
If you have lust for, let's say, a sex worker, then you are not treating them in a way that sees them as human but as more like an object. So it takes away their sort of dignity that they have as a human.
Okay. Okay. So let's carry this further. Okay. We're trying to figure out what the difference is between love and lust. And again, it's not that clear. You know, Dante is completely confused by this. That's why Dante faints, because he's like, what's going on here? I don't really understand why lust would necessarily be a sin. Right? Isn't it possible for you to lust after someone and then you love someone? Right? First, if you see someone beautiful. Yeah. You're like, you know, I want her number. I want to go talk to her.
That's lust. But then you talk to her. You guys have coffee and you're like, wow, she's my soulmate. Now you're in love. So doesn't lust lead to love? Can someone explain to me what's going on? Yes.
Maybe another part is that lust focuses on the outward image while love is more about emotional connection and getting to know them.
I think lust is based on the flesh. It's based on the body, but love is just based on devotion, based on the hope or, you know, inspiration or But I'm confused, right?
Because how do you find love in the first Right? I mean, yes. So, if God is love, wouldn't love be like you're bringing God into the relationship and then bringing it back to the fall? Adam and Eve ate the apple and they saw they were naked and were ashamed. And so you're hiding from God. You're in shame. You're bringing the ego into lust.
Yeah. Okay. So that's a really So I'm hearing two really interesting ideas. Okay. First is that lust causes you to objectify, which is to simplify and possess someone. Also, love is about giving, right? It's about letting go of your ego, whereas lust is about fulfilling your ego. Okay? But I'm still confused as to why lust would necessarily be a sin.
Why would it be bad? Right? Because let's expand this, okay? Heaven is where love is. Love means no fear, right? So if it is a sin, what it's doing is it's causing love to be degraded. It's causing fear to come into place. Right? So that's what a sin is. So why would lust do this? And again, of all the sins, lust, we're going to descend down to hell. So lust is like the lightest of all the sins, but it's still a sin.
So I'm confused as to why Francesca, you know, she falls in love and they kiss and then she's killed. Why is it necessarily her fault? What's a sin here? Yes. So, before you mentioned that free will is God's most precious gift to us. And when you're lusting over someone, you are violating your free will. Even if it's in your mind, like with modern celebrities, some people say very rude things about them in comments. And even while that is legal, it is still a sin, because they are already violating these celebrities in their minds.
But I mean, I'm trying to figure out why loving someone and lusting after someone, why loving someone would not violate the free will, but lusting after someone would violate the free will. Yeah. Yes.
Because lusting after someone is more driven by your physical drive. And here Francesca went over her ability to reason. She basically betrayed her husband, and that is sinful because it's misordered. And love is more driven by your spiritual connection. So it goes beyond lust. It's more of your free will because you personally resonate with this specific person. But with lust, technically anyone who's physically attractive can be So is sex a sin?
A target?
Is sex a sin?
No, but misordered sex.
Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Yeah. Any more thoughts before we continue? Okay. So what I'm hearing is love is spiritual connection. Lust is physical connection. Lust is the objectification of someone.
Love is the appreciation of someone and that person's complexity and contradictions. And lust is about possession, about controlling someone, whereas love is about giving yourself. Okay. So there are lots of differences. Okay. All right. Let's continue. Canto 6. "Upon my mind's reviving, which had closed on hearing the lament of those two kindred, with which sorrow had confounded me completely, I see new sufferings, new sufferers surrounding me on every side, wherever I move or turn about or set my eyes. I'm in the third circle, filled with cold, unending, heavy, and a cursed rain.
Its measure and its kind are never changed. Gross hailstones, water gray with filth, and snow come streaking down across the shadowed air. The earth as it receives that shower stinks. Over the souls of those submerged beneath that mess is an outlandish, vicious beast, Cerberus, his three throats barking doglike. His eyes are blood red, greasy black his beard, his belly bulges, and his hands are claws. His talons tear and flay and rend the shades. That downpour makes the sinners howl like dogs. They use one of their sides to screen the other.
Those miserable wretches turn and turn. When Cerberus, the great worm, noticed us, he opened wide his mouth, showed us his fangs. There was no part of him that did not twitch. My guide opened his hands to their full span, plucked up some earth, and with his fists filled full, he hurled it straight into those famished jaws. Just as a dog that barks with greedy hunger will then fall quiet when he gnaws his food, intent and straining hard to cram it in, so were the filthy faces of the demon Cerberus transformed after he'd stunned the spirits, so they wished that they were deaf."
Okay, so there's Cerberus who's threatening them and then Virgil basically feeds him. Okay, so again, this gives us the idea that Virgil really is the emperor of hell. He's able to control the demons here. Okay, keep on going.
Line 34. "We walked across the shades on whom there thuds that heavy rain, and set our soles upon their empty images that seem like persons. And all those spirits lay upon the ground except for one who sat erect as soon as he caught sight of us in front of him. 'Oh you who are conducted through this hell,' he said to me, 'recall me if you can, for you before I was unmade were made.' And I to him, 'It is perhaps your anguish that snatches you out of my memory, so that it seems that I have never seen you.
But tell me who you are, you who are set in such a dismal place, such punishment. If other pains are more, none is more disgusting.' And he to me, 'Your city, so full of envy that its sack has always built, that city held me in the sunlit life. The name your citizens gave me was Ciacco. And for the damning sin of gluttony, as you can see, I languish in the rain. And I, a wretched soul, am not alone. For all of these have the same penalty for this same sin.' And he said no more.
I answered him, 'Ciacco, your suffering so weighs on me that I'm forced to weep. But tell me, if you know, what end awaits the citizens of that divided city. Is any just man there? Tell me the reason why it has been assailed by so much schism.' And he to me, 'After long controversy they'll come to blood. The party of the woods will chase the other out with much offense. But then within three suns they too must fail, at which the other party will prevail using the power of one who tacks his sails.
This party will hold high its head for long and heap great weight upon its enemies, however much they weep indignantly. Two men are just, but no one listens to them. Three sparks that set on fire every heart are envy, pride, and avarice.' With this his words, inciting tears, were done.
And I to him, 'I would learn more from you. I ask you for a gift of further speech. Tegghiaio, Farinata, men so worthy, Arrigo, Mosca, Jacopo Rusticucci, and all the rest whose minds bent toward the good, do tell me where they are and let me meet them. For my great longing drives me on to learn if heaven sweetens or hell poisons them.' And he, 'They are among the blackest souls. A different sin has dragged them to the bottom.
Part 193:00:20
If you descend so low, there you can see them. But when you have returned to the sweet world, I pray recall me to men's memory. I say no more to you. Answer no more.' Then his straight gaze grew twisted and he looked at me a while and bent his head. He fell as low as all his blind companions. And my guide said to me, 'He'll rise no more until the blast of the angelic trumpet, upon the coming of the hostile judge. Each one shall see his sorry tomb again and once again take on his flesh and form and hear what shall resound eternally.' So did we pass across that squalid mixture of shadows and of rain,
our steps slowed down, talking a while about the life to come, at which I said, 'And after the great sentence, oh master, will these torments grow or else be less, or will they just be as intense?' And he to me, 'Remember now your science, which says that when a thing has more perfection, so much the greater is its pain or pleasure. Though these cursed sinners never shall attain the true perfection, yet they can expect to be more perfect then than now.' We took the circling way, trace by the road. We said much more than I can here recount.
We reached the point that marks the downward slope. Here we found Plutus, the great enemy."
Okay, so certain points about this passage. First of all, who Dante is meeting are people he knew from his life in Florence. Okay. So a lot of his spoken enemies will be here, condemned in hell.
The other thing is I want to talk about the nature of these punishments in hell. What are these punishments trying to do? Why are they constructed the way they are? Because we were in a circle of lust and so these people are being whipped around by the wind. Okay. Now we are in the third circle, which is people being punished for gluttony. Right. And what is the punishment? All the rain. They're being rained on. Okay. Explain to me why rain would be a fitting punishment for Yes.
So there are a lot of factors here. First of all, there's this saying, the fires of lust. So symbolically the rain is meant to put out the fires of lust. And not so symbolically, imagine you are thirsty because hell is hot and you're standing in the middle of the rain and there is no water beneath you. There's no jug of water and you just have to open your mouth and let the raindrops fall into your mouth little by little, little by little, and no matter how much you want it, no matter how much you wave the rain towards you with your hands, no more rain will come than what rain will come.
So you can't satisfy your lust. Okay. Well, it's raining for all Right. Let's visualize this. Okay. What is gluttony?
What is Gluttony in the narrow sense is eating too much food or eating excessive amounts of food or lavish food.
But on a wider definition, it's desiring too much and indulging in excessive Yes.
Okay. Yeah.
Not being able to stop.
Yeah. Not stopping. Always desiring. Just not able to restrain yourself. Okay. That's what gluttony is. Why would Yes.
How is gluttony different from greed?
How is gluttony different from greed? That's a great question. Okay. Anyone? What are you doing with greed? We will actually enter the circle of greed, right? Yes.
Greed might be personal gain at the expense of others. But gluttony is just not being able to control That's right.
That's right. Okay. So with greed you are stealing from others essentially. Does that make sense? Right. Whereas gluttony is you're just Yes.
Could you say that greed is wanting a lot of things and gluttony is wanting a lot of the same thing?
Well, I mean, if you want money, right, you're still greedy, right? So the main issue is, with greed you're actually taking from others. Does that make sense? Yes. I don't know so much about that. To me it feels like greed is when you take things and gluttony is when you take things and then you consume them. So for example, if you see a person who is overeating, like obviously overeating and wasting food and maybe vomiting it out, you wouldn't say, wow, you're so greedy.
You would say you are a glutton and Yeah, but that's what we're saying.
Gluttony is like you just want too much, whereas with greed you're taking from No, gluttony is when you take things and you consume them.
You reduce them to nothing. And greed is when you take things And you're taking these things from where?
There's an extra step after gluttony. That's what I'm trying to point out.
Okay. All right. All right. So let's continue. Okay. So gluttony is you want too much and you can never stop wanting too much. So why would raining on you be the punishment? What's the logic of this?
Make you awake and dull you of your desire?
Be given to you as a punishment, like endless rain.
Yes. Can you explain this?
So it's kind of like a tooth for a tooth. So if you are gluttonous, you want more and more and more and are never satisfied. So raining more and more and more on you is like the right punishment for you.
But why would it be the right punishment for you? Because I understand that as a punishment, right? But why would that be the right punishment? Because it never satisfies. It's just raining on you. You don't consume it or do anything with it.
Do you think they are enjoying being rained on?
Right. So what's going on here?
I think, which is why I mentioned not being able to stop. To me a gluttonous person is a person that, we all know, just keeps eating. You're just not able to stop consuming.
All right, guys, again you have to use your imagination. Okay. So the sin is gluttony. Okay, the sin is gluttony. And people who are gluttonous tend to be fat, right? Gluttony. Okay, all right, so let's just think of different punishments. Okay, we don't have to think about the logic or justice of it, but let's think about how, if we were designing hell and, you know, this person is fat or gluttonous, what could we do to this person? Nothing to eat.
Okay. Okay. Nothing to eat. Sure. Okay. Nothingness. Right. You are just in a prison by yourself. Like solitary confinement. There's nothing to do. Okay. That's one possible punishment. Okay. What else?
Feed them to death.
Excuse me.
Feed them to death.
Okay. Yeah. Like just too much food. So you just balloon out, right? Just like cake after cake. Have you guys ever seen the Homer, sorry, the Simpsons episode when Homer's in hell? And then the devil's like, "Ha, you like donuts, right?" And so what they do is they create this machine which feeds donuts to Homer for all eternity. It's like, "Oh." And eventually he's going to But Homer's in ecstasy. Okay. He's like, "Oh, yes. Yes.
Me."
You then you Okay.
Maybe let them do some Good.
Yeah. Treadmill, man. This is awesome. You're fat. I'll make you exercise for the rest of your life until you're thin, right? Yes.
Maybe just put food out of your range. You can see it, but you cannot Yeah, that's a really good punishment, right?
You're on a treadmill and there's a cake in front of you and you're running around as fast as you can, but you can never actually touch the cake. Okay, so yeah. So maybe cake out of reach. Yeah, these are great punishments.
What else? Yes.
I just have to point something out.
Can you not do this, please?
I have to do this because I find this really upsetting. People are fat for a lot of reasons other than gluttony. And I think that equating fat with gluttony is really reductive and it's really offensive.
This is just an exercise. Okay.
I think it's really offensive.
Okay. All right. You're gluttony. Okay. So, oh, you're not fat, but you're gluttonous. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. I hate to say this, but every day I teach for four hours, and it's really hard to teach for four hours. Okay. I always have to concentrate, thinking. So if you are interrupting me or if you're trying to divert my attention, it causes my brain to be even more fatigued. Okay. It is exhausting. Okay. Well, I'm telling you what's happening because this is my sixth day.
Part 203:10:30
Answer all the questions of that lady.
Okay. Okay. All right.
You can ask me questions. Okay. I'll answer everyone. I promise.
Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Let's keep on going. Okay. The cake is out of reach. You are running very, very far. Okay. So these are all great punishments. Okay. And what they're doing is punishing you. It's punishing you for your gluttony. And that's what we think hell is. Hell is about punishment. Yeah. Go ahead.
Can I, I mean, I'm just linking this to lust and the punishment for Yes.
Which is like being whirled around.
Being whirled around. It's almost like the consequence of what you cause to others in the world.
Yes. Exactly. Okay. So we think that hell is a place of punishment. But for Dante, hell is also a place of justice, but redemptive justice, to force you into reflection, to force you to recognize the hurt you've caused others. Does that make sense? Okay. So you have gluttony and it's raining on you and it never stops. Okay. So what it's telling you is that it is just an expression of your gluttony. Okay, a rain that can't stop.
Okay, does that make sense? Okay, that's why hell is designed the way it is. It's not designed to punish, because if you want to punish, there are a million ways we could punish anyone, right? We just have to use our imagination. These are great punishments and we would laugh at this. But the point of hell is not to punish. The point of hell is to force people to recognize what the problem is and what they can do about it. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay.
Any questions?
All right. Yes.
Yeah. I mean, I Yes. In hell, the tornado for lust and this one for gluttony, but also in heaven too. Piccarda is also stuck in a loop. I just noticed the pattern even between Inferno and Paradise, and there is symmetry here. I'm just saying.
Yes. Exactly. Okay. Yes. You're exactly right. Yes.
How does being in a tornado help you No.
No. It's trying to manifest, visualize for you the problem with lust. And the idea is that you are inconstant. Okay. You're always changing your mind. Okay. That's the problem with lust. If you see something beautiful, you want it. But then you see something more beautiful, you want that. Okay. Yes.
We have a very interesting comment from the live stream. Okay. And one person mentioned that she thinks that the punishment is quite similar. We can take the Japanese animation film Spirited Away. Okay.
As an example, because she thinks the pigs in the film are quite similar to this punishment, and she says greed is something like "I want more" and gluttony is like "I can't stop." It's just like the pigs in the Good.
Yeah. Exactly. Right. So greed is like, I want more. I want from others. Gluttony, I can't stop. Okay, good. Okay. All right. But does that make sense to you? Okay. Hell is constructed not as a place to punish you. Hell is a place constructed to force you into seeing for yourself the problems and dangers of your sin. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. Yes.
Consequence and the principle behind your sin, to make you realize the sin's essence and what it does to you or your body or the others around you.
Yes. Okay. Right. So again, it's to put a mirror to your face. Okay. All right. Let's keep on reading. Canto 7. "'Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe,' so Plutus with his grating voice began. The gentle sage, aware of everything, said reassuringly, 'Don't let your fear defeat you, for whatever power he has, he cannot stop our climbing down this crag.' Then he turned back to Plutus's swollen face and said to him, 'Be quiet, cursed wolf. Let your vindictiveness feed on yourself. His is no random journey to the deep. It has been willed on high, where Michael took revenge upon the arrogant rebellion.' As sails inflated by the wind collapsed and tangled in a heap when the mast cracks, so that ferocious beast fell to the ground.
Thus we made our way down to the fourth ditch to take in more of that despondent shore where all the universe's ill is stored. Justice of God, who has amassed as many strange tortures and travails as I have seen, why do we let our guilt consume us so? Even as waves that break above Charybdis, each shattering the other when they meet, so must the spirits here dance their round dance. Here more than elsewhere I saw multitudes to every side of me.
Their howls were loud while wheeling weights. They used their chests to push. They struck against each other, and at that point each turned around and, wheeling back those weights, cried out, 'Why do you hoard?' 'Why do you squander?' So did they move around the sorry circle from left and right to the opposing point. Again, again they cried their chant of scorn. And so when each of them had changed positions, he circled halfway back to his next joust. And I, who felt my heart almost pierced through, requested, 'Master, show me now what shades are these, and tell me if they all were clerics, those tonsured ones who circle on our left.' And he to me, 'All these, both left and right, were so squint-eyed of mind in the first life, no spending that they did was done with measure.
Their voices bark this out with clarity when they have reached the two points of the circle where their opposing guilts divide their ranks. These to the left, their heads bereft of hair, were clergymen and popes and cardinals, with whom avarice works its excess.' And I to him, 'Master, among this kind, I certainly might hope to recognize some who have been bespattered by these crimes.' And he to me, 'That thought of yours is empty.
The undiscerning life that made them filthy now renders them unrecognizable. For all eternity they'll come to blows. These here will rise up from their sepulchers with fists clenched tight, and these with hair cropped close. Ill-giving and ill-keeping have robbed both of the fair world and set them to this fracas. What that is like my words need not embellish. Now you can see, my son, how brief the sport of all those goods that are in fortune's care, for which the tribe of men contend and brawl. For all the gold that is, or ever was, beneath the moon could never offer rest to even one of these exhausted.' 'Master,' I asked of him, 'now tell me too, this fortune whom you've touched upon just now, what is she who clutches so all the world's goods?' And he to me, 'Oh unenlightened creatures, how deep the ignorance that hampers you.
I want you to digest my word on this. He whose wisdom transcends everything made the heavens and gave them guides, that every part may shine unto the other, distributing the light equally. Similarly for worldly splendors, he ordained a general minister and guide to shift, from time to time, those empty goods from nation unto nation, clan to clan, in ways that human reason can't prevent. Just so, when one people rules, another languishes, obeying the decision she has given, which like a serpent in the grass is hidden.
Your knowledge cannot stand against her force. For she foresees and judges and maintains her kingdom as the other gods do theirs. The changes that she brings are without respite. It is necessity that makes her swift. And for this reason, men change state so often.
She's the one so frequently maligned even by those who should give praise to her. They blame her wrongfully with words of scorn. But she is blessed and does not hear these things. For with the other primal beings happy, she turns her sphere and glories in her bliss. But now let us descend to greater sorrow. For every star that rose when I first moved is setting now; we cannot stay too long.' We crossed the circle to the other shore. We reached a foaming water course that spills into a trench formed by its overflow.
That stream was even darker than deep purple, and we, together with those shadowed waves, moved downward along a strange pathway. When it has reached the foot of those malign gray slopes, that melancholy stream descends, forming a swamp that bears the name of Styx. And I, who was intent on watching it, could make out muddied people in that slime, all naked, and their faces furious. These struck each other not with hands alone, but with their heads and chests and with their feet, and tore each other piecemeal with their teeth.
Part 213:20:25
The kindly master told me, 'Son, now see the souls of those whom anger has defeated, and I should also have you know for certain that underneath the water there are souls who sigh and make this plane of water bubble, as your eye, looking anywhere, can tell. Wedged in the slime, they say, "We had been sullen in the sweet air that's gladdened by the sun. We bore the mist of sluggishness in us. Now we're bitter in the blackened mud." This hymn they have to gurgle in their gullets because they cannot speak it in full words.' And so between the dry shore and the swamp, we circled much of that disgusting pond, our eyes upon the swallowers of slime.
We came at last upon a tower's base."
Okay, so we are going down in these circles. We encounter people who are greedy. What is the punishment?
They have to push rocks around.
In a circle.
In a circle. What else? What else? And why would this be a fitting punishment for them? Again, it's really important for us to appreciate that the point of these punishments is not to punish but to force reflection. Okay? To force you to recognize the error of your ways so that you can make a better decision. Okay? This is about redemptive justice as opposed to just pure vengeance. What is the logic of this punishment?
Yes.
Art for nothing, because you're pushing these rocks around in circles and it's just that you're greedy. You get a lot of these earthly things and at the end it comes down to nothing. You put in so much work.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's very beautiful. Thank you. Yes.
Maybe try to let people redeem and try to be salvation or something.
Yes. Okay. Right. Exactly. Okay. Yes. Anyone else? Okay. All right. The anger. What's the punishment for the anger?
They have to wrestle each other in mud.
Okay. And what else? And they're submerged underwater.
Yes. And what else?
The swallowed swine. And they're also like, aren't they also cannibalizing each other? Aren't they also eating each other? So why is this a fitting punishment?
Of forgiveness or Yeah, for forgiveness, it means to forgive.
When you are angry, you kind of bite off each other, like you're mad at each other. You want to tear each other apart, but you're also kind of drowning in your own anger that you are swallowing, basically because it's killing your body. That's how a lot of people get cancer and all kinds of disease when you're angry.
Exactly. Okay. So you think you are hurting others but you're actually hurting yourself. You're consuming others, but you're also consuming yourself in the process. Okay. All right. Yes.
I wonder what the river Styx is doing Excuse me.
Why are they drowned in the river?
Okay. All right. So when you read the Divine Comedy, each of these different realms, whether they are Inferno, Purgatory or Paradise, there's always a complex geography to these realms and there are certain demarcation points which suggest we are entering a new level. Okay, do you understand? So the sins that we've encountered so far, whether they be lust, gluttony, greed, anger, they're bad, but they're not that bad. Okay, when we cross the river Styx, when we enter new territory, these are even worse sins. Okay.
So these are things that may make others uncomfortable. They make your life terrible, but they're not actually disrupting the fundamental structure of the universe. Whereas as you go lower and lower, these people are in fact destroying the very fabric of the universe. Okay, does that make sense? Okay. So what Dante is trying to do is to separate these different regions of hell as well. Okay. All right. Okay. Any more questions before we move on?
All right. Let's keep on going. Okay. Canto 8. "I say, continuing, that long before we too had reached the foot of that tall tower, our eyes had risen upward towards its summit because of two small flames that flickered there, while still another flame returned their signal, so far off it was scarcely visible. And I turned toward the sea of all good sense. I said, 'What does this mean? And what reply comes from that other fire? Who kindled it?' And he to me, 'Above the filthy waters, you can already see what waits for us, if it's not hid by vapors from the marsh.' No bowstring has ever thrust from itself an arrow that rushed as swiftly through the air as did the little bark that at that moment I saw as it skimmed toward us on the water, a solitary boatman at its helm.
I heard him howl, 'Now you're caught, foul soul.' 'Oh, Phlegyas, Phlegyas, such a shout is useless this time,' my master said. 'You're ours no longer than it will take to cross the muddy slough.' And just as one who hears some great deception was done to him and then resents it, so was Phlegyas when he had to store his anger.
My guide preceded me into the boat; once he was in, he had me follow him. There seemed to be no weight until I boarded. No sooner were my guide and I embarked than off that ancient prow went, cutting water more deeply than it does when bearing others. And while we steered across the stagnant channel, before me stood a sinner thick with mud, saying, 'Who are you, who come before your time?' And I to him, 'I've come, but I don't stay. But who are you, who have become so ugly?' He answered, 'You can see I'm one who weeps.' And I to him, 'In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain.
Though you're disguised by filth, I know your name.' Then he stretched both his hands out toward the boat, at which my master quickly shoved him back, saying, 'Be off there with the other dogs.' That done, he threw his arms around my neck and kissed my face and said, 'Indignant soul, blessed is she who bore you in her womb. When in the world he was presumptuous, there's no good to grace his memory. And so his shade down here is hot with fury.
How many up above now count themselves great kings who wallow here like pigs in slime, leaving behind foul memories of their crimes?' And I, 'Oh master, I'm very eager to see that spirit soused within this broth before we've made our way across the lake.' And he to me, 'Before the other shore comes into view, you shall be satisfied; to gratify so fine a wish is right.' Soon after I had heard these words, I saw the muddy sinner so dismembered by them that even now I praise and thank God for it.
They were all shouting at Filippo Argenti. At this the Florentine, gone wild with spleen, began to turn his teeth against himself. We left him there. I tell no more of him, but in my ears so loud a wailing pounded that I leaned forward, all intent to see. The kindly master said, 'My son, the city that bears the name of Dis draws near with its grave citizens, its great battalions.' I said, 'I can already see distinctly, master, the mosques that gleam within the valley as crimson as if they had just been drawn out of the fire.' He told me, 'The eternal flame burning there appears to make them red, as you can see within this lower hell.' So we arrived inside the deep-cut trenches that are the moats of this despondent land.
The ramparts seem to me to be of iron. But not before we'd ranged in a wide circuit did we approach a place where that shrill pilot shouted, 'Get out! The entranceway is here.' Above the gates, I saw more than a thousand who once had rained from heaven, and they cried in anger, 'Who is this who without death can journey through the kingdom of the dead?' And my wise master made a sign that said he wanted to speak secretly to them. Then they suppressed somewhat their great disdain and said, 'You come alone.
Part 223:30:13
Let him be gone, for he was reckless entering this realm. Let him return alone on his mad road, or try to, if he can, since you, his guide, across so dark a land, you are to stay.' Consider, reader, my dismay before the sound of those abominable words. Returning here seemed so impossible. Oh my dear God, who more than seven times has given back to me my confidence and snatched me from deep danger that had menaced, do not leave me when I'm so undone. And if they will not let us pass beyond, let us retrace our steps together quickly.
These were my words. The Lord who led me there replied, 'Forget your fear. No one can hinder our passage. One so great has granted it. But you wait here for me and feed and comfort your tired spirit with good hope. For I will not abandon you in this low world.' And so he goes on his way. That gentle father has left me there to wait and hesitate. For yes and no contend within my head. I could not hear what he was telling them, but he had not been long with them when each ran back into the city, scrambling fast.
And these, our adversaries, slammed the gates in my lord's face, and he remained outside. Then with slow steps he turned back again to me. His eyes turned to the ground, his brows deprived of every confidence, he said with sighs, 'See who has kept me from the house of sorrow.' And to me he added, 'You, though I am vexed, must not be daunted. I shall win this contest, whoever tries within to block our way. This insolence of theirs is nothing new. They used it once before at a less secret gate.
It is still without its bolt, the place where you made out the fatal text. And now already within that gate, and across the circles, and alone, descends the one who will unlock this realm for us."
Okay, so for the past few cantos we've established that Virgil is the master of hell. He's able to navigate it pretty easily. These demons obey him. They do whatever he tells them. He understands the geography of hell very intimately. Now we cross the river Styx and we enter, we are about to enter the city of Dis. Okay, Dis is the home of the fallen angels. Those who rebelled against God and now they are in hell. This is where they live. Within Dis we will find Lucifer or Satan.
What's going on here? He's trying to get into the city and the demons say screw off. This guy Dante doesn't belong here. We'll let you in, Virgil, but we won't let in Dante. And Virgil says, "Let us talk in private." So they talk privately and then they're like, "No, he's not coming in." Okay. Why do we have this scene? What is Dante trying to convey or trying to say about the nature of hell or anything? Any thoughts, any comments about what's going on?
On terms with the devil, and they are like good buddies, almost like there's a brotherhood there.
Yeah. So what the devils are saying is that you've been here before, we know you, but we're still at Maggalene and Dante.
Virgil is the master of outer hell, not inner hell.
Because he stops at this, right? So he doesn't even have authority to say who goes in and out of the court.
Okay. What else?
My question, I have a question, is why do the angels call Dante a madman or reckless for entering the realm of the dead without dying? Why do they call him a madman?
Well, would you want to go into Yeah.
Well, it's like, what are you doing here, man? You're still alive and you choose to walk among us. Are you crazy? Okay. That's what they're Love, that he has sent Beatrice to heaven.
So he's someone with love, so he shouldn't be where the demons are and he still has reverence for God, I guess, a little bit. So the demons think that he doesn't belong there. Like, Well, they told him he doesn't belong there because he has a body.
He's still alive, right? They don't really know about Beatrice. They don't really know about God. They don't care, right? So what's going on here?
Anyone else?
They're saying that Virgil and Dante are different. So Virgil can go into this place, but Dante can't.
Good. Okay. Yeah. So clearly there's a difference between Virgil and Dante. Okay. Dante is a stranger to this world. Virgil is very familiar with this world. Okay. Virgil belongs here. Okay. So that's implanting an idea in the reader that Virgil really belongs here. He's very intimate here. He's probably very happy here. Yes. And this helps explain why ultimately he chooses not to go to heaven. Right. When Virgil takes Dante to Purgatory, the very top of Purgatory, he has the opportunity to ascend to heaven.
He chooses not to go. He would rather just go back home to limbo. What else?
Yeah. I have a question: why does Dante just have to go to hell? I mean, it's just Virgil who leads him to hell, or Dante wants him, he wants He is in hell because there's no other path to heaven, right?
He tried these other paths but they're blocked by these beasts. So Virgil is like, well, we could try to fight these beasts, but we probably won't win. So let's just go another way. Let's just go into hell and then we'll ascend to heaven that way. Okay. So this is the only path. Okay. What is the nature of people in hell?
Why, what does sin do to people? And why would that so why is in that? Yeah.
The people in hell like to control. So what do they do always?
They boss people around.
And so what happens?
They gatekeep.
They gatekeep. And what happens? They fight amongst themselves. Do you understand? Okay. So this is a metaphor for what is happening in Italy right now. Why are there so many different factions in Italy fighting each other? Why can't they get along? Right? They know each other. They're probably born in the same family, but they're always fighting with each other. And it's the ego driven by sin, right? By their gluttony, by their lust, by their greed, by their anger. That's the issue in hell. And therefore, there can be no smooth path in hell.
There can be no unity in hell. They just have to fight each other all the time. Okay? So what's the only way for Virgil and Dante to get out of this? Those demons won't let them in.
That's the nature of hell. People don't get along. They fight all the time. They geek. They geek. They are very I think Virgil will fight his way in.
Good luck, Virgil. You're fighting an army of demons. Yeah.
Bribe them.
What do you think the first thing that Virgil tried to do was? Probably bribe them, right? They had a private conversation. You can imagine all the things that Virgil tried to tell them, right? Like bribing and all that. It didn't work.
Is there any solution?
Dante and Virgil would need to argue with each other and maybe fight to show they're a part of this hell thing.
That's interesting. But that's not how these things work, because again, these people are geeky. They're territorial, right? They're like, "We don't care. Dante doesn't belong here. We can access, right?" So what's the only path forward? Are they able to resolve this conflict by themselves? No. Okay. So God has to intervene now, right? Okay. All right. Let's keep on going.
Canto 9. "The color cowardice displayed in me when I saw that my guide was driven back made him more quickly mask his own new color.
So he's very disappointed. He was not able to convince the demons. Okay, keep on going.
He stood alert like an attentive listener, because his eyes could hardly journey far across the black air and the heavy fog. 'We have to win this battle,' he began, 'if not But one so great had offered help. How slow that someone's coming to me.' But I saw well enough how he had covered his first words with the words that followed after, so different from what he had said before. Nevertheless, his speech made me afraid, because I drew out from his broken phrase a meaning worse perhaps than he'd intended.
'Does anyone from the first circle, one whose only punishment is crippled hope, ever descend so deep in this sad hollow?' That was my question. And he answered, 'It is quite rare for one of us to go along the way that I have taken now, but I in truth have been here once before. That savage witch, Erichtho, she who called the shades back to their bodies, summoned me. My flesh had not been long stripped off when she had me descend through all the rings of hell to draw a spirit back from Judas's circle.
Part 233:40:26
That is the deepest and the darkest place, the farthest from the heaven that girds all. So rest assured, I know the pathway well. The swamp that breeds and breathes the giant stench surrounds the city of the sorrowing, which now we cannot enter without anger.' And he said more, but I cannot remember, because my eyes had wholly taken me to that high tower with the glowing summit, where at one single point there suddenly stood three infernal furies flecked with blood, who had the limbs of women and their ways but wore as girdles snakes of deepest green; small serpents and horned vipers formed their hair, and these were used to bind their beastly temples.
And he who knew these handmaids well, they served the queen of never-ending said, 'Look at the ferocious Erinyes. That is Megaera on the left, and she who weeps upon the right, that is Alecto; Tisiphone between them.' He was done. Each fury tore her breast with taloned nails, each with her palms beat on herself, and wailed so loud that I in fear drew near the poet. 'Just let Medusa come. Then we shall turn him into stone,' they all cried, looking down. 'We should have punished Theseus's assault. Turn round and keep your eyes shut fast.
For should the Gorgon show herself and you behold her, never again would you return above,' my master said. And he himself turned me around and, not content with just my hands, used his as well to cover up my eyes. Oh, you possessed of sturdy intellects, observe the teaching that is hidden here beneath the veil of verses so obscure. And now across the turbid waves there passed a fracas of sound enough to make both of the shorelines quake, a sound not other than a wind's, wild because it must contend with warmer currents.
It strikes against the forest without let, shattering, beating down, bearing off branches; it moves proudly, clouds of dust before it, and puts to flight both animals and shepherds. He freed my eyes and said, 'Now let your optic nerve turn directly toward that ancient foam there, where the mist is thickest and most acrid.' As frogs confronted by their enemy, the snake, will scatter underwater till each hunches in a heap along the bottom, so did the thousand ruined souls I saw take flight before a figure crossing Styx, who walked as if on land and with dry soles.
He thrust away the thick air from his face, waving his left hand frequently before him. That seemed the only task that wearied him. I knew well he was heaven's messenger and I turned to my master, and he made a sign that I be still and bow before him. How full of high disdain he seemed to me. He came up to the gate and with a wand he opened it, for there was no resistance. 'Oh you cast out of heaven, hated crowd,' were his first words upon that horrid threshold. 'Why do you harbor this Why are you so reluctant to endure that will whose aim can never be cut short and which so often has added to your hurts?
What good is it to thrust against the fates? Your Cerberus, if you remember well, for that has both his throat and chin stripped clean.' At that he turned and took the filthy road and did not speak to us, but had the look of one who is obsessed by other cares than those that press and gnaw those before him. And we moved forward on into the city in safety, having heard his holy words. We made our way inside without a struggle. And I, who wanted so much to observe the state of things that such a fortress guarded, as soon as I had entered, looked about, I saw on every side a spreading plain of lamentation and atrocious pain.
Just as at Arles, where the Rhone becomes a marsh, just as at Pola, near Quarnero's Gulf that closes Italy and bathes its borders, the sepulchers make all the plain uneven, so they did here on every side, except that here the sepulchers were much more harsh. For flames were scattered through the tombs, and these had kindled all of them to glowing heat. No artisan could ask for hotter iron. The lid of every tomb was lifted up, and from each tomb such sorry cries arose as could come only from the sad and hurt.
And I, 'Master, who can these people be, buried in great chests of stone like these, who must speak by way of sighs and agony?' And he to me, 'Here are our heretics and those who followed them from every sect. Those tombs are much more crowded than you think. Here like has been buried with like, and some monuments are heated more, some less.' And then he turned around and to his right we passed between the torments and the high wall."
Okay. So Virgil and Dante cannot pass into this, and in fact there are Furies and Medusa who threaten them. Okay. So what saves them is the arrival of an angel who forces this to be opened and the demons How does Virgil feel about this? How does he feel? You're in trouble. You can't solve a problem. God sends an angel to help you. How would you feel?
When an angel comes and saves you, you feel Well, so Virgil is supposed to really know his way around hell.
And be buds with everyone and have control, but here it's something that he can't do. So it's kind of embarrassing that he couldn't do that completely on his own.
And so he's embarrassed, right? So what does this tell us about Virgil? He has an ego.
Yeah. He's very proud. Does that make sense? Because if any of us were in trouble, right, and we prayed to God, please come save us, an angel comes and saves us, we'd be eternally grateful, right? We'd be like, "Oh, wow. I will now dedicate myself to loving God for the rest of my life, and I will spread this message." And Virgil is like, "And what does Virgil say when the angel arrives?
What does he say and do? What does he say? An angel came and saved you. What's the least you can say?
Thank you.
How about thank you, man? Does Virgil do this? He doesn't. He doesn't do anything. He didn't say anything. Okay? Meaning this is telling us he's not actually happy about any of this.
Right? Does that make sense? He's not happy about this. Yeah, the problem is solved. He couldn't get through the gates of Dis and an angel came to help him out, but he's not happy about any of this because Virgil is first and foremost obsessed with his ego, his pride, right? He wants to be the top dog. He wants to be the one in charge. He wants to be the hero. And so this is very embarrassing for Virgil. Okay. So he's putting his own feelings before the larger mission of getting Dante to heaven.
Right? Because if you are really focused on the mission and there's an angel who opens the gates, what should you say to this angel? If you were really focused on the mission, if you really wanted Dante to ascend to heaven and an angel has come and saved you, what would you say to him? You would say thank you first of all, and what else?
Yeah, man. Hey, you're going to heaven, right? Hey, take that with you, right? Seriously, you came all the way from heaven. You have to go back. Just take that to review. Problem solved. I completed my mission. Does that make sense? The fact that he doesn't say thank you, the fact that he doesn't even ask the angel for more help suggests that Virgil first and foremost cares about his ego, right? He wants to be the one to take Dante throughout hell. Has Dante How well does Virgil know hell?
How well does Virgil know hell?
Very well.
How well has he been everywhere in hell? Has he been into the deepest, darkest areas of hell? Yes. Even to Satan. Do you understand? Okay. So he knows hell very, very well. Okay. So he knows how to traverse hell and he himself has said that he's been to every part of hell, even the deepest, darkest circle of hell. All right. So again, this is making us wonder who Virgil is, what his motivations are, and what he ultimately has planned for Dante.
Part 243:50:29
Any questions? Okay. So we are now at the halfway point of our seminar. Okay. So this is day six. We start day seven tomorrow. We will need to go a bit faster. So for homework, again, please reread what we've read, okay? So you understand what's going on. But also there are lots of good shorts on YouTube that introduce Inferno, because it's a very simple section as compared with Paradise. Okay, Paradise is hard, that's why we spent a lot of time in Paradise, but Inferno is actually pretty simple.
Okay. So make sure you do learn about Inferno. Okay. Yes.
There is a reason why I do feel, going from Paradise to Inferno, Inferno is much more, I wouldn't call it approachable, but it's easier to go through and follow the story as opposed to the concepts that you have to grasp in Paradise.
Literature-wise, is it intended that way?
I think it is, because remember, what Dante will do is first publish the Inferno. Okay. And at this time in history Dante is not a well-known person. He's not a very powerful person, right? So he wants to make sure that first of all, whatever he writes, that people will want to read it and buy the manuscript, but also he's trying to establish himself in a larger poetic tradition, right? And that means using famous people like Virgil, right? So if it's just Dante in hell, who cares, right?
But it's Virgil taking Dante in hell, that's an actually interesting sell to people. Okay. So for him it's like, you know, how does he get people interested in the story he's trying to convey? And that's why, as you point out, the story in Inferno is much more interesting. It's much more visual than Paradise. Okay. But ultimately he wants to take us all to Paradise. And to do that you first need to establish a really compelling story. Okay. With really famous people. Okay. And honestly this is why in universities it's mainly Inferno that's taught and not Paradise.
Okay. Because Paradise is really philosophy as opposed to literature. Whereas Inferno is very literary. Okay. It's a great story, lots of interesting characters, it's very visual, it's very funny, it's very interesting. Okay. So thank you for that. But again, we're trying to really understand Dante's cosmology. Okay. Yes.
Dante's Inferno reminds me a lot of the Chinese novel Journey to the In the way that, first of all, they're both a journey.
Second of all, they both meet monsters and demons and angels and mythic creatures. And third of all, they have a very big impact on the society and the culture and they're both really old.
For example, the way that Journey to the West is interesting to read because, you know, they're fighting demons and they're going on a journey. In a similar way, Inferno is interesting to read because, you know, there's this master, he's bringing this other person on a journey and they're trying to get to a Yeah.
No, you're absolutely right that in Inferno there's much more of a narrative angle to it, right? Whereas in Paradise, it's basically just philosophy. Yes.
Yeah. But there's a very big difference: the monsters in the Western journey, they are all being protected by the god, by, you know, some goddess. But in Inferno we can see that it's impossible, right, because demons and angels are quite different worlds, they can't just take control over each other, but I think maybe that is quite different. Yeah.
Okay. All right. All right. Any other questions or comments? Okay. All right. So to summarize, we need to go very fast for the last half of this seminar, and so you will have to do a lot more work. Okay. So review what we learned so far, and on YouTube there are lots of tutorials, lots of good intro videos that introduce you to Inferno. Okay. As well as, so let's, yeah, so just make sure you understand and prepare, and this will allow for much richer discussion.
Okay. And again, Inferno is not that hard to understand as compared with Paradise. And that's why I hope that you're more able to contribute individually to it. So the game plan for the last half of this seminar is for us to imagine that each and every one of us will leave the seminar and we will teach it to someone else. Okay? It could be your students because you're teachers, but it could also be your friend. It could also be your child. It could also be your mother.
Okay? And it doesn't matter. Okay? But imagine yourself after you leave the seminar teaching it to someone that you love. And what I'm going to do is not focus too much on the literary meaning of the text, because we've done Paradise, which is the hardest, and so everything else that follows should be pretty simple. What I want to focus more on is giving you the tools to expand your imagination, as well as to teach others. Okay, that's why I wanted to do compare and contrast today. Compare and contrast is one of the most effective tools that you can use, so that we can just say, okay, well, to understand why rain is such an interesting punishment, let's think of other punishments, right?
Okay. So I'll be doing more of these pedagogical techniques as we go along. Okay. But for me to do that, we have to stay focused on the task at hand. Okay? And so come in with a spirit like, I'm not here to debate you. I'm not here to argue with you. I'm here to learn how to teach this to others. Okay? So that's the last half of our seminar. Okay? Are we clear? We've done the hardest part. We've done Paradise. We now know exactly what this poem is trying to do.
We have a good conception. Now our goal is to teach it to others. All right.