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0:00Good morning. Um, welcome back. This is it. This is the grand finale, the final day. So, thanks so much for everyone who've made it this far.
Uh, it's been a very long, arduous journey, but hopefully it was also enlightening and inspiring. Um, just to let you know, we'll probably run over today. We'll probably finish at 4:00 today. So, if some of you need to run before then, it's fine. Okay?
But, but I want to give us time to fully explore Divine Comedy um and engage in a process of reflection. Um so, uh we'll probably run a bit, we'll probably run over. Okay. So uh before I begin, any questions from yesterday or comments or ideas or any dreams you might have had yesterday? Uh yes.
Uh I'm uh like yesterday we talked about like you said you said nature doesn't equals to God, right? I'm still a little bit confused about like what what it actually means. Okay. So, nature in Dante's understanding, it is just natural laws which includes physics, right? It's the law of gravity.
Um, and these natural laws create the world that we live in today. And what these natural laws are just what, right? The law, the laws of chemistry, biology, physics. Um, but that's not what God is. Okay?
God is entirety of the cosmos. So even though um we think that the natural laws are the end all be all, they're not because there's spiritual planes. Okay? Uh there's our soul and that's governed by divine laws.
2:00Okay? So you need to be able to differentiate between natural laws and spiritual laws. And so maybe in natural law um um the earth circles the sun but in spiritual law uh the sun circles the circles the earth. Okay. And in uh natural law maybe God is nowhere but in spiritual law God is everywhere.
Okay. So there's a major economy between these two. Okay. Any more questions? Uh, yes.
This is not from yesterday, but um I'm wondering what is Lucifer doing in the last layer of hell? If he just um stays still, what's the purpose of he being there?
He's there to cry. He's there to feel eternal regret and remorse for betraying God. Um so, uh we had a discussion of the angels and there were a lot of things I got wrong. Um, and I did more research and there was a very interesting comment on YouTube that I found very helpful. But the idea is this, God creates both angels and humans with free will.
The difference though is that angels are perfect from the beginning. So they know uh so they are beyond time and space. They know the past, the present, and the future. And with their free will, they're able to make the perfect choice. And once they make the and but and it's only a one-time choice.
Okay. And the choice is do you want to be loyal to God or do you want to disobey God? Uh is humility more important than than you or is pride more important than than uh to you? Okay. God will give you that choice.
And Lucifer and the and some of the angels made the choice. I rather be uh independent. I rather be proud. And so God permitted
4:00them the choice. He permit them to rebel. And this created the war in heaven. They lost and they were cast down to um um uh hell. And once there, they could only feel eternal regret for what they've done.
And the regret consumed them so much. Okay. Uh humans are different. Humans don't have perfection. So humans are permitted to make mistake after mistake.
Um because humans don't know better. Okay? So that's the difference between humans and angels. Um okay. All right.
Any more questions? Yes, Andy.
We discussed a little bit about divine inspiration and the poet kind of channeling the divine. Um the divine being how do I want to say this? So prior to the Christian poets then we're dealing with muses. Do you believe that the pagan poets are viewing the muses incorrectly and they're divine or the muses are divine or they they just mislabeled? Um or is there no problem there or is there an evolution?
Right? So if you look all the great epic poems that we have whether it's Homer or Virgil or Milton um uh Dante they all believe every one of them believe they're channeling the divine. Okay. It's not they they're not engaged in the act of creation. They are engaged in the act of revelation.
Right? The act of creation is, you know, you just take something and you just build it. Okay? But the act of revelation is like imagine a um a big boulder and you already know inside it is this beautiful angel, right? Okay.
So, the act of revolution is all you're doing is you're basically just breaking down the border so that it reveals itself to the world. Okay. So, all all the great poets believe this uh and there's no uh differentiation between
6:00them. Okay. All right. Any more questions? Yes, Julian.
Well, I had a dream that I could talk about.
Yeah. Great. We love dreams here. Yes. It's great that you guys are dreaming more.
Yes. Um yeah, so I have to say it was a really confusing dream for me. Um and I don't know how I can really connect it to Dante, but um so um I think it started with me wanting to have dinner with my father and my best friend and we wanted to set up dinner and then there was like an electric cable missing for the grill or something. So, I went and tried to find it and then after a while I ended up in a forest and um I had a rope in my hand and it kind of it got stuck in a tree or something and I wanted to get the rope and so I got back to the house and tried to get a letter to get to the to the rope and then some some guy from I think a TV series he kind of distracted me and talked to me and um said, "Hey, I have a bigger letter. Come with me." And then I think that's where it kind of ended.
So, it was a lot about um I think just being distracted from the actual end goal by things, but I was the one who let myself get distracted. But I don't know how Yeah. divine it could be.
Okay. All right. So, um, with dreams, we shouldn't put too much emphasis on the vision. Okay. What's really important about the dream is the emotion you felt during the dream.
This is how really for Dante, the cosmos interacts with us
8:01through our emotions. Okay. um it channels um a an emotion into us and our soul feels it, our soul reflects it and then our soul tries to interpret it with um time and space and that's why we have these visions. What's really important is the emotion that you felt in this dream. Do you remember the emotion?
Yeah, I would say anxious probably the most. like I was really anxious that I would get lost that I wouldn't be able to get the ladder or get the rope from the tree. So I will I would say probably anxiety was kind of the most
okay and that's probably uh the emotion that is most raw in you right now. And once you have this emotion, then you have to um continue to reflect on why you have this emotion and where this emotion might take you. Did Did you want to say something? Yeah.
I I want to ask, do you remember which TV character?
I think it's the I think his name is Phil from Modern Family or something.
Phil from Modern Family. What what does he signify to you?
I don't know. I I only see him on when I watch YouTube shorts. So,
I I actually think the ladder and the rope seem very symbolic to me because what you said reminded me of Jacob's ladder story and Mark Shagal actually has a painting, very beautiful, colorful painting of that. Um, maybe seeing that painting may relieve what anxiety you have. Um, you know, just going a step further, but I actually think I I I find the latter to
10:03be very positive because it's as if you're at the beginning of purgatory. You're embarking on your journey. I mean, it's it's normal to be anxious.
Yeah. No, I actually think it's healthy to be anxious at at your age. I mean, it's just your it's just your age, right? It's like, you know, you're you're you you're beginning to leave your family and embark on your own independent journey. So, you're anxious and it's just normal and healthy to be anxious at at your age.
Um, okay. Uh, any more questions or thoughts or dreams before we begin?
Yes, Fred,
just one quick question. I was reading some translation notes in a um version of the comedy last night and they were talking about how Dante kind of moves away from Plato's tripartite soul and takes more of the arisatilian soul where it's one soul with three natures inside and I just wondered if you could explain a little bit more about it because I
didn't really I couldn't grasp how I obviously he doesn't talk about three souls in this one, but I didn't I don't really understand how to interpret that.
Okay. So, um what you read is a very popular scholarship consensus on Dante, which is he's heavily influenced by Aristotle, especially Aristotle's um ideal of the mean, where um the ideal path is the path that balance is two extremes. is something that Andy talked about uh previously. Uh so Aristotle has a huge influence on Dante and Aristotle actually is really influential at this point in history uh because uh Thomas Aquinus is a heavy aristo to he's a heavy promoter of the ideals of Aristotle. I don't know if people how well people
12:03knew Plato at this time in history. Um and um what Dante alludes to a lot in vine comedy is Plato's theory that the soul is uh in immortal. Um and as to how the soul is divided up, um I don't think it's really clear in Divine Comedy. Um I I think it's maybe schol scholars trying to basically impose a debate that for Dante didn't really exist in his mind. And so a point that that that I will make uh that's very important is like we just assume that Dante read a lot and then he synthesize a lot of this information to come up with his own understanding which then becomes visualized and not in calmly.
That's that's that's how we think the creative process works. But what we discussed yesterday is like that's not that's actually true. It's entirely possible that he never read Aristotle. He never read Plato, but he was um channeling them and their in their ideas because he had access to the cosmos. Okay, does that make sense?
And and that's a mistake that a lot of scholars make. Actually, all scholars make this mistake where they see an idea and like, oh, it must be because he read Plato or it must be because he read Aristotle. And it could not be and and maybe or maybe not. Okay. And I mean it's entirely possible that he is just ch channeling the cosmos, channel the vine and the idea is already embedded in them.
And and I mean like because if you actually read the divine comedy, there's no way anyone has a time to read all everything that um D refers to. Okay. It's just his knowledge is like a like an infinite cosmos. And you're like, okay, did he
14:03really read an infinite cosmos or was he able to access an infinite cosmos? And I would think the latter makes more logical sense. It may not make like scholar scholarly sense, but I think it makes much more intuitive sense. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. No, no, I'm finished. I'm finished. Yeah. which um I would love to um hear from you on our last day at some point um kind of how you think Dante has influenced and ushered in the Renaissance because um you know if I I by the way I'm very touched by you sharing your creative process and also um what you think would be the creative process for Dante and so how has this influenced the Renaissance if it's not a synthesis of the past.
Um so I'd be very curious of that. I want I also want to just mention a few mayulpas. Um one is um I if if any homosexuals or overweight people or people who are part of the history of slavery feel um uh uncomfortable. um we are kind of solely couching this in um a certain place and time and it's within Dante's world.
Yes.
So um I want to mention that also the Last Supper painting um I may not have seen I may have seen it as a copy in the Vatican and it's actually in Milan. Yes.
Not Florence. Um, but I want to mention that because um, I think part of what Dante has inspired all of us or inspired me at least is that we're not that different. We're not that different. And what has really captured me are the concepts of free will and the democratic principle that um everyone no matter what um and
16:05at any point in time you have access right to the divine
right that's the answer is divine okay so um there are about a million ways in which Dante influenced the Renaissance or create the Renaissance okay but but I I'll just point out the major ones okay first of all he taught us to stop looking downwards and start looking upwards, right? That's especi especially relevant in our age when AI is so dominant when we've been taught that AI is going to liberate us from work when AI will be the panacea for all society ills AI is going to solve cancer AI is going to solve climate change AI is going to solve poverty so just focus on AI and we'll be saved okay and D will be horrified disgusted by this idea because he's telling us that what matters what makes us human is our access to the vine. Okay. AI can never replace us. AI can enslave us, right?
But AI can never liberate us. AI can never replace us. And so if we start if we stop just focusing on the here and now and start thinking about the divine, lift our head upwards to the heavens, then this is a path forward. Uh yeah, Julian, did you want did you have a point? So we live more in an Aristotleian Aristotilian world than a Platonic world because you know from the famous painting Aristotle points downwards and Plato points upwards.
You're completely right. Exactly right. So um Aristotle told us what matters is cause and effect. What matters is what happens here. Don't worry about what happens there.
Plato's the opposite. Right? So so yeah. So right now we live in very much an Aristotleian framework. We need to to return to much more platonic framework.
Okay. I mean it is just horrible how today we're like go to college and study computer programming. That's a future.
18:05Ignore liberal arts. Ignore philosophy. Ignore art art history. Ignore the great books. That's the past.
And like if you are truly enlightened, okay, I'm telling you right now, if you're going to university, ignore that stuff. Ignore computer program, ignore STEM. Just read the great books, read philosophy. That is the future. The future will be determined not by those who can computer program, but by those who can read and think for themselves.
Okay. This has always been true. Did did you
I want to add that I have been completely horrified by certain universities cancelling for example um art history survey course because it overly focuses on for example western civilization but I think the solution is really to add to it um play you know works and um access to the divine from other cultures rather than completely cancelling Right. And I would also also add that you should teach what you know best, right? Because you have a responsibility to give students the best education. So you know western civilization really well, then teach it. And the idea and what Donna would say is once the spark of learning is embedded in the student, the student is naturally going to go overseas and want to learn more, right?
And this is going to expand the imagination of the cosmos. So um so yeah, I mean we we can go on for like hours about universities. Okay, but but that's the first one. Okay, like Dante taught people to look upwards and like just um that's point one. Point two is um Dante was first and foremost a Democrat a as as you said which is and this is really key and this is why um I don't like the meritocracy.
I I'm very thankful for Yale for for the education that that we got, but I think everyone
20:07should have access to to this education because we don't know who can have the next um great idea, right? Look at the Renaissance. It was very democratic. Before it was only the extremely wealthy who could write poetry. But during the Renaissance, look at people like Leonardo da Vinci.
He gave him nothing, right? The guy was just a commoner. uh and all the great artists of the Renaissance were just commoners. And so it's really about access. It's really about democracy, right?
And and I think this is why uh I'm so thankful for for for Carol for giving us this platform because but because if we really want to save the world, if we really want to have impact, we want to make we want to make sure that anyone everyone can have access to a great education. Okay, that's really one of the major goals of being here today. uh to make sure that as many people as possible have access to great education and stop the idea of only the select only the left can access a good education. Okay. Uh D mean did you have a question or
um won't AI give more people access to information and education?
Not if they don't have any jobs, right? Not if they're unemployed. Not I mean I mean you ask yourself what is AI doing? Is a AI really liberalizing education or is it censoring knowledge?
Okay. So so so you're right in that you know that's a propaganda. Yes. AI will liberate knowledge and give it to everyone. But what I'm seeing is that AI is heavily censoring knowledge and access and it and it is trying to basically uh reduce humans into human slaves.
Right? Right? We have this gig economy where most more more and more people are now working as delivery workers. You're working as a delivery worker. Do you have time to go get an education?
Okay. So that's point uh two.
22:07Uh Dante made elite education accessible to everyone, right? Because remember he wrote this in Tuskin, not Latin. Latin you need a very specialized education. Tuskin is just what you speak every day. So how they were learning the Divine Comedy is just reading groups, right?
Someone would just read the Divine Comedy and everyone would would just hear it and then people would just memorize it. So So that's the key. If we really want to save the world, promote new um ideas, we need to make sure everyone can participate in the process. The more the marrier. Okay?
And that and you know the diversity of this group shows how powerful the divine comedy because you all come from different age groups, different cultures um and different ethnicities but the divine come is universal. Okay, the second point the third point is uh what Donn did with divine comedy is expand the boundaries of the cosmos. Right? He shows you what hell looks like. He shows you what purgatory looks like.
He shows you what heaven looks like. And before this is all this is all considered um sacred spaces you cannot access. And once you enter these spaces then you're allowed your imagination is allowed to just roam. Look just Google the amount of paintings that were inspired by that comedy. It's infinite.
Okay. Just one line and you could have like dozens of of paintings. Um and and and so that's really the power of divine comedy, how it it it is a cosmos onto itself and expands the cosmos that we live in and it ignites the imagination. So So I could go on and on, okay? But I I'd say those are the three major things.
Okay. Uh Andy, what would you say to detractors who might say Einstein had to face the Nazis, Dante writes his paradisio while he's exiled? What would you say to people who are like a gig economy and a late state capitalism is just our form of suffering right now for us to
24:09get forged in the fires and and rise above. I
I would completely agree. I I I'm not pessimistic about our world even though never before in human history has there been so much human suffering, right? The level of corruption, the level of of inequality, um the level of materialism, this is unprecedented in human history. But as you point out, all the great artists, all the great ideas came through the forge of pain and suffering and tragedy. And that's why I'm so hopeful.
I mean, being with you these past two weeks has made me extremely hopeful about the future because I see the spark in you and I see that once given the right opportunity, once given the right education, the spark will just glow and glow and it will illuminate all of humanity. Um so so so that's why I think for the next this 50 years okay it's going to be like pretty bad for humanity. It's it's going to be war. It's going to be uh revolution. It'll be complete chaos.
But this also gives an opportunity for each and one of you to make a difference in the world that you couldn't like maybe 40 50 years ago when times were a lot more um um hopeful. Okay. So again what Dr. D would say is that the hope is not what's given to you. Hope is what you create yourself.
Okay. So, so thanks for that. Uh any more comments? Uh uh Anna, I have two points as an educator to make about this eliticism or elitism. Um it's I think it's at the end it's about the distribution of resources which is a limited like educational resources like going to Yale or IV league it's a very limited resources to understand spend it on the general public right like Naldo da Vinci who can be a genius which is 1% out of all the common people back in you know society or would you want to focus
26:09it on the people who have you know more elite I So I I think about this educational equality to all the time being one of the teachers at one of the best international departments in Beijing. So yeah I I'm not sure about you know I think AI and online broadcasting have brought Yale to everyone but is Yale essentially for everyone and should be only for everyone? I have a doubt in that because it's a use of limited educational resources. So there will always definitely be a conflict.
I I love your question and I would say um with the Yale hat um and and prior to these live streamings we've had open Yale courses and also right now Yale college education is entirely free for anyone's whose family's income is under $200,000 US. And so there is that democratic principle but of course we're constrained by physical space and so that's why we go virtual
which is great. Yeah.
So I would also say um is that education is not about degrees and credentials. It shouldn't matter if you're a Yale graduate or not. Um I'm I like look, Professor David Brahmage um was here on Thursday and he was extremely impressed by everyone. The you guys aren't at Yale, right? So it's so a great education, it's not about uh if you're at Yale or Harvard, it's about how much you want to learn.
And I would also say that okay, maybe a education is limited, but Dante is not limited to you. Look, look at this website that that we have. It's all free and the resources there are incredible, right? So, with the age of the internet,
28:10you can read Homer, Virgil, Plato, Dante for free. Uh, and it's just a question of will and desire. And I see my mission and I and I think Yel's mission is to encourage you, inspire you, and give you the resources to participate in the great books yourself. Okay. So um I I think that what's really important is we get out the mentality that only if you want go to Yale are you educated.
I would say that only if you ask questions only are you willing to um admit you're wrong. Only if you're willing to um push past your comfort zone are you educated. That's what I think an an ed educated person is. And and I'll be honest with you, um you know, we're both at Yale and there were lots of people there who were not that educated. Okay.
Sorry. I mean like like I I don't work for Yale. I don't you know, but but yeah, I mean like so just because you go to Yale does not mean you're educated. It's one of attitude. Yes.
Okay.
All right. Uh any more uh uh Bruce?
Okay. So yeah, I think my question is just is that uh what about future because as we know the AI technology right now is being uh you know it's spread everywhere. So people just worry about themselves at the present but what about the future? uh do you think that in the future people really can go to Mars and go to some outer space so that they don't need any kind of the dantings or classical original idea but instead they want to create a new culture but we can call novelty or or do you think such novelties really can abide by the law of dings it means that there's well there's a way so yeah this is my confusion and this is my question
look um my attitude about technology it's really really clear and it's been consistent for the past few I think people like Ellen Musk, San Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Theo, uh Steve Jobs, they're all hustlers. They're all scam artists. The idea of us going to Mars,
30:10it's impossible. We will never get there. Okay. Uh there's no evidence that we have the technology to get to the moon. All right.
I I mean like like you actually do your research, the evidence. Yes, Anna.
Imagination. If he Ellas has an imagination that we will one day live because if we read the space odyssey and all kinds of science fiction about the Martian chronicle by Ray Bradberry like it's all about imagining you know the impossible I guess right on Nike right
I would argue that that um LM his real desire is not to get to Mars his real desire is to make a trillion dollars right there's a difference right I mean if you were really committed to like let's get to Mars. That'd be one thing, but like is he really committed to going to Mars or is he really committed to like like making $10 trillion for himself? And all his actions suggest that money is actually more more important to to him. So, um I I am very skeptical about these people. Like when I read Dante, I see genius.
When I hear Elmas talk, I think he's a Okay? I I I do. And Sen Altman, I I think he's just a complete hustler. If you just do any research on these people um they are first and foremost concerned about making as much money as possible for themselves. The technology comes um later.
One thing that they are really serious about is immortality. They want to live as long as possible. Okay. So I would say that these people um the idea of going to Mars, the idea of of um um creating AI, I don't think they're that serious about it. But there are certain things that are serious about which is one making as much money as possible.
Two, living forever. Three, creating an I AI surveillance state. Creating control grid where all humanity is controlled and they are like Plato's philosopher kings, right? Where they can dictate everything and we just we just do what they say because that's what's
32:10best for us because they know better than we are because they are elite and we are we are just sheep. Okay? So that's what I see and I could be wrong. Okay? I I hope I'm wrong, but um but I'm not convinced they know what they're doing.
All right. Any more comments or or questions? Uh
yeah, I want to add a comment. So, um they're saying that uh for for a billionaire to win to heaven is uh is harder for it's is even harder um how to say it's harder than a camel to win through the needle. I think that's why they are so afraid to death. So, they want to live forever.
Yeah, I I think so. Right. It's like I'm not afraid to die because well, I don't have anything to fear. But if you're a billionaire, you know in your heart what what you've done to get that that billion dollars, right? And you're you're afraid of God's judgment.
Um yeah, I I they're very very passionate about living forever. Okay. They put a lot of money into living forever. Um that's where I think all all the research, all the money is is really going. Uh longevity.
Okay. Uh anymore? Okay. Let's let's um let's So today we finished the vine comedy. Okay.
And to set it up, I want us again to do a thought experiment, which is say we're writing Divine Comedy and we're running now the end of purgatory. And um as we said, Dante is on a journey, a pilgrimage through in purgatory from one of sin to one of virtue, from Virgil to Beatatrice. And obviously at the end of purgatory, Dante will meet Beatric. We also know that in real life, Dante never really knew Beatric that well. Beatric died in childbirth when she was 24.
They met a couple times when they're young.
34:12So they never really uh knew each other in real life. And we also know that um when this journey starts, Dante is not really thinking about Beatric. He's concerned about his own fame, right? His shadow literally. Uh he's he loves his own shadow.
And um um over time he learns to appreciate his love for Beatric more. He rekindles his love for Beatric. So now, okay, we are finally uh Dante is now finally with Beatric and this is a top of purgatory and they're going to heaven. So they could be together for all eternity. Okay.
So Donnie has really fulfilled achieved his greatest hope which is to be with Beatatrice. So if you were the ones writing this ending, okay, how would you do it? Let's let's again we we did this with um Inferno and we discussed what would happen at the Inferno. Of course, we were completely wrong, okay? But it helped us better understand why Donnie did what he did.
Um, so whatever we do is going to be completely wrong. Just let you know. Okay, you might have read the end of purgatory. Um, also the the end of the the end of purgatory, like the last three ktos, it has confused scholars for like forever. Okay, you read the commentary on the last three ktos about where Dante meets Beatric.
No one knows what's going on. It's confusing because it's not doesn't fit into any in into any tradition and people can be confused by by it. So what I want to do first is um discuss or basically brainstorm on how we think it should end and what we did and figure out why the ending is the way it is. Okay, just as what we did with Inferno. So, let's start.
How how do you how would we structure the ending of Pertoy where Yeah. Yes. Uh, France.
36:14Uh, I think Virgil will will start like acting super weird cuz like he's close to heaven and he's he knows he's not supposed to be here or something and so Dantel will just lose the trust that built through uh Inferno and then he's like seeking someone else and then like Beatrice comes in and he just transfers his trust from Virgil to Beatric.
Right. Okay. So this is what called an epiphany, right? where uh in the ending you want an epiphany, a realization that oh wow uh Virgil was wrong for me. The right person is Beatric.
Okay. And then Virgil becomes a central character because Dante needs to make a choice between Virgil and Beatric and ultimately he decides Beatric. Yeah, that's a great Yeah. plot line. Yes.
Anyone else? Uh Andy.
So I'm thinking like learning doesn't have an endpoint. Virtue doesn't have an endpoint. And so it's not like it's not like we go through purgatory and then we know everything and we're perfect. That's God.
So I feel like imagine I I won the Olympics then I've got to essentially do it again but I do it from maybe a place of glory or something like that. So um I I would see heaven at like the top of purgatory and getting into heaven is just more just from a place of enlightenment.
Right. But but how's Dante feel feeling at at this point?
How's my what? How is Dante feeling at this point?
I mean, you're feeling accomplished, but yeah,
you're feeling like you've got another mountain to climb,
right? Dante is feels um well, he's pretty ecstatic because he's seen features again, but he's also like very feels very accomplished, right? He's done the impossible, right? He's climbed Mount Purgatory as as as a human.
You don't you don't love your wife the most on your wedding day and then you're like, I did it all.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. But but but you would say there'd be a wedding. Would there be a wedding between Dante and Beatric? Maybe an allegorical wedding. Okay.
Yeah. A wedding, right?
38:15Exactly. Right. So you would expect a wedding of some sort between Dante and Beatric. Sure. Okay.
Great. Anyone else? Let's let's let's expand. Yes. Yeah.
Carol,
just like Stacius. Um when he was ready for heaven, the earth shook and everything.
Yes.
So um you know just something that's like you know joyful. It may not be an earthquake but you know something that's equivalent.
Yeah. Exactly. That's beautiful. Exactly. Cosmos celebrating of some sort, right?
A cosmic cosmos cosmic celebration. And it could be the heavens open up and there's pure light. It could be another earthquake, right? It could be raining or something. Okay.
But like the heavens are celebrating that the two are together just as you know at the end towards the end of paradise the heavens are having sex as the two are together. Okay. Um uh Fred I'm not sure how I would predict the ending because Dante isn't dead. So, is he going to enter heaven forever or is he going to wake up like
like it was all a dream and then his life is changed until he dies,
right? No, what we're we're talking about the end of purgatory. And so, we know heaven's coming, but because Peter will take uh Dante to heaven, but I'm saying like how do you how would you transition this? How do you end purgatory?
Yeah. Well, I I guess just thinking um as a counterpoint to him making a choice between Virgil and and Betrice like there'll be I suppose there'll be a clever way in which he doesn't really have to make a choice that the leap of faith just happens and that he's so changed that
it just seems a bit confusing that he would get to a crossroads and then have to make a choice I think or he would like flow into be.
So So maybe just an embrace, right?
40:15Dante sees Beatric and they hug each other, right? It's a hug. It's an embrace. Okay. Yeah, sure.
Uh Oang.
Um I think just like Inferno, um maybe um Dante will be um out of conscious again and be born again.
Okay. Maybe he'll just faint, right? Maybe he'll just faint. Um, okay. And this will signify a rebirth.
Yeah, sure. Okay. Um, uh, Edward,
could there be a final big conflict with Virgil and Virgil really reveals his his true colors?
Okay. Yeah, maybe a fight, right? A conflict, right, where Virgil turns into Lucifer or something. Yeah. Okay.
Possibly. Okay. We we're just using our imagination. Uh do
uh maybe Dante will feel a bit ashamed because during this journey he's been kind of like passive uh passive like traveler through purgatory and hell uh and um wardrobe being his guide and during this journey Dante Dante himself been has been um like uh he has lost his uh face in Beatus and lost his direction like multiple times. Right. I'll I'll say if I haven't done it, I'll I'll feel like a little bit ashamed to be.
Okay. May maybe he's anxious. Okay. Maybe he's anxious. Uh maybe he's afraid.
Okay. Possibly. Sure.
Right. Uh Crystal.
Yeah. So, I was wondering I think maybe Virgil will try to create conflict between Dante and Beatatric cuz as you mentioned originally, maybe because Beatatric is pretty pretty and then like Virgil's like sure fine. I'll be his guide. And then now like Dante's ascending to heaven and then maybe he's kind of like jealous and whatever. And also I feel like cuz like in Inferno we
42:15were assuming if it were a Hollywood movie. I'm thinking if um we are doing a Hollywood movie right now, there might be a slow-mo that is kind of like the creation of Adam where like Beatatrice has her hand and like like this and then like Dante's kind of like as to have it in a slow
that's beautiful. Yeah. Like a slow motion embrace, right? And they're not really embracing but they're just touching each other a bit. Yes.
Okay, great. So, first of all, um Virgil refused to let go of Dante, right? Because Virgil's like, I spent all this time investing in you, right? Building you up, giving you birth. You're still mine.
So, it's very hard for Virg to let go. Um also the um I would say cinematic cinematic embrace between ver between Beatatrice and Donnie. Right? This is what the moment we've been looking for, right? The final consummation between Beatrice and Dante.
Uh Anna,
I feel like he's going to be maybe lighter like he came out of the hell being dusty and dirty. Then maybe he will come translucent
like glowing or whatever like a pearl like you know so something light.
So maybe a transformation right?
Yeah. of some sort whereas you say he was once a beggar and now he's a prince.
Yeah. But I also think that this has happened before where we guess all this cinematic Hollywood version but it didn't happen. Okay. That's what I think.
Right. Okay. It's impossible. It's impossible to predict what's actually going to happen. But I think the idea of a metamorphosis for Dante is very important.
Right. Who he becomes a butterfly, right? We're expecting a metamorphosis cuz he's been through uh these seven terraces and now he is cocoon and he's about to fly, right? So, we should expect him to become a
44:15butterfly. Yes. Uh Julian, um I feel like he would distract himself one last time. Um because, you know, throughout Purgatory, he always, you know, got distracted a little bit. Um especially in the first circle from his fame.
So I feel like there would be some something that would distract himself from actually entering heaven,
right? Okay. Yeah. So maybe one final doubt, right? One something something to actually keep him back.
So maybe, you know, if we if we're actually writing the Hollywood movie and we're actually filming it, then you know Beatress comes from the heavens like an angel, okay? She just descends from the heavens and the heavens open up. It's pure bliss, pure light. Um, the sun is singing. Um, there's a rainbow, okay?
Birds are flying, okay? It's just pure bliss. And Dante wants to go to Beatric, but for whatever reason, he turns away. Okay. Yeah, sure.
Uh, Fred,
do you think that if it was a Hollywood movie, there would be like once Dante and Betrich are reunited, like Virgil does a fourth wall break and like winks to the audience or something like like raises his eyebrow to the audience.
Okay, maybe
he's the last one left with the re Hollywood movie, we would expect a transformation for Virgil as well, right? Okay. So, not just Donnie, but also Virgil because honestly, regardless of how we feel about Virgil, uh he has come across as heroic in the Divine Comedy, right? He has taken Dante Fu hell and purgatory. Uh he took Dante on his back and climbed up um Lucifer.
So, he is extremely courageous, heroic individual. Yeah. I think Virgil will become the ultimate uh in the Greek sense the tragic hero the great person with that dramatic flaw that's going to
46:15cause right so then we're supposed to sympathize with him or feel bad for him that he you know yeah either do the sedupion of the emperor making him you know writing poetry for empire or it's also his conscious choice but you know there's this sense of inescapable fate for him that he is ought to be the tool for the empire in Spy. Okay. You know.
So, yeah. So, it's possible he it's it's it's either or. Okay. He either rises or he falls. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
Um Crystal, did did you have a
I was saying maybe like um there will be a scene where God is asking Virgil, are you sure you want to return to hell? And then he is like, yeah. And then he walks away.
Yeah. Okay, great. Okay. Yeah. So, we need we need a resolution.
Okay. for the virtual storyline, right? The resolution is Petra says, "Virgil, I want to thank you so much for doing this. You've accomplished your mission and we would like to give you entryway to heaven as a reward." And Virgil's like, "Nah, no, thank you." He walks away. Okay.
And and and this would really reveal the true character of Virgil, right? Yes. Um, Ivy. Okay. Maybe another dream.
Exactly. Right. Okay. Um, maybe another dream to um Yes. Okay.
to to leave more imiguity, more possibility for the reader. Okay. Any other uh Yeah, David. I think the uh uh Hollywood uh would be a result of u
48:17dentist uh creative presence. So uh if I look from the Hollywood point of view I would it would be like a reverse engineering to find the roots of the Hollywood paradigms. So I think uh if uh it's uh the original scheme which should be a much um uh implicit and much grander scheme. So I would also look for elements in the Greek um climate solution. So there should be some kind of uh element uh some kind of uh microscopic superpowers play in every small part of dentist um you know act.
So I expect some small drama there but I don't know how it goes.
Yeah. Okay. Right. So we expect one final climax right of climax. Right.
And the climax could be, you know, uh, Virgil and Beatric fighting over Dante. It could be Dante turning away from Beatric. Yeah. But there'll be a climax to this, right? Okay.
Anyone else? Uh, yes. Thank you. Oh, sorry. What's your name?
Solomon. Okay. Yes. like Dante to utter words of like poetry like poetry within poetry or words of praise towards God or Beatatric.
Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much. That's a great Yes. Okay. So, this is the climatic uh poetry.
Okay. So we can expect Dante because he's cleansed himself of his sins. He is now at the height of his poetic powers and now he is going to just create this beautiful poetry praising Beatric right to as a consummation of their love. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Yes, in the Hollywood movie they would definitely do that, right?
where Dante is now
50:18transformed. He's now a prince, he's now a butterfly, and now he is at his poetic genius, at his poetic height because he's climbed so far. Uh yeah, Bruce.
Yeah, maybe like uh you know, Gatsby because you know when Gatsby just faced to death, he's not just only about to think about his sin, but he just think about his lover. So maybe uh Danting just like Gatsby, you know, just he can see the green light and we just call him to go to the heaven. So yeah, maybe that is for sure.
Yeah. So yeah. So exactly. Okay. Uh anyone else?
Okay. So that's great. Okay. This is fantastic. And um this would be a fantastic ending to purgatory.
And um spoiler alert, we're completely wrong. Okay. None of this happens. None of this happens. Okay?
Not one of these things happens. And this is what confuses scholars. And quite honestly, when I read the the end of purgatory, I didn't had no idea what's going on. Okay? It's just completely confusing.
And so, in the final class, uh what we're going to do is as a group, we're going to co-create. Okay? We are going to really try to appreciate why Dante is doing what he's doing. And you can't say, "Oh, he's just because he's just tired, you know, he's he's he's written like, you know, like 60 ktos or 70 ktos. He's just exhausted and he's like, I really need to get to heaven." Okay.
So, he's just being he's just being lazy. That's not the answer. Okay. All right. So, let's uh start off with Kanto 26 of purgatory.
All right. While we moved at the edge, one first, one after, and I could often hear my gentle master saying, "Take care and do not waste my warning." The sun, its ray, already altering the coloring of all the west from azure to white, was striking me on my right shoulder. And where my
52:20shadow fell, it made the flame seem more inflamed. And I saw many shades walking intent upon a sight so strange. This was the reason that first prompted them to speak to me among themselves. They said, "He does not seem to have a fictive body. The uncertain of them came as close to me as they were able to, while cautiously they never left the boundaries of their burning.
Oh, you who move behind the others, not because of sloth, but reverence perhaps, give me who burn and thirst and fire your answer. I'm not alone in needing your response, for all these shades thirst so for it more than an Indian or Ethiopian thirst for cool water. Tell us how you can, as if you're not yet caught within death's net, make of yourself a wall against the sun." Thus one of them had spoken to me. I should now have answered clearly had I not been fixed on something strangely evident. For in the middle of the burning path came people moving opposite to these, and I, since they moved left, stared in suspense.
There on all sides I can see every shade move quickly to embrace another shade, content they did not pause with their brief greeting. Okay. Stop. Okay. All right.
So, um, in writing, we're very concerned about character arc, right? We want to show how Donn has changed as a person. So, explain me how this scene uh, shows that Donna has changed as a person. Okay. So, so what's happening is is like they are now in a terrace of lust, the very last terrorist.
And um Donn is walking and these shades who are about to enter the terrace of lust. They see him and they know he is a he is not dead. He's not a shade. So they're like, "Wait a minute. How did you get here before?
What would Donnie do when he was in any purgatory? What would he do?" Yes, Crystal.
Um he stops and enjoys their praise.
Exactly. Right. He stops. He talks with
54:20them because it's like a fan asking for autograph. What does he do here? What does he do here? Yeah. Fred,
he's looking at how they're like hugging each other quickly and then although they're both burning, he just is really amazed that they're just quickly hugging and then moving. Quickly hugging and then moving.
And so why is he doing that?
Because one I maybe he doesn't understand how shades can touch each other. um or interact in that way. He's never really seen it before other than with the blind people who have to rely on each other. And he's probably thinking if this is the circle of lust, what does it really mean for their punishment? And also, why are they happy and sort of friendly with one another?
Right. He's trying to figure out what's going on, right? And how's that different from before?
Yeah. He was more just amazed and was just like thinking about himself and looking at their punishment. But I guess it seemed quite apparent to him what was going on before like the punishments were more clearly linked.
No, no, no. I'm saying in anti-purgatory, right? So the difference is before Donna was focuses on his shadow, right? Now he's focused on knowledge. And this goes back to Plato's alley of the cave, right?
Where you're you're trapped in a cave because you focus on the shadows. If you want to go into the light light, you have to focus on knowledge. It does that make sense? Okay. So, this is a um this shows us the character arc how uh Dante is now changing as a person.
He's much more focused on his mission. He's most much more focused on the light on gaining knowledge. Okay? And so in his mind, he keeps on observing, asking questions and uh debating with himself. Okay?
Keep on going.
Line 34. As ants in their dark company will touch their muzzles each to each, perhaps to seek news of their fortunes and their journeyings. No sooner is
56:21their friendly greeting done than each side tries to outcry all the rest even before he starts to move ahead. The new group shouting Sodom and Gomorrah the other that the bull may hurry toward her lust. Pacifi hides in the cow. Then just like cranes of whom apart to flee the sun fly north to riffian mountains while the rest to flee the frost fly toward the sands. One group moves with the other opposite us and they return with tears to their first chance and to the shout appropriate to each and those who had intreated me came close again in the same way they done before.
Their faces showed how keen they were to listen. I seeing their desire once again began. Oh souls who can be sure of gaining the state of peace whenever that may be. My limbs mature or green have not been left within the world beyond. They're here with me together with their blood and with their bones.
That I be blind no longer. Through this place I pass above a lady has gained grace for me. Therefore I bear my mortal body across your world. So may your deepest longing soon be appeased and you be lost within the heaven that's most full of love most spacious. Please tell me so that I may yet transcribe it upon my pages who you are and what crowd moves in the direction opposite.
Each shade displayed no less astonishment or less confusion than a mountaineer who even as he stares about fall silent when rough and rustic he comes to the city. But when they set aside astonishment that soon subdued in noble hearts, he who had questioned me before began again. Blessed are we who would in order to die better store experience of our lands. The people moving opposite us share the sin for which once while in triumph Caesar heard queen called out against him. That is why and as they move off from us they cry cry out Sodom reproaching their own selves as you have heard and through their shame I bet the fire's work.
Okay. So sorry. So um this is not open
58:24interpretation. Clearly these people are homosexuals. Okay. And there are they have to atone for the sin of lust. Okay.
And there's two pieces of evidence. First of all, when Caesar is in his triumph, people shout at him queen. Okay. That's clearly a reference to homosexuality, saying that Caesar is gay. He's had sex with a lot of men.
Also, um when when they are moving towards the fire, they call sodom. Okay? which gives us the word salami which means homosexual. Okay. So um I I know there are a lot of scholars concern is uh Dante antihomosexual.
Um I don't think he's any homosexual but clearly this is a reference to homosexuals. Okay. All right. And why would Dante be concerned about homosexuality? I don't think he's any homosexual but he's concerned about homosexuality.
Why? What's his main concern? Uh, OA u maybe I think he he thinks that homosexuality as a sign of complacent.
A sign of what?
Complacent.
Okay. We are in a terrace of lust, guys. Lust,
right? Yes. Fred. Well, a kind of simple interpretation is that it's pure lust and pure admiration and want to possess beauty because you're not in love with somebody for a procreative purpose. And in a way, it allows you to be in love with yourself.
Okay. Uh Crystal
um I'm not trying to express my own view but just recalling to what we mentioned before like homosexuals tend to um seek for those sort of intimate relationship more than heterosexuals. So maybe that is why he is concerned just like what we discussed in the previous seminar
right but it's not intimacy right uh Anna
60:24I think homosexuality ultimately represents this elitism or narcissistic or you know exclusiveness like we only want to hang out with our own kind and he thinks that that is the issue other than procreation obviously
yeah the key is procreation right because when you are enter into a relationship with a woman you're going to have a baby okay and that is you're you're kind of like forced to uh devote yourself to the family whereas homosexuals well you can just go from relationship to relationship to relationship doesn't really matter. Okay. So so that's that's uh Donny's concern. All right. Uh Andy so I've been I've been actually researching this since we were in Inferno.
And an important thing to to know is that the sodomites and inferno are in the realm of violence in the realm of lust. And there's this actually there's this quote in uh inferno 16 106 to 108 in brief I know that my company have has clerics and mens of letter and fame and they were stained by by the same set and what I've come to to read and this is one interpretation it's not not the way to to look at it only is that these are in in academia in the religious sex and stuff like this there's going to be only men there at this time. You don't have women in there.
And so you have male teachers and priests who are taking advantage of the youthful and freshary
young men.
And so it's sodomy because there's no young women there. We're not talking about lesb lesbians at all because there's no and he doesn't bring it up. We don't have oh these women behind closed doors are doing these other things.
And so there's we're often told it's it's oh it's violence against nature. But in in hell it seems to be you're taking away either duties like academia for Aristotle or Plato or duties of of Christ in the in the church and you're and you're doing that or you could be doing rape which would be violence there. And here I
62:26think it's really progressive a life realm changing that he's got you can you can be a gay person and still get to heaven
because these are consensual adults. It's just you cannot rape people and you cannot take advantage of your position of power on a young boy.
Yeah, that's that's Thank you so much Andy. Thank you so much. Yes, exactly. Okay. So, I would also add that at this time in history, people want the Inquisition to happen.
Okay. There's popular support for the Inquisition. Today, we learned the Inquisition, it's about sending out heresy. The major complaint uh that people were filing uh in during the Inquisition was exactly this like my young boy who I trusted to the priest is getting is you know, right? So, so this is a huge issue at this time in history.
Okay. And that's why the Inquisition was actually pretty popular among the common people because it was the only way to redress this issue um that was pretty common back then. So, thanks Andy. That that that's great. Okay, let's let's continue, please.
Line 82. Our sin was with the other sex. But since we did not keep the bounds of human law, but served our appetites like beasts when we part from the other ranks, we then repeat to our disgrace the name of one who in the beastial planks became herself a beast. You now know why we act so and you know what our sins were. If you would know our names, time is too short and I don't know them all.
But with regard to me, I'll satisfy your wish to know. I'm Guido Gwin Guinazelli, purged here because I grieved before my end. Okay. So, Guidi Grenazilli and Donna are very good friends. In fact, um Guido Grizzilli is probably the most famous uh Florentine poet at this time in history.
Okay. And this is someone that Dante really admires. So, a lot of this journey right through purgatory is really to find his
64:26poetic voice to sort of stand out from the crowd and that's why it's so populated by poets, right? Remember how in any pur we met Sordello and then we met Statius and now we're meeting Guo Gazelli and Virgil is is Donny's guide. So um you know something that Donn is really concerned about is how do I set up from this crowd right how do I have my own create my own unique poetic voice and this something that uh haunts Dante. Okay uh keep keep on going. Line 94.
As after the sad raging of the Kirgas, two sons finding their mother had embraced her, so I desired to do but dare not to. When I heard him declare his name, the father of me and of the others, those my betters, whoever used sweet, gracious rhymes of love, and without hearing, speaking pensive, I walked on, still gazing at him a long time, prevented by the fire from drawing closer. When I had fed my sight on him, I offered myself with such a pledge that others must believe completely ready for his service. And he to me, because of what I hear, you leave a trace within me, one so clear, leaf itself can't blur or cancel it. But if your words have now sworn truthfully, do tell me why it is that you have shown in speech and gaze that I am dear to you.
And I, to him, it's your sweet lines that for as long as modern usage lasts will still make dear their very angst. brother. He said, he there whom I point out to you, he showed as one who walked ahead. He was a better artisan of the mother tongue, surpassing all those who wrote their poems of love or pros romances. Let the stupid ones contend who think that from the mo there came the best.
They credit rather than the truth, allowing their opinion to be set before they hear what art or reason says. So many of our fathers once persisted voice after voice in giving to Guon the prize. But then with most the truth prevailed. Now if you're so amply privileged that you'll be admitted to the cloister where Christ is abbot of the college then pray say for me to him a pastor nost that is as
66:26much of it as those in this place need since we have lost the power to sin then to make place perhaps for those behind him he disappeared into the fire just as a fish through water plunges toward the bottom. saying that my desire was making ready a place welcome for his name. I moved ahead a little toward the one who had been pointed out to me and he spoke freely. So does your courteous request please me. I neither could nor would conceal myself from you.
I'm Arno who going weep and saying with grief I see my former folly with joy. I see the hope for day draw near now by the power then conducts you to the summit of the stairway. I pray you remember a time opportune in my pain. Then in the fire that refineses he hid.
Wait. So so sorry I made a mistake. Actually Donnie did not know uh Guyaido, but he's obviously a huge fan of Guyaido. Okay. And so uh Donnie here meets two really famous poets and Donna is humbled by the fact that you know Donnie is trying to pay homage to them and they don't care because all they're concerned about is redemption.
Like like I don't care about my former fame. I'm just focused on my own personal salvation, redemption. All right. Uh let's go on. Kanto 27.
Just as there were m its maker shed his blood, the sun shed its first rays, and Ebro lay beneath high Libra, and the ninth hour's rays were scorching Gang Jesus's waves. So here the sun stood at the point of day's departure when God's angel happy showed himself to us. He stood along the edge beyond the flame singing bayati mundo cord in a voice that had more life than ours can claim. Then, holy souls, you cannot move ahead unless the fire has stung you first. Enter the flames and don't be deaf to song you'll hear beyond.
He said when we were close to him, and when I heard him say this, I became like the one who has been laid within the grave. I joined my hands and stretched them out to fend the flames, watching the fire, imagining clearly the human bodies I'd once seen
68:27burning. My gentle escorts turned to me, and Veril said, "My son, though there may be suffering there, there's no death. Remember, remember if I guided you to safety, even beyond the back of Gurion, than now closer to God, what shall I do?" Be sure, although you were to spend a full 10,000 years within this fire center, your head would not be baler by one hair. And if you think I am deceiving you, draw closer to the flames. Let your hands try out within the fire your clothing hem.
Put down by now put down your every fear. Turn toward the fire and enter confident. But I was stubborn, said against my conscience, when he saw me still halting obstinate, he said somewhat perplexed. Now see, son, this wall stands between you and your beatress. As at the name of this be promised about to die, opened his eye and saw her.
when then the malbury became blood red. So when my stubbornness had softened, I hearing the name that's always flowering within my mind, turned to my knowing guide, at which he shook his head and said, "And would you have us stay along this side?" Then smiled as one smiles at a child fruit has beguiled. Then he ahead of me entered the fire, and he asked us, who had walked between us before, dividing us to go behind. No sooner was I in that fire than I'd throw myself in molten glass to find coolness because those flames were so intense. My gentle father, who would comfort me, kept talking as we walked of Beatric, saying, "I seem to see her eyes already."
Okay, stop. Okay. Again, again, the idea of a character arc, right? Uh how Donnie is changing as a person. And um so there's a wall of fire and Dante is scared, right?
Because it's a mental leap, you know, like I'm going to walk into a into fire and like I'm a body. I'm going to burn to death. And Virgil's like, "No, it's nothing. Uh trust me." Right? And how does Stan respond?
70:28He doubts.
He doubts. Okay? Do you understand? And this is really the first time that Dante doubts Virgil right before Ver Dante put his complete faith in uh Virgil and they were all doing sort of like really crazy things like climb out Lucifer like D's like wait a minute here he's Lucifer isn't he going to kill us and like and Virgil's like no just trust me and like literally Donnie would put uh himself on Virgil's back and allow put his complete faith in Virgil Right. But for the first time at this critical junction when when the only set in between him and the end is a is a wall of flame, Dante doubts Virgil.
Okay. And again, this shows you the character arc, right? The change in Dante, the the epiphany, the realization in Dante that Virgil can't really be trusted. And so, how does Virgil get Dante to to cross that wall wall of fire? How how how does he get uh Julian?
Well, yeah. Um he reminds him of Beatric on the other side of this wall.
Yes. Okay. Virgil uh reminds Dante our real goal is Beatrice. And then this reassures Dante and allows Dante to cross now. Okay.
You see how this is a journey right from Virgil to Beatatric. Okay. And we Yes. I I can't get my head around how Virgil is so like confident in even though he's from hell, how does he like know or how can be so confident in like trying to convince Dante if he himself wouldn't be able to do this? If he himself is from hell, from the depths of hell,
right? And this is something we've discussed before, right? How does Virgil
72:28know all this? How does he know that this wall of fire is actually innocuous? It's harmless. And he has complete faith that if I just walk into it, I'll be fine. And he himself um is from limbo.
And so he's not worthy enough to uh be in this wall fire. How would he know this stuff? Yes. Yes. Where
I think it alongside the divine fire and the idea of he's been given the whole truth as a wonderful poet.
He knows that the fire is about revealing truth and lust is probably one of the most hard things to let go of because you think I'm reducing the extent of my love. I have such great love. To let go of lust, I'm not sure how much love will be left. But D Virgil knows that Dante only has one P left and that it's really the right thing for him to do. So in this case, even though he's dangling the eyes of Beriche before Dante, I think he's being the most honest about just relax.
This is the right thing to do.
Yeah.
Because he knows that fire reveals truth and fires.
So So Julian, yes.
So but is Virgil is also going through this fire, right? So is he himself cleansing of his of his sins?
So so so this is something that that you you need you need to appreciate. At any time Virgil can go to heaven. Do you understand this? At any time there's nothing stopping him from going to heaven. Nothing.
Do you understand? He has all the knowledge. He has all the ability. What he lacks is the will. Do you understand?
Okay. This is this is what what's telling us. He knows he knows how to do this. Okay. He knows how to get to the uh Garden of Eden.
He knows how to climb to the Mount Purgatory. At any time, heaven is open to him. He just chooses not to do it.
74:29Okay? And you have to ask yourself, why does he not go to heaven? And it and the answer, yes, but but he still goes through the fire with Dante, right? Right. Because he he knows because he knows how to do it.
So he's doing it but without without the faith but he's still doing it or
okay so u this is hard hard to appreciate okay but everything in D's cosmos is choice it's all about free will you understand okay so even if you have the capacity to go to heaven okay even if the door is open to you still have to choose whether or not to walk into the door
it's an allegory of the education and elitism that we talked about earlier.
Yes,
it's all there for you.
Yeah, exactly.
These are all low hanging fruits.
Yes.
It's more whether you limit your own yourself.
Uh Oang, I have a question. So, I'm wondering what's your uh take on um Dante's attitude towards um Virgil when he first met Virgil and to this point. Uh, is he viewing Virgil as a tutor or a competit competitor or look look it's entirely one of love, you understand? Nothing else. Just pure love for Virgil.
It's it's like you love your father. Do you understand? It's that nothing else. There are some other things in place, but at the heart, okay, Darn just loves Virgil completely. All right.
All right. Uh let's let's let's let's continue.
Line 55. A voice that sang beyond us was our guide, and we attended to that voice emerged just at the point where it began to thine. Venite Benedict May. It sang within a light that overcame me. I could
76:29not look at such intensity. The sun departs, it added. Evening comes. Don't stay your steps, but hurry on before the west grows dark. The path we took climbed straight within the rock and its direction was such that in front of me my body blocked the rays of sun already low be behind us and we had only tried a few steps when I and my sage's sense the sun had set because the shadow I had cast was spent before one color come to occupy that sky and all of its immens immensity and night was free to summon all its darkness.
Each of us made one of those stairs his bed. The power and desire to climb ahead. Like goats that when they graced were swift and tameless along the mountain peaks, but now are sated and rest and ruminate while the sun blazes untroubled in the shadow silently watch over by the herdsmen as he leans upon his staff and oversees their peace. Or like the herdsmen in the open field spending the night beside his quiet quiet flock, watching to see that no beast drives them off. Off.
Such were all three of us at that point. They were like the herdsmen. I was like a goat. Upon each side of us, high rock walls rose. From there, one saw but little little of the sky.
But in that little I could see the stars brighter and larger than they usually are. But while I watched the stars and revery, sleep overcame me. Ste sleep which often sees before it happens what is yet to be. It was the hour, I think, when Cithria, who always seems a flame with fires of love, first shines upon the mountains from the east, that in my dream I seem to see a woman, both young and fair. Along a plain she gathered flowers, and even as she sang, she said, "Whoever asks my name know that I'm Leah, and I apply my lovely hands to fashion a garland of the flowers I've gathered, to find delight within this mirror, I adore myself.
Whereas my sister Rachel never deserts her mirror, there she sits all day. She longs to see her fair eyes gazing as I to see my h hands adorning long she's content with seeing I would labor and
78:30now
Okay. Okay. So this is the third and final dream that D has in uh the Divine Comedy and the dream is this. There's Leah and Rachel. Do you guys know the story of Leah and Rachel?
Uh Jacob. Um, okay.
Oh, you
Oh, it's the older sister that Jacob didn't want to marry, but he married her uh after the wedding night. Oh, too bad. It's the wrong girl. And then he worked another seven years for Rachel, who's way more beautiful, and waited for him also faithfully. And yeah.
Okay. All right. So, uh the story, it's really important for you guys to appreciate the story. Okay. Otherwise, it's it's impossible to interpret the dream.
But uh Jacob who is um the founder of Israel, okay, the the patriarch of Israel, he gets into a fight with his brother Esu. And Jacob is forced to run away and he goes to far away and he meets um a relative of his name, Laban. Laban says, "You're a relative and I want you to stay and work for me and I'll give you shelter." And Labon sees that um Jacob has already fall in love with Rachel. And um and then Jacob says, "I will work for you, but I would like your daughter Rachel for marriage." And Leah's well, you're a relative. It's better for me to give it to you.
Give her to you than a stranger, but you will have to work for me for seven years and then I will give Rachel to you. And that's the agreement. And for these seven years, what's happening is that Jacob is working really hard and Rachel is looking at him from afar with longing eyes. Okay, that's what it literally says in the Bible, with longing eyes. So, she is just waiting and waiting for the day to end uh for the seven years to end so that she could consummate their love
80:30together. And Jacob is just busy working and working really hard to prove he's worthy of Rachel. Okay, the wedding night comes and there's a huge celebration. Um, Jacob is drunk. He goes into the tent and he has sex.
He wakes up and it's not Rachel, it is Leah who is the older sister. And again, um, you have to read the Bible to appreciate the beauty of the story. Okay, it's written magnificently. is pure poetry. And then Jacob's just really angry and says to Laban, "You cheated me." And then Laban says, "It is not the custom of our land to marry the younger sister before the older sister.
So I will make you a deal. I will give you Rachel as well, but you have to work for me for another seven years." And then Jacob's like, "I'll do it." Okay. At this point, Rachel has a choice, right? She going to say she can say I've been cheated as well and just run away, but instead she chooses to um marry Jacob and the three of them are stuck together. Okay?
And obviously Leah and Rachel hate each other, right? It doesn't say in the Bible, but you actually read the story. Leah and Rachel hate each other. Leah Leah hates the fact that Rachel is going to marry before she does. And so Leah plots with her father to screw Jacob and Rachel over.
Okay. So knowing the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, tell me what the dream is about. Ra, it's it's it's a very simple dream where Donnie meets Leah and Leah is crafting a garden of flowers
82:33and Rachel is just looking at at her mirror and she's she's looking at there all day long. What's this dream about? She content with seeing I with labor. What's this dream about? I I think Leah doesn't think she's as pretty as Rachel.
So, she thinks she needs a garland while Rachel is confident with God's creation of her and is able to
Why would Donna care about Leon Leon Leo? Leo and Rachel.
Rachel is in one of the highest places.
He doesn't know that yet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Leah, since she didn't get her husband's love, she tried to gave birth to as many sons as possible.
And that's what made Rachel really mad. It's like, wow, God, you side with them to give them so many sons. And so Leah obviously is kind of elevated in that patriarchical society. Um, but so I think maybe the garden or the flower has to do with planting seeds and having I don't know. And then Rachel is like, "Oh, I'm just beautiful.
I look at myself, you know, because I'm pretty so my husband's going to love me anyways." and but she was upset until she has Benjamin. But yeah.
Okay. Anyone else? Uh Damian,
may maybe it's like revenge because um Jacob had to work in the fields. Now um Leia has to pick up flowers and racial justice.
Okay, we have to connect this with the reality D is living in. Okay, remember how there are three dreams. The first dream is of the eagle carrying him, snatching him. Um, uh, the second dream is the siren, right? And then Virgil comes in and rips off her clothes.
The third dream, the last dream, the most important dream is Leah and Rachel together. Why would Donnie have these dreams? Okay, we have we have to we have to remember we don't
84:34we can't take these dreams as independent visions. They're not independent visions. They are manifestations of his desires, right? They are manifestations of his emotions. So what is his emotion and what and why he started having this dream?
Yeah, I
think he's stealing himself for the final push to get to bee where the the labor of getting through purgatory is like the labor that would earn him Leah, but he has to do a double layer in order to reach Betrice who's a who's more like Rachel in this case where she's like because Bri is the ultimate goal. It's almost like the monad reflecting itself and to get to that final center, you need to do the work, get tricked, and then just do it all again just for the love.
Um, okay. But let's go into Damon. Okay. He's been through hell. He's been for Poratory.
What is he thinking now? I mean, he doesn't say it. He doesn't think it, but he feels it. What What's he thinking? What's he feeling now?
Will he be tricked again or
um I'm sure it's worth it, but I maybe have a millisecond of doubt sometimes. I think he's really excited. Right. Right. He's been through hell.
He's been through purgatory. He's done everything that is required of him. And what is next for him?
Heaven. Right. Beatric. Beatric is waiting for him. So what what what's he he's expecting
to see Beatatrice?
But what's he expecting when when he sees Beatatrice?
Wedding with
he's a wedding, right? That's why Leah and Rachel are here because Lee and Rachel married Jacob and he sees he's he sees himself as a new Jacob. It's like, okay, you know, I'm going to get married now. Okay, do you understand? Okay, so
86:36it's not really about the vision that matters. It's about the emotion in the with embedded within the um um vision. So this is one of longing, right?
Would you say Leia could be Virgil?
Uh I think that's
No, I I don't think Virgil is is here. I I think um I I I think you know the focus on Rachel, right? Rachel never deserts her mirror. There she says all day she longs to see her fair eyes gazing uh to see my hands adorning long. She is content with seeing I with labor.
Okay. So it's it seems Rachel is in the process of waiting to be with Jacob. Okay. All right. Great.
Does that make sense? Okay. But why is Rachel looking in the mirror?
And she never deserts her mirror.
Yeah. I mean, like, okay, all this makes sense, right? Dante. Uh, yes.
I think it's this contrast kind of like Mary and Meline. So like Rachel is content with seeing, I with labor. It's almost like Rachel is natural beauty and Leah is like plastic surgery. It's like she's laboring like she's putting flowers all over herself to make her worthy of the wedding to plot the wedding while Rachel is just like I am.
Okay. All right. So um something for us to appreciate is um what dreams are, what visions are is that you take a particular story that is common, okay, that is commonly accepted and you change in a way because you're embedding your emotions into it.
88:37Okay? So never in the Bible says that Rachel looks in the mirror. Okay? Never does it say that.
It's narcissism.
It's narcissistic. Do you understand? Okay. So, there's there's a conflict. There's a paradox here in that Dante um wants to be with Beatric like like he's like this is going to be a wedding, right?
And but that's why and that's why he dreams Rachel and Leah, but there's this narcissism that is embedded in the story, right? where Rachel, his true love, is looking at herself. Okay. So, what was this narcissism doing in this dream? Okay.
And um I'm married. So, so I'll tell you the answer. Okay. I I I know what the answer is. What when when Dante meets Beatatrice, what is he expecting Beatric to do?
And he's like, he she will definitely do this because we're getting married. Yes.
Um, positive and negative appraisal. She's like, "Oh my god, you're so handsome. I can't believe you're here. I love you so much." And then like look him up and down, you know?
No, I know. I like No, no. Like I'm married, okay? So, I'll tell you exactly what I'm expecting. I'm expecting my wife to praise me every single day, okay?
I don't care. Okay? Like like like that's why I'm getting married because I my wife faces me every single day. Do you understand? Okay.
And that's the beauty and the paradox of divine comedy where Dy's telling you I'm expecting me to meet Beatatrice but I want I mean like yeah but what I really want is for her to say Dante you work so hard to get here. Okay. She it's narcissistic. So it's not too love. Do you understand?
And that's a paradox here where Donnie thinks that oh I'm going to meet
90:37Beatatric and this shows my true love to Beatatrice but this dream reveals to us that no there's a hidden agenda there's a hidden emotion which is narcissism right what he really wants is Beatatrice to praise him to the sky and this is something that that we discuss right we think that the what the ending is is where Beatatrice praises him and they touch each other they embrace Okay.
Okay. And yes,
it's extremely realistic.
Like on the wedding day, my husband got mad at me for not attending to him even a little bit.
Yes.
And I was like, man, I'm the bride. Nobody looks at the groom. Okay. You wear something. Nobody cares what you wear.
And he's like, "Oh my god, on the wedding day, you don't care about me." And you know, but it's very human nature, I guess. Even on the wedding day, right? Like Yeah.
Yeah. And look, I've been married for 10 years and every time my wife says something nice about another guy, I get really upset. Okay, it's really strange because look, I mean, she's like, you know, Jack M's a really smart guy. I'm like, who the hell is Jack Ma? You know, like like I get really upset like I'm better than Jack Ma, right?
So, so this is such um this is so beautiful depiction of human of true human nature. Okay. I get very upset when when my wife uh praises another man, even though like, you know, it makes no sense. Okay. All right.
Uh let's keep on going.
Line 109. And now with the reflected lights that glow before the dawn and rising are most welcome to pilgrims as returning their near home. The shadows fled upon all sides. My sleep fled with them. And at this I woke and saw that the great teachers had already risen.
Today your hungerings will find their peace through that sweet fruit the care of mortals seeks among so many branches. This the speech the psalm words that Virgil spoke to me and there were never tidings to compare and offering delight
92:37to me with ease. My will on will to climb above was such that at each step I took I felt the force within my wings was growing for the flight. When all the staircase lay beneath us and we'd reached the highest step, then Virgil set his eyes insistently on me and said, "My son, you have seen the temporary fire and the eternal fire. You have reached the place past which my powers cannot see. I brought you here through intellect and art.
From now on, let your pleasure be your guide. Your past is steep and past narrow past. Look at the sun that shines upon your brow. Look at the grasses, flowers, and the shrubs born here spontaneously of the earth. Among them, you can rest or walk until the coming of the glad and lovely eyes.
Those eyes that weeping sent me to your side. Await no further word or sign for me. Your will is free, erect and whole. To act against that will will be to therefore I crown and miter you over yourself.
Okay. All right. So this is the very last these are the very last words that Virgil will speak to Dante. Okay. What Virgil says to Dante is um I've brought you here but now you are you are now on your own.
You are now completely in control of yourself. You don't need me anymore. So what is Virgil saying to Dante here? What is this? What's what's what's Virgil really saying to Dante?
It's goodbye. Okay, this is it. Right. Does not do I know this? Does he know it's goodbye?
No. Why not? He doesn't know it's goodbye. He doesn't think it's goodbye. Why not?
Well, I remember in parody. So, doesn't he miss he misses Virgil? Like he
94:39No, but I'm saying like like what does what Donnie hears this and what and what does Donnie think? Why doesn't Donnie know this is goodbye? This is clearly goodbye to us, right? But it's not to Dante. Yes.
Because it's hard for him to perceive that the mentor, the prophet, the father, you know, the all knowing guide now is going to leave him because it's unacceptable. It's like you know all the truth more than me, more than I do. What is expecting? What is expecting?
Let's go together,
Andy.
Yeah. Yeah, this is the moment that the student becomes the master, right? So, um he doesn't realize that Virgil doesn't have the will to get into heaven. He assumes the best and there's some reality here.
So, so but but what is finally expecting to happen?
Them to go together.
They're going to go to heaven together. Do you understand? Right. Status is going to heaven. I'm going to heaven first go to heaven too, right?
In his mind, he's he's already seen all this. He's seen a wedding with Beatatrice where Beatatrice praises him to the sky and says like, "You did it, Dante. You're my hero. Okay, you're the greatest in the world." And he's expecting Virgil to be um to to give to preside over this marriage and then they'll all go to heaven together and live happily ever after as a family. That's like literally what what what he's expecting and what he's decided will happen.
Okay, does it make sense? All right, let's let's continue to count 28.
Council of 28. Now keen to search within to search around that forest dense a life of green the vine which tempered the new day before my eyes without delay I left behind the rise and took the plane advancing slowly slowly across the ground where every part was fragrant. A gentle breeze which did not seem to vary within itself was striking at my brow, but with no greater force than the kind winds, a wind that made the trembling boughs, they all bent eagerly to find in the direction of morning shadows of the holy mouth. But they were not deflected with such force as to disturb the little birds upon the branches and the practice
96:40of their arts. For to the leaves with song, birds welcome those first hours of the morning joyously and leaves the flight of bird into their eyes. Just like the wind that sounds from branch to branch along the shore of Class through the pines when aololis has set soo loose. Now though my steps were slow, I'd gone so far to the ancient forest that I could no longer see where I had made my entry. And there I came upon a stream that blocks the path of my advance.
Its little waves bent to the left, the grass along its banks. All of the purest waters here on earth will lash against that stream would seem to be touched by impurity. It hides no thing. That stream, although it moves dark, dark beneath with neverending shadows, which allow no ray of sun or moon to reach those waters. I halted, and I set my eyes upon the farther bank to look at the abundant variety of newly flowered boughs.
And there, just like a thing that in appearing most suddenly repels all other thoughts, so great is the astonishment it brings. I saw a solitary woman moving, singing, and gathering up flower and flower. The flowers had colored all of her pathway. I pray you lovely lady, you who warm yourself with grace of love, if I may trust your looks, which often evidence the heart, may it please you, I ask of her, to move ahead and closer to this river, so that I may understand what you're singing. You have reminded me of where and what, just when her mother was deprived of her, and she deprived her spring.
Proerena was as when she turns a woman dancing keeps her souls close to the ground and to each other and scarcely lets one foot precede the other. So did she turn upon the little red and yellow flowers to me knew different with aversion lowering chase eyes. I have besieged and I was satisfied for she so close that the sweet sand that reached me then became intelligible. No sooner had she reached the point where that fair river's waves would barely bathe the grass, then she
98:40gave me this gift, lifting her eyes. I do not think a light so bright had shown beneath the lids of Venus when her son pierced her in extraordinary fashion, erect along the father bank, she smiled, her hands entwining very colored flowers which that highland needing no seed and genders. The river kept us just three steps apart. But even hellspawn, where Cersei's crossed, a case that still curves all men's arrogance, did not provoke more hatred in Leander, when rough seas ran from abidos to sestos than hatred I bestowed upon that river when it refused to open. She began, "You're new here and may because I smile in this place chosen to be mankind's nest.
Wonder perplexed, unable to detect the cause, but like to clear your intellect is in the song beginning. And you who have stepped forward, who beseeched me, tell me if you'd care more. I've come ready for all your questions till you're satisfied. I said, the water in the murmuring forest content in me against the recent credence I gave towards the existence. At this she said, "I'll tell you how the source of your amazement has its special cause.
I'll clear the cloud that left that's left you so distraught. The highest good whose sole joy is himself made man to be unto nect good. He gave man this place as pledge of endless peace. Man's fault made grief his day here, and man's fault made him exchange frank laughter and sweet sport for lamentation and for anxiousness. Below this mountain land and water vapors which follow heat as far as they are able produce their perforations to prevent them from molesting men placed here.
This mountain rose up this close to heaven from the point where gate where its gate blocks it's free of such disturbance.
100:40Now since all of the atmosphere revolves within a circle moved by the first circling unless its round is broken at some point against this height which stands completely free within the living air that motion strikes and since these woods are dense they echo it. And when a plant is struck its power such that it impregnates air with seeding force. The air revolving past the seed abroad. The other hemisphere, depending on nature, its land and sky, conceives and bears from diverse power powers diverse trees. If what I've said were known, you would not need to be amazed on earth when growing things to root, but have no seed that can be seen.
And you must know the holy plane on which you find yourself is full of every seed, and it has fruit that there cannot be gathered. The water that ye see does not spring from a vein that vapor cold condensed restores. Like rivers that acquire or lose their force. It issues from a pure and changed fountain which by the will of God regains as much as on two sides. It pours and it divides.
On this side it descends with power to end one's memory of sin. And on the other it can restore recall of each good deed. To one side it is leaf, on the other you know it. Neither stream is efficacious unless the other's waters have been tasted. Their savor is above all other sweetness.
Although your thirst might well be satisfied even if I revealed no more to you. I give you freely to a corollary. Nor do I think my words will be less welcome to you if they extend beyond my promise. Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state perhaps in their harnesses, dreamt this place. Here mankind's root was innocent.
And here were every fruit and never ending spring, these dreams, the nectar of which poets sang. Then I
102:42turned around completely and I faced my poets. I could see that they had heard with smiles this final corollary spoken. that done, my eyes returned to that farewell.
Okay, so here he's met Matilda, who is the guardian of the Garden of Eden. Okay, this is the Garden of Eden. Um, and it's an inversion, right? Where uh in the Bible, the Garden of Eden is where we were banished from paradise. And here, the Garden of Eden is where we will enter paradise.
Okay? This is where uh Beatatros will descend from heaven and pick Donnie up to bring him to uh heaven. Okay? Okay. And within the garden of Eden, there are two rivers.
Okay. Um, this goes against the biblical tradition. What are the two rivers of the Garden of Eden in the Bible? The Tigers and Euphrates. Right here, it's the leaf and the youo.
The youo is from Greek tradition, the river where you forget everything. Okay? You drink from it, you forget everything. Okay. But in Donny's conception, it is a place where you forget sin.
Uh the you know is is something that Donnie it's a word that he makes up. Okay. Uh Donnie like Shakespeare does this a lot. He they make up new words. You know is Greek.
This means good. This means mind. Okay. So um the leaf makes you forget sin and then what the yo does is make you remember your goodness. Okay.
So the idea is like after you drink from these two rivers and you must drink from both rivers in order to access heaven, you'll forget all the bad things you've done but you will remember all the good things you've done. Why would things be constructed in this
104:42way? Right? To enter heaven, you must forget all the evil you've done and remember only the good you've done. Why would that why would that be the case? Uh yes, France.
Um I think it's a way to protect heaven from evil cuz like even if you think of evil cuz our souls reflect what are we are thinking and our actions then just the thought of it or like some micro action that's negative would impact heaven and create u dissonance or like chaos in heaven. So you really need to take that off and then just like remember greatness. It's in the same way you reflect what you've done well and then the more people reflect positive then it just grows inside.
Yeah. That's brilliant. Exactly. Right. Yes.
Okay. So, yeah. So, um think of pollution, right? You can't go in being with with any remember your sin because you might pollute everyone else. Okay.
Yes, that's a great idea. Anyone else? Uh yes. So, so what was your name?
Skyler. Okay. But I think it's quite important for you to remember your sins or like remember your mistakes and remember your moral missteps because that way it teaches you what is wrong and how that hurt other people so you remember not to do that in the future. If you forget all of your sins, won't you like maybe accidentally do them again?
Okay. So, so, so, okay. Um, um, Anna,
I want to respond to Scarlet that
um because you have already done that. You have already repented on your sins for a million years in purgatory. You know, it's enough is enough. You know what I mean? But if you keep repenting, then you feel like you're unworthy of heaven and then you are stuck at the
106:42lowest level in heaven again. And then that's you loses the whole point of going to heaven.
Okay. Yes. Uh Fred,
I Yeah, I I think um I really like the two rivers because I think that Dante is preempting the phrase etinarcadia ego where it's like was a common thing in romanticism where the poets would complain that even when they were in paradise their ego would still be there and that would still be the source of problems. So in this case, the forgetting river is super crucial because it's the only way to cleanse the ego. So and also that it's important and we've just seen that they've been through purgatory, but I don't think you could commit more sins in heaven. So it's not that important to remember,
you know, like there's not even a possibility that you could redo them.
Uh yes. Um uh
again about the river I thought it's very interesting in all cultures in Chinese culture when you reincarnate you go to the the hell and drink which is a portion that makes you forget everything in your past life so that you're ready for rebirth and so I think it's a similar you know universal idea that you need to forget. Yes, exactly. Uh David,
I think this is u a very um you know insightful uh you know paragraph into Chinese you know into uh character uh because um you know uh it also mentioned you know you have to remember what you what you did right because that will give you a structure of how to behave. Uh so this is a very well balanced uh you know structure where you have to both uh or you have to yeah and you have to both forget but also have to remember
yeah this like positive psychology right like be positive that's what they want in heaven uh do did you want to say something
108:42to say what Anna said you have to like forget I think like forgetting your sin uh symbolizes that you have now uh you have now like reborn yourself then you're ready for heaven and you're ready to drop out to drop out the like uh past behind and totally forgive yourself. Yes.
Yes. Exactly right. Okay. Yeah. And I would also point out it's free will right where um everything is governed by free will.
You choose to be in purgatory. You choose to do penance but you cannot actually choose to forget things. Okay. And so this is um Oh yeah. Yes.
Edward,
is it also a blessing to to the to the soul as well? Because uh through some lens doing these sins is like a trauma to yourself.
Yes.
So it finally allows the soul to be free.
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Andy,
I wonder if memory is um a process of of time and you're going to a place outside of time.
Yes.
In paradise.
Yes. Exactly. Um yeah, your memories aren't really relevant in in paradise. Yes. Uh Franis,
there's a physical aspect where if you forget your sin, then you're super light and you can physically reach heaven. Whereas like the little amount of sin would just create heaviness inside you.
Exactly. You're right. Yes. So the sin, the member of the sin is the last vest vestage of your physical body, right? Um and they are they are corrupting your soul or or they are tainting your soul.
Okay. Yes. Anyone else? Uh, Skyler,
I just want to ask a question. So, if forgetting your sin is makes you lighter and I guess better, would it be a good idea to forget your sins on earth? Like, if we're on earth and then if we forget all of our sins, would that make us better?
Okay. Does anyone want want to respond to this?
110:42Uh, Bruce.
Yeah. Actually, I I always think like like you said because uh when I was young, I thought I can do anything I want. I don't care about what saying or what kind of god or what is I'm me. I'm just myself, right? I can do whatever I want.
But after, you know, for a while, especially when you just experience a lot of things and you you can see that greedy, this sexual desire, the torture you in the night, you even cannot find sleep and you can just have date with many more boyfriends or girlfriend even have sex with them all of them. For what you just try to have such kind of desire you want to be better than other you're saying you can be more competitive than other but actually is not you still have to go back to to to the heaven to to go to the god the god is still there and just keep watching you all the time and you have to face the truth to face your sin this is this cannot be escape from it you want to be yourself but actually you're not
okay
thank you uh Damian
I I don't think you should forget your sin on earth or there would be no reflection.
Okay. So, um uh David
uh you know in real world unlike in the dentist uh you know uh literary world I don't think there is any water you can drink just to cleanse yourself of memory of things.
Yeah.
You really have to do a lot of good deeds and to replenish yourself of uh of good memories in order to flush out the the few things you have done.
Okay. Um so yesterday we discussed um the idea of the soul right and we how and how we said that what the soul is is you have a physical body and the soul is really um something that exists in the spiritual realm. Okay. So it is um like energy fields or whatever. Okay.
So that's why and that's how memory works because when you do something it may not change your physical body but it does change your
112:43spiritual body your soul. Okay. So and you know Fran used the word trauma. That's what that's what sin literally is. It's trauma.
It's traumatizing your soul. Okay. So so when you uh get hit you might bleed and that hurts your physical body. But when you do evil, when you commit sin, you are traumatizing your own soul. Okay?
Uh and your soul becomes distorted. So another saying this is like you remember everything that you do. You you may not be conscious of it, but you remember it at some level. And this is going to change the nature of your soul. And this is going to change how you relate relate to yourself and relate to others as well.
And the more traumatized you are, the more um the more your soul uh looks downward and the more good you do, the more virtue you do, the more the more you are to look upwards. Okay? So what this is saying is what the rivers are doing is they recognize that uh these sins they are physical in some way, right? And that's why you actually need to wash yourself because they are they stay in your soul and it's like you just can't like oh imagine them disappearing. You just you you just can't forget them.
You have to wash them away, right? You have to take a shower before you you attain to heaven. Does that make sense? Okay. All right.
Great. Any more questions? Uh Anna
like baptism too, right? You have to
go into the river and baptize yourself to wash away your sins.
This is literally baptism. This is literally baptism. Okay. So, Matilda is the Garden of Eden. And what she's going to do is she's going to baptize all the souls in in these two rivers before they actually ascend to heaven.
Okay. So, this is the process. Any more um questions or comments? All right guys, let's continue to KTO
114:4329. Um, and I want to apologize that my mic wasn't on for three minutes. So, um, anyway, we're in Kanto 29. Her words were done, but without interruption, she sang like an enamored woman. Thus, teto picata.
And just as nymphs who used to walk alone among the woodland shadows, some desiring to see and some to flee to flee the sun. So she moved countercurren as she walked along the riverbank and following her short footsteps with my own steps. I matched her pace. Her steps of mine together did not sum 100 when the bank still parallel so curved about that I was facing east. Nor had we gone much farther on that path.
And when she turned fully round toward me and said, "My brother, look and listen." And I saw a sudden radiance that swept across the mighty forest on all sides. And I was wondering if lightning had not struck. But since when lightning strikes it stopped at once, while that light lingering increased its force, within my mind I asked, "What thing is this?" And through the incandescent air there ran sweet melody at which just indignation made me rebuke the arrogance of Eve. Because where earth and heaven were obedient, a solitary woman just created found any veil at at all beyond endurance. If she had been devout beneath her veil, I should have savored those ineffable delights before and for a longer time.
While I moved on, completely wrapped among so many first fruits of eternal pleasure and longing for still greater joys, the air before us altered underneath the green branches, becoming like an ardent fire. And now the sweet sound was distinctly sung. Oh virgin sacks, if I have ever for your sake suffered vigil, cold, and hunger, great need makes me and treat my recompense. Now Helon must pour its fountains for
116:43me. Uranium must help me with her choir to put in versus things hard to conceive. Not far beyond we made out seven trees of gold, though long stretch of air between those trees and us had falsified their semblance. But when I drawn so close that things perceived through mingled senses which delude did not, now they were nearer lose their real features. The power that offers reason matter judged those trees to be what they were candalabra.
And what those voices sang to be hosana. The upper part of those fair candles flamed more radiantly than the midmon moon shines at wit midnight in an untroubled sky. Well full of astonishment I turned to my good Virgil. But he only answered me with eyes that were no less amazed than mine. Then I looked at the extraordinary things that were moving toward us, but so slowly that even brides just wed would move more quickly.
The woman chided me. Why are you only so eager to behold the living lights and not in seeing what comes after them? Then I saw people following those candles as if behind their guides and they wore white whiteness that in this world has never been to the water to my left reflected flames and it reflected to my left hand side by gaze into it as in a mirror. When I was at a point along my shore, where all that thundered me from them was water, I stayed my steps in order to see better, and I could see the candle flames move forward, leaving the air behind them colored like the strokes a painters brush might have described, so that the air above that retinue was streaked with seven bands in every hue of which the rainbows made and Dillius girdled. These penants stretched far back beyond my vision.
As for the width they filled, I judged the distance between the outer ones to be 10 paces. Beneath the handsome sky have described 24 eldest elders moved on two by two and
118:45they had wreaths of lilies on their heads and all were singing. You among the daughters of Adam, Benedicta are and may your beauties blessed be eternally. After the flowers and the other fresh plants facing me along the farther shore had seen those chosen people disappear. Then as in heaven star will follow star. The elders gone four animals came on and each of them had green leaves as its his crown.
Each had six wings as plumage and those plumes were full of eyes. They would be very like the eyes of Argus were his eyes alive. Reader, I'm not squandering more rhymes in order to describe their forms since I must spend elsewhere. But I can't be l lavish here. But read Ezek Ezekiel, for he has drawn those animals approaching from the north with wings and cloud and fire, he painted them.
And just as you will find them in his pages, such were they were except that John's with me as to their wings. With him Jon disagrees. The space between the four of them contained a chariot triumphal in two wheels tied to a griffin's neck and drawn by hip. His wings stretched upward framed the middle band with three bands on each outer side so that though he cleaved air he left the band intact. His wings so high that they were lost to sight.
His limbs were gold as far as he was burred the rest of him was white mixed with blood red. Not only did no chariot so handsome glad in Rome's Africanis or Augustus himself, even the son's own cannot match it, the sons which gone astray was burned to cinders because earth offered up her p pious prayers when Job in ways not known to us was just. Three circling women then advancing danced at the right wheel. The first of them so red that even in flame she'd not be noted. The second seemed as if her flesh and bone were fashioned out of emerald.
The third seemed to be nearly fallen snow. And now
120:47the white ones seemed to lead them. Now the red, and from the way in which the leader chanted, the others took their pace, now slow, now rapid. Upon the left, four other women dressed in crimson danced, depending on the cadence of one of them with three eyes in her head. Behind all the group I have described, I saw two elders, different in their dress, but like in manner, Grafe and Doras. The first seemed to be one of the disciples of great Hypocrates, whom nature made for those who are her dearest living beings.
The other showed an opposite concern. His sword was bright and sharp, and even on this near side of the river, I felt fear. Then I saw four of humble aspect. And when all the rest had passed, a lone old man, his features keen advanced as if in sleep. The clothes these seven wore were like the elders in the first file, except that these had no garlands of liies around their brow.
Instead, roses and other red flowers wreath their heads. One seeing them less closely would have sworn that all of them had flames above their eyebrows. And when the chariot stood facing me, I heard a bolt of thunder and it seemed to block the path of that good company which halted there its emblems in the lead.
Okay, so now Beatus has arrived and with arrival there is a parade. Okay, what we call a triumph. Okay, model of Rome, the Roman triumph. And um so Beatus is coming and uh when we come back from the break we will we'll see if these predictions are correct and spoiler alert none of them are correct. Okay.
All right. So uh so so we'll take a break and come back. Okay.
Okay. Good afternoon. So we have a special guest and Carol will introduce him. So, um, I'm delighted to have Renee Newman from Yening Academy here with us
122:47today. Um, I've never met him, but he has so kindly agreed to come here to read the Italian um, part of the of Dante to us um, as a friend of Melania, who is my um, second son Damian's um, Latin teacher. And so, thank you to Melania as well, who is on a flight right now. Um Renee um is a on full scholarship to do Yenching Academy and is a graduate of King's College in London in international affairs. He's also president for European Guanhi which is um a youth think tank on EU Chinese issues which he's passionate about and I know um he also speaks um multiple languages is from multiple parts of the world and very much a reflection of our class here.
Um I I would just I I'm just so curious to hear how Italians and you you're tus Tuskan. How do tuskkins and Italians study Dante? Just tell us a little bit about it and later um we'll we'll have you read some passages so that we can get into the zone with um an Italian reading. Dante, thank you.
Thank you so so much, Carol. Um so yeah, I mean Dante is maybe if it's the highlight of our syllabus of Italian literature and we start studying it when we're very young. So starting from like our when we're nine or 10 and uh and it really makes well make up makes up a huge part of the syllabus until we're like until we graduate actually in for you know in in high school. So um for almost 10 years we studied it for almost 10 years and we go through all of it multiple times. Wow.
And uh and yeah and especially in Tuscanany I think we also attribute even more importance to it than in other regions of course
because we feel even closer to it. Um, and yeah, um, it's always a pleasure to read in. So, thank you so much for being invited.
124:47How's the language of Dante similar or different to how Tuscans speak today?
So, um, it is interesting because it's not definitely not the language that we speak today. It's a bit different. Uh, there's some words that we would wouldn't use today. It's like we can understand them and maybe some old people might use words that are a bit more similar to some sometimes a bit more uh what we consider formal
uh but they're actually you know um in some way more similar to to to the language that Dante uses but at the same time
um you know uh there's also many words that we need to look up sometimes because they're really different from from the Italian that we speak today but at the same time it's also very important to remember that the Italian that we speak today in Italy. So, Italian really is is a construct. It's not really um a language that always existed, right? So, it's um the Italian that we know today is only the like an extension of the Tuscan dialect. Oh, wow.
That was imposed onto all the other regions because every Italy was divided until very late in history compared to other European countries until 1861. So um uh it was then that because of unification they had to choose one dialect to kind of dominate over all the other.
So it's like pongua in
it's like basically pretty much like ponua and and they chose the the language of Dante actually they Dante was the reason like the fact that Dante had written in that language in Tuscan
uh was the reason that and also actually because there's different types of task. So it was actually the type that the Dante brought in that they picked as the the reason why they picked our dialect as the like as Italian pretty much to be the language of the country.
Amazing.
Yeah. Uh so
and definitely there are some words that I think we as Tuscans understand are like more uh it's easier for us to
126:47understand than other regions for sure because there are some words in even our more than like some there's some still um regional words that we only in Tuscan we use and that Dante also uses that in other regions maybe they're a bit less common. Yeah.
Okay. Wonderful.
Yeah. I have a lot of questions uh Renee but my first question is how do you feel about Dante? Do you like the divine comedy?
Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah.
Why?
Well, because it is um regardless of one's religion, because of course we know it's a very religious text, but regardless of one religion, it has so much historical significance and it it encapsulates so many important uh episodes of like Italian history, but also European history. uh and um I believe really it is it is uh it should be taken for much much beyond you know it's just a religious significance like also yeah historical but also it's um I I think it's it's it's it transcends so many fields and disciplines I think and it's it's so important
um so when you say religious significance do you mean that this is primarily a Christian text is that what you mean
well I mean the I think the vision of you know hell purgatory free and heaven is definitely I think more it can be more associated more with Christianity than maybe other religions like Buddhism we're like that also maybe like we can also of course draw some comparisons with other religions but the way certain environments in the afterlife are you know described so accurately in the divine comedy I think like um they are they do feature a lot of um you know characteristics of Christianity definitely
um So in school, how is divine comedy taught? So you do 10 years of it and then is there a final examination where you're tested on certain aspects of of divine comedy or
So um it sometimes is in the final exam. So every every year the uh Ministry of
128:49Education chooses certain topics for the final examination and sometimes they do choose to feature some parts of course not all of it because you know how long it is but um they do uh choose to feature them and and you know have some parts where they test students about their knowledge of it. Um but not always not always but we do have uh like oral examination written examination throughout the year about that not necessarily the final one. Um, do you read the entire poem or just aspects of it?
We read the entire poem. At least that's what the syllabus um what wants us to do. But then um well sometimes they the syllabus is also very long in Italian literature. Uh and but but yes we we read uh at least like 70 or 80% of it if if
so for in you you all read.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we do read all of it.
Yeah. Um and are you asked to memorize the the poem or do you just read it?
Uh we sometimes really the thing is like even this and also relating to your previous question it depends sometimes on the teacher's own method. So there is there is some part of the syllabus that is like um compulsory for the whole country but at the same time for example this kind of whether we have to learn it by heart or not depends on on each teacher's method. Uh in my case um our teachers wanted us to read to memorize the most important parts. So like at the beginning uh you know like the start like the the starting the ending and then some some of what what we we consider to be like some of the most important passages and um and yeah but now I wouldn't be able to it's been a long time I wouldn't be able to to
and what is your favorite part of the vine comedy? Do you have a section you you particularly enjoy? Well, h is it too like cliche to say the like heaven perfumey or like actually I think even like the he like hell also has like a lot of parts that I really enjoyed. That's a good question. I'm not
130:52I'm not sure. I think there's there's there's many parts that I really really enjoyed. Um but also it's it's been a while now. So like it's been many years since
Okay. Um this is going to be a hard question but I'm really curious. Um, are there any outstanding questions or controversies um that have plagued educators about the divine comedy? Are there any like outstanding theological or literary questions? And Italian just argue about this all the time.
Mhm. Well, I believe I mean some people think that like that they were always struck since since it was composed by how specific it is on certain very very tiny details that you know usually um there's like all types of theories on how he man like Dante managed to um come up with or like even like you know s such specific you know like uh nitty-gritty like details and and Um so some people think that it was a dream so that and the dream that he like remembers very vividly when he wakes up. So to such an extent that he can actually describe s you know so so so well other people I mean think that he actually did this uh this this journey uh that he actually he actually he actually went there
um and other people of course they say of course it's all an invention but it is I think there is a consensus that it is incredible how specific uh it is sometimes and and how you know and it's really hard Because sometimes you're like, you know, when you have to make up a story, um, you know, it's like, oh, it's like, I mean, it's so easy to just invent like to make up anything, right? But it's not when it comes to details, right? Actually, to make up a story with so many details is not an easy feat.
Yeah.
And he managed to do this.
So, so I'll tell you this where uh for most of my life, I'm 50. for I think
132:52like for 45 years of my life 46 I was a very ardent atheist I refused to believe in God an explanation for everything and I read Divine Comedy I'm like God exists because without God there's just no way he could have written this so Divine Comedy brought me to God because again I can't explain what's going on without the idea of God. Okay. But so that's one um controversy like like how did he create this and something that we struggle also in this class? What what are some other controversies or questions? Well, um I believe that what one one aspect that is also very important that failed to me uh they failed to mention uh earlier was is that is the psychological aspect as well because this is not just significant for um in in terms of history and in terms of events because we we have other sources for for that right we have historical sources uh that are even I mean more reliable sometimes than you know some something that many people believe to be a completely madeup uh you know story.
But what what is striking and what is uh you know like inequivocably like a um you know like a super variable source in the sense uh is that the divine comedy shows what the mentality of that uh you know that age was and um and also between all these like factions you know the gui the gelini
uh and the hate of like and also set the values really because the fact that I mean of course these are Dantis values But they do serve as an embodiment of think of like of like the the the the um what what later we would be called the zeitgeist, right? like the sort of like that of that that time
and like the um you know the that embodiment of the values of of that of that of that moment in history and with all of the different factions uh and and um and and the fact that it's ranked in
134:54such a specific way, right? Like the who goes into like which circle of hell. Yeah. And it's it's really like a ranking of like what's the least the least worst thing and the like the worst thing
and then and then then and then in in heaven it's like the from like the they're all saints of course and they're all but but then uh you know there's also a ranking very specific ranking we have so many drawings as well with the with all the layers and everything
right um what do you think is the main message of the vine comedy? Well, um the main the message might sound I think well about it's about judgment everything like right it's like I think uh judgment is such an important part of it because and it's is it's not you know it's not um a type of judgment that is temporary like in maybe Buddhism uh it is a judgment that is permanent um or except in in the case of purgatory I guess because and the one the one that we read today that's the only non non-permanent and one but in hell and in heaven you know the souls are going to be there forever for eternity. Um so um it is it is striking and it is a strong message. Um at the same time though uh if we think about um well it it is definitely about um and many historians also agree on this uh a way of certainly or at least at that time to um have to to persuade people to behave better
um because it would and and um beside like really I think and it definitely transcends just the Christian beliefs you know it's like it contains many Christian beliefs but it is so you know uh all encapsulating that that it it is it definitely transcends this
um so today we're we're going to read uh kantos 30 31 32 33 of purgatory these are the last four kantos of purgatory
136:55how familiar are you with these four kantos
I studied them but like a lot long ago so I'll try my best to read them as as best I can
okay and and I mean um I don't want to be presumptuous But these four counts are pretty confusing, right?
Mhm.
Like they are like really troubling, confusing. It doesn't really fit into the larger framework vine comedy.
Uh is that fair to say?
Well, uh the purgatory is we actually know this in uh in in you know, we we say in high school and when we study it that it is the purgatory is actually the trickiest one. that is it's it's trickier than both hell and heaven
um because of all its nuances and um and definitely yeah the hardest one to understand and the hardest one to read as well in terms of language that he uses.
Okay. So um this is one one of four hardest cantos of Divine Comedy. Is that fair to say?
Well yeah sure for sure.
Okay. Well then that we'll do it guys. Okay. this afternoon, collectively, we're gonna figure out what these four candles are saying. Okay?
All right. So, and you can tell us if we're just crazy or not. Okay? But we're gonna do it. Okay?
Have faith, guys. We're going to try it. We're going to try to figure out what these four cantos are doing. All right? So, um let's start.
Okay. So, to start, I want to um explain what's going on. So, remember that Dante has climbed up the Mount Perator. He has not And the Garden of Eden, Beatric is coming. And Beatrice comes with a parade, right?
This is something called the tri church triumphant. Church triumphant. And this is opposed to the church militant. Okay. So the church triumphant is heaven.
Okay. The victory of the church to come.
138:57The church militant is the church on earth. The victory that must be fought. Okay. The victory that must be achieved in order achieve heaven. And the basic structure for the um um triumph uh sorry the parade is something called the Roman triumph.
Okay. A Roman triumph is what happens is like a great conqueror like Julius Caesar or Cypio or Pompei they go overseas and they con cover a great deal of territory and to celebrate they come to the streets of Rome and this is like the biggest thing in Rome okay this is this is like bigger than the Super Bowl in America it's bigger than the World Cup and so the idea is through the streets of Rome they're going to parade all the way to the temple of Jupiter And uh the point of the triumph is to show the greatness of the victory. So um and they also provide some his history as to the place what the people are like. Um so it's a celebration of the victory and that's that's exactly what's happening here when Petus comes. She's coming with the with the church triumphant.
It's a huge parade and it's to highlight the glory of Christianity. Um, so Beatatrice comes in a chariot, a two- wheel chariot. Okay, that's Beatatrice. And this is so at the end of at the at the very end of this procession of the triumph, the great conqueror, uh, the general is on a chariot being pulled and the griffin, the griffin is what pulls uh, Beatatric. The griffin uh as you know it is basically a lion and an eagle joined together.
Okay, basically a head is an eagle, the body is a lion. And a lot of scholars because like what's what
140:58what we what we'll be reading is something that's very allegorical, right? A lot of scholars believe that the griffin it represents Jesus because Jesus is considered to be both lion and eagle. Um, and the cherid is meant is um meant to represent the church. Okay? And I don't know better, so I I will assume they're correct.
Okay? So, keep this in mind. The griffin is supposed to represent the Jesus. The church is supposed to represent the church. Um, and um, these four candles are extremely troubling.
And I had to do some research before teaching this. And one really important one really good source for Dante, his name is Robert Hollander. I'm sure there are better sources in Italian. I don't speak Italian so I don't I don't I'm not able to understand what what what they're saying. Okay.
But Robert Hollander used to be at Princeton. He's probably America's most famous Dante scholar, but he was at Princeton and then he started this website uh called Dante Lab at Dark, the Dark Dante project that gives you insight into all the scholarship of Dante. And we're going to read a couple of actually uh footnotes from Robert Hollander. Okay.
Okay. So So let's read a couple couple footnotes.
Okay. Sorry about that.
No worries.
Okay. All right. this one or the other one first?
Yeah. So, so, so let's let's read this first, okay? And it shows you the depth
of scholarship as well as the intricacy of um Don's craftsmanship. Okay? So,
Beatatrice died in June of 1290. It is now either the end of March or early April of 1300 and thus about 2 months fewer than 10 years since she died. If the act
Okay. So, so he, so this is this is scholars talking about the day that Dante climbs up Mount Burgatory and
142:58meets Beatatrice. Okay. At what day does this happen? Keep on going.
If the action of the poem indeed did begin in Dante's mind on Friday 25th of March 1300, this day is Wednesday 30th of March 1300. Literally a perfect day, a 10 composed of three threes. for a recent study of the numer numerological aspects of Beatric Se Carlo Vete D.
Yeah. So, so do you see how perfectly this is constructed? Okay. Dante is conscious of numbers. He thinks that numbers are divine in nature.
Three is as we know a particularly divine number. There are three 33 kantos in um and um these three different sections and he uses turs right. Okay. So three is particularly divine number and you can see that the meeting with Beatatrice is a divine day. Okay.
Um
and um just I guess this is um Beatric's number in Vita Nova Dante's other poem and her number is nine or 3 squared.
That's right. That's right. So so Donnie is very mathematical he's very conscious of numerology. Okay let's go to to the next um
note. Okay. So this is a procession of the church triumphant and and it's structured in a certain way. Um c can you just read it?
Sure. Um the first 24 books of the old testament. The second the four gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The third one griffin. The fourth three theological virtues faith, hope and love.
Fifth four cardinal virtues prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice. The sixth, two authors of book of acts and major epistles Luke and Paul. Seventh, four authors of lesser epistles, Peter, James, John, Jude. The eighth one apocalypse, John. A total of 43.
Okay, so um it's 43, but remember
145:00there's Beatatrice, right? So that's one. So that's one that's 44. And then overhead um over them are 100 angels. You have 144.
Does anyone know why 144 is a very special number in Christianity?
Tribes in Israel?
Yes. Right.
12* 12.
Yes.
What else? I forgot.
Yes. But that's that's exactly correct. Okay. Okay.
So, um they say at the end of days 144,000 will ascend to heaven. Okay. These these are the 12 tribes of of Israel.
All right. So again, you see how meticulous and precise Dante is with numbers. This is not accidental by the way, okay? You can't possibly just, you know, make this up and then oops, it it aligns. No, no, he is intentional about this.
And there and there are these numbers um for scattered throughout the divine comedy. Okay? So you can literally just spend your entire life just analyzing the numerology of the divine comedy. We're not going to do that uh because this is this is an angel class and we're much more concerned about the themes. Yeah.
Yes, Edward.
It's just a very small comment but also the 4 + 3 is seven and seven in numerology is a very like completion number.
Yeah, exactly. I mean like um you can make entire diagrams um on this. Okay. And and so when so there are these all these uh literary paradoxes in Divine Comedy, but there also all these mathematical puzzles in Divine Comedy. If you just assemble them together, it reveals a greater truth.
Again, uh we're not going to do that because it's quite exhausting. Um but it just shows you the depth of um the level construction in Divine Comedy. And again, um this class, it's meant to be the beginning of a long journey. And I hope that uh in the future you guys will refer to scholars like Robert Hollander uh in your journey. Okay.
So I'm providing you one textual reading but others will provide you with others and it's up to you to
147:00come up with your own appreciation. So let's go back to um Kanto 29. Okay. And I want to go go look at the lines 22 to 30. Okay.
So um um uh Carol, could you read uh 22 to 30?
Okay. And through the incandescent air there ran sweet melody at which just indignation made me rebuke the arrogance of Eve. Because where earth and heaven were obedient, a solitary woman just created found any veil at all beyond endurance. If she had been devout beneath her veil, I should have savored those ineffable delights before and for a longer time.
Okay. What is paradoxical about these lines? Why am I Why am I singling this section out? What's a paradox here? Where are they?
They're in the Garden of Eden.
In the Garden of Eden. Yes. Uh Damen,
Eve was banished from the Garden of Eden. So why is she here?
She's not here. Yeah. But what is Donnie doing right now?
Imagining her. Imagining a woman that is there.
What is his emotional state?
Super excited and happy to see about to see their teacher. But
what's the word in here? That tells us how he feels.
I should have savored or like
No, the emotion.
Indignation. Yeah, just indignation. Okay. Indignation. He's angry.
Why is this a paradox? Indignation. Yeah. Why? Why are you angry?
Right. You should be happy. You should just focus on the here and now. You just focus on
149:00enjoying yourself. Why are you complaining about what Eve did? I mean, isn't all forgiven? Right? This is a paradox here.
Why should he not be angry? Uh Anna
angry. Maybe he finally went to the Garden of Eden to see how beautiful it is and to be mad at Eve. Like why would you forsaken all this? That's why he has the just Indian nation.
That's what he says. But I'm trying to figure out why he's
shouldn't
Well, he shouldn't be angry because he's just been through the terrorists, right? He's been for the terrorists of wrath. He his his anger should be purged from him. But he goes to the Garden of Eden and he's looking around. He says this angry at what we've lost.
He's rebuking arrogance, which is hope and free will in a way or I don't know there there's a paradox here. I don't know if I can.
Yeah. Yeah. There there's lots of paradoxes here, right? Okay. Does that make sense?
Okay. And and so what what I will argue is to unpack this paradox, you need to figure out what these four candles are. Okay? So so remember this paradox. It makes absolutely no sense that he's been in the Garden of Eden.
He's about to meet Beatric and now he's pissed off about Eve eating the um fruit which has which caused him to be banished from the Garden of Eden. Okay. What why is it like at at your happiest time you're still angry, right? I mean, isn't the point of being happy to let go of your anger and just embrace um your your your joy? Okay.
All right.
Oh, I I I don't know if I'm skipping ahead. Um but there's this um a concept of Felix Koopa, which is um it is essential for this fall to happen, for us to get to Jesus,
right? But in the other case, he should be he shouldn't be angry at all. Right? He just thinks, well, you know, we were
151:00redeemed at the end. We we're in the Garden of Eden now. Anyone can come. So Allah is forgiven. So why is he angry, right?
It's all part of the divine plan. Um Eve had to eat that fruit Jesus so that Jesus could come so that we could all be redeemed. And now all has happened. So instead of like being angry at Eve, why don't you celebrate Eve, right? and just like forgive Eve.
But instead, he is angry. But not only that, but what is his indation? What type is it? What what's the word he uses to describe his anger?
Just.
It's just. Okay. It's righteous. It is justice. I should be angry.
I am right to be angry at Eve. This is a paradox for us. Yes. I think it's also that um if Betrice had died in childbirth, it was Eve's punishment is that all women should feel pain during child birth and it's especially that that made her die. I think he's angry as well because she found any veil beyond endurance and life is one of the veil.
So, it's that he's almost angry that Bri is dead. Even though I'm meeting her now, it's such a pain that it's not in the real world.
That's a great point. Yeah, I completely forgot that. But Beatric did die in childbirth and Eve was punished uh by God. Um and the punishment was to have painful child birth, right? And it is you know um the greatest pain in the world.
Okay. It is hell on earth. Um so um but uh Rene I want to ask you that the translation just ination is this a correct translation? Um I am yeah I was actually surprised that they translated one because just is would be more like juto or um used back then I guess it could also be said but uh one is like is like a good it's more like
okay
a good type of a good type of indignation
right
uh zo for example is also like um I mean I think back then definitely it meant
153:00indignation now it has a bit of a different meaning is less negative than indignation.
It's it's more like Yeah, that's actually that's actually what it is.
Um but but but back then of course certain words that we could still use now have had a different meaning of course.
Okay. So I I want to confirm. Okay.
Menobal. Alan Menobal. And he's one of like dozens of translators of like Dante. Okay. Um but what he's what what he's saying is that um uh Dante thinks that it is just for him to think that Eve was arrogant and to rebuke her arrogance.
Is this a correct translation? Um I I would yeah I would say so like um on like on at which one it's just as we said indignation yeah made me rebuke yeah um I uh is also an interesting like word for us to hear in Italian is like when when someone is well adito now has also different meaning But alimementoto um definitely sounds like I mean back then it would be more closer to arrogance for sure or or
and and so the tone and the language it uh conveys anger as an emotion. Is that correct?
Yes. Uh it's it's it's it's some some kind of I think maybe passionate anger like as in dementoto uh it's it it has the same ardent
ardent it has the same emotion as fire basically right
uh so it is it it this definitely conveys passion it conveys a strong feeling
like a you know fiery feeling
all right okay so so again like so the there's the paradox there okay like why are you so angry now now you're the garden of Eden okay isn't this all part
155:00of the vine plan, right? Shouldn't you be thankful uh for for and plus you're not a woman, right? You're a guy. So, so what are you complaining about? I mean, like um so so there's lots of paradoxes here.
All right, let's go to count 30. Okay. Um and uh again um these next four canours are just really troubling for scholars as well students of Dante.
I'll do 12 maybe and then you'll do 12. Okay. When the first heaven seven stars had halted, those stars that never rise or set, that are not veiled, except when sin be clouds our vision. Those stars that there made everyone aware of what his duty was, just as the bear below brings helmsmen home to harbor. Then the truthful band that had come first between the griffin and the seven stars turned toward that chariot as toward their peace.
And one of them as if sent down from heaven him aloud veni sponsor de liibano three times and all the others echoed him. Turn it up. Yes. for sponsor. Just as the blessed at the final summons will rise up ready each out of his grave singing with new clothed voices allelujah.
So from the godly chariot eternal life's messengers and ministers arose 100 stood advoc Advocenis
157:01all of them cried Benedictus quenis and scattering flowers upward and around Benedict. I have at times seen all the eastern sky becoming rose as day began and seen adorned in lovely blue the rest of heaven and seen the sun's face rise so veiled that it was tempered by the mist and could permit the eye to look at length upon it. Though within a cloud of flowers that were cast by the angelic hands and then rose up and then fell back outside and in the chariot, a woman showed herself to me above a white whale veil. She was crowned with olive boughs. Her cape was green, her dress beneath flame red.
within her presence I had once been used to feeling trembling wonder dissolution but that was long ago still though my soul now she was veiled could not see her directly by way of hidden force that she could move I felt the mighty power of old love As soon as that deep force had struck my vision, the power that when I had not yet left my boyhood, had
159:03already transfixed me, I turned around and to my left, just as a little child, afraid or in distress, will hurry to his mother anxiously to say to Virgil, "I am left with less than one drop of my blood that does not tremble. I recognize the signs of the old flame. presents. Okay, stop. Okay, so um Beatrice is revealing her herself.
She's still veiled, but she is now in the presence of Dante. And it's been many years since Dante last saw Beatatrice. Uh 20 years maybe. And but his soul still shakes. Okay.
He's not shaking, but his show his soul is still shaking. Um Rene, let me ask you while you're reading this. Okay. Uh and the the climax of course is like when Dante sees Beatus again for the first time, and this is the moment we've been waiting for the entire time. Okay.
We've been through hell. We've been for proator and this is the moment that Dante's been waiting for. We've all been waiting for. How did you feel while you're reading this? What emotions were you were in you when you were reading this?
Well, I think Oh, sorry. Yeah. I
Yeah, it's I think well it's he spends you know um like so many lines talking about just that like the emotion of when when he sees her and
161:04is it is um I think there would be no other way of making it convey such a strong um feeling that is not just you know sheer it's more than just sheer joy or sheer you know surprise or I think there is no single were like not even just a set of uh short set of words to convey it. And that's why so many lines are spent on it. And even like some um you know like analogies um you know when when uh like when when when he compares it with like boyhood for example um and uh and like uh and then he he says he also talks about a little like just as a little child afraid or in distress, right? It's it's it's so strong and it's Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So, this is really when all his emotions converge together, right? His greatest fear, his greatest excitement, his greatest um happiness, uh his greatest sadness, they all converge together and it is such an overwhelming emotion. He's never felt like this before. Uh his entire soul, it's vibrating.
It's shaking to its core. And what's the first thing he wants to do? Turn to Virgil.
He wants you to turn to Virgil. You understand? That's that's how much he loves Virgil. Okay? He loves Virgil.
I know I've been talking to trash about Virgil this entire time, but he still Dante still loves Virgil as a father. Okay. So, he wants to turn to Virgil. And what should Virgil do in response?
Comfort him.
Right. hug him and says, "Dante, I'm with you. Go ahead. We came all the way here, right, for health, for purgatory, and now I want to be with you in your moment of your greatest triumph."
163:06And I will be with you. Um, okay. So, so, so, so, so, so maybe we won't translate until certain section. Okay. Um, yeah, sounds good.
Line 49. But Virgil had deprived us of himself. Virgil the gentlest father. Virgil he to whom I gave myself for my salvation. And even all our ancient mother lost was not enough to keep my cheeks though washed with dew from darkening again with tears.
Okay. So so stop. Okay. So Rene, could you translate for us the these next six lines and tell us these when you when you speak it, what emotions do you feel?
Mhm. for it's it's it's like as if he was like it's more than like um praising him. It's more it's it's like as if he was talking about like yeah the person he loves the most actually. It's almost as if he was talking to him as if he was Beatric.
Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, that's exactly it. I I I think the words, the emotions is Dante loves Virgil. Okay. There's actually no doubt about it.
Where is Virgil? Where is he? Uh Fred,
I was just doing a sign for like self integration where Dante, he's left uh Virgil has left Dante completely and Dante has integrated him as completely as he can.
But I mean like I mean we were expecting some sort of resolution, right? Some sort of confrontation between Virgil and Beatrice. some sort of conflict where
165:06Don has to choose between Virgil and Beatatrice or even maybe a happy ending where Beatatrice um welcomes Virgil to the heavens and Virgil's given a choice but he's just completely disappeared. He's run away. That's not bad writing, right? What's going on here?
Who's talking then?
Donnie is talking. Yes. Right. Dante felt Virgil beside him. So he turns to Virgil to say, "I'm I've never been sover nervous in my life, Virgil." And Virgil's gone.
He just disappeared. Well, first of all, why is Virgil gone? He has accomplished his mission to bring Dante to Beatric. So now he has like no purpose to be here.
Yeah. But if you've accomplished your your mission, what what's the least thing you would expect?
He wants someone to thank him.
Yeah.
Thank you, Virgo, for taking Donnie through heaven and hell. Yes.
Um, so previously we were hypothesizing that he might be a little bit jealous. I feel like some of the times if you're jealous, you don't actually want to be in a scene and then you just choose to leave it behind and then just not see the scene.
Dante loves Virgil. Does Virgil love Dante? I I I think he loves Dante. I think he does.
Okay.
They climbed on Satan.
Yeah. They've been through a lot, man. They climb on Satan. They've uh been through purgatory. It's been a lot.
Once that happens to you, two people love each other. Yes. I think of like the wedding scenario where the father brings the bride to the groom and then he has to go he's like I hand you over and you know so I feel like maybe it's that kind of scene too
167:06where he kind of give birth to Dante and now
there's no handover though.
Oh okay.
He just disappears. He just runs away. Yes.
Yeah. Maybe because uh you know as men they don't want to say a goodbye. Maybe they would love to give you a hug. But actually Virgil I saying he on the one hand he want to give it a high maybe but
let's do the counter factor. Okay let's just say Virgil stays. What would happen next?
What would happen next? Yeah. Yes. Anna
a confrontation with do you want to come to heaven? No. Oh awkward. Like so then he just avoids that conversation and goes away.
Yeah. I think what happened is that Beatrice would say to Virgil, "Virgil, I want to thank you so much for this. I came down to limbo and I asked you for a favor and you so generously and so selfishly guided Dante through hell and purgatory and I can't thank you enough and Virgil was like h right you're kind of stuck right because now what is going to say come with us to heaven and and V's like so he's made the conscious decision I don't want to go anywhere near heaven I what? Yeah. Yes.
I I this reminds me actually of a of a of a Greek myth of or Fos and Uridis or yes. you know, when when like he's uh not supposed to turn and like when there's actually no like it is kind of a there's no well in in in the myth of course he turns and he sees and and and and she disappears because the pact was that for him not to like you know the deal was for him not to turn uh and they would live uh you know happily together after and and uh and uh but but then he turns he doesn't resist and he's just about to get out of the cave and Uh but here actually it is as if um I don't
169:06know I I kind of see a bit of this of this like kind of like leaving him without like disappearing with no goodbye or no like and and and that he's not even supposed to say to to to to turn back to him and to to turn behind once you're in well you you know you're um like in ascending to to heaven. You're not supposed to go back and like heaven is so pure that you're not supposed to. Right.
Okay. I I understand. I understand. You're saying that Donnie should have turned his head back and talk to Virgil, but I'm still trying to figure out why.
Shouldn't have. He shouldn't. I think it was supposed to be like this.
Right. I'm trying to figure out why Virgil's disappeared.
Yes. I think it's a reflection of Denty's um acknowledgement that uh Virgil is indeed a very thoroughly manly fatherly figure because a real father uh effective father is eventually has to make a very very clean cut in the father-son relationship in order to send a son to some some greatness and I think uh even uh Adant's own father who kind of uh disappeared from Danty's life also relatively early in Danty life I think also gave Danty a kind of paradigm that his mentor um would send him onto his journey but you know won't accompany him all the way down.
This is like your father not show up at your college graduation. Okay, you gradu from Yale. It's the biggest thing you've ever accomplished. And your father's like, I don't want to go because I I don't want to burden you with uh I I don't want to make you more dependent on me. No.
No. He No, Virgil just run away, I guess.
Well, I mean, my is like a little bit similar with him because I believe maybe Virgil will make Dante feel hesitant.
Okay. Okay, guys, stop this. Okay, this is the wrong direction. Okay, Edward.
171:07It's almost that this moment is so divine and so beautiful that Virgil but Virgil's soul is still too dark to be able to be included in this moment.
Yes. Okay. So, it's almost like Virgil's afraid of the encounter between Dante and Beatatrice, right? Because remember how he feels about love is it's one of control, one of possession, right? He doesn't actually believe in true love.
He only believes in control. So he doesn't want to see Beatatrice and Donnie together because then he recognizes that true love exists and it's divine. Uh Anna
the one who hates love in a way like so it will be awkward for him to stand.
Yeah. He wrote the Iniad in order to love right love is a disease. Love can only lead you to hell.
And now Dell
And now he's in hell but Donnie is going to heaven. Love is leading Donnie to heaven. All right. So, this is convicting to him. Right.
So, rather than phase the fact that he could be wrong, he's like, "Screw this. I'm I I'm I'm going to run away." Okay.
All right. What else? So, so that that's one theory. Yes.
How about the you know, I think Betray stands for love. So, I think that Virgil stands for reason. Maybe Virgil just so so fierce. They are just being so scared by being controlled by love. So, that's the reason they live.
So, so maybe V, as you point out, Virgil and Beatatric just like like it's it's like magnets, right? Like like polarities, right? They just repel each other. Okay. Um, but at the same time, Virgil did help be out, right?
So, I think one possible explanation is like Virgil does not want to see true love because it just negates his entire worldview. Okay, that that I think is a very I I think that that's the best explanation. Does Virgil want to go to he want to go to heaven? We know he doesn't want to go because he
173:08could go at any time and now Beatus is here and Beatus owes you a favor, right? So now's the best opportunity in your life to go to heaven. He's like, "Screw this. I'm going to go home. I I'm going to go I'm going to go to hell." Why would he do that?
Why would anyone do that?
Yes, Damian.
Because heaven's where true love is. And Virgil doesn't doesn't want to see that.
Who is Virgil most afraid of? He's afraid of God, right? Why?
He wrote the Iniad.
Okay, so think about this, okay? God gave the gift of poetry to Iniad. God chose you, Virgil. No one else chose you. And then Virgil was like, I'm gonna go make a billion dollars doing this.
Okay. So, the last person he wants to see right now is God. Yes,
I want to say I think that the explanation that we study in Italy or at least I mean maybe it depends also on the teacher sometimes interpretations can also vary but I think it's complimentary to what we've just said that um uh Virgil cannot we we at least we learn that Virgil cannot enter heaven because heaven is only for the pure and um and Virgil because I mean as we said I mean he's he's not only not exter like people from the outside who who had already who have already um how do you say um been judged um cannot cannot access it. That's what that's at least the way we learn.
Yeah. Yeah. It it's wrong then. Okay. I'm telling you what you learn what you learn is wrong because what we learn in this in this class is there's there's a man named Rifus, right?
Rifus. He's in heaven. Not only is he in heaven, but he's one one of the great of heavens, okay? He's up there with David and all the great leaders of human history. He was born he he was a warrior of the children empire, right?
He was there during the children war. Therefore, he
175:09could not have been possibly been a Christian, right? He was not baptized. He was born about a thousand years before Jesus. So, how did he get to heaven? That that that's that's an interesting point.
Um I also might omit or like not like fail to remember some some other parts of our teaching. Um uh but um I guess he also had uh his own uh role in in in heaven or like there might be some reason why he is allowed and and other people but usually or at least what they teaches is that yeah because uh Virgil had no reason to be in heaven when when uh there was already someone accompanying because technically I mean he was not even supposed to be in purgatory but then he
Right. Okay. All right. So um um yeah. So um what what what we learned in this class is that Donny's is very clear about this.
What takes you to heaven is not your belief. It is your actions. Okay? And it's your actions that reveal your belief. Right?
Because you live a life of hope um love and faith. Then that's Christian. It doesn't matter if you were born before Jesus. And because you live this life, it means you have faith in Jesus. Then that faith pathes you automatically.
Okay. Uh um yes, Edward and Fred.
Could it also be like the ultimate feeling of jealousy for Virgil? Because I don't know, but I don't think in his life he had a Beatrice. Did he have a a true love in his life?
Um if he wrote the Inad, obviously not.
Yeah.
Yes. Uh Fred,
I think another thing that um is blocking him from heaven or blocking him from being at this ceremony was that for Virgil like the extremes of good and evil, the extreme of good is about
177:10following the destiny set out by the gods and piety. And I think for him there's no piety in heaven because it's the story is over. The game is over. The the race is run. So for him it's impossible for him to conceive of goodness that can never be not good because his whole thing with the anid is fluctuating between following your destiny and being lazy and following your destiny and being lazy.
Yes. Exactly. So you that's a great point. Yes. So Virgil can't even conceive of the idea of heaven.
If he conceives it as heaven, he would he can basically invert it, right? For him, heaven would be hell. So he's like, "Why do I want to go to hell? I'm perfectly happy in in limbo. That's my heaven because I'm master of hell.
Right? Okay. So there are many reasons but but but this is again um a a very important I like paradox for us. Why does Virgil run away? Okay.
And obviously there are many different um interpretations. Okay. Uh let's let let's let's continue.
Okay. Line 55. Dante, though Virgil's leaving you, do not yet weep. Do not weep yet. You'll need your tears for what another sword must yet inflict.
Just like an admiral who goes to stern and proud to see the officers who guide the other ships, encouraging their tasks. So on the left side of the chariot, I turned around when I had heard my name, which of necessity I transcribe here. I saw the lady who had first appeared to me beneath the veils of the angelic flowers look at me across the stream.
Okay. Stop. Okay. All right. So Dante is obviously heartbroken that his father has run away at the moment of his greatest happiness.
Okay. And now Beatatrice has come and she's basically like, "Forget him. He's not important. Um, you will need everything for the next challenge." Okay. How does Dante feel about Beatric right now?
179:13Uh yes,
he might think Beatatrice is very mean.
I think so. That's exactly how it feels. Why? What metaphor tells us that uh just think that Beatrice is just being too stern or too mean.
Just like an admiral who goes to stern and
Exactly. Right. Right. That's that that's the out that's a simile, right? She's just being a boss, right?
She's just being imperious. She she she's she she's just ordering me about. Okay? That's how much he loves Virgil. Do you understand this idea?
He loves Virgil so much that the moment that anyone says anything bad about Virgil, he gets really angry. E even if it's coming from the love of his life, Beatatrice. Okay. So again, this is meant to be a tragic moment for Dante. What Dante wanted more than anything else is to ascend to heaven with Virgil.
And now Virgil has made his decision to leave him. Okay. And so um I I I don't speculate too much, but um just think of of like what Donn is trying to do, right? He's trying to create a new um paradigm for for for the world. He's trying to create a new poem for the world.
And to do that, he must displace Virgil. Does that make sense? Because at this time in history, everyone's memorizing the Iniad as today like everyone in Italy studying the divine comedy, right? But for him to do that, he must show you what the problem is with with the Iniad. But he can't convince you because it's like the end is like your mother, your father.
Okay? And so uh he has to construct this elaborate journey and this elaborate relationship with Virgil u in order to
181:14show you that at some point um Virgil must leave you if you are to ascend to heaven. Okay, does that make sense guys? All right. Uh let's keep on reading.
Line 67. Although the veil she wore down from her head, which was encircled by mannervous leaves, did not allow her to be seen distinctly, her stance, still regal and disdainful, she continued, just as one who speaks but keeps until the end the fiercest parts of speech. Look here, for I am beatress, I am. How are you able to ascend the mountain? Did you not know that man is happy here?
My lowered eyes caught sight of the clear stream. But when I saw myself reflected there, such shame weighed on my brow. My eyes drew back and toward the grass. Just as a mother seems harsh to her child. So did she seem to me.
How bitter is the savor of stern pity. Her words were done. The angel suddenly sang in domini. But their singing did not go past Perez Mayos.
Okay. So how is Johnny feeling at this moment? Shame.
Shame, right? Regret. All he cares about is the fact that he's lost um Virgil. Okay. Even Peter saying like, "Focus on me, Dante." He still can't look at her.
Okay. Um he is just so sad that his friend Virgil has abandoned him. Okay. Uh keep on going.
Even line 85. Even as snow among the sapfield trees along the spine of Italy will freeze when gripped by gusts of the Slovenian winds. Then as it melts will trickle through itself. That is if winds breathe north from shadeless lands. Just as beneath the flame the candle melts.
So I before I'd heard the song of those whose notes always accompanied the notes of eternal spheres was but without tears and size. But when I heard the sympathy for me within their gentle harmonies, as if they'd said, "Lady, why shame him
183:15so?" Then did the ice that had restrained my heart become water and breath, and from my breast and through my lips and eyes they issued, anguished, still standing motionless upon the left side of the chariot. She then addressed the angels who had been compassionate. "You're awake and never ending day, and neither night nor sleep can steal from you one step the world would take along its way. Therefore, I'm more concerned that my reply be understood by him who weeps beyond so that his sorrows measure matches him. Not only through the work of the great spheres which guide each seed to a determined end, depending on what stars are its companions, but through the bounty of the godly graces which showered down from clouds so high that we cannot approach them with our vision.
He when young was such potentially that any propensity and any propensity innate in him would have prediciously succeeded had he acted. But where the soil has finer vigor there precisely when untilled or badly seated will that terrain grow wilder and more noxious. My countenance sustain him for a while. Showing my youthful eyes to him. I'll let him with me toward the way of righteousness.
As soon as I upon the threshold of my second age had changed my life, he took himself away from me and followed after another. When from flesh to spirit I had risen and my goodness and my beauty had grown. I was less dear to him, less welcome. He turned his footsteps toward an untrue path. He followed counterfeits of goodness which will never pay in full what they have promised.
Nor did the inspirations I received with which in dream and otherwise I called him back help me. He paid so little heed. He fell so far there were no other means to lead him to salvation except this to let him see the people who were lost. For this I visited the gateway of the dead to him who guided him above. My prayers were offered even as I wept.
The deep design
185:15of God would have been broken if leaf had been crossed and he had drunk such waters but had not discharged the debt of penitence that's paid when tears are shed. Okay, so imagine Dante's emotional state. Okay, he's been thinking that this is a great wedding feast between him and Beatric, right? He had to work so hard to get through Inferno and through purgatory. And now um he thinks that Petri will shower praise on him, right?
He's like, "Wow, you got an A+ on your test. Great job, man." What is Petric doing instead? Yes, Damian.
Scolding him.
Why?
Um because after Beatatric died, Dante married another woman.
Um well, I mean, true. But would Beatric be angry about that? What's he angry about? He's just upset that Dante that Virgil left. He's crying and like,
"Sure, sure." Dante is upset that Virgil has left. And then Beatric is say, "Hey, let's get going, man." And then Dante is kind of shocked because he's expecting this praise, this love, this adulation from Beatatrice. And instead, um, and and so he falls, he's confused, he's in shame. The angels fly to Beatric and says, "Relax, Beatrice." Okay. D's been through hell.
Literally been through hell. Like, let's give him a break. And B is like, "You guys shut up, too." Like, why is she pissed? Like, like she's pissed. Why is she pissed?
Because it was her love that caused all
187:15of this that brought him here that got Virgil in the first place involved with Dante. So that's not what she's saying though. That's that's that's not what she's saying. What's she saying? She's saying that um when we knew each other, your love for me stared you on the right path, but then after I died, you went on the wrong path.
And that forced me to come to all the way down to hell to seek Virgil to set you on the right path. Okay? And I had to make you go through hell to see the consequences of your sins. Right. So what what did Donnie do wrong?
Yes. Julian.
Uh I guess trust Virgil that much or love because I mean in this speech she is talking about Virgil, right?
No no she no like like okay what she said in the speech is this right? Okay. When we knew each other, you loved me so much and I put you on the right path. Then I died and then you went on the wrong path. You went the wrong You went on the path so wrongly had to come down and ask Virgil to help you put to to set you on the right path and you had to go through hell to see the consequences of what it means to go on the wrong path.
What did you do wrong?
And meshed in the wealth and gibs and all the politics and all of that.
Yeah. So that's one possibility, right? Uh so there are different possibilities. He married, but then but then like that makes Beatric seem really petty, right? Because Petri married someone else.
So what's Donnie going to do? Just like be chased all his life,
right? So I think he's angry about that. It's possible. Okay. Uh Donnie participated in internal politics, but that's just the times.
Okay. Yeah. Fred. So she's I guess she's complaining about the double standard that he seems to have set with his love for her that it was her goodness and beauty while she
189:15was alive that gave him the a good spark. And she's saying, "Well, I died and if Dante knew I'd gone to heaven, how come I'm not even an even bigger inspiration than before?" Like she's saying, "My goodness and beauty had grown and yet I was less dear to him, less worth." Like I should have been an even stronger star now that I died. But it seemed that he needed his hero to to do it instead.
Okay. So So let's continue this. Okay. This is correct. Okay.
But but I I want I want to elaborate on this. So um when Beers were alive, what did Donnie write poetry? Why?
To seduce her or prove his artistic merit.
This is according love tradition, right? So he's trying to express his love, forever her love to Beatrice. After she died, why did he write poetry? To save himself.
To save himself. How?
By channeling all of the spirits of his hero and his love in order to instruct the rest of the world,
right? In which case, he wouldn't have to go to hell. In which case, Beatric wouldn't have to come down to uh hell and and get Virgin to help him. Right? Problem solved.
So obviously he did something wrong, right? So when Beatric was alive, he wrote poetry to express his love for Beatatric after she died. Why did he write poetry? Yes.
Probably for fame and power.
Exactly. Okay. That's where he went wrong. He forgot what the point of poetry was. It's not for fame and power because you if you did that, who would you end up who would you end up being?
Virgil.
Virgil. Okay. Does that make sense, guys? Okay. And we know because in the beginning of purgatory, Dante bec fell in love with his own shadow, right?
And he fell in love with his shadow so much that uh whenever he saw his shadow, he was really happy and he walked really slowly so that the other shades could see his shadow. Do you understand this this idea? This is where Dante went wrong. When you when
191:16she was alive, he could focus all his attention on her and that's what made his poetry divine. she died then all he thought about was competing against his um fellow poets and proving that he was the best right and so he started to uh write poetry in order to prove he's superior to everyone else and that's where he went wrong and that's why come get Virgil to lead him through hell yet yes
no no no I'm finished yeah
I I I was I was going to say I think it was very struck by the fact that he retakes this analogy of like the mom and the child.
Yes.
And I think this analogy precisely I think um corroborates your point that
of this transition from like when when uh Beatatrice was still alive, they were kind of equal, right? in the way still both human beings alive now like Beatatrice is kind of in a different sphere and it's as if she was his mom and uh you know and in the first part when he's sad about Virgil disappearing he's like oh like going to like as if go as as a as a child going to his mom like crying um because he's afraid but actually his mom as and so in in that first analogy the his mom is actually Virgil But then but then in the second like when he retakes the analogy it's it's Beatatrice that hits his mom and so he's like I am you know like I'm like your muse and um and and and you lost me when I died but I you know the fact that I died and you know and and your faith shouldn't prevent you from using me having me as a muse even after my death. Right.
Right.
So he lost his faith in some
That's right. Exactly. Yes. Okay. Um so now let me ask you this question.
Why is she doing this, right? I mean, wouldn't a better better strategy
193:17be like to first praise him, right? And then point out that, oh, you could improve in this way, right? That that that's how you how like we're taught to criticize people, right? Don't do it directly. Don't scull people.
Don't be angry at that person. first criticize this person and then maybe towards the end you're like oh but you know there's this one little thing right why is she just pissed it's like yes yes Bruce
yeah maybe because you know uh if people die and they have been prayed by the family so I think that the Danty just cannot lie the uh you know uh you can call it uh I think Danty is try to to drag drag her legs. Do not let her to go to heaven because uh yeah because I have to pick up right she have she has to pick up
why is she pissed at Dante what was she doing this yes
so linked to free will where there's two option it could like break him and so he would just take another path or then by his love for Beatrice he would listen to her and try to improve on himself whereas if she would come and just like loving him there wouldn't be no choice he would just like love her back whereas he's conflicted.
I I I agree with that, but I'm just saying like he's been through Inferno and he's through purgatory already, man. Why how why does he need to improve himself? How else can he he improve himself? Why does he need to improve himself?
Also, like before it was he was seeking a fake image of Beatric. So now he's here, he needs a choice again. Whereas I'm Beatrice now. Do you want to go with me or do you want to just like because I'm not the Beatric you thought I was just go away?
Yes. Okay. Exactly. Yes. Yes, Andy.
Could it be because he's maybe treating the the peak of purgatory like the finish line when the finish line is gone?
Yes, that's what Beatric is saying to Dante is like this is the beginning, man. The real challenge is up there. So,
195:19get your head in the in in the right order. Okay, if you're still stuck on fame, uh you're not going to be able to do anything in heaven. Okay, remember what matters, what brings you, what brought you here is your love for me. So focus on that, Dante. Does that make sense?
But like again, it's it's one of tactics, right? Like you would I mean like why why take this tone? Why take this approach? I mean, you could have chosen a much more gentle, diplomatic, softer approach, right? Why choose this scolding approach like this anger approach, right?
Yes, Brad, maybe two suggestions maybe. One to test him and that this is he's still not completely out of purgatory. So, he's actually still in the circle of lust and so he needs to still feel the heat. And so if she gave him balm from this heat already before he had entered the gates of heaven, she'd be ruining purgatory for him in this sense.
So she can't let up even a tiny bit. And also, I'm my mind's not working fast enough, but I'm thinking there has to be something of the Rachel and Leia dream in this interaction where she's saying, "Look, don't get your like don't get your knickers in a twist now that you've had sex with Leia. You know, there's still seven more years or
Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Yoo.
Yeah. Maybe just like asking a friend out, a girlfriend out and if you get date and the girl just always complaining you why you just don't pick up me earlier and why you always you know maybe just try to show up.
Okay, so so let's think about this. Okay, so Beatric is scolding Dante and the angels around her saying like Beatric Beatric calm down and Beatric is like shut up man. Why does she do that?
197:24Excuse me. She's mad.
Yeah. And not only that, but like what? But why is she mad?
She's mad. And it's like I'm right to be mad. Do you understand? Just in the nation, right? Just in a nation.
Okay. Yes. I could be off base here. I wonder um a poet has a muse and they pour they spend years and years, don't they? spent so many years writing uh his love to Beatric.
Beatric in real life. This moment is their third time of ever meeting.
Yeah. Basically. Yeah.
And so does a muse I I understand she's in heaven. God is love. She loves him. But does a muse often love their poets back or are they just objects of love? And so is it possible that he's coming up and he's like, "I love you." And she's like, "It's third time we went, man." Like got a long way to go till there's love.
Um, I I think uh there are multiple factors at work here, but I I think Beatrice thinks she deserves Dante's love because if you're the muse, right, you're the one who gave Dante this poetry in the first place. Okay. All right. Uh, yes, Anna.
I wonder if a few reasons. Like, first of all, like Dante couldn't let go of the fact that Virgil has left is one thing. So like basically if I'm the wife and my husband is mourning over his best pal guy bro you know homie who kind of took over like the joy of our wedding then I'll be pretty pissed because then I'll be like well I'm the bride and why is Virgil the homie the center of my husband's you know heart and then yeah and then the other one about like going God is the ultimate one but he's like the wedding day seems to be hit for him the end of the thing that will piss me off too. But oh that's it like the
199:25wedding day is going to be the best day of my life and now from now on you're going to go downhill instead of up like you know then I'll be pretty pissed.
Okay. So the fact that Beatatric is angry at Dante suggests what about Beatatrice? How does Beatric feel about Dante
all that she cares in a way?
She loves him.
Yeah. dearly and he's not rep uh yeah returning that same amount of love. So, so, so I I know this is hard for us to appreciate. Okay, what Don is saying here is that just ination comes from a place of love.
You understand? This is really important guys. You understand these next four counts, you need to understand this idea.
Right? Righteous ination comes from a place of love. Only because you have love that you get angry. Right?
If you're beat, you're like, I don't really care about this guy. Right? You're just doing your job. Why are you angry? And you should hear this.
Yeah. I feel like
if I'm angry at you, that's because I love you.
Exactly. I think coming from mom and teachers, you're like, you have such expectation for your students. And when they are bright and then they make stupid mistakes,
you get more mad than ever because you have so much expectation. Like if I don't care a about you, like just
go to community college, you know,
Yeah. So you're harsh because you love
like I get angry a lot, right? Cuz like I'm expecting you guys to perform and to learn. Yes, Bruce.
Because I've heard there's some girl student just said if you just want to test the boy love you or not. You just piss piss him off. Let him let him get anger and try to find out if he can comfort you back or he just like to give you the reason tell you some reason stuff then get rid of him. He's not really the person that fall in love with you. But she just comfort you like I'm sorry it's my fault.
It's my my fault. Forgive me. Then I think she cares about you. So maybe that is girl we're trying to test the people by if you're loving him or her.
Okay. All right. So uh let let's continue. Okay.
201:30KTO 31. Oh you upon the holy streams far shore. So she turning her speeches point against me even its edge had seemed too sharp began again without allowing interruption. Tell
So did did we finish the last panel?
What line what line were we at? Sorry.
Oh, really? Sorry.
Okay. All right. Sorry.
Sorry. Sorry.
So sorry about it.
Okay.
No, no, we didn't.
Okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. All right.
Okay. No worries, man. Let's Let's go. Yeah. Okay.
Count to 31. Wait. 31. Okay. Oh, you upon the holy streams far shore.
So she, turning her speeches point against me, even its edge had seemed too sharp, began again without allowing interruption. Tell, tell if this is true, for your confession must be entwined with such self accusation. My power of speech was so confounded that my voice would move and yet was spent before its organs had released it. She forebore a moment. Then she said, "What are you thinking?
Reply to me. The water has not yet obliterated your sad memories." Confusion mixed with fear compelled a yes out of my mouth. And yet that yes was such one needed eyes to make out what it was. Just as a crossbow that is drawn too taut snaps both its cord and bow when it is shot an arrow meets its mark with feeble force. So caught beneath that heavy weight I burst and I let tears and size pour forth.
My voice had lost its life along its passage out. At this she said in the desire for me that was directing you you to love the good beyond which there is no thing to draw our longing. What chains were strung? What ditches dug across your path that once you'd come upon them caused your loss of any hope
203:32of moving forward? What benefits and what allurements were so evident upon the brow of others that you had need to prominade before them? After I had withheld a bitter sigh, I scarcely had the voice for my reply, but laboring my lips gave my words form. Weeping I answered. Mere appearances turned me aside with their false loveliness.
as soon as I had lost your countenance.
Okay. So, Donnie, so Peter is saying to Dante, before you loved me, this love led you to the goodness to God, right? And then I after I left, you betrayed me and start to love other things. And then and then Darn says, "Yes, um I was fooled by shadows. Um I was fooled by the loveliness of shadows." Okay.
Uh and you can interpret this many ways. You it could include different woman but you but I think the best way to interpret this is fame. Okay. That that's really that's real obsession. Fame.
Okay. Keep on going.
Line 37. And she had you been silent or denied would you confess your guilt would not be less an evidence. It's known by such a judge. But when the charge of sinfulness has burst from one's own cheek than in our court the wet stone turns and blunts our blad's own cutting edge. Nevertheless, that you may feel more shame for your mistake, and that in time to come, hearing the sirens you may be more strong, have done with all the tears you swed, and listen, so shall you hear, how unto other ends my buried flesh should have directed you.
Nature or art had never showed you any beauty that matched the lovely limbs in which I was enclosed. Limbs scattered now in dust, and if the highest beauty failed you through my death, what mortal thing could then induce you to desire it? For when the first arrow of things deceptive struck you, then you surely should have lifted up your wings to follow me. No longer such a thing. No green young girl or other novelty such brief delight should have weight down your wings.
Awaiting further shafts, the
205:33fledgling bird must meet two or three blows before he learns. But any full-fledged bird is proved against the net that has been spread or arrow aimed.
So what's she saying here? She's saying that yes, she died, but then what has Donnie done? She dies. And what should Donnie do now?
Yeah. Why?
Like Romeo and Juliet. Like that's true love she's saying.
So So is she is she saying D should have killed himself?
He should have probably gone to a monastery.
Something like that. Yeah. Right. But why? because he knew he would probably get distracted and if he really loved her, he would try and set himself up that he would never lose.
No. No. So, so she's being very explicit here. Okay. After I died, you should have kept on loving me.
Why? Yes. To pray for her.
Well, I mean, you could still do that if you're married to someone else or if you are writing poetry. I mean, it's hard to pray for a woman if you're married to someone else. I guess it's like to link it to purgatory where the more you think about someone, the faster is the way for and I think he didn't enough think of Beatatrice after her death.
Okay. No, no, she's being very explicit here. You should have kept on loving me because
to stay focused on your mission.
No, you should. No. Okay. What she says explicit, okay, we're running out of time, but like she she's explicit about this. You should have kept on loving me because I am the most beautiful thing in the whole universe.
Dante joking, but she actually literally says this. Okay,
nature art had never showed you any beauty that matched.
She's like literally about this like I am good in the universe. Dante, what are you doing, man? Have you no taste?
207:34Okay. All right. So again, this is shocking because this is not what we're expecting, right? All right. Um, yeah, keep keep on going.
Line 64. As children when ashamed will stand their eyes upon the ground, they listen silently, acknowledging their fault repentantly. So did I stand and she enjoined me. Since hearing alone makes you grief, so lift up your beard, and sight will bring you greater tears. There's less resistance in the sturdy oak to its uprooting by a wind from lands of ours of or lands of um Yarmbus than I showed in lifting up my chin at her command.
I knew quite well when she said beard but meant my face the poison in her argument. When I had raised my face upright, my eyes were able to perceive that the first creatures had paused and were no longer scattering flowers. and still uncertain of itself. My vision saw Beatrice turned toward the animal that is with its two natures but one person.
Okay, so this is a griffin, right? Two natures, one person, that's Jesus. So that's why people think the Griffith is Jesus.
Beneath her veil beyond the stream, she seemed so to surpass her former self and beauty, as here on earth she had surpassed all others. The nettle of remorse so stung me than then that those among all others, things that once most lured my love, became most hateful to me. Such self-indictment seized my heart that I collapsed. My senses lack. What I became is known to her who was the cause of it.
Then when my heart restored my outer sense, I saw the woman whom I'd found alone standing above me, saying, "Hold, hold me."
Okay, so Beatatrice scolds him, right? and basically says, "I'm the most beautiful thing in the world, Dante." And what happens to Dante? How does Stanton feel about this? What's what's his response? Yes.
I guess he's probably he feels like immediately pretty bad, ashamed, and repentant. But I guess he's kind of getting a the hint of happiness because he realizes if she's so mad at me, it's okay. She's embracing me, but slowly. She's like
209:36rebuking me in preparation for an embrace. How does he feel about her saying I am the most beautiful thing in the world?
Yes.
So he looked around like oh wait she's right. She's so beautiful that everything that I hold dear to is like dirt to me. It's like what's to me
she's right. Okay. And this shows that
what really matters. Okay. Who he is is his love for Beatatrice. Okay. And this is where he's purged now.
This is the completion of purgatory. He has now completely purged of all sin. And and what has purged from all sin? His love for Beatatric. Okay.
And remember how in paradise it's his love for Beatric that's going to carry him all the way to to God. Did you want to comment?
No. Um I mean uh No, I was there was something earlier I wanted to say as well. Um I forgot my point. Yeah, maybe I can add.
Yeah. So, the the comment about how mad she is about stuff makes me think about Shakira that she got so mad that her husband cheated on her with a very ugly woman. She wrote a song that you trade Rolex for cas uh casino. Yeah. So, I think it's kind of the same indignation that is showing.
Yeah. And like so like what D is saying and it's really interesting is that true love leads to just ination but just ination leads to also creativity. Right? It leads to poetry and creativity. Okay.
Right. And that's a Shakara example. She's angry because like she actually does love her husband and and this just ination leads her to create a beautiful art of uh a beautiful song. Okay. Yes.
Yeah. I remember my point. I was going to say that um it's especially uh striking to compare what Beatatrice is is feeling now to what her usual status in in in in heaven is which is I mean she's in the uh what
211:38I don't know the English word but
yeah the red rose yeah exactly and there I mean people are described to be like so in such a high sphere of of of heaven that they don't even should should even experience this kind of emotion. That's right. That's right.
And because they're so overwhelmed with uh in a in a good way, of course, with of uh like God's light
that they are kind of in a in a in a different dimension, let's say, of of being, of of of emotions and of of feeling. And now she's kind of she I think she's being stained not in necessarily negative way by more like uh human uh emotions again when the moment that she you know sees Dante and and as you said um this feeling it only shows that actually she does like this this feeling of anger shows that she actually feels love for Dante because otherwise she would feel indifferent.
That's right. Okay. So this is really interesting. Okay. So we are in purgatory and her first speech is one of anger.
Do you remember remember uh in paradise her last speech? Do you remember her last speech in paradise? Was it what what what emotion was was was that speech? Do you guys remember? Anger.
Okay. Remember how in her last speech she's like uh you Italians are hopeless. you Italians, uh, we send you Henry VIIth to redeem you and you guys turn away from him and you guys are hopeless. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, divine judgment is coming. Okay?
So, it's one of anger. Okay? So, this inverts our understanding of heaven, right? Because we think of heaven as as Rene says, one of bliss, one of happiness. But there's a lot of angry people in heaven.
Okay? Right? Peter's angry of the Catholic Church and Beatric is angry about the the Italians. Okay? So, it's idea of just ination, right?
It it it goes against our traditional understanding of
213:38Christianity where you're supposed to like love and forgive and be merciful. And nope, if you're angry, you should be angry. Okay. All right. Uh let's keep on going.
Line 91. Then when my heart restored my outer sense, I saw the woman whom I found alone standing above me, saying, "Hold, hold me." She plunged me up to my throat in the river, and draw me, drawing me behind her, she now crossed, light as a gondola along the surface. When I was near the blessed shore, I heard as spares may so sweetly sung that I cannot remember, or much less transcribe it. The lovely woman opened wide her arms. She collapsed my head and then she thrust me under to that point where I had to swallow water.
That done she drew me out and let me bathed into the dance of the four lovely women and each one placed her arm above my head. Here we're nymphs in heaven stars. Before she had descended to the world we were assigned as her handmmaids to Beatress. We'll be your guides unto her eyes, but it will be the three beyond who see me deeply who help you penetrate her joyous light. So singing they began.
Then leading me together with them to the griffin's breast where Beatrice turned toward us stood. They said, "So that you're not sparing of your gaze, before you we have set those emeralds from which love once had aimed his shafts at you. A thousand longings burning more than flames compelled my eyes to watch the radiant eyes that motionless were still fixed on the griffin. Just like the sun within a mirror, so the double- naturatured creature gleamed within, now showing me, and now the other guys. Consider, reader, if I did not wonder when I saw something that displayed no movement, though its reflected image kept on changing, and while full of astonishment and gladness, my soul tasted that food, which even as it quenches hunger, burst the appetite.
The other three whose dance showed me to be the members of a higher troop advanced and to their chant they danced angelically. Turn
215:40Beatatrice, oh turn your holy eyes upon your faithful one, their song besieged. Who that he might see you has come so far. Out of your grace do this grace. Unveil your lips to him so that he may discern the second beauty you have kept concealed. Oh splendor of eternal living light, who's ever grown so pale beneath Pernaris's shade and has drunk so deeply from its fountain that he'd not seem to have his mind confounded, trying to render you, as you appeared, where heaven's harmony was your pale likeness.
Your face seen through the air unveiled completely.
Okay, so remember the idea here is that what redeems Dante at the end of the day, it's not going through inferno and purgatory. That is part of the process. It's not going through those seven terraces of uh purgatory. What redeems him is remembering his complete and utter love for Beatatrice. It's love that redeems him.
Okay, this is really important. But he had to go through this process in order for Beatatrice to awaken this love in him. Okay, so now we go to Kanto 32. And here um uh I want Carol to read all of it and then Renee will translate for us. Okay.
And this is very important Kanto because this is a rewriting of the book of Revelation. Okay.
This is a rewriting of the book of Revelation by Dante. Thank you.
All right. And so um this is the apocalypse.
Okay. My eyes were so insistent, so intent on finding satisfaction for their 10-year thirst that every other sense was spent. And to each side, my eyes were walled in by indifference to all else with its old net. The holy smile so drew them to itself. When I was forced to turn my eyes leftward by those three goddesses, because I heard them warning me, "You stir too fixedly." and the condition that afflicts the sight when eyes have just been struck by the sun's force left
217:41me without my vision for a time. But when my sight became accustomed to lesser sensations, that is lesser than the mighty force that made my eyes retreat. I saw the glorious army. It had wheeled around and to the right. It had turned east.
It faced the seven flames and face the sun just as protected by its shields. A squadron will wield to save itself around its standard until all of its men have changed direction. So here all troops of the celestial kingdom within the vanguard passed in front of us before the chariot swung around the pole shaft back to the wheels. The ladies then returned and though the griffin moved the blessed burden when he did that none of his feathers stirred. The lovely lady who'd helped me ford leaf and I and Stacy is following the wheel that turned right round the inner smaller ark.
Were slowly passing through the tall woods empty because one who had believed the serpent. Our pace was measured by angelic song. The space we covered could be matched perhaps by three flights of an unleashed arrow shafts. When beatrus descended from the chariot. Adam, I heard all of them murmuring.
And then they drew around a tree whose every branch had been stripped of flowers and of leaves. As it grows higher, so its branches spread wider, it reached a height that even in their forest would amaze the Indians. Blessed are you whose beak does not, oh griffin, pluck the sweet tasting fruit that is forbidden, and then afflicts the belly that has eaten. So round the robust tree, the others shouted, and the two-natured animal, thus is the seed of every righteous man preserved. and turning to the pole shaft he had pulled he drew it to the foot of the stripped tree and with a branch of that tree tied the two just like our plants that when the great light falls on earth mixed with the light that shines behind the stars of the celestial fishes swell with blood buds each plant renews its coloring before the sun has yolked its deeds beneath another constellation so the tree whose boughs before had been so
219:42solitary was now renewed showing a tint that was less than rose more than the violet. I do not understand the hymn that they they that they then sang. It is not sung here on this earth, nor drowsy did I listen to the end. Could I describe just how the ruthless eyes whose long wakefulness caused them so dear, hearing the tale of surrenx fell asleep? Then like a painter painting from a model, I draw the way in which I fell asleep, but I refrain.
Let one more skillful paint. I move therefore straight to my waking time, I say that radiance rent the veil of sleep, and so as did a voice, rise up. What are you doing? Even as Peter, John, and James, when brought to see the blossoms of the apple tree, whose fruit abetss the angels hungering, providing endless wedding feasts in heaven, were overwhelmed by what they saw. But then, hearing the word that shattered deeper sleeps, arose, and saw their fellowship was smaller, since Moses and Elijah now had left, and saw a difference in their teacher's dress.
And I woke and I woke and saw standing above me, she who before, compassionate, had guided my steps along the riverbank. Completely bewildered, I asked, "Where is Beatrice?" And she, beneath the boughs that were renewed, she seated on the root of that tree. see the company surrounding her. The rest have left behind the griffin. They have climbed on high with song that is more sweet, more deep.
I do not know if she said more than that, because by now I had in sight one who excluded all things other from my view. She sat alone upon simple ground, left there as guardian of the chariot, I'd seen the two form animal tie fast. The seven nymphs encircled her as garland, and in their hands they held the lamps that cannot be distinguished by the north or south winds. Here you shall be a while a visitor, but you shall be with me and without end, Rome citizen, the Rome in which Christ is
221:43Roman, and thus to profit that world which lives badly. Watch the chariot steadfastly, and when you have returned beyond, transcribe what you have seen. Thus Beatatrice and I devoutly at the feet of her commandments set mind and eyes where she had wished me to.
Okay, stop. Okay, so this is now the book of Revelation. Okay, D is rewriting the book of Revol Revelation starting at lines 109. Okay.
Okay. Never has lightning fallen with never has lightning fallen with such swift motion from a thick cloud when it descends from the most distant limit in the heavens. as to the bird of Jove that I saw swoop down through the tree, carrying the bark as well as the new leaves and the new flowering. It struck the chariot chariot with all its force. The chariot twisted like a ship that's crossed by seas that now stormed starboard and now port.
I then saw as it leapt into the body of that triumphal chariot, a fox that seemed to lack all honest nourishment. But as she railed against its squalid sins, my lady forced the fox to flight as quick as stripped of flesh, its bones permitted it, then I could see the eagle plunge again down through the tree into the chariot and leave it feathered with its plumage. And just like a voice from an embittered heart, a voice issued from heaven saying this, "Oh my small bark, your freight is wickedness." Then did the ground between the two wheels seemed to me to open from the earth. A dragon emerged. It drove its tail up through the chariot, and like a wasp.
When it retracts its sting, drawing its venom tail back to itself, it dragged part of the bottom off and went its way undulating. And what was left was covered with the eagle's plumes, perhaps offered with sound and kind intent. much as grass covers fertile ground and the pole shaft and both wheels were recovered in less time
223:45than mouth must be kept open when one size transfigured so the saintly instrument grew heads which sprouted from its parts. Three grew upon the pole shaft and one at each corner. The three were horned like oxen, but the four had just a single horn upon their foreheads. Such monsters never have been seen before. Just like a fortress set on a steep slope, securely seated there and gert, a whose eyes were quick to rove appeared to me.
And I saw her at her I saw at her side erect a giant who seemed to serve as her custodian, and they again embraced each other. But when she turned her wandering wanted eyes to me, then that ferocious amidor beat her from head to foot. Then swollen with suspicion, fierce with anger, he untied the chariot made monster, dragging it into the wood so that I could not see either the or the strange chariot beast.
Okay. So could could you start from line 109? Uh Renee. Okay. So this is the book of Revelation.
Okay.
Yeah. for my delight. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech.
225:47for Fore speech. for Okay. So, Renee, have you guys studied this um the section uh what is this section saying?
Uh I don't remember if this not but yeah.
Okay. So, this is the book of revelation. Okay. And so Beatatrice is telling Dante observe what's happening because this is your this this is the past the present and the future. And so if we believe that the griffin is Jesus the griffin is what takes a chariot to earth.
Okay the chariot is now the church right the beings of the Catholic church and all these imagery it's
227:48showing us the history of the Catholic church. So starting in line uh 109 um uh sorry 112 the bird of Joel sweeps in and attacks the church. Okay so this is uh the Christian church early church under Roman persecution. Uh then what happens is that uh there is a fox um that uh and the fox represents early Christian heresy. Okay.
Then you have the eagle plunged into the chariot and become part of the chariot and that of course represents the Roman Empire as uh Constantine's donation to the Catholic church. So now empire and church are one in the same and that distorts the character of the church. Then you have a dragon emerge. What is a dragon in the book of revelation? Do you guys know?
Satan.
The antichrist. Okay. The antichrist. The dragon is the antichrist. It's Satan basically, but it's it's a pope that pretends to fight for the church, but which corrupts the church.
Okay. So, so now the church is being corrupted from within. And the history keeps on going and it shows the constant corruption of the church. And then towards the end, we have a emerge. This is of course a of Babylon.
And emerging with the is a giant that ultimately beats her out. Beats her up. Okay. And what scholars agree on is this represents Florence, the sea of Florence which exiled Dante. The giant represents the Holy Roman Empire.
So in the beginning it seems that the Holy Roman Empire has allied with Florence against the um Pope and and this of course are the Giblines. But then later on the Holy Roman Empire will betray and destroy Florence. Um, okay. So, this is the the vision and it is one again of just anger, fear, and hatred. And this is not
229:48what we're expecting. We're expecting like a happy wedding. Okay, this is not at all what we expected. Why? What's going on here?
Why do I Why do Why do the book of Revelation in the Divine Comedy? And this is like right before they go to heaven, guys. What's going on here? Because revelation essentially is about prophecy of the future before the second coming of Christ sort of. And so it's like before heaven on earth or before we go to heaven.
It's revelations. It's all these war and fights and battles and all these purging and cleansing and claiming of authorities between the antichrist and Christ.
But what does anger do in a place of love? Do you understand? It totally makes sense because Jesus uh got really angry all the time in the Bible, but most of the time was because he went into the temple with the Jewish people that he's yelling at them because he's like, "You have turned my temple into a place of a market."
So, he like goes into a rampage and throws stuff. So, it's kind of like what's retribution to the church is what Jesus is doing to like
Okay. Okay. Let's imagine, let's do a thought experiment. Okay. Let's imagine Dante uh writes this and a Buddhist monk, okay, a Buddhist monk reads this and he's disturbed by the anger in this divine comedy.
And so they have tea together and the Buddhist monk says, "Why can't you show compassion to the people on this planet, these kings, these queens? Ultimately, it's for not. It doesn't really matter, right? Because all this is is an illusion. So show sympathy, show compassion to these people.
And it is your mercy, your forgiveness, your love that is divine, right? Is that what Buddhist say?
231:50I I'm not a Buddhist. I don't know. That's what I think they say.
Yes. Everything is an illusion. But then you have to go to the consequence of it. If there's no just indignation or retribution, then people will keep acting that way.
Uh uh Anna,
God is ultimately compassion and love. But yet God is mad all the time in Old Testament. So like anger, wrath, retribution does not conflict with love because it is exactly like a father punishing or disciplining his kid. It's out of love.
Okay. Okay. But then the Buddhist monk is like wrath, anger is poison, right? The more anger, wrath you have, the more poison you become. So what good can come from your anger and your wrath?
Yes,
it's cleansing again because there's wrath in hell obviously as we know, right? And the way to not engage with wrath is walk around it otherwise you add to it. But it almost seems to be an exception when it comes to God himself that's having wrath all the time. Right. So then the question paradox is why is God mad?
Right.
Right. No, but but but then the point is don't be mad. God will be mad. Let God handle it. Right.
So just cleanse yourself of your anger. Don't get angry. Focus on compassion. Yes. Because Dante essentially in exile is he's mad at Florentine and all the church is doing and he he probably heard this from a lot of people but like leave God like retribution to God and he will be do the justice but like we've discussed before he's so mad at people who so heavenly bond that they're not earthly good.
So then like he's mad that no consequence is coming to the Catholic Church at this point and so he wants it to you know do something about the president.
Well that just shows Don as a very petty person then right it's like he wants vengeance. Yeah. Yeah. Carol
if there's no just indignation then
233:51Dante wouldn't have written the divine.
Exactly. Okay. Exactly. It is this just indignation that propelled his creativity. It's what led him to write divine comedy.
love leads to just Indonesian. His love for Florence leads to his anger that he was exiled by Florence. And now he's like, I want God to punish the Florentines. And this anger is what leads him to write the Divine Comedy. But then we have a paradox which is like, okay, but then why is there wrath in hell and why is there wrath in purgatory?
Clearly, it's a sin, right? That's confusing though. Wrath leads you to creativity. It's coming It's coming from a place of love, but at the same time, you're being punished for it. Uh uh Julian, then Edward, then Fred.
I feel like anger would just be an expression of yourself, but it wouldn't really lead to change of other people, just change for yourself. Because Jesus anger, for example, for the Jewish people didn't really change the Jewish people, right? It only expressed his anger for the for the people. But and maybe um um like made the his disciples maybe more believe in him, but it didn't change anything for the people he was angry about.
So I feel like anger wouldn't really be the solution.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
So you're agreeing with the Buddhist monk. Anger is not the solution. Yes. Uh Edward,
is it that wrath is wrong but wrath can be justified if it's divinely aligned?
Okay. What do you mean by that?
Like in regular ordinary life, wrath for I know cuz I'm annoyed and frustrated about something. This is a problem of me projecting on
235:52someone else. If it is truly and I suppose only God can judge this. If it is truly from a place of pure love and therefore divinely aligned then wrath wrath in this context can be justified.
Okay. All right. Sure. Fred,
I have to say that I don't think there's any wrath in paradise. Like I think to human minds divine justice and just the action of the just to human mind seems like anger and probably if you were God and really powerful you'd think how should I come across such that my message has an effect but I really don't think God or in fact bee is like that angry they just are trying to take the path of greatest efficacy. So like there's wrath in purgatory, wrath in hell, but the wrath in heaven is just what Dante perceives as anger. Like this all seems like violent to Dante, but is really just metaphorical violence.
Okay. So again, the thing about the vine comedy that's very important for us to remember is that we have the intuition to understand everything. Okay? So if we're not able to express our ourselves clearly, if the if it's if it's not outcomes razor elegant, then we're not approaching the truth enough. Okay.
So, I understand. Yes. Maybe when I when I interpreting uh it properly, but no, I I think there's something else going on. Uh Damian,
the the anger in heaven might have come from a place of love, but the wrath and like hell and purg purgatory might be coming from a like your temper. Uh Andy,
I've been wrestling about this idea of like if the world around us is poor, has as a is unjust. Um a lot of Dante's individuality would be like just be aligned with God and stuff like that. But Dante's wrath seems to be in this same scenario of like the Catholic Church is led by the Antichrist
237:53and that's an unjust situation on earth.
Yes. and where we're like, um, hey, I don't like this president or there's this bad social situation going on. Dante's taking that for the most ultimate cause, which is the antichrist is leading the flock astray. And so I need to not just get myself aligned with Christ, but I need or with God, but I need to fix this social situation as well.
Yes. Exactly. Okay. That's exactly right. Did Did you do Do you want to add something?
Yeah. I I was just going to say that at least the way we're told it's a in par or at least in heaven in paradise there is no anger then of course like souls are able to feel anger like beatatric for example but there is no there is no need for anger in paradise and like and paradise is kind of the destination the ultimate destination of what all everyone should aspire to and my understanding of this is that anger is only good in so far it is a means to set people on the right path towards a destination of no anger. So like this like anger is only in good in so far as that it's a means to the place with no anger.
Okay. So again there's a lot of anger in paradise. Okay. So I I want to elaborate on Andy's point because Eddie got it completely right. Look compare and contrast.
Okay. Back in Donnie Donny's time the corruption of the church were like the antichrist. Let's go and do something about it. Right? Today look at the world around us.
Right? Blatant corruption, blatant inequality. Donald Trump is president for God's sake. And we're like, "Let's go watch porn, guys. Yeah, let's go play watch porn.
Oh, let's play video games. Let's uh you know, like like that's literally what we're doing." Okay. So, the issue not is not anger. The issue is how we choose to channel anger. Okay.
You mean
I I would just like to ask that who was the antichrist at that time?
The pope. Donnie thought the antichrist was the pope. Pope Bonafice. Okay. Um it look uh yeah David
239:53I I think uh by putting uh the uh the church militant uh behind uh church triumphant and putting uh you know the uh conflict and anger and chaos uh right at the end of uh purgatory uh reveals Dante's um you know eventual uh pessimistic n uh you know attitude toward uh human society. Although he believed in um in in the harmonious development eventually salvation of individual maybe he has um still a quite a you know and call calling his work comedia he still think that human society is not able to save his okay all right okay so let's talk about wrath okay this is really important for us to understand so wrath is punished in hell right anger is punished in hell by what boiling Right? So you you are being boil boiled in a lake. Now there are two types of angry people. There are people who are just angry.
But there are people who hide their anger. They suppress their anger. And the worst are those who suppress anger because they are drowning. They're suffocating inside this lake that's boiling. Okay.
Okay. That's hell. Then you have purgatory and and it's black smoke which blinds you. Right. Okay.
So that's what D is saying here. Anger is not channel correctly. If it's not directed towards justice, it blinds you. It fers and it uh corrupts you and you suffocate under it. But if anger is directed towards justice, towards as Edward says, towards a divine align alignment, towards love, then that's a good thing.
Do you understand? There's nothing wrong with anger. It's how anger is used. How anger is channeled. Right?
Dante is angry at the church. Donn is angry at Florence. So Don D is angry at his enemies and that's what leads him right to divine comedy, right? Because
241:53where do his enemies go? They go in hell. Where do his friends go? They go in purgatory. What does he do to the Catholic Church?
He basically condemns them to um to a prophecy and then Florence, you know, will be a that will be destroyed by the giant. Okay, that's how you should use your anger. Don't watch porn, guys. Go write poetry. Is is that a revelation?
Are are you okay? Right. Yes, Brad.
I'm just thinking about the future. Um, anger is super useful, but I find that because young people today are getting more and more sensitive, anger makes them disassociate. So, I'm thinking that in my mission for the future,
I probably want to try and scops people into being better and not be angry at them.
You're taking action. That's right. That's what we should all be doing. Okay. Don't be like, there's nothing I can do about it and I don't be angry because angry makes me look bad and and people say, "Oh, don't be angry." You know, go see a therapist, right?
Like, oh, are you angry? You should be on Valium. Oh, are you angry? Oh, yeah. I'm more asking how would you advise people in my generation to present their anger because I feel like being angry now drives people away even more.
So I'm thinking that even if I'm angry inside I don't want to hide my anger but like I have to be so seductive to people to change them now because any condemnation immediately shuts people off. Uh sure. Okay.
Yeah. continuing of his I uh question is what I hear a lot is the how dare you meim like is how people now show anger uh and I think that's not a you know the right way to channel so it's follow up to his question
look um clearly I'm an angry young man okay I'm not young anymore but I'm clearly an angry person and I'm angry because I have three kids uh who are growing up in this screwed up world
243:54right we're led by idiots um There's so much corruption, inequality in this world and all they're doing is is screwing things up even more, right? And so I'm angry. I have three young kids and I'm like, you know, I need to channel this anger in creating a better world for my three young kids. And the only thing I can do is teach, right? I need to take action.
I can't be at home uh making YouTube videos all day and complaining about it, right? I could make a lot of money doing this, guys. Okay? Seriously, I could be doing tupal analysis and bitching about the world and I I would have a huge audience. But I'm like, no, I need to take action.
So I rather than like go about it, let me do something about it and teach Dante to the world so that you could be inspired to take action yourself to expand your imagination to learn the power of love to show compassion, empathy to others, and take action for yourself. And that's why I tell that's why I tell you what I want from you in this class is to leave this class and teach it to someone else, right? It could be you you you could become a teacher, which would be great, but you can also just, you know, like Carol teach it to Damian, right? Or Damian could could teach it to, you know, your your brother, right? And if you just do it this way, over time, the world is going to change for the better.
And I I already see it because I see all the changes in you guys. Okay? Did Did you wanna
I know, I know, I know, I know. We'll finish at four. Okay. Okay. But that's what Donn is saying here.
Be angry. Anger comes from a place of love, but channel your anger into action that benefits humanity. Okay. And that's why he wrote the Divine Comedy.
Yeah. Yeah. I I think something that we need to be particularly aware about especially today for youth is that there is a tendency at least in my opinion at least as far as I've noticed there is a
245:54tendency that is becoming more and more widespread to make it make extremes look good or like to think that it's fine and okay and uh even wise and reasonable to pursue extremes um and or that it's a cool thing um and I think we should if there's something that we should at least try to go back to is to appreciate nuance always and um you I don't know personally a lot of the anger I see in youth today because like as we said like the world is so screwed up right and there's there are so many problems arguably more than in the past few decades um we need to like resist the temptation to you know just just because we are so angry to to just be radical. You know, if we should resist that temptation and and stay in nuance and in, you know, always seeing both sides and and there's still ways of channeling that anger without always shouting because like I feel like there's like it's such a fashion now to like shout to to shout in metaphorical way of course.
Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Okay. So, this is the last candle, guys.
Okay, we've come to it. We've come to the very last kanto. We've done it. We've read the entire Divine Comedy. All right, but here we go.
The the the very last Kanto of Purgatory. Okay. Weeping the women then began, now three, now four, alternately to psalm gently deuse venaroon genties. And at this sighing and full of pity, Beatatrice was changed. She listened, grieving little less than Mary when beneath the cross she wept.
But when the seven virgins had completed their psalm, and she was free to speak, erect her coloring like ardent
247:54fire, she answered, "Modicum at nonveris may at sisters delightful to me at verites may." Then she set all the seven nymphs in front of her and signaled me, the lady and the sage who had remained to move behind her. So she advanced, and I do not believe that she had taken her 10th step upon the ground before her eyes had struck my eyes, and gazing tranquily, "Pray, come more quickly," she said to me, "So that you're more ready to listen to me, should I speak to you." As soon as I, responding to my duty, had joined her, she said, "Brother, why not try? since now you're at my side to query me. Like those who speaking to superiors too reverently do not speak distinctly, not drawing their clear voice up to their teeth, so did I speak with sound too incomplete when I began. Lady, you know my need to know and know how it can be appeased.
And she to me, I'd have you disentangle yourself from this point on from fear and shame that you no longer speak like one who dreams. Know that the vessel which the serpent broke was and is not. But he whose fault it is may rest assured. God's vengeance fears no hindrance. The eagle that had left its plumes within the chariot which then became a monster and then a prey will not forever be without an air.
For I can plainly see, and thus I tell it, stars already close at hand, which can't be blocked or checked, will bring a time in which dispatched by God of 510 and five will slay the together with that giant who sins with her. And what I tell as dark as fins and theis may leave you less convinced because like these it tires the intellect with quanderies. But soon events themselves will be the niads that clarify its obstinate enigma but
249:55without injury to grain or herds. Take note and even as I speak these words do not transmit them in your turn to those who live the life that is a race to death. And you when you write them, keep in mind that you must not conceal what you've seen of the tree that now has been desoiled twice over here. Whoever robs or rens that tree offends with his blaspheming action God for he created it for his soul use holy for tasting of that tree. The first soul waited 5,000 years and mourned grief and longing for him who on himself avenged that taste.
Your intellects asleep if it can't see how singular is the cause that makes that tree so tall and makes it grow invertedly. And if like waters of the Elsa, your vain thoughts did not encrust your mind. If your delight in them were not like pamas staining the malbury, you'd recognize in that trees form and height the moral sense God's justice had when he forbade trespass. But since I see your intellect is made of stone and petrified, grown so opaque, the light of what I say has left you dazed, I'd also have you bear my words within you, if not inscribed, at least outlined, just as the pilgrim staff is brought back wreathed with palm. And I, even as wax, the seals impressed, where there's no alteration of form, so does my brain now bear what you have stamped.
But why does your desired word ascend so high above my understanding that the more I try the more am I denied? That you may recognize, she said, the school that you have followed and may see. If what it taught can comprehend what I have said, and see that as the earth is distant from the highest and the swiftest of the heavens, so distant is your way from the divine. And I replied to her, I don't remember making myself a stranger to you, nor does conscience gnaw at me because of that. And if you can't remember that,
251:56she answered, smiling, then call to mind how you today have drunk of leaf. And if smoke is proof of fire, then it is clear we can conclude from this forgetfulness that in your will there was a fault. Your will had turned elsewhere. But from now on, the words I speak will be naked. That is appropriate if they would lay bare before your still crude sight.
More incandescent now with slower steps the sun was pacing the meridian which alters with the place from which it seen. When just as one who serves as escort for a group will halt if he has come upon things strange or even traces of strangeness. The seven ladies halted at the edge of a dense shadow such as mountains cast beneath green leaves and black boughs on cold banks. In front of them I seem to see Euphrates and tigers issuing from one same spring and then as friends do separating slowly. Oh light, oh glory of the human race, what water is this flowing from one source and then becoming distant from itself?
Her answer to what I had asked was, "Ask Matilda to explain this." And the lovely lady, as one who frees herself from blame, replied, "He's heard of this in other matters from me, and I'm sure that leads waters have not obscured his memory of this." And Beatatrice, perhaps some greater care, which often weakens memory has made his mind in things regarding sight grow dark. But see, Yoe, as it flows from there, lead him to it. And as you're used to doing, revive the power that is faint in him. As with the noble soul, which offers no excuse, but makes another's will its own. As soon as signs reveal that will, just so when she had taken me, the lovely lady moves forward.
And she said with womenly courtesy to Stacius, "Come with him. If reader I had ampler space in which to write, I'd sing, though
253:58incompletely, that sweet draw from which my thirst was limitless. But since all of the pages predisposed for this, the second canacle are full. The curb of art will not let me continue. From that most holy wave, I now return to Beatus remade. As new trees are renewed, when they bring forth new boughs, I was pure and prepared to climb unto the stars.
Okay. So now Dante has been completely purified and purged of all sin, of all doubt. He has fully committed to his love for Beatatrice and now they will climb to the stars. Um they talk about the tree of knowledge. Why did God let us eat the fruit from the tree?
Yes. Because the gift was free will to Adam and Eve. And I think that the there's only one real choice you can make in life freely, and that's whether you want to know whether things are good or bad or not. Otherwise, you're just like a a a monkey or a cattle or whatever.
That's right. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. All right.
So, that is it, guys. We have done the complete divine comedy. Any questions about today? Are we clear about what DA's message is? I I know this is what you were taught in school, but but um you know, we we we do things differently here.
Um um any questions or thoughts? Did do you have any questions because it's completely counter to what you learned in uh in in school, right?
256:00Maybe um if you could like reiterate explaining like what what what what what is the sense of like uh because first you read uh heaven first or hell.
We read paradise first. Paradise then inferno and then pugator.
We finished with purgatory. Yes.
Yes. So uh maybe I was just if you could like explain uh briefly about that.
Yeah. So for us what's really important is for us to appreciate u the cosmology of Dante. And to do that you have to go actually read go to paradise first because then he tells you everything about how he believes the cosmos works. Right? You start off in hell.
uh you're confused because you think the teacher is Virgil and a lot of things that Virgil says are actually not true. If you end up in paradise first then then you can see that Virgil is not a reliable um guide. Okay. And then uh Yep. Uh Bruce
Yeah. Uh because in as you know in this chapter we can know from this chapter about revelation but revelation actually is also kind of prediction. Uh it's kind of a predict to human beings. So I think maybe it's your time for you try to predict the future according to this chapter
just like revelation deaths. Yeah,
right. Okay. Um so I I want to finish with one final remark and that is how Donnie designs divine comedy. So um we've been to purgatory. Now now I hope by yourself you go to heaven.
Okay. At the at the end of heaven where do you go after heaven? You go to hell. Okay. I guess
and you become like very close to God
and that's it, right?
Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. That's what most people are taught. But again, Dante is revolutionary because he doesn't believe that. Okay.
So, let's look at the last
258:00two words of purgatory. What are the last two words? the stars, right? And Italian is the same, right?
As al also the inferno and everything.
Okay. So, here in purgatory, it's a stars, right? And in uh inferno, what's the last two words? The stars, right? In paradise, what's the last two words?
Why would it be like that? Yes, Damian. Because there are a lot of stars.
Yeah. There's infinite, right? The journey never ends. One destination only leads to another journey. Then when you finish that journey, then a new a journey starts.
Okay? So another reason why I want to do paradise first is to show you um this journey will never end. Okay? Hopefully you'll go home, go back and read paradise again. Uh, and then you'll you'll see when you repeat paradise again, you'll see it completely differently.
Okay. So, it's meant to be a loop. It's meant to be eternity, but it's also meant to be infinity. Okay. Yes, Damian.
I'd just like to ask, what did the pope do to make Dante hate him so much?
Um, so at this time in history, uh, the Catholic Church is divided into many different factions, and they're fighting over, um, who should be the legitimate pope. And right now there are two major centers of Catholic power. There's one in the in Rome of course where the Catholic Church is based but there's also one based in Avanon which is sponsored by the Holy Roman Emperor. Okay. And this is leading to wars throughout the entire of Italy.
Um and so Don is concerned about the factional struggles in within the Catholic Church. But also at this point in history, the Catholic Church is extremely corrupt. Uh you can you can buy indulgences and this will get you access to purgatory. Even though you could be the worst person in the world, if you just have enough
260:00money, you you can always buy your way into heaven. And Donnie just finds this appalling. Um and then there's there's there's like a million things that Donnie is pissed about. Yes. Uh Fred,
so I'm drawn to action definitely by the study and reading of this of the Divine Comedy. Um my action is basically directed towards increasing the free will of everybody in the world trying to fight against wrong ideas, biases that are forcefully spread on people and that they pick up. What would your tips and short advice be to me and other people who are trying to act towards this end? So if I want to increase the free will of other people, there's teaching, which you do amazingly, but I don't know if I'm a teacher. But if I'm trying to invent something or create something, what principle should I keep in mind?
Okay, so this is a great segue to our next section. Okay, the final section, which is self-reflection and um so so so maybe uh um yeah, we can engage in a process of self-reflection and if if you need to um run or something. Okay. All right. Okay.
All right. So, um, we are finished Divine Comedy and, um, I just want to hear how you think you've changed or, um, felt these past two weeks. Okay. So, does would anyone like to start? And and I I'll answer your question eventually, Fred.
Okay. But, but first first I I want to go through this reflection circle and then and then we'll discuss um what's next. Okay. Uh who would like to start? Uh yes
say what how learning is this two week so I have to say that before I attend this program I really like regard those like literary works uh right and long times ago it's like a may recall that's
262:00quite distant for me and after joining this program I think um I know the reason why those works are masterpiece and can like be really famous and well spread to the world because I quite understand about their wisdom. It's like for example, I know some kind of motivation that truly come from my heart that can lead me to do something in the world rather than like being manipulated by some like other social factors. Uh and also for me for I mean this pro program for me like in the future is also kind of kind of important because uh honestly speaking uh my intended major is probably artificial intelligence and some data science major. So uh yeah yeah yeah
it's a dead end what
it's a dead end like like I'm telling you right now it's a dead end. Oh. Oh, really? Let's say let's say and like uh I know that like maybe like few days ago we have talk about that AI is might be alchemy. Uh and I will try my best to let do not let this come true in the future like that.
Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh who's next? Who would like to if you don't speak I'm just going to call on you.
Okay. Uh let's let's start with Francois. I think this course I did uh lost the sense of time. It went like super fast and I our attention was really focused into uh knowledge self-improvement. So like we didn't think about like oh I'm on vacation or I have other things to do.
I do feel a bit lighter. But a thing about me in this book I feel like I didn't start from zero. There are still some topics I understood before starting reading this book. uh especially about uh love I feel like and so even though I'm new to the whole spirituality I mean
264:02especially the Christian aspect of this book um it didn't transform me that much um but it is also um a nice sensation of hope just to see this class come together uh people from different ages different cultures to see that everyone shows up every day and try to participate and make this class better um is really rewarding and like this not only about the book but also the class just was was uh very interesting also about um dreaming uh I wasn't the only guy that dreamt a lot especially the last few days which like surprised me
by the way I I had a dream yesterday night I don't know if we have time to share it but um
go ahead share it
um I I found it quite interesting and it is uh at first I thought was uh quite limited But uh it is interesting. So uh it started from me meeting a very good friend of mine in primary school. So it's been like almost seven or eight years I didn't see him. Uh and it was a good friend. So a positive um energy and also uh nostalgic.
So I go to his house and we start talking just like yeah like catching the time. and he started talking about his uh girlfriend he had and he got a bit emotional and um and yeah, it didn't quite end well for him. So, I was a bit here for him. And then we went on a walk outside in the neighborhood uh close to my house and I really recognized this like the spot even though it changed a lot and um I don't know why I started smoking a joint. So, this is a bit the aspect I thought wasn't useful.
So, I started smoking and then we walk a bit. We go to a park and in the entry of the park. There is like three spots. It's a bit chaotic and there's uh a spot with like water, fountains, uh a bit like a farm.
266:03Um so, pretty beautiful. And then other spot like just like 5 meters away of stuff burning. So, like some trash burning. So, I could see this a bit as inferno like chaotic. And then in front of me a big pile of dirt.
And so we first uh go together on this big pile of dirt. And I start like just looking around in the park. There was like family people playing around. So like it didn't seem like anything was going on. There was just like this water stuff, this fire stuff, and this pile of dirt, but everyone just like walking around playing.
And um and then my my joint like didn't wasn't like lit anymore. And so I thought, okay, maybe I should go into the fire to lit it. And it was like this big fire of like 5 meters and I was like, "Okay, maybe not a good idea, you know, like I don't care." And then my friend tells me, "Yeah, no, look, it's actually lit." And so I start smoking again. And then I look at my hands and there's actually two joints now. And uh I told him, "Yeah, like is it is it yours or like do you want to smoke?" And he tells me, "I I I don't smoke." So I'm like, "Okay, right.
I got like two joints now. It's not that bad." And so we continue walking in the park and it really gets like bigger. So the entry was quite small with like this like water, fire and dirt figure. And then now the park is like just bigger. We walk around, continue talking.
And at the end we need to go back home. And my thought was like uh okay now I need to go back home. Um I'm quite high. Should I be worried about seeing my parents? And I thought like actually I don't care.
I had this very nice moment with my friend. So, like, who cares if I'm just like, "Hi, in my home." And then we say goodbye.
Okay. Right. Okay. Thank you. Uh, it's very interesting.
Okay.
Yeah, it is.
Okay. All right. Uh, anyone who's next, Skyler? Yes.
Um, yeah. So, uh, so before my uh, understanding of Divine Comedy and Dante is, you know, it's something that you have to learn in history class. It's
268:04very important. That's all I knew about it. But after reading it, I think I have four main takeaways. First of all is that is, you know, love is the answer to all. And if you let like love guide your actions, it's kind of like your intuition where that way it's always going to leave you in a path that your heart desires.
So for example, when we're reading divine comedy and some things you don't understand, you think of it from the perspective of, you know, your mother or your wife or your children. So now when I'm reading a book that I don't understand, I I know that the tool is to try to use love to understand it. That's my first takeaway.
My second takeaway is I really think that reading Dante because it's so foundational in Western thinking, especially after the Renaissance, it's helped me as a Chinese person gain more thorough understanding of Western culture. It's kind of like if you are a westerner and you read uh Lu, you know, that way you understand Chinese culture more and the things that it values. for example, the emphasis on on free will and really using your free will. You know, in in Kivine comedy, if you don't use your free will, you are literally going to hell. So, you know, this idea of it being democratic, it being accessible, of um love thy neighbor.
And so, uh a lot of those values very really deep in Western culture and how it manifests in the real world and how it manifests and how I interact with Westerners. I've gained a more thorough understanding through reading this. My third takeaway is like we are lost because of fear. That's uh that's something that you said that really like stuck stuck with me, you know. Um Dante like the reason why this book was really revolutionary was because back then people were really afraid of God.
People were afraid of the unknown. They didn't know what heaven looked like, what the afterlife looked like. So a lot of so a lot of things that they were doing on earth were um fearful or they were very scared to do anything. And that was because, you know, they're lost because of fear. So, you know, I'm going to be
270:04entering college. It's a different life. Uh I don't really know what I want to major in. I don't know what my future is looks like. So, in a way, I am also lost because of fear.
But I know that that's okay, you know, and you know, reading good books can can show you a path. My fourth takeaway is the value of art. I remember you said this line, um, poetry is aimed to put you in awe, not to put you in fear. And divine comedy is meant to inspire you to reach um higher heights. You also said, you know, poetry embeds itself into the collective conscious and embeds itself into how you see the world.
So reading Dante, especially listening to it in Italian, it's it's something that's a little bit more emotional and you like um art. It it like you said, it embeds into how you see the world. It lets you rise beyond the material world, beyond grades and tests and the mundane. And it's a it's a reflective experience. And so those are my four takeaways.
That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Skyler. Okay. Uh uh Damen,
I I think personally reading the Divine Comedy helps gave it gave me more faith in God.
Okay. Wonderful. Great. Uh David
um so I just created this uh just a few minutes ago. So I think there are so many layers of um you know um understanding the lecture theory. I think on the fundamental level there this lecture gave me uh experience that's is uh and basically the first induction into the the world of literature because before going into this lectures I thought um divine comedy is just a traditional um moralistic allegorical uh uh installation where you have very
272:06uh well structured universe of uh different um figures that will give you very clear idea about the medieval or late uh uh early men uh um you know a great wise man's uh admonition as to how to lead life righteous life but then I realized that um you know below this surface of the structure uh each uh individual, each actor or each um protagonist have their own life and their own uh complexity. Uh which is I think um you know give me the initial idea of about how uh uh literature work is created. It is the creation of individual living feature uh living figure in this uh magna opus. So, so I I began to appreciate Danty as a poem. But then I realized that um uh uh Danty is not just a poem but a poet but actually it's channeling u some supernatural power um that uh you have uh you know alluded to in many many places.
I think what behind this um um this divine uh message is um is is inf infinite. So I for I can uh derive many pragmatic uh knowledge about for example relationship um um how to how to be a parent although I'm not a parent and how to um how to understand uh uh love human life for example uh I uh just today I learned uh that uh a woman's love could take uh infinite um um uh forms forms uh anger
274:10or hate could al all be form of love. uh and it's not uh just regard as uh you know uh onedimensional harmony that uh always pleasing always uh you know cherry and so it's it's very complex and secondly so I so on the second level I learned that um how to be a teacher you know I don't I I'm not teacher but I observed how you teach I think this is the this class is also a performative experience where uh you let uh the student to co-create with you and I learned that you are probably I I I speculate that you are probably also try to draw inspiration for a next book uh from the uh from the interaction with the students. So I I observe try to understand how to co-create something uh out of uh the learning process not just that to to to uh spread knowledge but to create new knowledge and on on the third level I think um I'm also learning um uh how to um uh how to understand uh these um uh dentist text uh in in the context of culture. So I have uh many question marks about this but it's it's just uh you know it's just very complex questions and is not you know we don't have time for that but for example um uh I I it it did give me a you know some impression about uh the different between Italian literature and English literature. For me uh you know uh Italian literature is much more colorful is more romant uh romant has more element of romantism you know has more tendency to to uh to present things in a
276:11very color compared to English literature where it is more black and uh white uh almost like the weather in England. Anyway, um so but uh yeah and but but then uh I um yeah that that makes Danty's work uh very very unique because uh Danty uh is not does not have the luxury of writing on the so-called uh code tale of the English empire British Empire which makes it uh much more difficult for people outside Italy to appreciate Dante. But if you if you um if you read the original the the Italian version, you can see that it is um it is has multi-dimensional elements. It's not it's not even uh it's not even colorful, but it it has it has the cadence and the the you know the the the the tonality of this literature is is is immense. So and and on the last level I think uh from the Chinese perspect perspective uh um you know the uh the the message every message uh whether it's from God or from from from a poem poet uh it is uh conditioned on the language.
So uh fundamentally uh we are viewing or reading this text uh you know uh in the context of of a culture that is um uh that that was formed by uh or s by Christianity every person's name uh at least in today's world from the reader point of view every reader's name I'm David or we have also Fred and we are already put within the drama of Christianity, you know, we don't have we
278:12we cannot call oursel uh some strange uh uh African name or Chinese name if we want to uh be in the classroom in the first place. So this is uh this is uh this ra raises some very challenging question about how to uh transpose uh dy into Chinese consciousness. Well, I do recognize that as a Chinese person, I do derive a lot of value from Danty even if I'm looking at purely from the uh perspective of confusionism or to toism or or Buddha because I do think that Danti in many uh in many perspective is already going beyond Christianity in in in his in his messages. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Yes. Okay.
Great. Uh who's next? Uh, Julian. Um, yeah. So, I'm going to make it.
So, I have three points, so not so long. Um, one thing I really appreciate about Dante and that you always pointed out is his paradoxes, the use of paradoxes in his language. Like, every time
we talked about something he wrote, it was always a paradox. And that's really interesting because that's how you can combine different truths. That's how you can combine differences. That's you can remove differences that we have in today's world. And um you will see past like you can use your imagination to see past um these differences that you have with other people and and through and so yeah they become paradoxes that you have to basically overcome and think about.
Um then also for me uh the point of being able to resonate with Dante himself a lot. Um I felt like
280:12when I was younger I went through some kind of phase of inferno maybe or hell. Um when when I was yeah when I had a phase of yeah you could say depression. And um now it's maybe like purgatory for me. And I'm able to climb up the stairs a bit. And it was really my love I think for for knowledge that brought me this far which is probably similar to Dante as well.
Um yeah that I just want to keep on learning about stuff. And um then the last point would be about yeah hope as you say as well is a really important factor obviously that you convey hope when when you talk you convey hope when you when you act and I feel like he Dante gives a lot of hope for people at his time and obviously for now he can give hope um yeah that's I think thank you. Okay.
Very important.
Um Edward,
uh yeah, there's there's probably a lot a lot to say. Um I think one of one of the main things I've appreciated uh from from this study is obviously having the chance to uh go through uh the whole divine comedy and reflect, you know, on my own life. uh you know normally in life you might do some like one thing wrong or one thing good and you might reflect on it whereas this uh going through the journey with Dante obviously almost if you do reflect forces you to look at uh yeah your own life in a lot more detail. Um so and almost that process in itself reflects the divine comedy in the sense that when when you first start looking at say the sins you've committed before uh that maybe align with uh the divine comedy uh you
282:12can kind of feel bad about it and think you know I've done this but then you can also go through your own uh inferno purgatory and into paradise you know because there is
there is that feeling of hope and that
you know you can relate to Dante. He's he's made mistakes. Virgil's made mistakes. You know, a lot of people uh in the book have made mistakes, but but there is always hope. So, I suppose that's applying the divine comedy on myself.
Then the second stage would be then you also look at the world differently. Uh it probably makes you even though even though we already know makes you realize uh I would say we live in quite a sick society in that you know there's a lot of sins that we see in the piece but they just just happen every single day whether it's in uh politics, business or general entertainment. Uh so I think after reading it I would conclude that uh the world would probably be a better place if everyone read Dante. I agree. I agree.
And that's my mission to make sure everyone does read Dante. Um Andy, could we have some uh um thoughts from you?
Sure. Um we use um we use metaphor to comprehend and discuss um concepts that are maybe too big for us to fully understand. So we say things like life is a baseball game or the universe is like the ocean and we we connect them to things that are small enough that we can see, touch and understand. Um, most all of literature is a metaphor for like the human condition and they usually just deal with like one single aspect of it. This is love.
This is a book on loss or redemption. We've discussed a lot about like paradise loss here. Um, and that's what what Dante's doing is we're all using metaphors to discuss or every single great author has used a metaphor to discuss what Dante is just describing matterofactly. And Paradise Lost is what we've kept bringing up the most often,
284:13but it's just one part. It's just the fall. Um, and what led up to that. And so when we admire books like Lord of the Rings or Crime and Punishment or Joyce's Ulyses, um, we're admiring it from a secondhand nature where we could just go straight to the source and Dante and the Divine Comedy just cover it all. So, I told Carol that as we come in here at the start of this building, um I saw there's a structure outside in our little that little square and it's a little purgatory and I saw kids walking up the purgatory this morning
and Carol had mentioned Carol mentioned that that's a good um a good metaphor for what we do in here because we're not in hell.
We're not in paradise. And so we come here and we do the hard work um of every year I give myself big challenges for mind, body and spirit and Dante gets to cover two of them.
Great. Thank you. Uh Ivy, I would like to hear from you. Okay. What what is your feelings after taking this course?
I wish just I wish to study classics in university and before this I always believe that the Greek civilization is like basically the foundation of urban um where like people respect the gods and they fear the gods and everything is at the mercy of external forces that we cannot control. So like the Greek civilization is basically a world of um fear and like um yeah just fear. Um but I um I also remember like before this course started I watched your videos on YouTube and in one of the videos you mentioned that um both Homer and Dante their works are focused and based on love. But when I was reading Homer, I didn't really get
286:14that message. Like I didn't really realize that what has driven Odysius or what has um driven Achilles is love. Um but I think like for Dante, it is really easy for me to perceive the the the message of love and um to perceive what love means. Um so I think the reason why I cannot perceive love in Homer but can in Dante is because um Homer's world is one that is more that is closer to the initial goodness or like um the initial perfection of the world like his world is purer than Dante's and ours and that's why like people believe in gods like I think the gods are manifestations of um people's inner um intu intuitions. So um but for Dante, his world and our world are both um like we are we're constantly blinded by everything floating around us.
So it is quite difficult for us to um gain access to our intuitions. So that's why things become less external and we need to like look inside to see what's real. Um so I think like within such chaos of the world um this course or Dante um and professor Dung achieved like some sort of separation within my own mind like the separation of chaos into earth into sky into hell into love quite similar to the separation like in the Greek mythology I think that's what this force achieved within me. And so I think this is really a beginning for my journey to
288:17the future. And um I am also always conscious of the importance of faith. And while we were reading the infernal and purgatory, I was horrified by the fact that I I don't know who to pray to. Like I don't know how to pray, like what names should I utter? And I was really afraid that I'm going to end up in hell or purgatory.
But then um I think as as we delve deeper into the the major beliefs of Dante, I think it actually offer more comfort than fear because Dante's thoughts is that it's okay if you're not Christian or um if you don't believe in a God or if you don't believe in the gods. um love, faith and hope are the fundamental things that exist within ourselves. And so um yeah, I think I I just need to try and um believe in my intuition so um I will have less fear in the future. And last of all, if there's one faith that I really adopted in this course, it's the faith for poetry. Um I think I'm convinced that poetry has the greatest power in the world and it can actually change the world.
So I think in the future I will before trying to teach Dante to others I will keep reading Dante and keep reading other great poetries so that yeah we can make the world a better place.
Thank you. Um great. Um, Carol, let's um Sorry, sorry, we're just running out of time, but but uh Okay, Anna really makes me more religious in a sense, like more pious I guess. Um to
290:17reconcile all the theologies in Catholicism. Um and also it makes me think about like you know um that poet society where the teacher says you know like science and law and medicine it's how we live but music, literature, poetry all these are what we live for as humans and it really makes me feel like yeah poetry is what would do it all. So yeah thank you.
Okay great. Uh do So uh one of things that amazed me amazed me the most during this seminar is that like um your ability to get into the author's mind right uh what you call close reading I mean I mean I I think like this is like a high level demonstration of close reading right and that and I always wondered like how could you uh how could you find all those hidden details in history and and then connect the dots together, right? Like for example, when you're reading uh you you mentioned before like when you're reading Frank Jacob, right? And you understand the the mentality of of uh of his of uh philosophy. And so and Sio can uh speculate a you can propose a certain theories that it enables you to to to to um to make good predictions, right?
and and during this course we went through Dante's mind uh Beatrice Virgil and it's just it's just amazing like I think this is your superpower to to uh bring
292:19their narrative to yourself and explain it to us. And um um other thing is that like and and another thing is through reading divine comedy I feel like it helped me to see myself like more clearly. Um, you know, like, uh, since I was young, like since I was young, I mean, I grew up in China, right? Like, like, uh, everyone around you just kept telling you that, oh, he's got to, uh, make a bunch of money and it's it's all about social status and, um, uh, and, uh, institutional achievement. But uh like since I was young, I always knew that I always felt like there's something wrong about it and I always had faith in my intuition, but I just couldn't articulate it uh why I I should not think or live that way, right?
And uh through this course I came to understand more clearly that this divine spark has always been within me and um uh like just like the the email that I wrote you wrote it to you right it helped to it helped me to it helped me to more determined to be myself and yeah that's it.
Thank you. Okay. uh OA
um so before I come here I have already uh read divine comedy but but it's in Chinese and I feel like I'm very confused especially for for the paradoxio uh but but I feel like even if I can't
294:19understand it I feel like the the image um you you you have in your head is very beautiful and it's is divine. Um and when I come here um I feel like the learning journey of divine comedy is is just like Dante. Uh at the first I'm I'm very afraid to ask any questions or um to express my opinions. But um over time I feel like I I've gradually gained a deeper understanding on divine comedy and the the connections between these ideas and my own life and how should I um be become in the future. Um uh for example like like our parents always tell us to um be a moral person, be virtuous and do good things but but I I don't actually like I I I want to know the the logic not the logic the the the framework why why actually you you need to do good things and I have I think I have gained a um systematic and thorough understanding um on on this.
And I feel like towards the end all of all of our uh classmates have formed a a bond between us like um yeah and um and I I have a question. So like many others they have their dreams, right? I have my dreams but I feel like my dreams are very very um strange and different from from like their their dreams they it's is feel like it's a they has a
296:20story line right I feel like in my dreams they are fractions and it's like watching a movie behind a curtain and I try to understand all of the the the bizarre things in my dream but I I I can just I It's like I don't understand it. It's like watching a cloud.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Uh Crystal, then then Bruce.
Okay. So I'll try to be quick here but then like basically I think this is a very rewarding experience for me to be able to engage in such a diverse cohort with people from different backgrounds different age groups from different career path and whatever to discuss the same work and then like before I came here like my perception on Dante of all comedy is basically like it's a fiction and it's very imaginative basically like Dante's going on this imaginative journey where he goes through these three different regions and whatever. But then I was kind of impressed to see that there are a lot of real life connections that still applies today. For example, we can use like very common logic to interpret some of the words of Dante. I think that is very amazing.
And I feel like what I feel well this might not align with Dante's cosmology is that even the most divine has like these like human features or like human nature within it. So it's like okay for us to be flawed and then also like I feel pretty mentally and physically like um stressed throughout this journey because I think this is such a masterpiece and I feel like at the same time through this seminar I kind of feel the greatness of art like how it's capable to unite all of us together and how for example we cannot understand Italian but we can still feel like all the emotions within those languages and I cannot understand
298:23my handwriting. But I think this is also like a great opportunity for me to get to know like western culture and literature a lot more. I feel like it kind of connected all of the works I read in literature class together. For example, like I don't know the Odyssey and also Paradise Lost and etc. I really appreciate that and I feel like I would really want to reread the divine comedy and then try to understand more of it in the future.
And also despite that I study a major that is completely the opposite of classics. I think I will want to spend some time to read other relevant works and I feel like it's pretty worth it and then yeah I just want to say thanks for this opportunity and for everyone.
Yeah. Thank you Bruce.
Yeah. Okay. So, I've been reading a lot uh I've been written uh many more words but I don't want to read it because uh I think there are two things. The first one is collectivism because as we're know that as been told in China and all of things about colle collectivism which means you have to love your country you have to love your family have love your company and all of things good is really good it really can help me a lot by uh you know being good person right but there's another kind of things like individualism which is I think is maybe we need to more in China because uh after so many people just uh get lost about lost their job about you know drop out from the who they they they sometimes just feel hopeless. Uh just why just because individualism which cannot let them to know more about themselves.
So if there's you know if there are no authority who will guarantee you that you can be perfect then you just been hopeless. But individualism which can really let you to know who you really are and really can make you feel peace and comfort even though you've been denied by this a whole system you know like school or whatever but if you do believe yourself you can be better and I think that is really impressive and I I think this very good opportunity for me to be here to be taught uh by John and I think she she's hero you're hero sorry you're hero
300:24and uh yeah you're all heroes and you just give us the way to see ourel in oursel. Yeah. Not deny yourself by by other kind of things like be rich, be powerful, be famous. No, not of lot of thing. But you have to believe yourself.
That is what really Yeah. important.
Thank you. Okay. Um uh Fred
um I haven't been here for a very long time.
Okay. Um, I guess the question was how has it changed you? Well, it's made me realize you have to do things in the real world and it's important just to get to places and do things and speak to people. Like a lot of theorizing is useless. And I'm very glad that I got to sit in this room because I guess people who started from the beginning weren't really watching the live streams.
But I was watching the live streams and I just had a vision of what it would be like to sit at the desks and I just really really really wanted it to happen and then I it happened. So on the first day I thought I'd be really really nervous and my heart would be racing but then for some reason the uh the in tuness of this group made it feel natural immediately. It was really strange. Like I'm a really big fan of you. I've been I've watched like every one of your videos from when you're only writing on a whiteboard when you had no screen.
Okay.
And so I thought I would feel so nervous even answering a question, but it was it felt so natural and I it's difficult to explain that um other than love and learning and all these good things make what would otherwise have been nervous situations feel natural. Hey,
thank you. Okay. Uh Carol. Yeah. Um, so I love the star metaphor because I believe in Latin and perhaps in Italian as well, the word for desire
302:26is deedar.
Oh,
and um actually the short form of it is decided which means from the stars. And I think this whole journey has reminded me and possibly more of you that we're all from the stars and that desire is that calling to go back and I really love Francois's imagery of and and and you putting the web in Indra's web in my mind and actually um for me my vision is actually to catch fish and to build community.
Um, which actually was also something inspired by um, videos I watched from you and and catching fish. Um, it's almost the imagery of um, the endress net. There seems to be a lot of souls caught in the web and in the nets and some are freer, some are less free. And um, I want to help free people. you you can go freely in and out, but you know hopefully retrieving your route back to the stars
and that's um my vision and it was actually a lucid dream.
Wow. Okay.
So, thank you. Thank you very much for this experience.
All right. So, um first of all, I want to express tremendous gratitude. Um this is the last day and I'm feeling nothing but gratitude for everything uh to everyone. Um so my intention for organizing this seminar um and having uh and you know working with Carol is I want to read Dante in full and I want to understand Dante because I've taught Dante for the past four years but I've always cheated. you know, I've always skipped around and looking for patches that conform to my particular um
304:28perspective. And I said to myself, that's not really fair. What I want to do is I want to read Dante in full. But I also knew that you can actually you cannot actually read Dante unless you read it from a place of love. So, how do I create a situation where I'm motivated to read Dante?
Because it's hard to read Dante. Okay. You think Dante is hard? I also think it's hard. It's not it's never been an it was never an easy uh journey.
So I thought that if I read it with students and I'm I'm able to uh inspire them to love Dante then that would inspire me to truly understand Dante and that's exactly what has happened. Okay? because um I came in not knowing what these 12 days would be like and I had some conceptions of where of what Dante would be. But um I knew that only if I went deep into Dante and put my faith in the poetry and put my faith in this class because I truly appreciate Dante. And so what would happen is we would have these great discussions during the day.
I go home and I spend all my time just replaying in my head what we discussed and looking for problems, looking for areas in which I could expand. Then I go to bed. Then I would have actually no idea what I would teach in the morning. But because I knew that when I came to class, you guys wanted expecting me to like be heroic and teach Dante in the most engaging way possible. I'm like, okay.
So like I don't have any ideas on how to teach and like let me pray and hope that I have something to something and so so I get up and then some I visions ideas would start coming in my head and like a framework would come to my head and I come to class and I would start and then your energy your enthusiasm your love would compel me to further expand my my visions. Right? So for example um you know yesterday we had a very interesting class where we had this experiment right
306:29where Francois and Edward were doing this experiment and that was not planned in any way. Okay. What happened was that I was teaching uh about the s systems of um in of Dante. Then Franis came up to me and said hey um uh so let's I I've drawn up some notes and like great show it. Okay.
And then um professor was presenting and then I was inspired at that moment. It's like oh wow you know what I can do this this experiment right and like I hope it works if it doesn't work then oh well but I hope it works and it worked out really really well. Okay so this entire class has been one of a leap of faith. I didn't really expect uh anything from this class. I thought I'd be challenged to um read the line comedy but I really didn't expect the effect on me.
I didn't expect the effect on you guys and just having spending the past 12 days with you. I've seen myself transform tremendously. I've seen you transform tremendously as well. So my major transformation is um I've left teaching at my school and now I'm looking for a new path forward. So like Dante, I'm sort of lost in the woods and I'm like well you know I'll teach a seminar to just pass a time right to just hope hope for the best.
And having taught this seminar, I'm like, I now know what I must do. Okay? I now must share Dante with the world. I because I see Dante's impact on each and every one of you. Maybe maybe it's something that you can't articulate yourself, but the fact that you're dreaming lucidly, the fact that you're willing to share these dreams with every one of us, and the fact that you're willing to help, you're willing to um discuss the meaning of these dreams, it's an act of love, it's an act of faith, it's an act of hope.
And I realize that if we really want to change the world for the better, then Dante um could be an answer. It's one of the answers. And so I'm committed to uh
308:30teaching Dante around the world now. So thank you for that. But also I recognize that teaching Dante is not enough. I need to summon Dante back to this world. And what surprised me is I'm not sure if you guys know the occult or rituals, but you know these 12 days it was an oult ritual.
You know how these billionaires, they spend a lot of time trying to summon demons into this world, right? Well, through our reading of Dante together, we all engage in our imagination that brought Dante back to this earth. I really feel that. I really feel that there's an essence of Dante in each of us now. Okay?
And we've brought Dante back to this world. And if we can bring more people into this community, if we can spread Dante more to people, then there'll be more of Dante in this world. But not only do I want to bring Dante back, I also want to bring back uh Plato, Homer, Jesus. Okay? Everyone everyone wants to bring back Jesus, but like in the right way.
Okay? Like in the right way, like don't start wars. Okay? And and so I see now that is my mission. I see tremendous hope because I see uh the the impact of this teaching on on you.
So I'm just coming from a place of tremendous gratitude um a place of tremendous hope. So thank you so much uh for that. Um, I mean, first I mean, like I would like to thank above all Carol, okay? Because this is our first time working together and um I can't show enough appreciation for you and your team because um it's actually hard to put these things together. All right.
The idea that we can come to uh this class, I can teach what I teach and we can live stream it and the live stream is able to go very smoothly and you guys are able to engage uh and the fact that I didn't do any work before class. Uh you know, Carol is the one who brought
310:30everyone together. So I can't um so I I can't appreciate Carol enough. So thank you so much, Carol. Oh, also like again um um Thank you for having the will and the idea thing.
Yeah. But again, I'm going to Carol and our team are amazing. So, um, Carol, could could you thank your team?
Yes. Um, I want to thank, um, our IT and AV staff and because we do realize that there are issues every day. Um, but they've really tried their very best and it's around the clock because there's also uploading and we know where we are. The networks are slow here. I want to thank Yanglio Peter Su uh and uh the person who cleaned the whiteboard.
Just every single person. And you know, she was the one who cleaned up all your water bottles and replenished all your water bottles every day and set everything up. But um I I I do want to thank um Jang uh for summoning and you know actually um if this were an occultist experience you're the priest and you helped to summon this for us and you helped to lead us on this pilgrimage. So I know you have put in your heart and soul to it as if we were children on your backs and you've shouldered a lot of responsibility. So really a heartfelt thanks to you.
So um you know it seems like I did a lot of work but let me tell you I am not exhausted. I am not at all exhausted. I feel so energized. I feel so hopeful. Um, I feel a deep sense of gratitude.
Uh, so Fred asks, um, so what's next?
312:33Um, what can we do? And I mean, we're already doing a lot. Okay, so I I know, okay, uh, we're just a classroom, but you know, there are a lot of people watching this online and they are going to be inspired by our example. Um the the love of Divine Comedy is already implanted in your heart. And maybe you don't know this now, but your life has changed because of Divine Comedy.
You won't know this now. 20 years from now when you look back, you will see it yourself because your entire life trajectory will be different now. many of you um for example Ivy is going to read more and more poetry and uh you're going to keep on studying divine comedy uh like like Crystal and um this is going to just blossom in you and then eventually when the time is right you're going to want to share this with other people you're going to sh want to share with your children with your friends with your students and there's going to be a chain reaction. Okay. So, um I have complete faith that this will happen that this is the beginning of something wonderful.
It will take time but it will happen and already we are making a huge difference in the world. So what I want to do okay so let let me present to you my grand vision for the world. Um I want to start a network of schools around the world. Okay. And this network of schools will teach the great books um and even the cult and game theory.
And my ambition is to educate the next global generation of Dantes of intellectuals because I see the the spark of Dante in all of you.
314:34Okay? And I'm sure there's millions more of young children who could be the next Dante. But you have to reach out to them. You have to give them the opportunity. So I so my end goal is to start a network of schools and it's not a like a two-year project.
I I plan next to spend the rest of my life 50 years developing this network of schools around the world everywhere um so that as many people can participate uh in reading Dante as possible and um my invitation is to all of you to consider one day joining this network schools. Okay. So you could go off on your own path and um see the world because as as ton would say life is a journey and you have to go through hell and p purgatory before you can reach heaven. Okay so I'm not saying my schools will be heaven but I'm saying like you all have an open invitation to come to the school and you can come come as whoever you want. You you can come in as a student, you can come as a teacher, you can come as just maybe um a volunteer but um I want to stay in touch and and I feel that we came here for a reason.
It is the will of the universe uh for us to come together and what that is we don't know. Uh, but I hope we can stay in touch and I'm going to build these schools and my mission now is to travel around the world, spread the message of Dante, um, and teach more classes and I think eventually um, these schools will will naturally blossom because I think that um, I've seen the future um, these visions keep keep on coming in my head. and the universe did not will it then we will not be here today. Okay. So, thank you to everyone for giving me hope and um this is just the first step
316:34in a long long process. Uh yes,
are we the first generation of neo dentists
if you want to be? Yes. Yes. Okay. All right.
So, thank you so much. Okay. And uh let's stay in touch. And again, this is this is just the beginning of something wonderful. Okay.
All right. Bye-bye.