Dante #9: Hell Cantos 32-34, Purgatory Cantos 1-4

Yeah, I went down a rabbit hole about Ulysses, and it's rife in the academic sources that nobody really agrees on what Ulysses is doing in there and why. All academics seem to be contingent on this. He's in the realm of false counselors, and he obviously went on the boat trip and convinced his men we need to go to the end of the world, and he gave false counsel to them. But it's just a boatload of men. There's no reason why giving false counsel to 50 people would end him in this level of Hell.

And it finishes with Ulysses as an old man. And he's sitting with his son Telemachus and he's like, oh, I'm so sad. And the final line is, "made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." And Tennyson is essentially doing what Homer has done, which is maybe there's some nobility in both, but you're sitting next to your son who you've abandoned your whole life, man. Appreciate your son and quit going on out.

And this college professor brought it up because that final quote would be on pictures on students' walls with the moon landing and stuff, and students were like, "Yeah, get it. Always go out, go beyond your means, be Victor Frankenstein." And he's like, humanity's taking the wrong message that everybody has been trying to tell us. And so it's effective. Dante puts him there because he essentially is a false counselor to all of humanity up until today.

Right. Okay. All right. So that's really interesting. So let me make some comments. First of all, Ulysses is there, where he has been punished, not because he sailed away from his family. It's because of the Trojan horse, right? So he counseled the Greeks to devise the Trojan horse and that's what he's punished for, and that's pretty explicit in the Divine Comedy. That's point one. Okay. Not for misleading his men to their deaths, but for advising the Greeks to use a Trojan horse, which destroyed Troy, which, and they are the ancestors to the Romans.

Yes. Maybe Virgil intentionally tried to make Homer and the Odyssey look bad because he wanted to kill the Greek culture, right? So he wanted to replace it with the Roman culture, and so he talks bad about the Odyssey and Exactly.

And this was something we'll go more into later on. But remember from last class we talked about how the counterfeiter was arguing with Sinon, the man who tricked the Trojans into letting in the Trojan horse. They were arguing who is worse, and it was Virgil who created Sinon, right? So basically if you think about it, there's a counterfeiting of coin and then there's a counterfeiting of poetry, right? So what he's really saying is, okay, I'm saying to Sinon, hey, maybe I counterfeited coin, but you counterfeited someone's poetry. You plagiarized someone's poetry. Is that much worse than counterfeiting coins? Because at this time in history, remember, counterfeiting coins is a really serious crime, especially in Florence, because they're very proud of their currency, which is considered pure gold, right? So we'll go back to that section, but yeah, that's a good point. Okay, any more points?

So last night I was reading a journal entry by Manly P. Hall.

Right. Yes.

And it's just The occultist.

Yeah, and it's his commentary on the Divine Comedy, and what I thought was interesting, relating to the question we discussed towards the end of class about why is Hell frozen and not moving, he separately, not related to that question, says, and I quote, "Emotional desire or restlessness is the unsatisfied impulse of all creation to reach identity with the divine. Motion must continue until no interval remains between consciousness and the infinite." And then a few sentences later says, "Man is the self moved by the power of will and desire."

Yeah, exactly. They've basically given up on themselves, right? So it's really interesting. And I'll point out that occultists do read the Divine Comedy literally. They really believe that Dante had a near-death experience or he had visions of the afterlife, and they do take him literally. And today we will go into demonic possession, which is something that they're really concerned about, right? Is it possible to be possessed by angels and demons? And Dante refers to this in the Inferno and we'll discuss this in depth, okay? But yeah, their cult is a really important idea.

Yeah. So yesterday I thought more about Dante putting people who hijack our imagination lower than people who murder someone and Or commit genocide, right?

Commit genocide, and like, yes. And so what I don't understand is, does murdering not kill someone's entire capacity to imagine anything? Because you can't imagine if you're in Hell or in Paradise, right? You can't, because you don't have a body and you don't have worldly experiences. So you can't imagine at all. And if you hijack the imagination... Okay. But you can still get your imagination back if it's hijacked, right? But you can't get it back if you So a follow-up question would be if Dante believes in reincarnation, maybe.

So that's a solution to Okay.

Yeah. So Dante does say, in Paradiso when Beatrice is talking to him and saying look, your souls are immortal, right, that's explicit in the Divine Comedy, your souls are immortal, so Dante does believe in the immortality of the soul. But to answer your question, what's really important to understand is that for Hell, earth and Heaven correspond with each other, and what's really important is to maintain the dynamic creativity of the universe. Basically maintain our capacity to imagine. Okay? Because that's the life force of the... And when you remove people from the world, that doesn't actually reduce the imagination, the life force, from the world, because it's possible that a few people have the imagination. So Dante is very imaginative and he's able to change society through his imagination.

So if Dante had been killed, then there would have been another Dante at some point, probably.

Exactly. I think that's what Dante would say. But at the same time, and he's explicit about this, right? He is on a divine mission, right? In Hell, he doesn't have to fear the demons. He doesn't have to fear anything because God has willed it, right? So when he wrote the Divine Comedy, he's like, I don't fear dying halfway and not completing the Divine Comedy. I don't fear my marriage being burned. I don't fear being the script because God has willed it. You understand? And it's this complete faith that allows him to access the divine and complete the Divine Comedy.

Right. That's a really good point. Okay, so this is a really hard question and I'll try my best, but I think there's a difference between the imagination and the emotion. Okay, the emotion is your connection with other people. You're longing for your son, you're longing for your wife, you're longing for God. Okay, and the emotion can never be extinguished because it's tied to the soul. So even though Farinata doesn't have the capacity to imagine, he does have the capacity to long for his son. And that's why when Dante said to him your son is burning in Hell, it's so anguishing for Farinata, because no, it was not Farinata, it's Cavalcante, okay, it's Cavalcante, and he lacks the imagination to think that Dante could be lying. Okay, here in Hell it's not possible for the souls to imagine that others could be deceiving them.

Well, if you remember when they are crossing the Acheron River to go to Hell, they desire it. I mean, Dante is explicit here. Remember the word desire, right? And Dante is surprised by this. Why are people desiring to go to Hell? And the only reason why is they think they deserve it. They think it's a release from whatever sin they've done. And it's something that we'll discuss later on, where if you think that demonic possession is possible, right? Then you also have to think that interdimensional travel is possible.

"The Danube where it flows in Austria, the Don beneath its frozen sky, have never made for their course so thick a veil in winter as there was here. For had Mount Tambernic or Pietrapana crashed upon it, not even at the edge would it have creaked. And as the croaking frog sits with its muzzle above the water, in the season when the peasant woman often dreams of gleaning, so livid in the ice, up to the place where shame can show itself, were those sad shades, whose teeth were chattering with notes like storks'.

All right. So we are in the final circle of Hell and it's a completely frozen lake where everyone is submerged in a lake and just freezing. They can't move. They can only feel pain, and there are also divisions within this lake and they're given different names and they are ranked according to what they betrayed. Okay. So at the outer layer there's the betrayal of family. So basically two brothers who killed each other. Okay. Betrayal of family.

I think it's about how it reflects to the universe. So if you betray a family, it only concerns yours, whereas a guest can really concern anyone on earth. Yes.

And so it disrupts trust.

Yes. Thank you. Yes.

I think in the Middle East as well, like in Iran or in Israel, I guess, to treat a guest, you have to put up the best hospitality. It's because it's a stranger. I think it's underlying the same principle.

Kong, Well, I think you have a great idea, but I'm not sure if that was the case.

I feel like friends would be a smaller circle than country. And so those two circles would be the opposite. And so maybe we could work that into the new theory.

You will, right? You choose, because you don't choose your family. You might not even choose the country you're born in, but you choose your friends and you invite your guests.

Exactly. Yes.

I think I like the reflection idea and it's about what is contrary to the nature of the universe. And as humans with bodies, we are guests. So he's asking what would God really never do. Of course, he would never betray these other groups, but they are all subsumed within the group of guests under God. So it's really the major violence against God is against Okay.

Great. Okay. Yeah. So I think Evelyn's right. Okay. So to summarize, it's the idea that we have a responsibility to protect love and the imagination in the universe. Okay. Without love, there can be no imagination. Love is based on trust. So the more trust you create in the universe, the greater the capacity for love in the universe. Therefore, the greater capacity for imagination. Again, the idea of free will, where we all have a choice whether or not to enter into a contract, right? The idea of a social contract. We choose to enter a social contract, and what's really important is to honor those social contracts.

So what's then even worse probably is that if you're a guest you disrespect the host, because that's what Paris, for example, did when he was a guest in Greece and then he stole Helen, or when the Greeks were basically guests in Troy and then they destroyed Troy.

Yes, exactly. Yes. That's a really special case. This is something I never really thought about, where the guest purposefully betrays the host. But that's a great question for us to think about, and this is something that if Dante knew about, he would definitely put Paris in here as well. Yeah, that's a really great comment. But does this make sense to you guys? Okay, unless you have trust, society cannot function at all. Right? I mean, think about how, for example, the most basic thing is you often settle disputes, right?

All right. So the story is, at this time in history Count Ugolino is one of the most famous Italians. He is a great military strategist of Pisa, and eventually, because he is so ambitious, he's a very Machiavellian figure, he will change alliances always, and then he falls into alliance with the archbishop, who then betrays him in order to obtain more power for himself. What the archbishop does is that he locks him and his children, his sons, into a cell and throws away the key. They don't know this, but no one's coming to them and giving them food.

Yes. Do you see the symmetry here, right? And back then Bernard was telling Dante why is it that in the seat of, in the white rose, right beside God, you have the greatest matriarchs in history, Eve, Mary, and Rachel and Ruth, but you also had babies. And Dante is like, "Wait a minute. I thought Virgil told me babies were all in Limbo." But you had these babies and we decided that it was because of the unconditional love of parents, right? If a baby died and if a parent committed himself to unconditional love, praying to God, committing to good works, that effort would allow the child to ascend to the Empyrean.

Why are they in a frozen lake?

Because they have no imagination to move them towards anything other than what they desire.

Yes.

Could it be that they've thrown away their free will, because I find the line, but he's basically asking, you know, father, why don't you help me? Implying that he's looking for that external help, rather than, earlier on we spoke about how you can through your own free will help yourself.

Yes. Any other comments or thoughts?

And also betrayal kind of freezes your relationship with the others, and then the others will also no longer trust anyone because of these sorts of betrayal. Yes. So you are also frozen in a lake yourself after you betray the others.

Yes. Exactly. Any more?

Okay. Yeah. Exactly. Right. They're in a frozen lake. These are frozen literally in time. Right. All they remember is the betrayal and they're thirsty for revenge, the hatred. Okay. And the punishment is apt because just as the archbishop forced the count to betray his sons and cannibalize his sons, now the count is cannibalizing the archbishop, but it's all futile because they're all in Hell. But he doesn't care because he's stuck in that moment. Okay? He's not actually considering the absurdity of the situation. He's just stuck in that moment.

Line 76. "When he had spoken this, with eyes askew again he gripped the sad skull in his teeth, which like a dog's were strong down to the bone. Ah, Pisa, you the scandal of the peoples of that fair land where sì is heard, because your neighbors are so slow to punish you, may then Capraia and Gorgona move and build a hedge across the Arno's mouth so that you may drown every soul in you. For if Count Ugolino was reputed to have betrayed your fortresses, there was no need to have his sons endure such torment.

That Count Ugolino's sons were forced to sin, and why would someone be punished in exactly the same way if they didn't instigate the betrayal? Okay. So he thinks that Count Ugolino got what he deserved because he did betray Pisa and the people of Pisa were angry at this. Okay. But there's a problem here. Yes.

I think maybe the problem is that Count Ugolino's sons were actually tortured in the same way.

Yeah. Why the sons in prison? The sons did nothing wrong. First of all, why the sons in prison? I believe it's to torture Count Ugolino, but I don't understand why they were subject to the same torture as Ugolino.

Okay. Yeah. But this is just a historical question, right? Why are children being punished along with the fathers? Yes.

Presumably, they would grow up and try and exact vengeance in the Exactly.

Right. This is true for most cultures at this time. If you kill the father, you have to kill the sons as well, because now the sons are morally obligated to avenge the father. Okay. And so Dante is like saying this is... Okay. And what he's saying is, we have to remember, we have to have faith that there are higher laws of justice that govern us, and to punish the sons with a father. Yes, I understand the logic. I understand that it's necessary because you want to avoid wars, right?

Okay. So we have met the worst offenders. Okay. These are people who betrayed their guests. They invite their guests to dinner and now they're protected by the laws of hospitality. Right? But they don't care. They betray their guests. And the moment they do that, what happens is their sin is so bad that automatically their souls are taken down to the ninth... They are trapped in the frozen lake and a demon takes possession of their body. Okay. And the example here is Branca Doria. And Dante actually knows this person and Dante knows this person is alive and he's saying that now a demon took over his body.

Not all the time, like common sense.

Elaborate on this, because why is it that in these societies you see ghosts and demons, but we don't?

I recently moved back [laughter] But okay, I think it's because of the religion of the local people that this kind of magical practice is common, especially among Malays, right?

Like there's a thing: if you dig out that man's body and you take some liquid from his jar, you can make it into a love potion. The most common one, everybody knows in Malaysia, it's a thing. And so then you can make the men fall in love with you, or women, and that's common practice. And then you can do a lot of these.

How does demonic possession work? So in Udu is like you do this spell and then you have this doll and then you stab it, right? And then in Malaysia there are a lot, like you ask this guy to come to your house, you pay him, and then to curse that guy, and then that There's a whole, they have their own.

So what you're saying is, do you know about this? I don't know about this, but go ahead.

From Catholic worldview.

There is Lydia in the Bible, or whoever, I forgot the lady's name, but there are people who are possessed by demons and Jesus had to cast it down, go to the pigs, and the pigs drowned themselves. So in the Bible it's very common, in Malaysia it's very common, and yeah.

Actually, speaking of which, my husband and I have recently watched a Tucker Carlson podcast with a priest who is an And actually, you know, in many cultures it's actually an ongoing thing.

Even in China, I've heard that, for example, in the northeast there are animal spirits. And also growing up in Hong Kong, under certain bridges, there are people doing voodoo stuff. You can pay someone to, let's say, stab a pin into a doll or hit someone's effigy.

Okay.

So voodoo is across cultures.

Yeah. If you look at University of Hong Kong, there's a huge tomb. Okay. In the library. Have you been to University of Hong Kong?

I have. I don't, but I don't know about Yeah.

Like if you think, out of all, Hong Kong is such an epitome, you know, of all these practices and all that. But if you go to University of Hong Kong, there's a limb built for his wife and the library looks like a tomb, literally, to calm her spirit. So there's a lot of this kind of practice where people believe that.

So you guys believe in this stuff. I'm saying, if you don't believe in this stuff, what are your objections to it?

Who is like, this can't possibly exist? Yes.

I think that when someone commits a sin that seems to have a character that is beyond their normal character, that there's a life force inside of the sin, it's easy and tempting to assume that there is a vortex of energy that creates consciousness that is separate from their own that has come into them.

But it just strikes me that this is cope. This is people who really don't want to accept that maybe someone they know, their friend or their family, could do a sin that was so out of character.

Okay. All right. That's very interesting. Okay. Let me ask you this question. Does anyone want to comment on how he or she has changed after reading Divine Comedy? We've spent the past week reading Divine Comedy. We still have a few more days left, but does anyone want to reflect on how he or she has changed after encountering Divine Comedy for the first time, after reading it, after thinking about it? Do you think you've changed as a person?

I don't believe that it can change people, because before that maybe people thought, "Oh, I just cheat. I do whatever I can. Nobody will get to know more about me and I just hide myself." But after Divine Comedy maybe some people can have confessions, maybe some people think they're guilty, right? Because I'm not asking this as a thought experiment.

I'm just asking, have you felt different after reading the Divine Comedy?

Yes. Yes.

Can you explain this? It's hard to put it into words, but for me, especially after Paradiso, as well as as we go through line by line the Divine Comedy, for me I feel like it's alluding to a larger truth and it's making me more open to the fact that there are things beyond this universe that I don't really understand, because I'm a scientist, engineer by training, and then later on went into business, right? So it's quite framework changing for me. I don't know how to put Have you felt any physical changes to your body?

Like the first night, I think I mentioned this to some of our classmates, I find it hard to sleep actually the first few nights, even Paradiso, right, supposedly this good thing, but I found it hard to rest as per my usual routine, mainly because I find all these imageries and all these things kind of kicking off thoughts in myself, right? Wondering about the nature of good and you know So these visions were appearing before you and you're trying to wrestle with these visions.

Okay, that's interesting.

Similar to in Hell, right? You mentioned something about, I'm trying to square a circle, right? The fact that there's Muhammad in there and there are things about sodomy and homosexuality, and I find myself trying to answer questions that weren't there before and coming up with, oh, should I go talk to different people I know who are

And so I don't know, I do think there is, I just don't know how to, you know Okay, yes.

I feel like there's way more awareness and consciousness about the people we meet, the people we love and the people who loved us, and I feel like, first of all, it's very tiring. So every time, even though we have four hours of class, I feel like super tired at the end, often take a nap, and also I felt in dreams I thought of people that I forgot, and so you about certain moments of your life and how it's linked to, of, wow.

Well, that's beautiful. Thank you so much. So you're expanding your consciousness, your connection to the, right? Okay. Anyone else? This will sound extremely strange, but a lot of my lymph nodes started draining when I really studied the Divine Comedy. I think because my nervous system was really relaxing and genuinely a lot of waste product from my body was being expelled.

Wow. Okay. Okay. So you felt some physical changes. Okay. Anyone else? Yes.

Yeah. I kind of felt the same, because I dream a lot more frequently these few days. And also I kind of agree with what both of them said. I feel like I kind of reexamine my connection and relationship with the others. And then I kind of see how important it is to me that I have to cherish them. And also at the same time I was kind of an atheist before reading the Divine Comedy. Now I cannot say that I entirely believe that God exists, but I feel like I'm kind of re-examining what I used to Great.

Thank you so much. Any other? Yes.

Similar to the classmates, I think dreams have been a bit different.

In the last few weeks. I remember on the first day we read the Divine Comedy I had quite a vivid nightmare and I don't really have nightmares very often.

The only way I can try and understand it, I think, is usually in day-to-day life we don't really think about morality very much and its effect on us or others. So we're kind of numbed. But obviously in the last week or so, yeah, every day thinking about things we don't usually think about and maybe raising the consciousness.

Okay, let me ask you this. Has anyone tried psychedelics in this class?

Yes. Can you talk about your psychedelic experience?

First of all, what did you try?

Psychedelic mushrooms.

Okay. So, So a couple of times last year.

It wasn't extreme, but still enough to feel like some extra forces. So it's really about the same thing, like social awareness. So you feel positive or negative energy: you feel happy and loved close to your friends, and you feel really insecure in some environment that's negative.

So I want to confirm this. Okay. Your experience is very similar to you reading the Divine Comedy. It could be, but it's really hard to compare, and I think you can't reach this level of awareness just by reading or meditation. It's really physical, visual and about love, it's really strong, and there's a 100% chance you feel something with this experience, whereas by reading it's maybe a couple percent, but a bit, but it's hard to compare it, like I actually would differ on that because I've also done transcendental meditation when I was a child and I had a similar experience with Jay, which is one night I had a vision.

I haven't had a vision for a long time since I was younger. And I've done other mind-opening things. So I would say they're different in every way. It's just that there's something precious or different about the reading and going through this.

Yeah. So my argument would be, well, that's because you have not fully read the Divine Comedy, right? We're just scratching the surface. If you really commit to it, maybe it'd be similar. But did you want to share your experience? Yeah, I have to agree with, against you, or the end point of a lot of mushroom trips, maybe less for LSD, is basically the message of this.

Where like Imagine if this is crystal clear, your own revelations at the end of a trip are like slight flaws in a crystal.

So it's your personality rewriting the truth that is contained here. And so it's very strange that when you really try to unlock your brain, this is the kind of message that you end up with.

This is really strange. Yeah. Let me ask you guys another question. Has anyone had an intense religious experience? Okay. Yes. Can you explain to us your intense religious experience just in your life? Like you've gone to Yeah.

That was definitely one that's what made me actually convert to Christianity. So after I went to Malaysia when I was 12, I lived in a pastor's family, and just like two years after that I wasn't convinced about Christianity. I was, oh that's cool, Bible stories are awesome. And then there was one month where I had nightmares every night where I had these visits from hell basically, and I'm afraid to go to bed every night because I know what's waiting for me in my dreams. And there was nothing traumatic happening in my life.

You're in Malaysia and there's a lot of voodoo magic in Malaysia. So it's possible there are lots of these spirits roaming around.

And these spirits were literally knocking on your door. But once you found some incantations, like some Bible verses, it changed your energy field as though to create a force field around you. That went to the next girl's room and she was like, "Anna, I never had a nightmare ever in my life. But last night you did have the nightmare." I do now. I'm so sorry, baby. You know, the ghost left me and went to your room.

Okay. So then the question is, why does this happen? Why is it that when you read the Divine Comedy you have these dreams, and why is it that even your body physically changes? Why? Yes.

I could see this as a priming. So in psychology there's something called priming, where you put something into your mind.

And so to have these words by reading about love, will and hope.

So you have these words, and in every interaction you have you think of this, and so it really changed what you're talking, because if you just read about love and then you're talking to your mother, then obviously you're going to think about this. And so this is how it changes, the aspect about priming, putting words into your head and then always associating with this.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. This is what a psychologist would tell you. It's all priming, right? Because they've done experiments where, if in the morning what you do is you get some sunlight and you put on some really nice music, you feel better about yourself and you have a nicer day. Whereas if you don't go outside and you put on some really sad music, you're gonna have a really bad day. Okay. So a lot of it is priming, a lot of it is self-perception. Okay. Yes.

I loved having that conversation with her. We actually had a previous conversation in the elevator, which probably primed our later comment about music. But actually when I had the recent vision, it reminded me of previous visions where it felt like a resonance with the universe, where I could see things in just a different dimension and different colors. And it's the resonance with the rest of the universe that doesn't happen all the time for a lot of reasons, But it's resonance, harmony, that concordance that kind of comes when there's a really powerful work of art or mind opening that's happening.

Okay. Yes. Okay. I understand that. But I'm trying to figure out the psychedelic experience then. Explain to me how psychedelics work then. You explain how Divine Comedy works. It's priming. Yes. But how psychedelics?

So first of all, with psychedelics what's different is that there's a 100% chance that it will change you, you will feel different. So it's often seen as a trip where you basically lose your consciousness and everything you know or knew, and it basically makes you way more close to nature, where you forget the conception of technology, money, possession. And so during a couple of hours, between like 4 to 8 hours, you just feel basically like an animal where you rethink everything. You basically also can't use your phone, right?

But no, I'm trying to figure out the neurological mechanism that allows for Yeah. But just one last question. Okay. What's a neurological mechanism? You've explained priming. How do you explain I think it's some molecule like psilocybin or something.

Okay. Yes.

I don't know. I think you're referring to psilocin, which is the thing that breaks down from the mushrooms. But I think it all comes down to a molecule I think called tryptamine, which so basically in your brain there's a molecule that constrains your perception. So imagine your eyes are seeing fractals all the time and that your brain is basically organizing the sense data from those fractals into reality. And then if you boost a certain chemical a lot, you start to see the fractals that your brain is using to perceive reality.

Way, way more.

But what these do is they basically cancel out your filter so you see more of reality, Right?

But all that's saying is maybe demons and angels actually do exist, right? Is that, I mean, is that the possibility?

I don't want to say 100%, but you get that sense.

And so possession is also possible, right? Because the idea is they exist. They're floating around us and, depending on your mood, depending on your state of mind, they can come into you. They can leave you, right? Is that a possibility? Okay, so let me ask you this really weird question.

I don't know, I think I'm out of the social system right now, just because maybe I do my part-time job, I don't always like other people to go to work all day long, so maybe that makes me feel like Dante, you know, I just been driven away. Right. I'm saying I'm physically donating.

I think so. But I'm lucky because I studied the Aeneid when I was 18 in Latin. Just luckily.

And for some reason I have my own Beatrice in my real life, like a girl who I'm super in love with who is now dating somebody who knows lots about wine.

So in a strange sense, I do feel him inside me in that sense.

Okay. And how do you feel it? How do you know he's inside you?

Because there seems to be an energy directing me to be kinder to strangers and to spread more love that feels very physical because of how much power and energy it has, but that I've never been able to conjure in myself just from a desire to be good.

But how do you know it's Dante, not an angel or another spiritual being? What differentiates this from Well, I don't want to presume.

I think it's dangerous to think that an angel can come into you and But you're presuming Dante, who's dead, can come into you, right?

Well, through his work.

I just don't want to think that an angel has come into me because it's a very slippery slope about what you might do.

Okay, yeah. So that's what great art is. Great art becomes part of the universal consciousness, and by reading it, if you read it well, I'm not saying if you read it the way we're reading, but I'm saying if you read it over years and years and you continue to have these visions and you continue to have these spiritual experiences and you continue to practice Divine Comedy in your life, then eventually Dante is going to take possession of you and he's going to reveal things to you that were once unimaginable to you before, and it's very similar to a religious experience.

Actually, professor, I would really appreciate it if you could share the changes that you experienced yourself as well, because if we went through the Divine Comedy within a week and then we all experienced some changes to a certain extent, and then you spent four years on it, I think you definitely experienced a lot more than we did.

Okay. So I'll tell you some of my changes. Okay. First of all, what's really obvious to me is I feel a lot lighter, like physically a lot lighter, as though I am almost floating in the air. Okay? Because, you know, when you're in China, every day it's a pain in the ass, right? Because when you're walking the streets, there are scooters flying around. Okay? When you go to the restaurant, often the food is going to give you food poisoning. Okay. And then you might get in an argument with someone, you know, it's a very common thing in China.

So you do feel lighter and creative and you can direct your creativeness into, for example, me as a student learning. So you find new ways of learning and way more efficiently. But we do like the actual motion to actually do things and yeah it's really Yeah, that's really interesting.

Thank you for that. Any more questions before we continue?

Okay. All right. So we are going now to the ultimate canto of Inferno, the last canto. Okay. But before we do that, I want us to use our imagination. Okay? So imagine we're in Hollywood and writing this movie and we have the script already and now we just have to figure out the ending, right? And the ending of course is we meet Lucifer. We meet Satan. This is the ending of Inferno. Okay. So I want to use our imagination and ask ourselves if we are writing this movie.

Well, our initial big question is, is he tempting still or is he pitiful?

Exactly. Okay. So the big question is temptation, because that is what Satan does, right? He is going to meet Dante and say to Dante, I know you want to meet, but let me tempt you with other things, right? Let me give you a beautiful woman. Let me give you riches. Let me give you a world of kingdom. Right? That's the most obvious thing you can do. Right? Temptation. Just as Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, Satan will now tempt Dante in Hell. Okay. So that's obvious.

A contract for your soul, right? And this is the plot of course for Faust, and this is a very common thing. Yes, well we have to show him tethered in some way where he is selling a path upwards to all the people he's giving deals to. But we know God cast him out of heaven forever. So his desire is to get back there. He's caused mischief on earth. So we need to show him, if it was a Hollywood movie, in some way tied to where he is in a way that he can never

Can you describe his appearance for

In the poem or in No, no, no.

We know the poem. Okay. But I'm saying if this were a Hollywood movie, right? How would he look? Who would you cast to play Satan in this movie?

An AI character. Most handsome person possible as decreed by a I think handsome, right?

I think really good-looking. Okay. Maybe Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise at their prime. Okay. Really hot, really good-looking. Okay. Because that's part of the temptation, right? So beautiful. And you know in the Bible, not in the Bible, Christianity believes that Lucifer was a beautiful angel, right? The most beautiful of all the angels. So he has to be beautiful, right? And he has to be really handsome and almost like a prince, right? Okay. Any other ideas for how this will play out?

To what extent can we relate with him? Can we understand how he got himself there or do we just see him very This is really good.

Yes. Sympathy. Right. So Lucifer is going to tell us a story of how he was betrayed by God, right? You think I'm the betrayer, but God betrayed me. And this becomes a plot line for Paradise Lost. But yeah, no, we have to sympathize with Satan because it's not just tempting Dante, he has to tempt us as well. He has to seduce us with his story. Yes. Anything else? One, I would imagine him as a shape Because, well, it's part of temptation, because you kind of become whoever is the object of someone's desire.

Yeah. Well, I would say he's a poet, right? Because that's what a poet is. A poet is a chameleon. Okay. A poet is always shifting words to please you. Okay. Lyrical. So when he speaks, it is the most beautiful poetry in Divine Comedy. It's lyrical. That's poetry and he's a chameleon. Yes. Thank you. Anyone Very cunning or lying like a snake.

Like how the temptation happens in the Garden of Eden. It will be like, did God really say this, or actually word by word he didn't really say that? And then kind of debates with you and makes you kind of believe. He has to provide logical syllogisms, right?

He has to convince you.

Yes, okay. He will be very convincing, right? He'll use logic, just as in Paradise Lost where Satan convinced Eve, right? It was a very logical speech.

Okay, anyone else? I'd read Paradise Lost before I read Inferno and so I was expecting it's like a paradigm shift, or what the Germans would call a gestalt shift, where my entire worldview changed because of how Satan had expressed his point of view, and so it goes beyond sympathy to empathy for him, and I expect him to use that persuasively. So yeah, something beyond Temptation would be persuasive and lawyerly.

Yes. Yes. So every argument that I would have, this is brother's carameliz, every argument that I would have would be steelmanned by him and then broken down by him.

That's right. So not only do we have to sympathize with him, we have to feel that we are like him. Yes. Exactly.

It makes me think about C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. I think it was basically written about an uncle demon who is trying to teach his young nephew demon to seduce people. So it was all kinds of lectures from demons. So these letters to teach him how to seduce men, so it's really fun. So that whole book was written in a demon's Which is very fun.

But it's about, yeah, all of these mentioned above, deception.

Where's Virgil in this movie? What happens to Virgil? Right? Because they went on this long journey together. What happens to Virgil? What would you do with Virgil in this character? You know that Dante's being tempted, right? And Dante represents us and we know what Satan's doing, but what's Virgil doing?

I mean, I guess if it was a movie, he'd be transitioned to a location where he would be watching over Dante but not involved in this scene at Yeah.

I think the first thing is that Virgil would be trapped, right? Or he would be frozen, right? He'd be frozen and Satan would use Virgil as a bargaining chip and say, "Listen, your friend now is frozen. If you love him, let's make a deal, right?" So you can almost see the scene where Virgil and Dante come in and the first thing that happens is that Satan just snaps his finger and Virgil is frozen in place. Cannot move, cannot speak, and Dante is now terrified. Right? And now Satan will begin his temptation, tell his story, elicit sympathy, then use his logic to convince us that no, actually the way we understood the universe is wrong.

Yes. Right.

He has to inspire fear and anxiety.

In the beginning, but then he wants you to love him.

Does that make sense? Maybe in the beginning he wants fear and anxiety, but then Yes.

He would also try to cause distrust between maybe him and Virgil.

That's interesting. Yes. Okay.

So, because Virgil is his best friend up to this point, and if he causes distrust between them and it makes him That is great.

Yes. So maybe not freeze Virgil, but change Virgil and show certain things, certain flashbacks between Virgil and Dante that show that Virgil is not a reliable character. And there's quite a few of these scenes. Yes.

Makes me think about Harry Potter, where it kind of makes you lose all hope or despair, or kind of breaks down your fundamental belief of the world. Yes. And then Harry Potter has to say Expecto Patronum to expel all this darkness and despair in your life. So it's kind of similar.

Yes. Okay. Okay. So this is all great. Okay. And this is what a Hollywood movie would look like. This is what most people would write, right? Okay. And guess what? We are completely and utterly wrong. Okay. None of this happens. In fact, the complete opposite happens. Okay. All right. This is what's shocking about the Divine Comedy. So we'll now read the last canto again. This is what we should expect to happen. This is what most people would write. In fact, a lot of people have written this in literature, Goethe with Faust, Milton with Paradise Lost, you have Philip Pullman who wrote his Dark Materials trilogy, but that's how it happens. Okay, so let's read Canto 34 and we're trying to figure out why this does not happen.

Okay. Canto 34. Vexilla regis toward us, and therefore keep your eyes ahead. My master said, to see if you can spy him.

Okay. So they're now going to meet Satan or Lucifer. Okay. Whatever name, the devil. Okay. Just as when night falls on our hemisphere or when a heavy fog is blowing thick, a windmill seems to wheel when seen far off. So then I seemed to see that sort of structure. And next, because the wind was strong, I shrank behind my guide. There was no other shelter. And now with fear, I set it down in meter. I was where all the shades were fully covered, but visible as wisps of straw in glass.

And this the place where you will have to arm yourself with fortitude. Oh reader, do not ask of me how I grew faint and frozen then. I cannot write it. All words would fall far short of what it was. I did not die and I was not alive. Think for yourself, if you have any wit, what I became, deprived of life and death. The emperor of the despondent kingdom so towered from the ice up from mid-chest that I match better with a giant's breadth than giants match the measure of his arms.

So basically this guy's a skyscraper. Okay, he is huge. Keep on going.

If he was once as handsome as he now is ugly, and despite that raised his brows against his maker, one can understand how every sorrow has its source in him. I marveled when I saw that on his head he had three faces. One in front, blood red, and then another two that just above the midpoint of each shoulder joined the first, and at the crown all three were. The right looked somewhat yellow, somewhat white. The left in its appearance was like those who come from where the Nile descending flows. Beneath each face two wings spread out as broad as suited so immense a bird.

My initial sense is that he doesn't want to risk priming us in any way bad. So, as we've been saying, if his poetry is priming us to put seeds in our brain of interesting thoughts, he doesn't even want to write the tempting words that Satan might have said to him down there, in case it infects the reader even slightly.

Is Satan capable of speech? I can't remember reading anything in this that says he's not. But We know he's actually not capable of speech.

Why? Yeah. Yes. Go ahead.

He's chewing on sinners.

Yeah. So his mouth is kind of busy, so he can't actually speak. But what else? Okay. All right. Did you have a comment? Okay. We know he's actually not capable of speech. Not just because his mouth is busy, but also because the lake in which he's frozen flips no matter what aspect you look at him. So he's frozen from the middle to either extremity of his body and therefore there's no way his being can. Yeah, that's interesting. Yes. Okay, you're right. So, is he conscious? Is he conscious?

NPC.

I would say, yeah, I would say he's an NPC. I'd say he's even worse than an He's like a zombie.

No, he's even worse than a zombie. Actually, you just look at it. Look at the words that Dante used to describe him, right?

Like robot.

He's even worse than a robot. What are the words that Dante uses to describe him? He is a what? He actually uses certain words to describe Lucifer.

It says he's a. What? I've never seen a ship with sails so wide. So like These words, what's the words?

A bird. He says a bat and a bird. Where, what line?

Well, his wings are like Yeah, his wings are like bats.

But what is he? Read it carefully. What words are being used to describe, excuse me, a grinder? Yes. What else? There's lots of these. Grinder. What else?

I think he said giant or really big at some point. I'm finding the line. Read the poetry, guys. He's using specific words to describe It's kind of animalistic.

Find me the words.

He says as suited so immense a bird.

Bird, this is a simile, right? I'm saying, what are the words that directly Number line six, is blowing thick a windmill seems to wheel when seen far off.

So windmill. What's the next line?

And in seven he says so then I seemed to see that sort of structure.

Structure. Do you understand? Windmill, structure, tower, he is a building. Okay? He is a machine. That's all he is. He's not even conscious, right? He's an air conditioner. That's literally what he is. He's a giant air conditioner blowing wind to cool the. Yeah, that's all he is. He's an ice blower. Like, what is going on here? This makes no sense.

So his punishment, his betrayal is so great because he's betraying God that his punishment is that he's lost all consciousness right now. He's just a machine. That is how low he sunk. He's just a building. He's just. Yes.

I was thinking, if he is conscious but he cannot do anything with his situation, wouldn't that be a worse punishment? Because now he is basically gone and then it's just his physical being that is in hell and not his conscious or his soul. Wouldn't it be a worse punishment if he knew what he was doing about it?

Is that what you're saying? He's comatose. He's a vegetable.

Kind of. Okay. I don't. Yeah. I mean, he's just frozen, right? Because consciousness requires

Would venture to say that's his just

Lucifer's just punishment because He was anything but, and now seems like this powerless, inert, frozen being that's just kind of not even at its will or has conscience.

Right. Yes. Okay.

And it is also funny that if God is the source of light and love and sun and, you know, everything, energy, heat, then Lucifer is a lack of it. So going back to Paradiso, canto one, stanza one.

Exactly. The mirror, the opposite.

That's right. Exactly right. And remember, angels, they can never turn away from God. Right. The moment they turn away from God they become this. Yes.

Yeah. I wonder, not just in an ethical sense, like if God is all good, but just in a capability sense, like I'm good at running, then having that lack of good in the capable sense. Satan, even Ugolino was good at being clever and locking people into that tower. And Satan is not good at anything because he can't do anything.

Yeah. So, to answer your question, is it possible he's conscious but he can't move? And the answer is, if you're conscious, he would be allowed to speak and talk about his punishment, right? Does that make sense? And the fact that he doesn't speak means he's not actually even conscious. Yes. But I think he does have some level of comprehension because it does say that he's crying.

Right. That is correct. Yes, he feels, he is crying. Yes, that's a very interesting comment. Yes. And what do you make of this? Because he's clearly not conscious.

It's almost like that analogy of the sort of vegetative state.

Okay. Yeah. So it's possible he's conscious and he's crying. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. What I still don't really understand is we say Satan or Lucifer was an angel but angels can never turn away from God. So how did he turn away from God?

That's a great question. Yes. Okay. That's also a paradox. Yes.

I think Lucifer reminds me of a giant data center. It can host all kinds of programs, can process information, but ultimately it lacks a soul.

Yeah. Exactly. So he's clearly a machine. Okay. But let's try to figure out the question, okay? Because all angels are staring at God. They're turning towards God, and then Lucifer turns away. Yes. I think this is quite a prosaic interpretation, but because he's the god of light, the sorry, the angel of light, it is in his essence, darkness is also essential to his being just by being the angel of light. So he's like the most unlucky angel, because of all of the ones that would ever slip up and turn to the darkness, it's going to be him, because as the angel of light, that's the only way I can see.

Yeah. So what? Yes, Because I've heard that God loved Lucifer the most.

So, He's supposed to love God, right?

He's God's lieutenant.

Yeah. The love is not limitation. Maybe, you know, Right?

So it's possible he was the lieutenant and he had free will. He screwed up.

But then he wasn't an angel, because angels don't have free will, right?

Right. No, but remember when we were up in Paradiso, there are different levels of angels. There are different categories of angels, right? So, But we said all angels have no free will.

I thought

And conscious Or consciousness.

No, no consciousness and no free will.

Right. Right. Right. But think of them as organs in a body, right? They're all different. They all serve a particular function. And this particular organ, Satan, chose to become a cancer. And so the body threw him out. But what he didn't recognize is that without the body, the larger body, you as an organ have actually no purpose. And so you just decay and become dead. Yeah. But he could still choose. But he still had a decision, or he could make a decision.

Yes. I think that he was God's number Yes.

So that he didn't have free will, but he was about as close as possible as any celestial intelligence could get to that. I know it's difficult for me as well, but I just think that it's God proving that whoever he gave, like, imagine he has to organize his power in a certain way amongst angels to exact his will or whatever. His number two, the one he gives the most power to, is the one most likely to betray him and turn away and have that capacity.

So was he always supposed to turn away from him?

That's a kind of a theme in Paradise Lost, but I'm not sure. It's a question I can ask.

Okay. All right. So let's first talk about things we know. Okay. First of all, we know that God's gift to humanity was free will. And free will is what distinguishes us from other beings. Okay, that we know from Paradiso. We have free will and we can choose whatever path we want. That's number one. Okay. Number two is the function of the angels in the heavens is to basically be organs of a body, right? To maintain the proper functioning of the universe. Okay? So they don't actually have free will.

Yeah. His nature has to be disobedience. Okay. That's the only thing that makes sense. It's his nature to be disobedient. It is his will to turn away from God. That is his function. Turn away from God. Why that's the case, I don't really know. Okay. So when God constructed this hierarchy then he must have willed this, that he would one day turn away.

So God so. Okay.

Right. So the only thing that he cannot will is us. He gave us free will. Okay. But everything else he willed into. Right. Yes. Sometimes I think this is a little bit funny, that it's almost like a father whose son is really good at table tennis, but the school he's sending his son to doesn't play table tennis. So he tries to get the school to play table tennis before his son attends it. So God let Satan destroy the world so that Jesus would be able to have as big of an impact as possible.

Yeah, I mean that's what Christians believe, right? Okay. Yeah, that's the idea here, like everything happens for a reason. But if that's the case, okay, this creates another paradox, which is there are three betrayers, right? Three people are being punished and these are the worst offenders in human history and they are Judas Iscariot, they are Brutus and Cassius. Brutus and Cassius of course are the two who assassinated Julius Caesar, but we know for a fact that there's a plan, right? The plan is to create Christianity. Brutus and Cassius were crucial to this plan because by killing Julius Caesar that enabled the rise of Augustus Caesar and the Roman Empire.

Okay. Yes.

I don't know if Dante would be a determinist, since he's been harping on free will this whole time.

That's right. That's right. So that can't be the answer. Okay. Free will is the fundamental law of the universe. Okay. So why are these three being Okay, so in theology I think they explain it like this, if I'm not mistaken, is that God has a plan for the world.

He sees the ultimate ending of all your choices. He's kind of like AI, right? He can foresee, like AlphaGo, he can foresee your next step. He gives you free will, right? As the competitor on the other side of the Go game. So he knows ultimately, as AI can calculate by mathematical formulas, that you are going to end up at this step. So like all the betrayers, God can see that they're going to end up doing that.

But at the same time, they are contributing to the divine plan. Go ahead.

I'm speculating. I don't have a conclusion yet. All we're doing is, okay, because again if you read all the commentary, the scholarship on Dante, no one knows what's going on here, right?

I want to follow up on that point, just the perception and how psychedelics alter the filters and the ability for perception. It's almost like God, the creator, is putting up a play for all us humans to watch. The Matrix, you know, whatever it is, and it's for us to watch and perceive, but even this is not reality.

Right. Okay.

And it's meant to do something to open you up.

Okay. Okay. Right. I don't think Dante is that complicated. Let's focus on simple solutions. Okay. So again, like Occam's razor, we are looking for elegance. So that's a great explanation. All these are great explanations, but I'm looking for a really elegant explanation for what's going on. Okay. Let's move towards elegance, clarity and simplicity so that everyone understands. Yes.

Yes. Online chat. So how Lucifer managed constant adversity for mortals in any and every degree is God's will.

Okay. All right. Thank you for that.

So we had said earlier Augustine claims that God made hell and hell is good because it's cosmic justice. You cannot have free will without evil. I don't know if Augustine comes to a determination that God made evil or if evil is a byproduct of free will, but it seems like they go hand in hand.

Okay. All right. So we're running out of time. Okay. But let me explain what's going on. Okay. There may be a divine plan. Doesn't matter. Okay. Because we are the divine plan. The imagination is the divine plan. And so what matters is not whether this is God's plan. That's not what matters. Okay. The results don't matter. It's the process that matters. What matters is what effect it has on us. Okay. Now Brutus and Cassius are important because how do they assassinate Julius Caesar? Do you guys know of Julius Caesar?

Oh, no. But I'm saying, how do they get access to Julius Caesar?

By being his friend, comrade, helper. Yeah. Et tu, Brute. Okay. So you guys don't know this, but there's speculation that Brutus was his son. All right. So remember, when was Julius Caesar assassinated? What year? 33. I can't actually remember when he was assassinated. Okay, but it's like 10 years after these brutal civil wars when all these Romans were trying to kill each other and then Julius Caesar was the only one left standing and everyone around him. So 44 BC, okay. But everyone around him were his best friends, his most loyal allies, and these were the people who betrayed him.

But is it not even worse? Is it because the Romans then later said that Julius Caesar is a god? So it's betrayal of God maybe even.

Exactly. Exactly. That's right. After Augustus Caesar comes to power, he elevates Julius Caesar to divinity. Okay, so this is why they're in hell, because Brutus and Cassius, not only did they kill the host, right? But they killed God himself.

But in the Christian view, it wouldn't be from Dante, it wouldn't be a god like Julius. It wouldn't be a god from Dante's view.

Yeah. But then the question is, who is really master of hell and who put these guys there?

Probably Virgil. Okay. Okay, because we know it's not Lucifer. Do you understand? Okay, this is why Divine Comedy is so brilliant, because this is a Hollywood movie, but it's a shock reveal. Do you understand? It's a shock reveal. We thought Lucifer was the one in charge, but it was Virgil all along. Okay, because why else are Brutus and Cassius suffering like that? Okay, does that make sense? This is the shock reveal. All right.

Somewhat, because earlier in the Inferno it seems fairly clear, even if there are some doubts, that Dante does trust Virgil.

Guide. Yeah. How much does he trust Virgil? Okay. The scene is this, right? What lets him out of hell is Virgil climbs. Where's Dante? Virgil's the one climbing Lucifer, right? Where is Dante?

The one that flew and got too close to the sun.

Oh, Icarus.

Icarus. Yeah.

Oh, just stepping on the shoulders of giants to reach ahead.

Oh, yeah. That's interesting, that's what I'm thinking about. Okay. Yes.

Yes. It's birth, man. Right. Think about how the mother takes you from the darkness into the light, for her own exertion, right? It's hell. It's complete darkness. And Virgil is climbing Lucifer with Dante on his back. And they go into the light. It's exertion. So, has Virgil succeeded? Yeah. He's made Dante into his son.

Yeah. Because later we see as well that Dante misses Virgil.

Yes. That's right. Okay. Do you see how beautiful this is? It's anticlimactic, but it's a perfect ending and it is so symbolic, right? Does that make sense to you guys? All right. Any questions or comments about this? Yes.

Exactly. Another comment I'll make is that the birth is an allegory for Dante reading the Aeneid, right, in Latin, because at this time everyone memorized the Aeneid in Latin, and it's a really good way to learn Latin, by the way. So it's an allegory for that: you reading a lot, you reading the Aeneid, is like Virgil giving birth to you. Okay. So this is again the beauty of Divine Comedy. This now is a cliffhanger, right? Because Lucifer has succeeded in tempting Jesus, that the temptation is complete.

Okay, so this morning we talked about Satan, right? How if Dante were to meet Satan then Satan would, with poetry, with lyrical poetry, tempt him, and the first thing that Satan would do is elicit his sympathy, right? And that's exactly what Sinon is doing here, going All of it, my king, I'll tell you, come what may, the whole true story.

Greek I am, I don't deny it. Now, first, fortune may have made me a man of misery, but wicked as she is, she can't make Sinon a lying fraud as well. Now perhaps you've caught some rumor of Palamedes, Belus's son, and his shining fame that rings in song. The Greeks charged him with treason, a trumped-up charge, an innocent man, and just because he opposed the war, they put him to death. But once he's robbed of the light, they mourn him sorely.

Okay. All right. All right. So this is a very long speech, but the idea is with his poetry he's able to elicit sympathy and that convinces the Trojans to let in the Trojan horse even though common sense tells them we shouldn't actually take gifts from strangers. Okay, we shouldn't actually let this thing in. We don't know what it is. And that's really the power of poetry. Okay, so that's Sinon and that's why he's condemned to hell, because he hijacked people's imagination in order to feed them a false narrative that destroyed their city.

And I to him, who are those two poor sinners who give off smoke like wet hands in the winter and lie so close to you upon the right? I found them here, he answered, when I rained down to this rocky slope. They've not stirred since and will not move, I think, eternally. One is the lying woman who blames Joseph. The other, lying Greek from Troy. Because of raging fever they so. And one of them who seemed to take offense perhaps at being named so squalidly struck with his fist at Adam's rigid belly.

Okay. So I thought, just asking Adam who are these other two people being punished here, and Adam's like, well. And so he names them and one of them, Sinon, who for all eternity has not stirred. He just lies there in a raging fever. That fever, that's his punishment. He hears his name and gets really angry and he takes offense and punches Adam. Okay, keep on going.

So now they're just insulting each other. Okay. Keep on going. To which the dropsied one: "Here you speak true, but you were not so true a witness there when you were asked to tell the truth at Troy." "If I spoke false, you falsified the coin," said Sinon. "I'm here for just one crime, but you've committed more than any demon."

So Sinon's like, well, I spoke false but you falsified the coin, right? And in every country you would get punished a lot more for counterfeiting than you would for lying, right? In fact, I think the worst punishment is counterfeiting, right? Sorry, the worst crime is counterfeiting, right? What does the Secret Service do in the United States? It looks for counterfeits. Okay? It's a very serious thing. And when Isaac Newton was head of the Mint in England, if he caught you counterfeiting, he would basically torture you to death.

"Remember the horse, you perjurer," replied the one who had the bloated belly. "May you be plagued because the whole world knows it."

And what Adam says is that for your lie you let the Trojans let in the horse, and that destroyed the whole civilization. Okay. So the consequences were much worse.

Okay. So what is strange about this? What's going on? What stands out about this story, about this passage? What does Virgil do here that he's never done before and he'll never do again?

He's stopping the conversation. He's stopping Dante from digging deeper.

Okay. But he's done that before, right? He's switched topics. But here he's doing something that he's never done before and he'll never do again.

He threatened Dante.

He's angry with Dante, right? He's never done that before. Okay. So what's he angry about? Why is he angry? All right. So the paradox is this. Virgil is angry at Dante because Dante is watching a fight between Master Adam and Sinon, right? And Master Adam and Sinon are arguing who's worse. Master Adam says you counterfeited the coin so you're worse. And then what should Master Adam's response be? You counterfeited the coin. That's pretty bad. But something actually worse than counterfeiting the coin, which is what?

Counterfeiting a gift, in the sense that it's a poisoned gift.

That's interesting. What's the worst thing you can do in university? Plagiarism. Right. Plagiarism. Plagiarism is a lot worse than counterfeiting the coin, right? If you're at university and you started to counterfeit money, yeah, they might throw you in prison, but if you plagiarized, you would be thrown out of university forever. But so what is Sinon plagiarizing? Do you guys know?

What is that I can't remember.

I'm sorry.

You guys don't learn this in school.

It was just for Latin translation, too.

Oh, okay. So you read parts of it.

The major parts. Yeah. But What does plagiarizing mean?

Oh, plagiarism means to steal ideas from other people and pretend it's your own. Well, he stole poetry maybe From who?

Virgil, and not at Homer.

Yeah. So Virgil stole from Homer, right? The Aeneid stole from the Iliad and the Odyssey and it corrupted the Iliad and the Odyssey, much the way that a counterfeiter corrupts coin, right?

You understand? A counterfeiter takes real gold, dilutes it, adds some lead, and pretends it's real gold. What Virgil did was he stole from the Iliad and Odyssey, polluted it and pretended it's real poetry. Do you understand? Okay. So this is drawing attention to the fact that basically Virgil plagiarized Homer and this is why Virgil is angry, because what does a plagiarizer hate the most, to me? Being found out, right? Being accused of it, right? And so Virgil's very, very angry. What's the paradox here?

Is it that he's the guide to hell?

Yeah. Why is Sinon burning here and Virgil's okay? Right. Because it's Virgil who created the character Sinon and allowed Sinon to lie. It's not Sinon that's the problem. It's the Aeneid that's the problem. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes.

Before he died he was like, please burn all this stuff. That means that his consciousness knows that what he did was wrong. So he sort of repented before he Yeah.

But if he repented then where should he be?

Heaven. No, actually

Limbo, which he is, but No, no, he should be in Purgatory.

Oh, Purgatory. Right.

Yeah. Okay. So that's not the answer. Okay. It's possible, right? But again, this is raising a paradox, which is why is Sinon here when the real culprit, Virgil, the plagiarist, is walking free around hell? He's able to control hell. He's able to decide that Cassius and Brutus will be tortured by Lucifer. Yes.

Well, I think because Sinon actually believes that he did something wrong and Virgil believes that he did nothing wrong when he stole. So I think Virgil already forgave himself for what he did, but Sinon can't forgive himself for what he did to the Trojans.

Is it that Virgil admits that he did plagiarism by being angry at being accused of plagiarism?

Well, no. He's angry because he doesn't want to admit it, right? Okay. So again, this creates all these paradoxes here. And so I want you guys to keep this at the back of your mind. Why is it that Virgil is not punished at all for his crimes? And why is hell structured the way it is? Yes. But if Virgil is basically like Lucifer, then his main aim is to deceive Dante. So therefore, he can't, in front of Dante, seem to be punished for his sins.

But I don't understand this. His main aim is to deceive Dante, to tempt Dante. I understand that. But why would he be allowed to do that?

Yes, I think that he's made the master of hell.

And one of the key things of the Aeneid was about duty and the killing of Turnus. And I was thinking about this, why it's such a beautiful thing that Virgil is the guide and master of hell, that many, many people who sin do so because they feel forced by themselves. And so Virgil's not being punished, but his punishment is that he has to guide everybody around, because it's the very force that the Aeneid put into people's hearts that made them sin in years to come.

Okay. That's interesting. But the fact is that Virgil is not the guide of hell. He's the guide to Dante. He was appointed by Beatrice to be the guide, but he's usually in Limbo. Okay. But he can run around hell. He knows hell very well, right? If he's able to climb Lucifer, then he knows hell like the back of his hand. But again, these are all paradoxes and as we go into Purgatory, the answers will be revealed to us. Okay. All right. So this is Purgatory One.

Okay. So let me test your memory. Okay. So again there's parallelism, symmetry in Divine Comedy. Here he's saying I now want to write about Purgatory. I now sing about Purgatory. So Muses, come and give me inspiration. Okay. In Paradiso, when he was writing about the heavens, who did he call to inspire him? Apollo and the Muses. Okay. Do you understand? So he's saying here, Purgatory, the Muses inspire me. But in heaven, I need everyone. Apollo, the Muses, everyone to fully inspire me. Okay, keep on going.

Okay, stop. Okay, so the solitary patriarch, he is the master of Purgatory and his name is Cato. Can someone tell me why having Cato as the master of Purgatory is such a paradox?

Because he was born before the time of Jesus. So he should be in Limbo.

Exactly. Okay. Number one is he is not a Christian. Virgil told us explicitly that unless you are baptized, you cannot leave Limbo. Yes, I think if my memory serves historically that Cato was seen to be somebody who was so talented that whenever he did anything it was like he had done it from birth, like he knew how to do it from birth.

So for him to be the master of Purgatory, where you live and then this is your journey to heaven, it's ironic because he seemed to have grasped everything very quickly in his life.

Okay. Sure. Okay. But that's not necessarily a paradox. The fact that he is not a Christian, that's a paradox. But there are some other paradoxes as well. Why should Cato not be in Purgatory? In fact, he should be in Inferno. Why?

No, but he rebelled against Caesar, He rebelled against Caesar.

He was on the side of Pompey. So I'm trying to figure this out. If Julius Caesar is in Limbo, and if the people who killed Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, are the worst people in the world, and Cato fought against Caesar, why is Cato master of Purgatory? Okay, that's another paradox. And there's one more paradox and it's actually the biggest paradox. How did he die? Suicide, right? Suicide in Catholic theology at this time, suicide goes straight to hell. No questions, no doubts.

I'm not sure why he committed suicide, but I would guess it's because of his honor for whatever the side that he served for, for Pompey. I would guess maybe He committed suicide because his side was losing and Caesar was offering clemency to everyone, right?

And so what was going to happen is Caesar would have come to Cato and said, "Cato, I forgive you and will you please be a senator?" And Cato's like, "I don't want this crap. I'm going to kill myself because that's the honorable thing to do." Right? He did not want to give Julius Caesar the opportunity to show clemency.

Okay. Because Virgil, where's Virgil At this moment or in general?

In general. In Limbo? In Limbo?

In Limbo, right? And why in Limbo? Because he was brought up there by, there's only one reason why he's in Limbo according to Virgil. He's not a Christian, right? He was not baptized as a Christian. That's the only reason, right? So it doesn't make any sense why he would tell us this and then put Cato in Purgatory. Okay. All right. So, yeah, we would imagine that Virgil and Cato are good friends and it would be a happy reunion. Okay. Let's keep on reading.

Line 40. "Who are you, who against the hidden river were able to escape the eternal prison?" he said, moving those venerable plumes. "Who was your guide? What served you both as lantern when from the deep night that will always keep the hellish valley dark you were set free? The laws of the abyss, have they been broken? Or has a new changed decree in heaven let you, though damned, approach my rocky There's a really ironic sentence here.

What is it? What's a really ironic sentence in the. It's really ironic. Where's Cato be? He should be in Limbo at least, right? So what does he say that's kind of ironic? It's like what? That he knows what hell is like?

No, no. I'm saying, what did he say in the speech that's ironic?

Were you able to escape?

Yeah. Like how did you get here? It's like, well, okay, Cato, but how did you get here? Right. That's kind of ironic, right? How are you able to escape the eternal prison? The eternal prison is like no one can escape it, but he did. All right. So it's ironic. All right. Keep on going.

Okay. So Virgil is referencing how Cato killed himself in Utica rather than submit to Caesar. Okay. All right. Come on.

Line 76. "Eternal edicts are not broken for us. This man's alive and I'm not bound by Minos. But I am from the circle where the chaste eyes of your Marcia are. And she still prays to you, oh holy breast, to keep her as your own. For her love then, incline to us. Allow our journey through your seven realms. I shall thank her for the kindness you bestow, if you would let your name be named Okay.

So Virgil is telling why they're here, and Virgil explains that Dante is not dead, so he can move around. And he was never sentenced to the inner circles of hell, so he's free to move around. And also, Cato, hey, your wife Marcia, she's with me, and if you help us, then I'll go back and help Marcia. Okay.

So he's saying before, he was in. Okay. Right. Before I was in Limbo, of Marcia. Keep on going.

"Now that she dwells beyond the evil river, she has no power to move me any longer. Such was the law decreed when I was freed. But if a lady come from heaven speeds and helps you, as you say, there's no need of flattery. It is enough indeed to ask me for her sake. Go then, but first wind a smooth rush around his waist and bathe his face to wash away all of hell's stains. For it would not be seemly to approach with eyes still dimmed by any mists the first custodian angel, one from paradise.

So Virgil says, how does Cato respond to Virgil's speech?

Rather sarcastic or Does he like Virgil?

He hates Virgil.

He's like, "Don't mention Marcia to me, you asshole."

I want to help you because Beatrice told me to, but that's why. Not because you can help Marcia. Okay. So they're like enemies. They don't really like each other. And this makes you question who Virgil really is, right? What is Cato not like? Virgil. Yes.

In line 95, 96 he tells him that his face and body should be washed of hell basically. So he knows that Virgil is hell itself or he has so many Yeah, this is a really, really interesting reading, right?

So literally it just means Dante has been through hell and his face is dirty, right? Because hell is lots of dirt and fire, so go wash your face because this is Purgatory. But you can also say that it's metaphorical, in that Virgil has corrupted Dante in this journey by feeding him a lot of lies about hell. So what's important is for Dante to begin to cleanse himself of Virgil's lies. Okay. Right. To remove Virgil's influence from himself. Yeah. That's a very interesting reading.

Okay, so we are in the beaches of Purgatory. Okay, so Purgatory is a mountain and in order to cleanse yourself, you climb up this mountain and in each terrace of the mountain, you have to do an activity to cleanse yourself of the seven deadly sins. But we are not on the mountain yet. We are outside the mountain on the beaches. This is something, a place called Ante-Purgatory, which is for people who repented late in life and so they must wait and fully serve their penance before they're allowed to enter Purgatory. Once they enter Purgatory and they cleanse themselves then they are able to ascend to heaven.

So is there a sense of time in That's a really good question.

So what Dante is going to do a lot is talk about the sunrise. Okay. And one thing that's really important for us to keep in mind is that the rules governing Purgatory are different from the rules governing hell. Hell is eternal torment. There's no time. It's all just fire and darkness. But in Purgatory, there's night and day. And you can only climb during the day. At night, you have to rest. And it's going to be very important for us because during the night you dream, right?

Okay, this is a really interesting question, because one very important idea in Purgatory is that you have to serve your time, right? It could be a million years and it could be a thousand years. And so I think the idea of time in Purgatory is it's not physical time, right? It's not like, you know, you actually keep a clock and you wait 10,000 years. It's really about emotional time. So basically, it's like you're meditating and trying to cleanse your soul. And we don't actually know physically how much time it takes.

Okay. Sorry. Okay. So to continue your question, clearly there's time here, right? And there was no time in hell. So we discussed how we create time and space with our imagination. So I think the idea here is that in hell we're just trapped in hell. There is no time and space because we're just trapped there. Whereas here there's now motion, meaning there is now free will, meaning there is now agency. You can now actively participate in life. Does that make sense?

Yeah. But Cato was in hell before, right? So how did he escape, with free will? If you say there's no free will in hell. Yeah, that again is a paradox. Okay. And here we will just have to use our imagination. Does anyone know how we can resolve this? My memory is quite hazy, but I thought that maybe it was Jesus or some redeeming force who is shunting people up, shunted the very best souls up from Inferno, and that they didn't make it to heaven, but then they were either in Limbo or therefore in Purgatory.

Exactly. Yeah. So what we know is that Jesus did take away with him the best souls, but the people he took were off the Hebrew Bible, right? David, Abraham, Moses. What is Cato doing with. Okay, so this is hard. Okay, but one possible solution is this.

Okay, they did not convert to Christianity in their lifetime, but in their hearts they were Christian. Okay, before Jesus came they were already Christian and that's why they were able to ascend to Purgatory as well as to Paradise. Okay, we'll learn more about this later on, right? Yes.

Yeah, but I have a question, because you said only your heart is not enough for you to go to heaven, but you have to be baptized, right? Or Yeah, but that's what they're saying here, it's not the act that matters, it's the heart that matters, it's the will and the desire that matters.

Okay. Yes. Jesus also said that greater is he who has faith before he has seen it. So a lot of these people before he was born sort of believed in him or believed in some sort of this idea of redemption, a Messiah, then they have greater faith than the disciples like Peter or John who have seen and put their hands through Jesus, Peter's hands, that you know, these forefathers, whoever they are in the earth, yeah, deserve.

Yes. Okay. So that's a logic. Okay. And again, we'll never know. It's a paradox created by Divine Comedy. But this is one way to resolve this paradox. All right. Okay.

Line 22. Then to each side of it I saw a whiteness, though I did not know what the whiteness was. Below, another whiteness slowly showed. My master did not say a word before the whitenesses first seen appeared as wings. But then when he had recognized the helmsman, he cried, "Bend, bend your knees. Behold the angel of God and join your hands. From this point on, this is the kind of minister you'll meet.

Okay? So it's these angels that are guardians of Purgatory. Okay? Before in hell, there were these demons. Now, there are these angels. So at each major checkpoint, there are these angels. Keep on going.

Line 31. See how much scorn he has for human means. He'd have no other sail than his own wings, and use no oar between such distant shores. See how he holds his wings pointing to heaven, piercing the air with his eternal pinions, which do not change as mortal plumage does. Then he, that bird divine, as he drew closer and closer to us, seemed to gain in brightness, so that my eyes could not endure his nearness. And I was forced to lower them, and he came onto shore with a boat so light, so quick that nowhere did the water swallow it.

Hey, stop. Okay. All right. So again, this is mirroring hell. Remember how when Virgil took Dante into hell, they had to cross the river Acheron, right? And there's all these souls lining up to cross. And the same thing is happening here where there's souls lining up to cross the river into Ante-Purgatory, the area before the mountain. Can you explain to me or just list for me the differences between these two groups? The first group in hell, second group in Purgatory. What are the differences you notice? It's pretty stark actually, these differences.

Looking around for new.

This is very important. Okay, you understand? They're curious. Okay, remember, it's very explicit in the line, right, their eyes try, look at line 54, whose eyes try things new to them. They're curious, they want to learn. Okay, it's pretty stark. That's one, they're curious. What's the other thing?

Asking about the place.

They ask, they talk, man. Think about it. How in hell the souls just didn't talk, right? They talk. They asked questions.

I feel like in spirit they feel a lot more optimistic.

Yeah. They're active, right? Whereas in Inferno they were passive. They were just indifferent. Nothing could move them. Yes. 73. "So here those happy spirits, all of them, stare hard at my face." So it's like they're really happy. People in hell are just not very happy.

That's right. They're happy. They're optimistic. Exactly. Yes. And also what are they doing that never happens in hell? They're embracing each other. They're touching each other. What else?

Exactly. Yes.

Just similar to that, they have an optimistic mindset, a growth mindset.

It's attitude, right? They choose. Do you guys know Carol Dweck? Right. Carol Dweck. Dweck. Yeah, you probably know her. But you know, she's a Stanford psychologist and she says that in life there are those who succeed and those who fail and the main difference is in attitude, right? Those who succeed have a growth mindset, which is to say they're always looking to get better. Okay, they accept adversity, they accept failure as opportunities to improve themselves, whereas fixed people, fixed mindset, don't believe they can ever improve and they just accept things as they are, afraid of failure.

"Oh shades, in all except appearance, empty!" Three times I clasped my hands behind him and often brought them back against my chest. Dismay, I think, was painted on my face. At this that shadow smiled as he withdrew, and I, still seeking him, again advanced. Gently he said that I could now stand back. Then I knew who he was and I beseeched him to remain a while and talk with me. He answered, "As I loved you when I was within my mortal flesh, so freed I love you, therefore I stay." But you, why do you journey?

Okay, so Dante sees an old friend from Florence. This friend has died, and they're very happy to see each other. Okay, this is a contrast with when Virgil and Cato saw each other. Okay, they reminisce. They talk about their past. And then Cato sees him and says, get out of here. Stop lingering, right? Move on. Okay. So there's a contrast here. And again, Dante does this a lot. Okay, keep on going.

Let's continue. Okay. Canto 3. But while their sudden flight was scattering those souls across the plain toward the mountain where we are wrecked by rightful punishments, I drew in closer to my true companion, for how could I have run ahead without him? Who could have helped me as I climbed the mountain? He seemed like one who's stung by self-reproof. Oh pure and noble conscience, you in whom each petty fault becomes a harsh rebuke. And when his feet had left off hurrying, for haste denies all acts their dignity, my mind, which was before too focused, grew more curious and widened its attention.

Okay. Stop. Okay. All right. So this is actually a very important part of this poem. So I want to analyze it in depth. Okay. First of all, explain to me what the relationship now is between Virgil and Dante. How would you describe the relationship?

And so he's thinking, how much of a guide is he really going to be if he's clearly not from here and he's not an expert of this place? Okay. That's one way to interpret it, but I kind of disagree with that. Okay. How does Dante feel about when. So again, the idea is that Dante has a body, so he's able to see his own shadow. Virgil doesn't have a body, and you can't see a shadow. This is not a problem in hell because there are no shadows in hell.

Dante maybe upset that he can feel that he's getting close to overtaking Virgil, outgrowing him.

No. No. Yes. Dante's very, and he felt that he's abandoned by I think so.

I think it's insecurity, right? He needs Virgil constantly beside him. He can't see the shadow. He's nervous. Like, where's Virgil? And Virgil's like, don't worry. I'm still with you. I'm going to guide you. Relax, man. Okay, that's exactly what they're saying here. Okay, does that make sense? So it shows you how dependent Dante has become on Virgil. It is Virgil who lifted Dante out of hell and now Dante is dependent on Virgil to lift him up through Purgatory.

The Monad.

Excuse me. The Monad.

No. The substance. What's the substance? Love, right? Who said the Trinity is three persons and they all have the same substance? Who said that? Dante. When Peter was asking him, "What is faith? Do you believe in the Holy Trinity?" He's like, "I do. I believe that the Trinity exists. They all come from the same essence, which is love." Okay.

Dante as well. Okay. Well, no, actually not Dante. Bernard says this in Paradiso, right? It is Mary giving birth. That is the true miracle, not Jesus sacrificing. This is all coming from the mouth of Virgil. Do you understand? And these ideas will be presented to us in. What's the paradox here?

Where did he get to know these, if what he said in Paradiso was something that he's supposed to learn from his journey?

Yeah. This is really confusing for us because we just said Virgil is in Limbo and Virgil could possibly be the master of hell. This is our speculation. We don't have evidence this is the case. How is it supposed to be in Paradiso? How is he able to know this stuff? Right? We'll discover this stuff in Paradiso, but we are in Purgatory right now. And Virgil has spent all eternity in Limbo. Where's he getting this stuff? These are things that Dante will discover once in heaven. But already Virgil understands this stuff.

So you're saying that Virgil is both Lucifer and Jesus?

That's interesting. Yes. Maybe when he's saying "foolish is he," he's talking about himself in the past tense. That when he got brought out of Inferno, if he was there, that process gave him the knowledge that ascension requires faith in true love. But he didn't need to be told that. But no, I'm trying to figure out how he knows this stuff, right? I'm trying to figure out how he knows two things that are revealed to us in heaven. The first is that the Holy Trinity has one essence which is love.

He was there.

He went there.

He went there. He was there.

He went there. And how did he end up in Limbo? Like you said, he chose not to be there. He was like, "Oh, this place is great, but I have to be like a servant to God. I don't want to do that, so I just come back."

He could have gone there because he's explicit, right? You cannot leave hell unless. Well, you can't go to heaven unless you're a Christian, right?

Yes.

Did Beatrice tell him when she assigned him the task?

Why would Beatrice tell him this stuff?

Fine. I'm like, Dante guesses it and ascribes it to Virgil.

No, no, no, no. Virgil's a teacher. Virgil's a father. Dante is a student and a son, right? So Dante would never be so presumptuous as to teach this to Virgil. And Dante does not know this yet, right? He only knows this when he goes up to heaven. So how can Virgil know this?

Right. Keep on going.

Right. So if, and therefore he understands the essence, the substance, the three persons, and therefore, I don't know, a fragment of Lucifer is with Virgil. That's a good start. Okay, that's very close. Keep on going. Keep on going on that logic. Yes.

For the devil to distort the truth means that he knows the truth very well in its fabric to be able to tear it apart, deconstruct it, cancel it.

So then he probably revealed that to Virgil, like this is the essence, but we were trying to divert.

Well, no, no, no, no. Okay. The first part was right. The second part is like You're assuming Lucifer talked to Virgil, right?

True, but he can't talk. Lucifer can't talk. So how does Virgil know this?

It's the opposite of what he sees of Lucifer in hell. So it's like three sinners are digested into one substance which is evil, and it's the opposite of the immaculate conception. Okay. So that's an interesting theory. Okay. And that explains the Trinity. It doesn't explain Mary.

But why is he Lucifer?

Because he knows the truth. But truth to know, to tell the truth.

No, no, no. Yes.

Well, I mean, in a way he was forced by Augustus to speak poetry, but use it for an empire way.

So in God's eyes, what did you do?

Well, you betrayed God because You betrayed God.

You understand? The great betrayer is Virgil, not Lucifer. Okay, just think about this. Does that make sense, guys? Because God gave you the greatest gift possible, which is poetry, which is divine and truth. And you distorted it in order to serve empire. That's the great betrayal, right? Who's Lucifer? Lucifer is someone who betrayed God in order to seek power. Yes.

Then why is Virgil in Limbo?

That's a really good question. Yes. Is it because he left an Easter egg, that when Aeneas is about to kill Turnus, he debates it a lot and then he sees Pallas's sword belt on Turnus and that's what makes him finally kill him. But we don't know whether that's fully true or not, but at least it's maybe Virgil saying that there was another thing which made me make Aeneas kill Turnus in the Aeneid. It wasn't just the whole message. It seemed kind of like a red herring that it was Pallas's sword belt that made him kill Turnus when it was his divine destiny to do so.

Okay, that's a good point. Okay, so try to visualize what's happening. Okay, God gave Virgil the divine fire. Okay, just as he gave Dante the divine fire, just as he gave Shakespeare the divine fire. Okay, this is all divine fire. This is not yours. This is God's. Okay, and then Augustus says, "Okay, you know what? Give me that divine fire and we'll craft a weapon together." Well, if you do that, if you put the divine light into the weapon, something's going to leak out. Does that make sense? And that's why there's so many inconsistencies in the Aeneid, including the one where Aeneas shows mercy to Turnus and then in the end decides to kill him anyway.

Yeah. And that's exactly what the Jews hated Jesus for, because they really wanted a real Messiah who was a militant leader just like Julius Caesar. They really wanted Jesus to side, well, not side with the Romans, but fight against the Romans. That's why they denied him the title of Messiah.

That's right. Exactly. Because Jesus was a prophet of peace and they wanted a prophet of war. Yes. Okay. Does that make sense? So again we're speculating, but again it's a huge problem for us how these two ideas, where God is love and Mary is what redeemed us, these are the two main ideas of Paradiso. How are they appearing in the mouth of Virgil, right? And the answer is, well, because he had access to divine fire but he chose to corrupt it. But it doesn't answer the question, which is how did Virgil end up in Limbo?

And as we see, hell is basically created by Virgil and he knows the place because he created it.

Exactly. Okay. So one explanation is that Virgil created hell and Dante created heaven. Okay. So ultimately what's happening is a war between heaven and hell, a hell conceptualized by Virgil and a heaven conceptualized by Dante. That's one possibility. Yes.

Yeah. So that's a theory I had about hell, that Dante is basically Virgil's mind.

But he does enter Virgil's mind. How?

Oh yeah, that's the point I don't Okay.

But how does he enter Virgil's

By going into hell or No.

No. No. How does he enter Virgil's mind? In fact, he becomes Virgil's mind because what did he do?

He read the Aeneid.

He read the Aeneid, right? That's what the Aeneid is. It's the mind of Virgil. It is hell. Do you understand? It's a blueprint for hell. Imagine a world in which love is a disease, right? And you can kill any woman that you want. Okay? Imagine a world without mercy, without forgiveness, right? Your enemy, you must kill. You can never show mercy to your enemy. That is hell. No forgiveness, no mercy, no love, just pure obedience. That's what hell is. Okay. So the Aeneid is the expression of hell and Divine Comedy is the expression of heaven.

Right. So, So he appreciates Virgil's contribution.

So that's a possibility, right? Dante knows he cannot be Dante without Virgil because, and he says this, he grew up being nourished by the Aeneid, right? But why would that lead to Virgil in Limbo? Okay. Yes. Virgil is still using imagination, truth, beauty, and poetry. So it's still God's gift. So because he's using that, he's not going to be punished. Still a creator.

No, no, no, no. That's even worse, right? That's even worse. I mean, if you don't know anything and you behave like Virgil does, that's one thing. But to know that you're behaving the wrong way and you still choose to do it, that's even worse. Okay. All right. So let's think about this. In the universe of Dante, where should Virgil be? Excuse In the Inferno.

Which part of the Inferno?

The very bottom, in one of the mouths of Right.

He's the great betrayer. Much worse than Satan. He is the great betrayer. And who's there instead?

Brutus and Cassius. Right.

So what do you think happened? Again, we're only speculating. Okay. Want to use our imagination. We're trying to figure out how this system works, right? Because in Dante's universe, the place where Virgil belongs is in the mouth of Lucifer being chewed to death, because his betrayal is the same as Lucifer's betrayal. Lucifer betrayed God and Virgil betrayed humanity, right? It's the Aeneid that has condemned Europe to a thousand years of hell. Just endless war, endless suffering. Okay. No mercy, no love.

The Divine Comedy's Inferno is not Dante's framework, but Virgil's framework.

Right. Right. So that's one possibility, but I'm saying let's try another possibility, right? Let's just say Virgil is master of hell. Can he construct hell in any way he wants and there's nothing that anyone can do about it, even God? What's another possibility? Okay. And the other possibility is, okay, let's go with Dante's framework. And in Dante's framework, Virgil is in the bottom of hell being chewed and tortured by Lucifer. How would he have gotten out of that? Yes, Only through Dante himself.

Dante himself puts Virgil into Limbo because he loves him so much maybe, or he forgives him. Right. Yes, He got temporarily moved out by Beatrice and the other ladies from heaven just for this purpose, but he really doesn't want Dante to know that's the truth.

So he Possibility.

Do you guys understand that? You understand that? Because Beatrice has a problem, right? Beatrice is like, Dante's lost in the woods. Someone has to help him. And who's the only guy possible? Virgil. Problem is Virgil is in hell being chewed alive because of his betrayal of humanity. But in the world, okay, who does Dante admire the most? Who could guide Dante out of hell? Only Virgil, right? Because only Virgil knows hell that much, because he's at the very bottom. So he understands the very essence of hell. So they might have made a deal, right?

Exactly. Exactly. Right. So tomorrow we talk to David Bromwich, and David Bromwich's mentor was Harold Bloom, right? And Harold Bloom wrote a very famous book called The Anxiety of Influence. And the very idea of anxiety of influence is, how does creation happen? How is it possible for people like Milton and Keats and Shakespeare to create great artwork? And the answer is anxiety of influence, where as a young poet you are so burdened by a higher poet, right? So Milton was burdened by Shakespeare, and you think that, oh, it's impossible for me to surpass him, and you try your very best to imitate him, you try your very best to become him, but in this process of trying to become him you recognize the problems in this and then you develop your own creativity.

"You saw the fruitless longing of those men who would, if reason could have been content, those whose desire eternally laments. I speak of Aristotle and of Plato and many others." Here he bent his head and said no more, remaining with his sorrow. By this time we had reached the mountain's base, discovering a wall of rock so sheer that even agile legs are useless there. The loneliest, most jagged promontory that lies between Turbia and Lerici, compared with it could provide stairs wide and easy. "Now who knows where along this mountainside the slope declines," my master, halting, asked, "one finds a rise where even he who has no wings can climb?"

Wait, stop. Okay. All right. So he says, "You saw the fruitless longing of those men who would, if reason could have been content, those whose desire eternally laments. I speak of Aristotle, Plato and many others." What does he mean by this?

Yeah, that's close. Okay, but I would phrase it differently. Does anyone else want to try? Yeah, you can try again. Just that they still have a distance between them and the world of the forms. What if you think that's where God resides?

Sure. Sure. But we're trying to figure out what causes this distance. Okay. What causes this separation?

They didn't reason and knowledge.

They didn't think they needed faith.

It's faith, right? Because explain to me, because only with faith do you understand that it's Mary who redeemed us, not Jesus. It's only with faith that you understand that God is love. Okay? You can't prove it. You can't reason it out. Plato and Aristotle, their problem was that they wanted to reason it out. You can't do that. You have to have faith and from this faith comes your imagination which then allows you to access the truth. Do you understand the logic? And again, it's amazing, because this is what Dante will tell us, will reveal to us in Paradiso.

While he, his eyes upon the ground, consulted his mind considering what road to take, and I looked up around the wall of rock, along the left a band of souls appeared to me to be approaching us, but so unhurriedly their movements did not show. "Lift up your eyes," I told my master. "Here are those who can advise us how to go, if you can find no counsel in yourself." At this he looked at them and, less distressed, replied, "Let us go there. Their steps are slow, and you, my gentle son, hold fast to hope." The distance from that company to us, I mean, when we had gone a thousand paces, was still as far as the fine hurler's toss.

Okay. So they are moving towards Purgatory. They are in Ante-Purgatory. Right? So they have not yet entered the gates of Purgatory and they're meeting different souls and one of them is Manfred. Now Manfred is a royal. He is a king. He's a grandson of the Empress Constance and he died in battle and he was excommunicated by the Church. Why is this a paradox? He was excommunicated by the Church. Why is this a paradox?

Is here?

Yeah, it's a straight go. It's like a go-straight-to-hell card, right? You're excommunicated. It means that you have been banished from the community of Christians. Doesn't matter if you're baptized, doesn't matter what you believe, doesn't matter what you do. You have now been banished from the community of Christianity. And therefore, you must now burn in hell.

He said as he was dying, basically in tears, he suddenly was like, "God, please forgive me." And then I know my sins were terrible, but God, you know, spread his arms to me to return. Yeah.

So God is all forgiving. Okay, you have a direct connection to God. And okay, if you get excommunicated by the Church, that's bad. But that just means you spend more time in Purgatory. Okay. Right. So again, this is revolutionary for this time in history, where the excommunication doesn't really matter that much. Okay? What matters is your faith in God.

Someone who's alive prays for you.

Exactly. Okay. Right. This goes back to the idea in heaven where if an infant dies, but the parents are very virtuous and pray for the infant, the infant is given access to heaven. Yes.

I think it also matters whether the prayer is a good prayer or just an offhanded prayer. I think there's a difference between Yeah, no commitment, right?

You know, if someone's praying for you eight hours a day, and also the number of people also matters, like if an entire community is praying for you, that will reduce your time in Purgatory. Okay, right. Okay, all right. So let's keep on going. Canto 4. "When any of our faculties retains a strong impression of delight or pain, the soul will wholly concentrate on that, neglecting any other power it has. And this refutes the error that maintains that one above the other, several souls can flame in us.

Okay. So this answers your question of time, right? You had a question about time. What does Dante. Right. So, but what does he mean? Right. We had a question about time, right? So what does Dante say about The sun has climbed 50 degrees.

Yeah. And that's physical time. But what could you. Yeah. What's he saying here?

Well, verse 10. The power that perceives the course of time is not the power that captures all the mind. The former has no force. The latter binds. So it's not your perception. It's your imagination.

It's not the perception that matters. What matters? The perception of time doesn't matter. What matters?

The emotions. Right? So the power that perceives the course of time is not the power that captures all the mind. Okay? The power that perceives the course of time has no force. The power that captures all the mind, which is the emotions, that binds. Okay.

All right. So what matters is the emotional time as opposed to the physical time. Okay. Keep on going. Line 13. And I confirmed this by experience, hearing that spirit in my wonderment. For though the sun had fully climbed 50 degrees, I had not noticed it. When we came to the point at which in unison those souls cried out to us, "Here's what you want." And then verse 19, "The farmer, when the grape is darkening, will often stuff a wider opening with just a little forkful of his thorns." Then was the gap through which my guide and I, who followed after, climbed, we two alone, after the company of souls had gone.

Why does he not notice the passing of time? Why does he not notice the passing of time?

The changing of the sun's degrees.

Well, that would tell him the time, but he doesn't even notice that. I'm saying why doesn't he notice the sun, the time, the passing of time? Why don't you notice time?

Yes.

Why would you not notice time?

Not notice time?

Yeah. When would you not notice time If nothing changes in?

You know what I'm saying? When do you not notice time? Yes.

You're sleeping.

That you lost your Yeah.

When you're happy. Okay.

When you're happy. And why is he sounding very. Why are you sounding happy?

He's on his way to Beatrice.

No, there's a better reason.

He hasn't mentioned Beatrice yet. He's out of hell, right?

Okay. He was in hell and now he's finally out of hell. There are people who are happy. He's just really happy right now. Okay. All right. Let's keep on going.

Verse 25. "Then Sanleo can be climbed. One can descend to Noli and ascend Cacume and Bismantova with feet alone. But here I had to fly, I mean with rapid wings and pinions of immense desire, behind the guide who gave me hope and with my light." We made our upward way through rifted rock, along each side the edges pressed on us. The ground beneath required feet and hands. When we had reached the upper rim of that steep bank, emerging on the open slope, I said, "My master, what way shall we take?" And he to me, "Don't squander any steps.

Where is Mount Zion? You guys know where Mount Zion is? Come on, guys. In Israel, Jerusalem, right? Zionist. Come on, man. Zionist, right? Mount Zion. So what he's saying is that Purgatory and Jerusalem are opposite of each other. Does that make sense? Okay. So, yeah. What is the relationship between Dante and Virgil?

Well, still a father-son relationship.

Yes. Can you explain why?

Well, further up, Virgil said son to Dante and Dante said father to Virgil.

Okay. So Dante still trusts Virgil that he knows the way up.

So let's imagine you're a father, okay? Right. And you take your son who's like 10 on a hike to a mountain, right? What's your son doing all the time?

Are we there yet?

Yeah. Are we there yet? Okay. And the father's like, "Oh, you know, just focus on the mountaintop." Okay. So it's very much a father-son relationship. And it's almost like Dante has regressed, right? Because he's acting a lot more immaturely than before, right? Before it was one of respect, one of awe at Virgil. Now it's just like, are we there yet, man? This is so exhausting. And Virgil's like, come on, man. Move it. Okay. All right.

Line 71. Therefore you can see, putting your mind to it attentively, how that same path which Phaeton drove so poorly must pass this mountain on the north whereas it skirts Mount Zion on the southern side. I said, "My master, surely I have never, since my intelligence seemed lacking, seen as clearly as I now can comprehend that the midcircle of the heavens' motion, which one of the sciences calls equator, which always lies between the sun and winter, as you explained, lies as far north of here as it lies southward of the sight from which the Hebrews looking toward the tropics saw it.

He's like, "Are we there yet? I'm so exhausted. Can we just rest?" And then Virgil's like, "Come on, we're almost there." Why, and I don't actually know the answer to this question, why are Virgil and Dante spending so much time trying to geolocate where they are, right? They're very explicit about where they are. Like, okay, we are at the opposite end of Jerusalem. The stars are like this. Why would Dante spend so much time trying to geolocate Mount Purgatory?

To be more accurate while he's writing the poem, because he's going to teach all of this to the people.

Yes, you could know where heaven touches the earth, i.e. the peak of the mountain would be the closest place on earth to heaven. Yeah, I understand that. But Purgatory is made up, right? So I'm trying to figure out why he's trying to be so exact and detailed about where Mount Purgatory is. Yes.

Well, you're hiking, right? So try to memorize all the signs and where things are so that you don't get lost.

Okay, I understand that. Yes.

Is it just a metaphor for Purgatory? Because Purgatory is quite a meticulous place where you have to clean Right.

Right. Right. But I'm trying to figure this out. Okay. I'm trying to figure out why he's spending so much time being so exact and detailed about where Mount Purgatory is, what it looks like, where it is in relation to other places. Why would he, again, I don't actually know the answer. I'm just asking you this question. Yes, Maybe Dante just did the distrust of Virgil.

He says maybe Virgil tries to treat him or Well, it's Virgil who is doing the talking, I guess.

Maybe Virgil's trying to remember it for later. When his task with Dante is done, he gets shoved back to Limbo or hell and he's trying just to remember for That's a very optimistic reading of Virgil actually.

Yes.

The way to measure things. So because it's about progress, you can only progress in what you measure. So they're looking at where they are to start with and then progress with it.

Yeah. Okay. Right. Good. Right. So maybe a possibility is they're trying to give people a sense of time so their progress can be tracked. Okay. That's one really strong possibility. Yes. And I don't know the answer. I'm just asking what are possibilities here. Just use your imagination. Anyone else? Yes. Well, maybe just for the reader so you can imagine it as detailed as possible. And why would that be

I find this to be a treasure map for Right?

Because back to your point about Dante starting, ushering in Renaissance, if you look at Renaissance paintings, there are lots of And it's almost like if you want to imagine to the fullest, you need to give details.

A lot of details.

And this is like a treasure map to, hey, this is how you do it.

Yes. And I guess that's why maybe a cultist and, you know, later people would find this enlightening, because literally this is a map To the ultimate treasures.

Yes. Yes. Okay.

Like a hiker, you probably know the Japanese Kumano Kodo, which is one of the pilgrimage roads by UNESCO, saying that it's a pilgrimage. So you go through the mountains to, you know, purify your soul and all that. The other one is the route of Santiago de Compostela, which is another trip, a pilgrimage through the mountains and stuff. And so maybe in his idea, this idea of Purgatory, purging yourself as you hike or as you go on a journey itself, physically, metaphorically, it's a way to purify yourself, just like Muslims also go to, you know, the same.

Okay. So I think that Carol's point is very interesting. So let's drop some paintings. Okay. Let's look at medieval European art. Okay. And then we're going to contrast that with Renaissance art and see if we can spot the difference. Actually, it's pretty blatant, but we'll do it. Okay. Medieval art. We'll look at some images. Okay. So this is medieval art, guys. Okay. All right. Do you guys see that?

What's the difference, guys?

Yes. Yes. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Yes. So space and time really matter here. Yes.

Yeah. From two-dimensional to Yes.

Right. It's pretty obvious, right? They put a lot of focus on space and time and depth perception. Right. Before it was 2D, now it's 3D. Anyone else?

It's a demonstration of imaginative power. To convey the force of divine imaginative power you do have to have, you know, very, very deep knowledge about geography but also Yes.

So let's do mathematics of Renaissance art. Let's see what happens if we do that. Mathematics of Renaissance art. Yeah. So they're using a lot of mathematics with Renaissance art, right?

And the medieval paintings were just bishops and just portraits. But this is really. Yeah. This really ignites the imagination, like you can imagine yourself sitting at the table or Right.

Yeah. And why would it excite the imagination as opposed to medieval art? Yes.

Because you're grounding it in something more naturalistic and you're able to see yourself more. And I think the reason he does it in Purgatory is because you can kind of go on Purgatory a little bit while you're alive in real life.

Exactly. Do you understand? Okay. Right. So you can actually imagine yourself taking a hike and looking at the stars and then that draws you back to the Divine Comedy, and when you read Divine Comedy you can also, as you read this, imagine yourself with Virgil and Dante climbing up Mount Purgatory. That's the power of detail and precision. Again, guys, it's obvious to us now, but it's literally watching a movie. Yes.

Well, I really feel like Purgatory is really similar to just Earth in general, you know, we have a sun, we have, you know, it's really Earth-like as opposed to Inferno, Right?

And he's trying to make it as Earth-like as possible, right? By geolocating it and saying this is actually a real place On Earth, right?

And so again, we're now transitioning from the medieval period to the Renaissance period. And this is what sparks it, because of its humanistic qualities, right? Its willingness to draw you into the story, its realism. So that you feel that Mount Purgatory is a real place. If it's a real place, then it gives you hope, right? Because before, you believed that there's only hell and heaven and now, no, there's a Purgatory place and it's a transition into heaven. So even if you screwed up, as long as you're willing to repent, you will go to Purgatory and you'll be there for a million years.

Okay. All right. So we will conclude today. A reminder, tomorrow morning we start at 9:00 exactly. Okay. Try to come at 8:50. We have a very special guest. We're very honored to have him. Professor David Bromwich, who is a professor of English at Yale. His mentor was Harold Bloom. Of course I didn't mention that. And he will come and talk to us about Macbeth. He's joining us live from New Haven. And then we will have a discussion about Shakespeare and Dante, how they're similar, how they're different. And it'll be a very interesting, so yeah, it'll go on for about an hour and then we'll continue reading Purgatory and we'll try to do about 10.

Okay. And quite honestly, if Dante were alive today, he could not possibly understand why we live the way we do, right? We live in cities of 10 million people. Oh, Beijing is like what, 25 million people, but no one knows each other and you're just like a little cog in the machine and Dante would be like, what's the point of this existence, right? What are you guys trying to accomplish with this sort of existence? Back then in Italy, whatever the issues were, at least people knew each other, okay?