Thursday, June 25 9AM

---

0:00Sugimura who um Oh yeah. Yeah. Studied with you and she's she's she's in Oxford now and I have seen her not that long ago. Oh, that's wonderful. She's doing very well. Yeah. Yeah. She took she took uh the Lincoln class that I co-taught with Steven Smith. Fabulous. Fabulous. And are you teaching at all this semester or this upcoming semester? Uh and yeah, I'm teaching a regular schedule. I'm teaching a course on Melville centered on Moby Dick and I'm doing our basic foundational course English 125 which starts with Chaucer and ends with Paradise Lost. So Wow. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's wonderful to hear. Yeah. Well, yeah, I've kept up teaching freshman courses and you know, at Yale, um, you know, a good a good undergraduate course really is is is better than all but the very best graduate groups that you can get. Yeah. Although, uh, last last year I did have a very good seminar. It's a graduate seminar, but two or three undergraduates took it on Edund Burke and that that went that went well. But graduate seminars in general, I don't I don't necessarily prefer them. So, yeah. No, no, no. The the undergrads um the undergraduate courses are great. How how big is the I'm just curious. How big is the English 125 class and how big is the Moby Dick class? I think they'll both be about 15. I I may end up I mean, you know, you you always end up having some people uh decide not to take it without letting you know. And so you you can take a I usually try to take two or three more than I expect. So sometimes it goes up a little. I mean, last time I taught it, the Melville uh class, yeah, I think there were 21 or 22. And what was interesting about that group,

2:00um, the, uh, there were two or three sailors in it, including one who had been in the Navy in Navy, joined special forces, and yet the ones who did the most talking were a couple of women. Um, so wonderful. Do they do they do they sail for for Yale? Are they on the sailing team or No, I meant these are these are guys who had they were somewhat older. I mean there were there were I would say there were two men in their mid20s and then there was one much older one who's uh signed on late in this Whitney program they have for veterans and um he graduated recently um but yeah there's there's some interesting people who come here late career it's it's rare but some of the ones who do it are very interesting people do you do any directed studies um instruction I have done Yep. Uh although I have not done directed studies literature and if I had I might become better equipped with Dante. Um I I've only taught the history politics unit in that the first yeah the first half of it the what which is what sort of Herodotus to right uh Luther um I've taught just a few times much more often the second half which starts with Mchaveli and goes up to these days it goes up to Hannah Arand right I I'm curious with Luther have you used any of a new colleague uh at the div school's work. His name is Vulker Leeppin. Um uh no, but I am acquainted with him through his having made a truly excellent reader report um on uh the student who this this time this time around won what's called the Rexom Prize for the best senior essay. And it was it was a translation. It was a translation of a uh um Eastern

4:01church uh uh uh meditation that had never been translated before. This was a work of extraordinary learning. But anyway, he was the right person to be the reader for it. And he um I think appropriately uh commented, appreciated, had one or two criticisms, etc. But so yeah, I hope to meet him. Uh do you know him? Yeah. Well, so um this was maybe one or two years ago. Um and that was right when he started joining Yale. He had a student in Beijing, I think through directed studies. And um he and his wife traveled to Beijing for the first time and I hosted him for dinner and um really enjoyed getting to know him. And I think at that time um his book on Francis of Aisi was getting published. So we also did a book talk. But anyway later um when we when we go truly truly live I mean we're live right now, right Peter? How's the uh flow? Perfect. The flow is going well um on live stream and on Zoom. Um later I'm glad to hear it. I'm getting you I'm getting you uh clear. I'm It says a participant has enabled translation. Set my speaking language for this. Yeah, it's English. Sorry, we're we're we're English only here. So, um I think it's probably just for our recording that captures and I think I'm getting every word. I think I get getting every word from your side. The the freezing keeps happening, but I get all the words, so it's fine. Okay. Um what was I gonna say? Oh, I was going to say when we start Good day everyone and um welcome back to the Dante workshop. Today we have a very very

6:04special guest dialing in from Connecticut. Our beloved throne professor of English David Bramitch live with us today. Um besides being the Sterling professor of English um he has been a very well- read literary and cultural critic. He was a Yale College grad and a PhD alum of ours. Um his one of his uh some of his many books include Hasllett the Mind of a Critic, Disowned by Memory, Wsworth Poetry, The Intellectual Career of Edmund Burke, and most recently American Breakdown, The Trump Years. He's also been a committee member for the committee on um trust in higher education which just published his report about a month ago. Um he still teaches English 125 at Yale directed studies a course on Moby Dick and um we're just so delighted to have you um contribute to this enlightened conversation with your student uh And without further ado, I'm going to turn the podium over to you. I should also say we're so grateful that actually thanks to Jen's introduction, we've had um David Brahmich, Professor Brahmich join Yale Center Beijing programs and workshops on Shakespeare and poetry during COVID, which um was comfort during difficult times. Comfort and enlightenment equally. So, um I'll turn the mic over to um Professor Bramitch and Joe. Do you want me to just start or um

8:05Yeah, just just feel free to start. Uh okay. Uh let let me um set this up in a slightly classroom way and point out that Shakespeare is um an a a an irregular an unwieldy a sort of uh untamed author in many ways and uh this is shown especially in the way he was received by neocclassical French critics who held against him that he wrote plays that didn't obey the unities, the supposed allimportant aris Aristotilian unities of uh uh action, time and place. The ideal play would have an action that took place in the amount of time it took you to watch the play. You can see how rare this is uh as a successful strategy. Um but Shakespeare was went astray of it far more than most um successful playwrights and uh I chose McBth in part because this is a this is a relatively rare instance among his works where you do have strong unity of action and it's it's welded together with character a portrait of character that is really um brought out by the nature of the action and the moral judgment. ment I think we're asked to make about the play about McBth's ambition goes with a sequence of actions that have that sort of interconnection um that we look for it is an imitation of an action that is serious complete and of a certain magnitude I'll try to um uh expand that a little or get your thinking started on it by just reminding view of the apherism which we have from Heracitis.

10:05Character is fate. Um the Greek of it is ethos is the don. Both of those key words still with us in English in different ways. and then a much later um writer uh but interesting in the same way of bringing our attention to this unity of character and sequence of events. Um Henry James in his essay uh on the art of fiction asks what is character but the determination of incident. incident coming to a uh a a sharp emphasis in the form of character and what is incident but the illustration of character. I'm going to concentrate on the idea of action, the idea of a deed, and Shakespeare's sense in dealing with McBth most of all, but also Lady McBth, who is in in some sense the instigator of his violent action, the murder of Duncan. um by calling attention to the strange um focus Shakespeare pretty much demands that we give to doing the very idea of doing. Uh Lady McBth uh says soon after they've committed their murder, what's done is done. But she'll say much later uh on the brink of or some way into her madness, what's done cannot be undone. Now you can hear the difference between those two assertions and of course those are often used uh idiomatically by ordinary speakers in

12:06English today. Um but they c they logically mean exactly the same thing. What's done is done and what's done cannot be undone. No contradiction there. But they're said in a very different tenor. The person who says what's done is done or to use the more modern formulation which is even more uh seemingly bland. It is what it is. When somebody says that to you, they mean um there's there's no point thinking further about it. That's just in the it's in the past now. No more reason uh to uh contemplate, to have regrets, whatever. But that second statement, what's done cannot be undone, points to something fatal about the nature of a deed. that it is it is a bearer of fate and it is a bearer of the fate of the person who has performed the deed that does a great deal to illustrate the character um of the agent himself. McBth seems to be nursing the uh nature of the deed he will perform almost as soon as the witches plant the idea that he might become fain and then become king in his mind. Um he speaks it in a way that's a little elaborate and at the same time rushed as if his mind is overcome by the merging of the idea of usurppation, killing and this prophecy which places him already as king. He says and these are the lines from the first act. My thought whose murder yet is but fantastical shakes so my single state of man that function is smothered in surmise and nothing is but what is not

14:08one thing clear even though that's an incoherent statement and I mean think of what it means to say my thought whose murder yet is but fantastical it's as murder surrounds his very thought. That's a kind of conceit, I think, um that Jang will probably want to have something to say about in relation to Dante. The idea that um one of those um condemned speaking from a flame in the inferno um just is what the deed bounds him as having been. And but Beth's living that already in his speech even though he hasn't yet to his conscious mind decided to do what the witch's uh prophecy might be possible. They don't say you're going to murder Duncan. They say you're going to be king. But this this concern, this verbal and psychological uh freight of the idea of a deed as defining the character and fate of a person is strongest when he's just on the verge of committing the murder at the very end of act one. It's a great speech and I'll uh I'll speak all of it and apologize in advance for the inadequacy. Very hard to to act this part. It almost exists to be read more than acted. uh the part of McBth partly because he is uh imaginative because he is full of fantasy uh in in a way that a a mere warrior wouldn't normally uh be relied on to show. He has both aspects in him. Um, but the fact that he is haunted, the fact that he has a certain depth does

16:09not change the fact that he's bent on the deed that the witches have told him uh all but told him uh could make his ascent to kingship possible. So here's the speech at the end of the first act. If it were done when it is done, then for well it were done quickly. If the assassination could traml up the consequence and catch with his cerse success that but this blow might be the be all and the end all here but here upon this bank and shaw of time we jump the life to come. But in these cases we still have judgment here that we but teach bloody instructions which being taught return to plague the inventor. This evenhanded justice commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice to our own lips. He's here in double trust. That's Duncan. First as I his kinsman and his subject, strong both against the deed, then as his host, who should against his murderer shut the door, not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been so clear in his great office that his virtues will plead like angels trumpet tonged against the deep damnation of his taking off. And pity like a naked newborn babe striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed upon the sightless couriers of the air, shall blow the horrid deed in every eye that tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaultting ambition which leaps itself and falls on the other. It's quite a remarkable speech and I'll

18:10stop at a couple points of it, but only say now that Lady McBth comes in, tries to work him up to the crime again, but McBth in a very different vein from what we've just heard, says to her flatly, "We will proceed no further in this business." There he speaks like a general giving a command that is in keeping with his or normal duties. But you can see the amount of fantasy and the and the sense of ambition um just in the way the metaphors work uh in this speech. He says that he'd leap the life to come. In fact, in the first part of that speech, if you could travel up the consequence and catch with his Cersei success, it's almost as if the echo of those two words, cersei is a fancy word. It's a it's a euphemism for murder. But if if success and cers cease the way they almost rhyme is just the way I could take him out, how convenient it would be that but this blow might be the be all and the end all here right now in this place. No consequences. But then he comes to the idea of judgment in these cases and cases is already a legal term. Our our idea of casuistry which is metaphysical and theological too comes from thinking about cases. In these cases we still have judgment here on earth right that we but teach bloody instructions which being taught return to plague the inventor. And this evenhanded justice commends the ingredients of our poison chalice to our own lips. So, McBth in those words enacts justice upon himself. There could be no more direct or complete judgment of the wrong of

20:11what he's doing. His sense of the wrong is expressed only in terms of duty, but the duty is strong and binding. And he practically breaks down himself in that strong metaphor about the newborn babe pity striding the wind. um and confesses that he has only vaulting ambition which or leaps itself and falls on the other. So the fantasies in this bank and shaw of time like crossing a river but when you leap you just fall. You don't you don't get to the point you would like to arrive at. So that's McBth trying to make the depth of the crime just a local event. It stops now but here but by this blow might be the be all and the end all. I think that might be the first use of that interesting phrase in English. You can just be over with. It's just over with. And that's what people going to commit some terrible thing, I believe, often say to themselves as a sort of consolation. It's true to life in that regard. Um, Lady McBth of course all this while uh has been setting herself up as the person willing to face um violation of nature, violation of duty because of the great um gift that it will bring them, the gift of power, the gift of being king and queen. And she has said when just when McBth is about to arrive uh following the message that she has read already from him that he got this strange hint from the from the witches. She has said I'm no longer part of nature. Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts. Unsex me here and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of dire cruelty. Make thick my

22:11blood. stop up the access and passage to remorse that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose. And that is a it's a beautiful phrase the compunctious visitings of nature as if nature can't be undone. But uh when she says unseex me here and in other places where she says you know I would beat out the brains of an infant rather than quit this deed before it's done. There's a very strange suggestion that you know Lady McBth sees herself as witchlike sees herself as in some way supernatural outside nature. She can't live up to that aspiration. But it's she who as it were um starts the engine of McBth's ambition to turn it into something efficient which he is hanging back from quite committing himself to. What's interesting about their relationship is the um progression of it, the kind of exchange it undergoes as the play uh advances because already in act three, that's the dinner scene where uh McBth is quite haunted and is uh acting so much so that guests wonder what's up. they begin to be suspicious about something strange going on in this family. Um, but already in that scene, uh, McBth is comforting Lady McBth, no longer having to be roused by her as he eventually is to commit the murder. Um, and when she tells him to put on a good face, gentle your looks, um, he says to her, um, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife. But he's not going to tell her exactly

24:12what's up. Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest Chuck, till thou applaud the deed. One of the I can only call it Shakespearean touches all through this play is what a good team they are, how well suited as husband and wife. I won't say loving. That almost seems a, you know, to uh a lararseny against the word love, but they're very compatible. Let's just say they like each other a lot and they're they're suited to each other and they care about each other uh in a way that they're not capable of caring about anyone else. Um, McBth continues the selfdeception that a deed committed right here, right now can stop right here, right now. Um, he knows that this is a deception. He says as much when he speaks the line to know my deed to best not know myself. as if you could separate your personal agency from the things you do. That's the fantasy nursed by McBth. And I want to suggest it's also a fantasy common to all ambition. Ambition in that sense, in that hard sense, is something as if outside you that takes you over and uh that makes the person no longer uh inwardly able to care about right and wrong. No longer part of nature to use the word that Lady McBth has used. Um that idea of being here um where there is the the um be all and the end all the fantasy of jumping the life to come persists throughout the play. And I I want to point out that uh in one of the speeches

26:13of Shakespeare that people most like to memorize every bit as much as Hamlet's to be or not to be, we're not getting a piece of u you know more than ordinary human wisdom, but a a typical evasion by McBth when he speaks the speech I'll now remind you of because you all know it. She should have died hereafter. There would have been a time for such a word. Notice those words here and there. Trying to locate the deed in one place rather than have it stretch out to cover the whole meaning of your life. And that's when he goes on tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out brief candle, life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. And again, I'll just say because it's bewildering and more so the more you know the play, this has been taken as a indication of profound wisdom about life as if Shakespeare is speaking everything he knows about good and evil, love and death through McBTH. But it is no such thing. This is McBth's um locating uh of Lady McBth's death in a hereafter where she should have died and then his uh revelation that to himself now life has become a tedium. It's just one thing and another and another and another.

28:13We're all just actors on stage. And that word shadow is an Elizabeth and synonym for actor among other things. But let's call this speech nihilistic. But the nihilism belongs to McBth and it's an exposure of the cost of ambition. It is not Shakespeare's information about the nature of life. Um I think I'll stop there. I had other things to say and a couple of other wonderful speeches that I would have recited but um let me just pose two possible topics for us to come back to uh in discussion. Uh one topic is the witches. What do you make of them? Because you know they seem to know everything in advance. So is a human agent even responsible in that case? And the second is children. Um, Lady McBth says that she's given suck. Um, so she's had a child. Um, but the McBths don't have children. Um, and there is a curious moment in a scene of act four where uh the bad news of McDuff's whole family being slaughtered comes to him and he's told by Malcolm, the heir to the throne. Um, you know, don't cover your face, just take it like a man in effect. And McDuff's answer is very interesting answer. He has no children. So what is this about the the idea of children as something deeply related to what's not present in McBTH and Lady McBth and then the the the dynamic to call it that between nature the nature that Lady McBth hopes to separate herself from and

30:14um the the supernatural the supernatural element in this Scottish play. So I'll stop there. Thank you David uh Professor Brahmage that was wonderful. So um in this class we tend to be imaginative. So, um, what I'm going to do is I'm going to paint a scene where Dante has has been to the has, um, is at the premiere of McBth and Shakespeare comes out at the end and gives and everyone gives him standing ovation. And then afterwards, Shakespeare and Dante have dinner alone together. And of course, Dante only has a fusive praise for Shakespeare, the language, the poetry. But during the dinner, he raises three concerns that he'll have about the play McBth. His first concern, the first question he he'll ask Shakespeare is, "Are you fund fundamentally pessimistic?" Because Dante, as we learn in this class, he is a fundamentally optimistic person, uh, who believes in free will, who believes in salvation, who believes that we are ultimately the masters of our own destiny. And as you point out, Shakespeare does come from the Greek tradition. Um and um the example of course is the Edypus Rex tragedy where Edypus regardless of his character, regardless of um uh what what he does, he's bounded by fate. Um so that's Donny's first concern. Um is Shakespeare fundamentally a pessimistic person? Do humans have absolutely no agency and free will in this world? That's first question. Second question is would Shakespeare does Shakespeare believe in God? Is he a Christian in other words? Uh because as you point out McBth there's conception of nature but it's as

32:16you point out pretty neistic. Um and it seems the witches have all the power. Now um in this class we what we did we what we did discuss is DA has particular hatred towards fortune tellers. Okay. He has a very he has a place in hell for them and he thinks that they are the cause of all misery in the world. Um and they and it's because they reduce people's capacity to make choices. Because if you think about it, if Terricius um the fortune tellers didn't provide these um fortunes, then Adypus would not have would not have um had the tragedy that he had. um he was he was forced to act in the way that he did because of these fortunes. So um is it just the gods manip manipulating us? Okay, that's the second question he would have. Um the third question he would ask is is this how how does Shakespeare feel about woman in society? because the Greeks um there are a lot of extremely evil women in their tragedies that uh drive a lot of action. Um but if if we read the Divine Comedy and we did read the Divine Comedy, Dante is very pro-woman. Um in fact in heaven it is Mary who's queen of heaven. It is Mary who redeems humanity not Jesus. Okay. So these are the three concerns that Dante would have about this play, right? The first to to summarize, is Shakespeare pessimistic about human nature? Second question is, does Shakespeare believe in God? The third question is, how does Shakespeare feel about woman? So, well, Lady McBth is a is a thoroughgoing uh female villain and yet she is quite

34:17humanized by the end. Um she uh not only says uh what's done cannot be undone, but she says, you know, not uh what are the lines? Not all the perfume in Arabia will sweeten this uh my this little hand. I mean that that's a the the um fantastical imagining of the harm to nature that their deed has done is actually common to McBth and Lady McBth. But she she thinks she can elude it at the time she is um urging him to commit the deed. Uh and when McBth is hesitant later he is more determined and he the last decisive action before he goes uh into his duel against McDuff is to put on his armor. I mean that's he that's to forget even um the grief that he expresses over over his death. She is uh showing her consciousness of um being part of her deed when she tries to wash the in her sleepwalking she's trying to wash her hands of the blood. So they both they they share that awareness and they share the repression of that awareness the not wanting to acknowledge the thought that Shakespeare lets us see nevertheless is in them. Um, McBth's version of, you know, not all the perfumes of Arabia will sweeten this little hand is even more famous. Um, you know, can uh Neptune's all the water in great Neptune's ocean wash clean uh uh this hand of blood. No, rather will my hand the multitudinous seas incarnadine making the green one red. I mean, it's extraordinary speech. And I mean, McBth is is rather um they're they're both

36:17rhetorically powerful to each other, not uh not not least, especially she for her influence on him, but they do have um consciousness of what they've done and it doesn't ever rise to the point of conscience that would stop them from doing it. So I I I see Lady McBth as a a bad person who's becoming something worse than that, but she begins only as a rather conventional person who hasn't yet had her chance. Um she's no great indication of Shakespeare's attitude towards women in general. Uh you can look at the character of Cordelia in King Lear, of Dez Deona, in Oll and a good many women in the comedies if you want an idea of just how um naturalistic uh a feminist Shakespeare was capable of being. I'm going backwards uh in your three questions, but about fortune and that brings us to the role of the witches. I think Shakespeare there too um is being naturalistic by his lights. That is to say observing what people in society are like. And this is a this is a Scottish society. Um there there uh uh is a prevalent belief that witches uh exist and operate in the world in Scotland. Uh even at the time Shakespeare wrote, the witch burnings are are um into the 17th century. So uh you know the the belief that witches operate is is real. Um what credit does Shakespeare give to it? I think he treats it as something people believe and McBth most of all but not all people believe it in the same way. He is listening to the predictions that they make in company with Banquo. And um Banquo says something like uh

38:17look how our partners wrapped that Beth is so struck by what they're saying and is you can use the other meaning of the word uh sorry the other spelling it's a different word of it's he's wrapped up in it. Um he he can't tear himself away from what they have brought to mind. This this um murderous thought that smothers function and surmise. So, McBth is a believer. He was uh you know, apt prey for the witches. Um but, you know, treat uh treat the witches in that regard as something like um a statistical prediction of, you know, what the likelihood is of me uh living another 10 years. I get this from statistics. The doctors, you know, from reputable medical journals tell me that uh I my genes are such that it doesn't much matter what I do. I have a very good chance to live 10 years on. So I go on a rampage of all sorts of dangerous things because I think you know the doctors have predicted that that's the way it's going to be for me. I think that kind of I'm going to call it superstition, but it's just obedience to ideas about the future has been common in human nature forever and Shakespeare's using it. Um I also just from be from having visited Wales in certain parts of Scotland where the mists are um on a a twilight time uh it becomes easier to believe in things that are a little beyond nature about his pessimism. I I again I'd only go back to what I said um in response or rather in in uh interpreting that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow speech. Uh Shakespeare is acquainted

40:17with nihilism uh and with the mchavelian version of nihilism in the character of Edmund for example in King Lear but I think he sees it just as one of the human occurrences. These people exist therefore he is going to portray them unlike Dante as far as I know Dante and my my knowledge of it is nowhere near as good as this what this class probably has by now. Um Shakespeare is not going to comment on the things he sees in human nature in human nature and society. He shows you good and he shows you evil. He he usually uh makes it possible for you to see how good could triumph over evil. But the judgments come from the characters, not from the author. And maybe that difference is also partly owing to the difference between dramatic form and the kind of epic poem that that Dante's writing. Just a last point, just a point of information. Shakespeare didn't know the Greek trai tragedians and he probably didn't know Aristotle though he would have had rumors about Aristotle. So right. Um so again um Dante and Shakespeare are having dinner and now that Shakespeare has responded. Um Donnie hears all this and he he only feel a sense of horror at these ideas that are being articulated and he has to ask this question. Does Shakespeare do Shakespeare do you believe in God? And if so, what is God? Well, this play has been called by many commentators, you know, um orthodox Christian of its time uh in the beliefs

42:19that it reflects. That is to say, when you when you um te you know when you rend nature, when you um uh do something that tears the fabric of nature and pulls yourself away from it, uh that is an offense against God and nature may be um from the Dante point of view too weak a word for what you're doing. But, you know, again, I'm I'm I'm going to come back maybe very inadequately or unsatisfactorily with my secular view of Shakespeare, which is that he takes seriously the things that people take seriously and belief in God is inevitable. What the theology is behind it exactly um you know depends on the occasion of the play he's going to um write at a given moment. uh if you look at King Lear, I think there the pressure is is greatest on any belief in something beyond the human realm that could save human life. Um in McBTH, I think the idea of a a restoration of a of an order of things which God supervenes in is stronger by the end. Uh, it's strong because of um the nature that McDuff feels is in him and what McDuff's family must be to him. I mean, we're made to feel the absence of children in McBth and Lady McBth only by the planting of McDuff as a counter character and that strange moment when he is told of the death of his whole family. So, it's a terrible play. It's a frightening play. does not give you any image clear image of the good but I think it it makes you able to think about why it is that someone like McBth doesn't survive. Okay. So I want to ask one more question

44:20and then we'll open it to uh the students. But in Divine Comedy um there are lots of prayers. Um either Dante is making a prayer uh in invocation uh by himself or maybe someone else in Divine Comedy is making a prayer. And for Donnie that's very important because uh when you make a prayer to God um you are also speaking widely to the universe. So in Shakespeare and all his like 37 39 plays does anyone make a prayer? That's the first question. The second question is if not if the silicqu is just you're just talking to yourself what exactly is the point of that? Well, there is a there is a prayer I can think of right off and I'll just use it as an illustration and that is uh Claudius uh the uncle of uh Hamlet who has uh murdered uh Hamlet's father uh is is overheard by the audience not by Hamlet praying uh for confessing his sin. That's the only moment in the play where we know for sure that the ghost was right uh in what he said about the the me the manner of his death. Um he he prays uh for uh forgiveness I suppose and uh he confesses too that his prayers aren't going up to heaven but sinking down to earth and then sinking himself into hell. So there's a prayer um it's it's just used in the play. It's a prayer of forgiveness for by a bad man which is not granted. It's the kind of little moment you do get in the inferno I think but it's made a passing moment in the play. Um

46:22it bears on ambition too. Ambition knows what it is even though it's something that blocks self-nowledge. And a curious um fact about that speech when Abraham Lincoln who knew Shakespeare pretty well wrote a letter to the author of a book on Shakespeare and says some interesting things about several of the plays. Um McBth was his favorite by the way and Lincoln knew that he Lincoln was ambitious. confessed it in an interesting notebook entry to himself and in other places less openly and thought ambition was dangerous, but that his ambition is probably what allowed him to become president and to lead the campaign against slavery. It had to be somebody who had a great idea of his own abilities. Sorry, but speech the word thought would have for this is not ambition but hope. All I was going to say is uh uh um Lincoln says that that that's that's his favorite speech in Shakespeare, that speech by Claudius. Uh and it's a just a passing thing. Um but it's a confession of just how damned he feels by what his ambition led him to do. So make of that what you will, but there's a prayer in Shakespeare. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So we're going to open the floor to questions. Are any questions for uh Professor Robert? Yes. Um is there a specific moment in Shakespeare's life that you think unlocked his imagination and could have shaped his view of the world? No. But I I tend I tend to be skeptical of such singular moments. I know that that that Dante is uh an exception to that uh and that other artists are too

48:24and some of them say so. But Shakespeare u gradually became uh the greatest playwright in English. I don't think from his very first plays um you could say that he'd pulled away from the very you know impressive crowd of competitors that he was surrounded by including Marlo including Ford at a later stage and so on. So no, I think it was his knowledge of people, his knowledge of of the court at a tangent, his knowledge of some aristocrats, um his knowledge of people who had fought in battles, his knowledge of people in the theater, uh who themselves are a diverse lot. They're not isolated, not living in what we now call a bubble. So he was he was worldly but especially with regard to London and the work he did um you know as um somebody who helped to run a a theater outfit. Sorry. So um to expand the question in this class um we speculate on weird things right so we discuss is it possible that Don had access to psychedelics? Is it possible he had visions? Uh was he an avid dreamer? um did he have a near-death experience? And so um is there any scholarship on um Shakespeare and how he was able to achieve his visions? Well, there's there's lots and there's this new movie called what is it? Hamnet. I mean about uh the you know the the uh unhappy pregnancy of his wife and how much that mattered to him and how much that mattered to her. There are lots of stories like this. Um I think Shakespeare is an unusually hard case for making much of his life. That's actually that's actually one of the things that I think um uh bewilder people about him. He doesn't seem exceptional. Um and there's this that same quality about Mozart, but at least

50:24Mozart has one exceptional thing. He seems able to have composed great pieces at the age of six or seven. That you can't say about Shakespeare. But I you know it there's there's not a a story of the Germanal incident or the the terrible neardeath experience or trauma that I think lies behind um you know all the interesting productions uh that we that we have the highest respect for. I was saying earlier I'm te before before we started this officially that I'm teaching a course on Melville next term and I think you can say about Herman Melville that his years at sea were the thing that mattered to him much more than his much longer period on land. That's clear. But you know can you trace to to one point what what made him write Moby Dick? I I I'm not able to do that. Okay, great. Uh, question back there. If Dante was directing McBTH in the scene where uh, McBTH does the speech, is this a dagger that I see before me? Do you think Dante would instruct the stage production to have a dagger appear on the stage or continue to leave it in the imagination of the audience as his comment? Ah, Dante might let you have I mean Dante is serious Catholic. Catholic are not against idolatry from objects. I I think he he might well have put the knife right there. And I think it's common but not universal to have the knife be only imagined by uh u uh by McBth. That's another interesting moment of acting as if he is led on by forces outside himself as ambition does for you. Um because he says to the he says to the dagger, "Thou marshalest the way that I was going, which confesses that he was going to do it anyway, but the

52:25hallucination helps him." And you know, he he he embarks on the deed right after that with the words, "I go and it is done." Um, so you know, it's a it's a stage prop. It's and it's a favorite performance piece isolated from everything else in the 19th century, but um, yeah, thank you for bringing that up. I mean that is that's that's a one more instance of the consistency of this portrayal that McBth and Lady McBth are always putting off onto something slightly external the impulses that drives the ambition that is in themselves. Okay, thank you for that. Uh yes. Um yeah, so I'm interested in your perception of the witches. So witches, we could say they're humans, but you know, um, we have demons in the divine comedy. So what's do are the witches possessed by demons or what's like the how do we define the witches like why why are they doing what they are doing? So I'll I'll first point out the naturalistic that is to say nons supernatural almost dismissal of the witches that we get from Banquo uh in lines that run something like um the earth has bubbles as the water has. These are of them. So there you know almost as if he's a professor of physics. There is Banquo, the the ordinary um you know um not over ambitious uh warrior alongside McBth just saying this is all very strange but maybe it doesn't mean much of anything and that's that's a fascinating proposition isn't it? Um

54:26William James uh great American philosopher who was uh interested in psychic phenomena and was the head of the society in Britain that studied that at one point after years and years of studying it said he came to believe that there were ghosts that there was another world that it that it it actually existed but the disappointment from his many years of conversing with the things on the other side was They didn't have very interesting things to say. They they were like gossiping about the housekeeper in the basement and ordinary dreary stuff like that. So there's similar to William James in this case there is Banquo saying the earth has bubbles as the water has. Perhaps these are of them. um McBth brings something of himself into the way that he is haunted and it's a portrait of him that the that the um that the nature of that haunting gives us more than anything sure about the witches. But as I say, my my own um I think true doctrine on the witches is people believed in them and uh believed in them and and it was right to put them there because if you believe in something strongly enough, strongly enough, you will probably experience it. You will even experience your own self-righteousness if you believe in it strongly enough. Great question. Okay, any more questions? Uh yes. I wonder is Shakespeare um naturalistic in his nature or is he just adopting a naturalism view when he's writing his play? For example, does the sonnetss reflect more about what he really believe than his plays does? The sonnetss are very uh they're written a good deal. They're written around the same a little be about the same time as

56:27Romeo and Juliet a little after towards the time he's writing um Hamlet McBth comes a few years later uh and in a way is much planer in style than the sonnetss as sonnetss are of course an ornate form compared to what Shakespeare does with drama. Um I sonnetss tell you some things about Shakespeare. uh and this this takes us back to my dodging the biographical uh premise, but I'll I'll say this much. He was he was interested in the lives, the lives, the the posture, um the different uh quality of experience that he found among aristocrats and the aristocrat Southampton that he is dealing with in some of the sonnetss um made a deep impression on him. And at the same time uh he was wary of how much these people had at stake about the the deception and selfdeception that it could put them onto um and to to a great degree about their ability to manipulate others just through the status and sometimes stature that they held. So I mean the sonnetss tell you something about his um his attitude toward aristocrats which is which is careful uh and admiring and wary. Um it also tells you something about Shakespeare's um what to say uh erotic intensity. He was capable of very strong feelings towards a woman uh including um deep physical and other kinds of attachment um and also including suspicion, jealousy um so you know the sonnetss are a personal statement to some extent and yet they're written from within

58:27uh you know a a genre postrarch that is that is already setting the term in terms of much of what Shakespeare says. Um, any more questions? Uh, yes. Would you view Dante's creation of a universal architecture kind of an articulation of capital T truth? Or would you view it more as a longing for moral certainty? And how would you compare? You're asking. Yeah. You're asking how I see Dante. Yeah. Dante the author, Dante the poet. And then how would you compare Shakespeare in that? Dante. Dante. H I've just been reading the chapter on the structure of the uh uh Divine Comedy to prepare for questions I thought I might get from Jang. um uh you know Eric Arabach's book Dante and and uh uh the world and I I think Dante gives form to the world and form to um uh moral and um you know uh uh what to say any any thought about nature you might have being shaped by larger surrounding um uh circumscribing understandings that are religious, that are essentially religious. Um and what he's what he's doing in the Divine Comedy seems completely different from the sort of things Shakespeare is doing in his plays. I I don't see any unity that you can add up from the three dozen odd plays that Shakespeare wrote. But in the case of the divine comedy, the unity is obvious obviously there and a a single-minded vision is there. So they just up to different things. Um TS

60:29Elliott said, you know, Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third. Um we we we had a question uh back here. Yeah. So can you expand a bit on Shakespeare's perception of fate? So, did you catch a question? Yeah, I did expand a little on Shakespeare's conception of of fate. Um, I think he I I may be confusing his views with mine. Uh, so please allow for that. I feel that I've learned a lot from Shakespeare and I can't be sure where some thoughts come from. But I I think he believed that there is an there there is an a moral order in the world. Um this comes out in King Lear which is the most desparing of his plays in some ways and yet uh that you see what you see in it is that evil is not one undifferentiated thing. There are people who are made worse by the other people around them or by incidents that happen in their lives. Um and uh the the what to say um assurance or um uh uh clarity that Shakespeare seems to have from outside this all is that I'm going to I'm going to use a a very kind of slang expression for it. Um what goes around comes around. that there is there is order in that sense that the people who do wrong in some sense know exactly what they are doing and that others know and that the fact that this can be known and shown gives order to the world in itself. So let me put it a simpler way.

62:30Um he believes he believes in the um redemptive sorry that's too strong. He believes in the strengthening power of truth and that truth comes out because to all human actions there are human witnesses and people want to know. They want to know truly. Um and and people are interested in the good. Um and prone to despair when they find nothing but the absence of the good. uh over here. It's kind of combining um Professor John's question about Shakespeare's view on women is something that's also very perplexing to me about Shakespeare that half of his female characters are either bad like witches or Lady McBth and then the other side you find Porsche in the Merchant of Venice the you know very wise lawyer and then also Aidia who's Ailia who drowned herself in despair who who's loving and all that and then there's taming of the shoe where with uh Kat uh Katrina I think cat and I I can't reconcile. Yeah. How are we supposed to look at timing of the shoe? It's like the biggest issue in my life. I was like I can't accept but really oh let it be it's not it's not such a it's not such a great play. It's not it's not um it's not full of wisdom. It's it's done to a done to a theme. Um, you know, details of it show Shakespeare's greatness, but I don't think I don't think the plot or the characters um uh make you think in the way that his truly greatest plays do. But you you're mentioning all these women. What about what about Rosland as you like it? Yeah. Yeah. She's completely commanding. What about what about Cleopatra in Anthony Cleopatra? She's the most interesting character in the play. And I think you could say not only does Anthony die in worship of her, but Shakespeare kind of

64:31worships her, too. Um, so I mean, there's great variety in his in his portrayals of women. And you're right there, you know, there there are those bad ones, but they're they're they're part of the story. Um, okay. So, we're running out of time. Okay. So, um um it's 10 o'clock and it's very late where Professor Brahmage is. So, um, Professor Balomer, before we conclude, do you have any questions for us as as a group? Maybe I have questions for the students. um or I would like to know and I say this as someone um just let's say barely conversant with Dante um and having been reading it uh more than I uh have done lately in the last few days just to prepare for this uh encounter with you. So I let me ask you what is what kind of satisfaction do you have from reading Dante that seems quite special and absent for example in a less overtly religious um writer like Shakespeare. Wow. Okay. So guys that's a question for you guys. What is unique about Dante? Anyone? Okay. Back there. Oh yeah. I think Dante's works is really making me feel impressive because before the Dantes I just feel confused about money about power about AI about technology and all of these things I think this come from human mind but after Dantes I know that all of thing may be just a thing this kind of original thing and even though you can say that AI is kind of kind of kind of technology but it doesn't mean that it really do not let people to be controlled right so even the money which we think is quite needed but it also We have to admit that money surely can let people to be like slave you know to be enslaved people was mind. So maybe Dant

66:33is really make people recall about what what we've been through about history. What is history and keep telling us about truth. Thank you. Um yes. I just find it quite reassuring. I don't think Shakespeare would ever let any of his kings or queens end up in purgatory languishing in the sweetsented valley. And it's a nice thought that Dante allows even people who have great power a little bit of leeway as long as they have a good heart. But I've never read it in Shakespeare. Okay. Uh yes, I think I sorry. Uh I think maybe it provides a moral framework to work off of, especially if you're religious um in the first case. Uh and also um whether you agree with for example how he puts some people in hell and some people in purgatory and some people in paradise that maybe you don't agree with it's still I think a good of very reassuring moral framework and you can really start working off of that to get your own moral framework and it's just really reassuring to you know feel also I guess you said that Shakespeare also has a similar thought of fate is that bad people that do bad things have a bad ending And good people that do good things have a good ending. And I think that's a reassuring moral framework to have. Uh even if you're not religious. Thank you. Uh yes. I feel like the difference is that Dante is more certain in his judgments. Like he is trying to like he his works have a lot of are very certain and he gives people as um Col was saying this reassuring moral certainty but as you said I feel like Shakespeare he more or less just observes people and then tries to show them for like how humans act. So in that way he is giving his readers less uh certainty in that. So I there's less certainty for sure. Yeah.

68:34Yeah. I have read Shakespeare for AP language and AP literature. I memorized most of the quotes that you mentioned as a you know high schooler. I loved it. But after reading Dante, I feel like he's the ultimate synthesis of a lot of the theology that I've encountered because I also went to Bible school and every day we have to, you know, reconcile paradoxes and stuff. And I feel like Dante is one of those that kind of answers a lot of my questions that Shakespeare may not. I feel Shakespeare is like, "This is the world. Let me present it on the stage for you, for you to see what life is." But Dante is like, well, this is earth, but there's more beyond earth. There's heaven and hell and like, you know, all these things that you need to be aware of and why there should be retribution for the wrongs. So, I feel like yeah, Shakespeare is more like a matter of fact of what it is and Dante is more like this is the interpretation or the, you know, outside of the cave vision. Yeah. Okay. anymore. Um it anymore. Yes. I actually think you need both because um in reading of course uh to me uh yeah what everybody whatever everybody has been saying is true. But um what I'm being I I'm not a Shakespeare scholar. I haven't studied Shakespeare in detail before. But I think that observational uh naturalistic uh approach that Shakespeare has actually might complement um whatever that we've been learning so far in Dantian uh in the Dantian framework because if you're able to put yourself in the shoes uh of of a per another person and evaluate this this this moral framework, you might be able to find answers that are more pertinent to like modernity, what we're facing now. Thank you. How about you, Carol? Well, I I would just say that this

70:35conversation across time and space and generations and years have been enormously enlightening. Um, in this workshop, we've been talking about the channeling of um the author's mind and world and architecture. um implanting it into ourselves as we become a reader and a deep reader. And um you know at at our age it's not something that we do that often usually in the in the mundane um vicissitudes of life. So I think um and and you also see that in the audience we have people from um different walks of life um different places and all of that and it's just been enormously enriching um you know not dissimilar from what would be like on the Yale campus um in in a seminar or class with you. And so, I mean, actually, I want to follow up with an invitation for you to come over in person perhaps next summer. Um, and and then bring us through some deep readings as well. Um, I think we would really welcome that. I would love to and and I I hope it's possible. Um, if I can only make but this will be my one comment on Shakespeare and Dante together. um that you think about think about ambition. Think about ambition as a as and not not ambition as a a necessary desire to perform something but ambition as a vice as a vice that takes someone over. Um Shakespeare gives you a story a whole story and the story is deepened by the way characters rub up against each other. friction of characters. That's a difference between drama and an epic poem that Dant Dante can give you

72:36ambition and there'll be background incidents very shorthand about why these characters are guilty of it and what their punishment is in hell, but it's they're just very different ways of coming at it and they're the rewards are accordingly I think different and both very great. and we definitely hope to see you in Beijing. Um, and maybe we can have a seminar on Shakespeare and Dante together and uh we we can have a conversation between the polls of the two two of the whole world, right? Uh that that sounds uh like a greatly tempting offer. Um, thank you for the whole from uh for the whole class and the engagement that I I just saw. And um you know, I was I was glad to stay up late for this. Thank you so much. Okay. Well, that was Professor Brahmich and um again he was my mentor at Yale. I took three seminars with him. Um and as you can see we are very very different. Uh but a lot of it is because um when I was at Yale I tried very hard to emulate him. I learned a lot about teaching from him. He was basically my my No, no, no, no. He was not my No, no, no. That's a trap. That's a trap question. No, but it shows you what the learning process is. uh you first want to emulate um and then once you emulate you can then uh become your own person. Okay. Um so so that that's what I'm trying to do in this class. So it seems as though I'm trying to force ideas down your throat, but it's really just to help you provide a framework for you to understand Dante so that you can develop your own interpretation. Okay. So but as as you can see um even though he here

74:37was my mentor at Yale and we're still very good friends, he and I see the world very differently and I think that's a very positive thing. Okay. Um, so any questions or comments or concerns from last class that you want to address before we continue purgatory? Anyone? Yes. Um, yeah. So yesterday we concluded hell, right? Or was it a day before? No, I think a day before. I I thought like because we discussed you know or said said that um this is Virgil's conception of hell and not really Dante's um then what what would Dante's conception look like and how far would he then agree with Virgil's conception? Yeah, that's a really great question and it's something that I thought a lot about yesterday um as well because we went a bit extreme yesterday and maybe uh we said a lot of things that are that were actually not appropriate. For example, we speculate as to um if Virgil was in fact Lucifer, if if in fact he was master of hell and why that's the case. We also said, well, maybe what happened was that Virgil was the one who was being tortured by Lucifer and he made a deal with Beatatrice um and then he got out of it. Okay. Um that's a bit extreme and I and and it's great to imagine, but it's also important to reflect and see how true our imaginings are. And in that instance where Beatatrice makes a deal with uh Virgil um that would never happen in Dante's conception of the universe. Why not? Do you guys know why not? And it's really important. Yes. Cuz then like it doesn't really make sense cuz like your pun punishment would change and so it it breaks the whole thing about Inferno where you're

76:37supposed to be punished for a certain act. Yes. And so like why would you move and That's right. That's right. Uh, yes. And it's almost like Beatatrice has the right to kind of do packs almost like she's God. Yeah. Yeah. But but this is really important. Okay. In Dante's world, God is not transactional. Maybe in our world, maybe in the Catholic Church, but God himself is not transactional. He would never make a deal. That's what the devil does. Okay? All right. So you are judged for what you do and what you believe not because you have an a deal an offer you can make to to God. Okay. So that's so so it's really important we clarify this. Beatrice would not have the power to make a deal with Virgil and quite honestly um um it wouldn't have it wouldn't have happened. Okay. So this this then leads the question like what then is going on and um I think what Dante wants to say is that everything in the universe is a co-creation process. Okay, this is very important because um I think in Shakespeare's uh conception what would happen is that God creates the universe. He's like the game master and then we just live in it. Whereas for Dante, no, it's we all participate in the co-creation process. So hell it there are some aspects of God in it, but there also aspects of imagination in it. And um poets because they have the most vibrant imagination, they can have the most impact in the co-creation process. Okay. So it's not as simple as saying like who created hell? Is it was it Virgil? Was it God? I would say that first of all it's a co-creation process but what's but what's much more um um challenging to understand is that it's a evolving process right so hell itself evolves where Jesus can come and take out people from limbo and then there'll

78:38be a like a sundering of hell so it changes the physical landscape right and then Virgil can walk around it and interact with people and change the dynamic of of hell Right. So that's something that's really important for us to appreciate about uh Dante. Um maybe for Shakespeare things are much more static but for Dante things are much more dynamic. Okay? It's a co-creation process that is constantly evolving. So um with each reading of Inferno, Inferno itself changes if that makes sense. Okay. When you read inferno, the way you perceive inferno changes and your perception of inferno changes inferno itself. Uh, yes. I remember yesterday when we read about when someone does a really bad sin, their soul is immediately taken down. That's right. Um, it I just want to work out a bit of an a problem I have where in McBTH the fact that towards the end of the play, Lady McBth and McBTH go kind of crazy and there's like a flicker of conscience in them. How do I reconcile that? Because their soul would have already been taken in Dante's conception. So is that Shakespeare saying that even if your soul is taken, your body could emulate conscience in a way even though you're irredeemable? Okay. Uh that's a really interesting question and this is how I I would reconcile this. Okay. I would say that what's really important to understand is that your soul exists in infinite dimensions. So your soul exists at in hell, purgatory and heaven at the same time. And depending on your action, your soul emphasizes different parts differently. Okay? So, um it's not as clear as, okay, you do one bad thing, then in an instant, your soul's transport to hell and a demon comes in and you're just a

80:38demon. Um I think I think it's much more complicated. I think like now there's an demon aspect to you. Okay. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. just like the guy who died next to Jesus because he deserves to be crucified to show that he's probably really bad but right before like seconds before he died he said to Jesus I repent and then Jesus was like okay heaven welcomes you so then there is this aspect of redemption to the end of a very evil person's life otherwise all these last ending um repentance right asking the priest to come to your house and forgive you as what has happened to Oscar Wild actually right he has lived the life of Dorian Gray till the last end right? Like literally the day before he died and he converted to Catholicism all of a sudden which he was the most antichrist person right in his age. Uh but you know so then we can safely assume that Oscar Wild somewhere in purgatory if we pray for him maybe he will speed up to heaven right like so there is this yeah so it's really interesting because because what Donna is referring to is the unity of the universe of the cosmos right so not only are you do exist among like amongst different dimensions but you're also connected to everyone else okay if that makes sense right does that answer your Oh, I mean, but it was still Virgil who kind of started off hell when he wrote the Iniad or was it was hell like because in the Roman or Greek like religious views there isn't really a conception of hell. So before Virgil there wasn't hell basically or Okay. So first of all there was a conception it was called the underworld. Oh right. Right. So if you read the inad journeys to the underworld and he meets the shades right uh ditto is there.

82:38They're all shades. So ver so d is drawing from that that in the underworld you're all just shades. That's point one. Point two is that if the fundamental law of the universe is free will that means these places are constantly changing over time. So maybe before Christianity this was a pagan hell pagan underworld with the rise of Christianity then we added Christian elements to it for a collective imagination. So the nature of hell changes over time as a conscious of humanity changes over time. Does that make sense? because I I thought of this question probably as well because you said in an interview I think once that you yourself don't believe in hell really right um yeah what I believe is that we exist in infinite dimensions and um you can describe the some of these dimensions as hellish right they're just lower dimensions uh where your lowest lowest emotions are based or are stored, right? So, um what I mean by that is when people refer to hell, they mean eternal damnation, right? Like when you go to hell, like you're there forever. You can't escape hell. And I think what Dante is saying is like no. Um there's no such thing as eternal damnation. You can choose eternal damnation, but it's your choice. So, if you make the effort, you can always uh leave hell. And this is something something that we will learn in purgatory. Okay? Because what Virgil is saying is that you can never you can never leave hell. You are not a Christian and so you are you must be in limbo. Okay? So there's an absolute sense to Virgil. Whereas for Dante, there's nothing absolute in the world. Okay. Everything is evolving. Everything is changing. It's dynamic depending on how you feel. Yes. Yes. Everything's organic. Yes. Right. So uh the difference between

84:38heaven and hell is hell is mechanical whereas heaven is organic. Okay. Okay. Does that make sense to you? Or maybe well one thing also that springs to my mind is like how well people who only read for example the innad only know that you don't have a choice to get out of hell. So if you die without ever reading the divine comedy then it's kind of difficult to get out of hell for you. That's right. And that's why and that's why D had to write divine comedy to give hope to the world. And this is something we will discuss actually as we go as we go on in purgatory because again Virgil is absolute here, right? Yes. I think it's also uh where you would put yourself. It's not like God created hell and then like he just chooses is like we said also yesterday that the difference between inferno and purgatory were was the attitude growth mindset and optimistic. And so like it would change like if your attitude would change then your place would change and you would like transcend in like these dimensions. That's right. That's right. And that's why for Dante the hope of the world is poetry, right? Because okay, you bring in a new emperor and he conquers the world. He establishes peace for 20 years. Well, you're back to the same situation after he dies, right? So what you need to do is expand the human consciousness through poetry. Uh, and that's why um, you know, he feels he needs to respond to Virgil. Okay. He's not trying to cancel Virgil, but he's trying to respond to Virgil and and add to Virgil to give people hope. Okay. Does that make sense? All right. So, any more questions? Yes. Yeah. Maybe to to build off that, um, I'm reading Bartman's u Yes. Journeys Through Heaven and Hell. Yes. And essentially what they do is he talks about every single story that's ever written that's like Dante's like hey I went down hell and I walked around and stuff like this. Um and they're all um

86:40it's almost like how I read the Inferno like back in high school where it's like oh there's lots of punishments and stuff like this and they were all all these stories were created um because they're like looking for a way to control in the real life. The elites are like, uh, enjoy your poverty because you're going to have eternal blessings and if you if you get out of line, if you do any revolts, then these are the bad things that are going to happen to you. Um, Dante is revolutionary because he was able to take Aquinus and Augustine and actually make a philosophy behind all of this and and tie it up with the theology so that we can have these amazing conversations that we're having. Exactly. That's exactly right. Uh, yes. So, as we move from inferno to purgatory and um heaven, it seems there's this linear path to, you know, things get better, there's more hope. But what uh confuses me a bit is that purgatory still seems uh fairly arduous, but before we spoke about limbo, which is technically still in hell, and it seems easier. Yes. Um right. So this is a paradox, right? Limbo is a very pleasant retirement community. Okay. But purgatory is arduous. Well, the difference is in emotions of people, right? In limbo, they're sighing all the time because they they've given up hope. They feel hopeless. Okay? Whereas in purgatory, even though it's it's arduous, they are seeing, they're excited, they're curious. Okay, does that make sense? So, it's not about um the actual place, it's about how you feel while you're there. Okay. Yes. With my husband, like I just want the ting like lay flat and enjoy my life. And he's like, no, you should work. It's kind of the same as a retirement community versus working arduously to climb a mountain because my husband is

88:40totally into hiking. He's like the purpose of man is to you know achieve something to an end where I just want to live in retirement and he's like then you are less of a human if you live in retirement community. I'm like wow thank you very much you know to say I have no pursuit in life but I think it's the same idea. Yeah that's what men ought to be. Uh yes. I don't know if this is too literal way of looking at it, but so you've got this journey right through purgatory and if you can clean yourself all the sins, you'll finally get to heaven. Do we have any idea? I don't know if we'll see it later of how successful people are in actually making it all the way. Everyone is successful like like once you enter purgatory, you will succeed, right? Because you made the choice to succeed. Okay. Yes. Um so so before you mentioned there's pe there's some people done um bad deeds that too bad they're um in nihilation they're not even in hell. Does that mean these people don't have a chance to redeem them themselves? No no they choose not to redeem themselves. They're happy in hell. No. You mentioned they're in annihilation. Ann n annihilation. Well, well, I mean, yes, they're in annihilation because they cho they chose not to live. So, after Oh, so after their choice, they're forever uh Yeah. Because like like they just chose to do nothing in life. They just chose to um sleep through life, right? How how's that different from like animals or plants? Uh so does that does that choice is instant like like um yeah they don't want to exist. It's their choice not to exist. You have that choice. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh yes. Um I was trying to maybe foolishly um correlate e like ethics uh with the

90:43inferno. Yes. Um and I was thinking like we don't hear it explicit. Maybe we do and maybe I missed it, but we don't explicitly hear um anybody say like this is a a punishment for rapists. Probably lust somewhere. Um but modern ethics would say like what's the three worst things you can do is like rape, murder, but then slavery. And there was a lot of people today that would say like slavery is worse than murder because slavery is like slaves would happily kill themselves and stuff like this. And it makes so I did some research on this and Augustine would say that it's a it's a byproduct of the fall is that when sin entered the world then people learned to to be less kind to each each other and there were hierarchies involved and then slaves were involved because even in Dante's time slavery is less and we're moving into feudalism but it's not gone and it's just a economic reality. Yeah, you make a great point about slaves. In the divine comedy there are no slaves. Okay. Okay. And there's a very good reason why. Because in this world, you choose to be a slave because you rather forfeit your life. Uh sorry, you rather for forfeit your freedom than your life. You give up your free will in order to um protect your life. And if you think about it logically for Dante, you can't do that because free will is God's gift to you. And you've given up for like nothing really. Okay. So, so slaves don't matter. Like if you if you choose to be a slave, it's like I choose not to live anymore. Okay. You're basically a zombie. Uh yes. But what if you didn't choose to be a slave? You were forced to be a slave. No. That that's that's about Dante. You're you've always made a choice. You've always made a choice. Even if you are born a slave, you can choose to run away. If you're born a slave, you can choose to rebel. I I know it sounds a bit extreme, but that's how Donnie sees the world. Uh yes. Yes. Back there. I mean, I I hate to just to just beat a dead horse, but like what if rebelling

92:44would just mean instant death and you know that for certain? So that's your free will. Would you go to hell or limbo? Or where if like Yes. Then that's called civil disobedience, right? I bet there were I don't forgot who. Uh one of the great philosophers where he was put to jail if he did not agree to one of the government Socrates. Yeah, I think so. Socrates. Yeah. And then so he was stoned to death and so right. So uh so I mean if you think death is the worst thing that can happen to you, you don't have any faith. You understand? I do actually agree with you. I'm just um Right. Right. Right. Right. I'm saying that's what Donnie would say. Right. To fa to have faith is to believe that God gave us free choice. God wants us to live the best life possible. And if we cannot live the best p life possible, then our souls are immortal and we'll come back at at a later little point. Okay. But what's what matters is to protect the purity of your soul. And that means to protect your free will. Okay. And if you rather like surrender your free will just so that you can be live um than you know. Yes. It's kind of that the Dragon Ball festival we just celebrated like Chiian rather die and throw himself into the river than So that's another act of civil disobedience. We still celebrate a lot of these saints, heroes, whoever we call them, right? Who die, chooses to die. Exactly. Yes. But then are we saying it's inherently sinful to stay as a slave because you have no free will? But what if you're a slave and you're treated fairly well and you're somewhat content with how you are? Is that sinful? Um, yeah. I mean, what this is again is a lack of faith, right? It's a lack of understanding of who you are. You are here to live the best life possible. You're here to be an inspiration to others. You're here to co-create the universe. You're not here to like I don't know like just get by. Uh yes.

94:46I suppose where where then I go with this is then surely through Dante's lens should we all just quit our jobs because basically in modern society right if we're working that free will is also taken. Um no that's not what Donna would say. Donna would say trust your intuition. If your intuition is I should just quit my job and do something else. Sure. Right. But it depends on your situation. It depends on on your intuition. There there can be no absolute rule. Right. There can be no general principles. It depends on your own individual understanding of the situation, your own intuition. Yeah, that's what I mean. So, if the slave is a slave, but their intuition says it's fine, I'm looked after, then it's fine. Yeah. If you think you're being a slave, then then you should quit your job. Okay. Uh, yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I also wonder if you can just maybe give us some diagram about the dentist because I think dentist make a diagram which is we can put every people into the diagram for example like uh some hero in in China or some hero in the like hamlet right so I don't know if Hamlet just on the one hand just try to revenge right but he also tried to make justice for for his father so what do you think about Hamlet for example do you think he would be in the dentist limbo or in the uh in the jeopardize uh in in in the paradise. Well, I mean I no I think that Hamlet would be in paradise uh because first of all Hamlet is a poet and second of all he chose to live a righteous life, right? Um um I'm sorry. He wouldn't be in heaven because he did kill um Claudius, right? Uh, so he'd been in purgatory, but I mean he wouldn't be there for long. Okay. He would have to repent uh and redeem himself of of his sin. But um

96:46uh I mean like like I don't want to go to Hamlet uh because it's a very complicated situation. But if you actually understand the plot of Hamlet, it was not vengeance. It was not murder. It was justice. The reason why is that first Hammet conducted an investigation to confirm the guilt of Claudius and then there was a trial. Okay, if you remember the plot of Hamlet, there's a there's a trial, an open trial where um Evan could see the guilt of Claudius. Okay. And so for Hamlet, what he was ordered to uh avenge his father and he and he delayed the process because he wanted to turn the act of vengeance into an act of justice. Okay. And again, I I don't want to get too much into Hamlet. It's a very complicated play. Okay. Uh yes, would be in the first circle of heaven because they are just content with their life and they abandon free will. For me, this just makes sense to put them here. Not in heaven. They're not in heaven. But, you know, like we saw like the first circle of uh heaven, it was like people who just gave up free will. So, it was like nuns who like married uh some guy and just like accepted their their like right. So, so that's so the moon uh we talk about the moon. Yeah. Uh Picarda didn't give up her free will. She made a vow to go. Okay. And then she was violently forced out of the vow by her brother. You're right. Okay. So, so that's not slavery. Uh, yes. Like, is this sort of um philosophy that you'd better give up your life than your free will? Why Ko is in purgatory instead of in hell? Because like I remember you said that he he killed himself as to like not be one of Caesar's followers, right? And that and that's why he's in purgatory,

98:46right? Okay. Was that a question? Okay. Yeah, that's right. Yes, exactly. Okay. Uh yes. Um, obviously I'm not an expert on slaves or history, but from like the limited knowledge that I know, slaves oftentimes, um, slave owners would really terrorize their slaves. Like every single week there would be public bashings to really instill fear into the slaves to ensure that they don't run away. So the slaves in turn, they like learned, okay, I can't run away. But they still had acts of rebellion. For example, a lot of times you would have slaves, you know, poisoning their master's drinks. You would have them um spitting in their food. You would have them like just uh do doing these rebellious acts. So, in this case, they are still rebelling, but it's just like the constraints of society. And I don't know where you got history because it's completely wrong. That's not how slaves are. I don't know where we're getting this information. Like like slaves like poison their masters and spit in their food. where where you getting this information from. Okay, so let's think think about how slavery happens. Okay, in ancient times, we had slaves because um I would my army would go conquer your city and then I give you a choice. You either die or you become slaves, right? And it's your choice. And so when you when you become a slave, it means like you are now my property. You forfeit your humanity. You forfeit your free will. You are now my property. And because it's your free will to make this choice, you no longer can resist. Do you understand? Okay. That's where slavery comes from. So slavery is people who choose to

100:48become become slaves rather than to die. Uh yes. But I'm not I'm not saying I disagree, but like the question here is you are essentially if you go to hell like you're punishing people for their own individuality and their own choice, but kind I feel like you're kind of disregarding the influence of society on them like the like shouldn't you be criticizing society for having slaves and limiting their freedom and not allowing them to exercise their free will rather than criticizing the slaves for not having faith enough to criticize their free will. Uh yes, I forgot who said it, but men are born free, but everywhere he goes, he's in chains. Virgil was Yeah. And so in your case of slavery, I think you refer to North American black African-Americans, right? So they are born into slavery and there's no, you know, choice, you know, ex because they are beaten like Uncle Tom, right? Um but I think what Dante is saying that it's every one of us who are born into this world. We are born women who are inferior by society judge usually by you know compared to men. There are black people who are born of you know with black skin. There are people who are born into slavery. There are all kinds of people who are born into you know DNA def deficit where you are you know shorter or you are you live shorter you get cancer you know. So all of us are born free but live in chains. So you can always make a cho your you know choice to live a better life like mother Moses who got away right we heard a lot of underground railroad where a lot of these people try to run away you know and yeah yeah back there I just want to to say two things number one it was Russo not Volater who said that yes that's correct yes um and number two just in reference to your point about the slaves spitting in the food and poisoning the master's

102:49think spitting in the food is one thing. Poisoning the master's drink would be a true act of rebellion, trying to reclaim your free will. But it would just be very difficult for a slave to acquire poison without money. And these things are you exercising your free will, but you are not reclaiming your full free will. You have to break free 100%. Okay. Um so you guys are working on the assumption that slaves are unhappy. Okay. you're thinking to yourself that slaves really want freedom and it's just like they're being beaten every day so they can't have this freedom. That's not how it works. Okay? If you read these um Iron Curtain dissident like Mal Havo and actor Shenon, they say the same thing about life under total regimes, which is it's all just a facade. It's all just theater and there we're all just actors on the stage. And what is shocking to them is everyone chooses to participate in this facade. They just say it's all just a lie, right? It's like and the moment people are like, you know what, screw this system, the system collapses, which is exactly what happened to the Berlin wall in the in the in the Soviet Union, right? Just one day people were like, I no longer want to part participate in this facade and then the system collapses. Okay. So, you're we're working assumption that these slaves are being controlled by these overlords, evil overlords. But the reality is that slaves believe I should be a slave. I want to be a slave. I find meaning in being a slave. And for Dante, that is just outrageous. Yes. But I mean like how could you assume that the slaves are h happy about themselves in the first hand because I feel like generally it's like at least easier for us to understand that they are not happy because of all those violence that the slaveholders kind of

104:50like cast onto them and also like at the same time if they are truly happy isn't it in some ways reclaiming their own free will if they are happy like that's my two questions. I'm just kind of confused with Okay. So, happy is a very strong word. They're just complacent. Okay. Uh yes. So, I opened this can of worms and I didn't even explain what I what I learned at the end of it. Um bringing ethics into Dante is incorrect. Racism is unethical. There's no racist in hell. Um and so Dante, the question isn't is slavery unjust or unethical. It's is the social order properly ordained toward God? And so slavers, the people that own slaves can end up in hell for any number of things. But slavery is just a byproduct of the fall. And so you're not going to end up in hell for the fall. You're going to end up hell for violence or any number of things. There guests in your house. So if you kill your slave, then you would be in the bottom level of hell. Um that sucks in this modern world where we equate slavery as one of the worst sins. It just doesn't Yeah. So remember in in Divine Comedy, there are no slavers. There are no slaves anywhere. Okay. It's not really really an issue at at at this point. All right. Okay. So, let's uh continue um uh to Divine Comedy. Okay. So, this is what candle five now. Yep. All right. Uh Purgatory KTO 5. I had already left those shades behind and followed in the footsteps of my guide. When they're beneath me, pointing at me, one shade shouted, "See the second climber climb. The sun seems not to shine on his left side, and when he walks, he walks like one alive. When I heard these words, I turned my eyes and saw the shades, astonished as they stared at me, at me and at the broken light. Why have you let your mind get so entwined? My master said that you have slowed your walk. Why should you care about what's whispered here? Come, follow me, and let these people talk. Den like a sturdy tower that does not shake its summit through the though the

106:50winds may blast. Always the man in whom thought thrusts ahead of thought allows the goal he said to move far off. The force of one thought saps the other's force. Could my reply be other than I come and somewhat colored by the hue that makes one sometimes merit grace? I spoke those words. Okay, so let's figure out what's happening here visually. Okay, so Dante and Virgil are walking and they're trying to get to the gate of purgatory so they can climb the mountain of purgatory because Beatress is waiting for Dante, right? And as they're walking, they get spotted by lots of shades. And why are these shades interested in Dante? Why? Because he has a shadow. Yeah. Right. Because he has a shadow because he's different from they are. So they gawk and they want to talk to him. Right. And what does Johnny do in response? Listens. He doesn't he doesn't listen. He slows his walk to kind of consider what they're doing and wonder. Why is he slowing his walk? Because he's secondguing. Well, not second guessing, but why is he so slow? Why why is he slowing his walk? Virgil is like speeding ahead and Virgil and Donn is like, you know, walking really slowly, walking really gingerly. But why is he doing that? Anyone? So, we've seen this quite a few times already, right? Where the souls gawk at him and says, "Hey, Shadow." And then Dante just gingerly slows down. Why? Why would he do that? Yes. He wonders if he can help them in some way or if they can give him information about the ascent. You're such a You're such a generous and optimistic person. No. Yes. Like you're like the celebrity of purgatory. Exactly. Do you understand? Okay. It's

108:50like a movie star walks into a shopping mall and gets mobbed. Does he not know he's going to get mobbed? Right. He's he's going to walk in shopping mall to get mobbed, right? And like so Virgil's pissed off at at Dante like because it's happened quite a few times now, right? Where he's like slowing down just so like the shades can surround him and says, "Hey, can I have your autograph?" Right? And so um so first of all um why is Dante famous? Why is he famous? No. No. No. No. Why? Why? Why? Why is he famous? Like he has a body. No. No. Why? It's a shadow, right? He has a shadow. Okay. What is this a reference to? You worship shadows. What is this a reference to? Plato, right? How do you go to the cave? All reality is a shadow. If you worship shadows, you are in hell, right? How do they go to the cave? Plato. So, let's expand this. Okay. They're in purgatory, which is the light. So, it's like Dante and Virgil have escaped the cave, but what? They're still stuck in the cave mentally, right? They still think shadows are real. And these shades worship uh Dante because he has a shadow. Why? What? What is Dante trying to trying to say here? What is a shadow? Anyone? Uh, yes. What is a shadow? Explain the metaphor to me. Well, it tries to imitate something real, right? But it's not. Yeah, it's two-dimensional as well.

110:50Yeah, it's two dimensional. Yes. It means that in the Platonic idea that a form has been instantiated so that when light shines on it, beings can perceive it and that it's not in the formic world anymore. Okay. Yes. Yes. Uh I think it's the negative aspects of Dante that he collected in hell. So it's still like his, you know, like when he was dirty and he needed to clean himself, he's still like dirty of his shadow. And so it's going to be a process. That's right. That's right. All right. So shadow is an aspect left over from hell. Yes. That Yes. It's also eclipse of light. That's how shadow is created. What is shadow metaphor for? Excuse me. Is it seen or? No. No. Shadow is metaphor for for what in instance? Is it uh lack of light? So it's blocking light in a way. Uh yes. Ego. Okay. The ego. What? What projection? No, no, no. Come on. Just concepts. That's not God. Yeah. What? Uh, so, uh, in allegory of the cave, there are people who sit at the bottom of the cave and they're in chains and they're looking at a wall and out this wall are shadows and like if you go outside the cave, there's actually people and then there's a fire. So the the um the shadow on the wall is the projection of the fire of the action of people. So that I think the shadow probably means um an illusion illusion illusion of reality. I understand. But what is it for? Knowledge that you only gain from looking at it. Yes. Absence of God. Maybe fame guys. It it it's a metaphor for fame, right? You understand? And why is this important? Donny's obsessed with

112:50fame. You understand what what he's saying is that Donn is obsessed with fame. And and why would this be important for us? Well, fame as a pride is a sin, right? But but what but why would this be a problem for Dante? Yes. It would be something he needs to work on in purgatory. Right. Right. But I'm saying like why is it a problem now? Yes. Because it's just slowing him down. Yes. Because he's trying to get to Beatric, right? Do you understand? This is a metaphor. Fame is what slows you down from achieving God, from achieving reunion with God. You understand? Okay. Now, here here's here's a hard question. Who put this idea in his head? Who who said Virgil? Do you remember where we discussed this, right? Do you guys you guys remember what was the correct what was the exact phrase Virgil said? When when was when did Virgil say say this? What was the context? Do you guys remember we we discussed this? Okay. So they are in hell. They are in a circle of fraud and they're climbing these boulders, right? And it's tiring for Dante. So Dante slows down and Virgil says to him, "Hurry up for what? Why should you hurry up?" Excuse me. For fame, right? The exact phrase was everlasting fame. Remember, right? And we said Virgil, why did it say for Beatatrice, right? But instead, Virgil says for everlasting fame, right? You guys remember this? And now

114:52Dante Donald Dante's shadow has made him famous in purgatory, right? But the irony is that it's a shadow. Therefore, we know it's not everlasting. and it slow him down. In fact, he's not actually walking anywhere. Okay. He'd rather talk to the shades. He'd rather just like be adored and adulated by his fans. He's not actually doing going anywhere. Yes. And it also tries to then mirror what he wants actually in reality in real life. He wants this fame, right? Yes. And he but he gets the exact opposite by being exiled. Yes. Yes. Okay. Does that make sense? He thinks he he he Virgil said, "You're doing this for everlasting fame." And now he's like, "Well, I have everlasting fame, so I'll just stay here." Okay. But the everlasting fame, what gives him everlasting fame is the shadow. And we know shadows are just illusions. Does that make sense? And this happens this happening a lot where Donnie is slowing down because he wants the fans to come adore him. Okay? He wants that everlasting fame. And where's Beatrice in his mind? It's like she's kind of gone now, right? He's like, "Ah, my choice is climb all the way up to p the mount of purgatory and be withus or stay here and be adored by fans. I'd rather be adored by my fans." All right. Does that make sense? All right. Okay. Line 22. Meanwhile, along the slope, crossing our road slightly ahead of us, people approached, singing the misery verse by verse. When they became aware that allowed no path for rays of light to cross my body, they changed their song into a long horse. Oh, right. Do you see what's happening here? Right. These souls are committed to God. You see, Don is like, this is actually more interesting than God. Okay, keep on going. And two of them serving as messengers hurried to meet us and those

116:52two inquired, "Please tell us something more of what you are." My master answered them, "You can return and carry this report to those who sent you. In truth, the body of this man is flesh. If as I think they stop to see his shadow, that answer is sufficient. Let them welcome him graciously, and that may profit them." Never did I see kindled vapors red clear skies at nightfall, or the setting sun cleave august clouds with a rapidity that matched the time it took these two to speed above. And there arrived they with the others wheeled back like rangs that run without a rain. These people pressing in on us are many. They come beseeching you. The poet said don't stop but listen as he move ahead. So right. Do you understand? He's being mobbed by by his bands now. Okay. And that and Donnie loves this going. Oh so who make your way to gladness with the limbs you had at birth. Do stay your steps a while. They clamored as they came to see if there's any of us whom you knew that you may carry word of him beyond. Why do you hurry on? Why don't you stop? We all were done to death by violence, and we all sinned until our final hour. Then light from heaven granted understanding, so that repenting and forgiving, we came forth from life at peace with God, and he instilled in us the longing to see him. And I, although I scrutinize your faces, I recognize no one but spirits born to goodness. If there is anything within my power that might please you, then by that same peace, which in the steps of such a guide I seek from world to world, I shall perform it." and one began. We all have faith in your good offices without your oath. As long as lack of power does not curb your will. Thus I who speak alone before the others beseech you if you ever see the land that lies between Romania and the that realm the realm of Charles that you be courteous to me and treating those in fo to bestow fair play prayers to purge me of my heavy sins. My home was fondo with piercing wounds from which there poured the blood where my life lived. those I received among Antor's son there where I thought that I was most secure for he of Estee hating me far more than justice warranted had that be done but had I

118:52fled instead of toward Meera when they overtook me at Oryo then I should still be beyond where men draw breath I hurried to the marsh the mud the reeds entangled me I fell and there I saw a pool pour from my veins from on the ground okay sorry so let's stop and I want to ask everyone a question okay can you become so famous that it takes you it takes you to heaven. Let's let's think about this. Okay. Will celebrities go to heaven. Yes. Uh because the first commandment is you shall have no other god before me. And celebrities basically make themselves idols that they are literally called idols. Um, unless they are like, I don't know, idols that points to God maybe. So then they become prophets instead of idols. Uh, like John the Baptist. Um, but so John the Baptist was also a celebrity back then, but he points to Jesus, so it's okay. Uh, yeah. Okay. Um, yes. I guess we've got we got false counselors in hell, then there can be true counselors. And so you could be a famous true counselor, right? Right. Like like me, right? like like like I have my own YouTube channel and I'm spreading wisdom. Is this going to get me to heaven? Please say yes. I I think so. But I think the answer is no. Is that is that actually going to help me get to heaven? Why not? What gets you to heaven from if you're in purgatory? What gets you um up to heaven? Uh yes. Uh in inspiring imagination and maybe the problem with celebrities and idols is even if say the message is right, people will blindly follow what they say and not use their own imaginations. Okay. Sure. But again I I don't appraise

120:55myself too much but I feel as though my YouTube channel I am educating a lot of people and I am in by teaching you I am increasing your imagination. Right. So I like to think that I would get into heaven but probably not. So so why not? I think it would be the same as all the great thinkers though who has you know intellectual giants that we have depended on before just like Virgil, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato. Uh yeah I end up in limbo. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yes. Because the journey to heaven is still personal fundamentally is it's your journey of self-improvement and self-reflection that will bring you there. You you can still be a celebrity while doing it but but you can you need to almost turn that celebrity into something that helps yourself improve as opposed to the other way around. So how can I like you know get up to heaven faster? I think uh in general the journey to heaven or to purgatory or to hell really start after a person completes his life's journey. So until the person uh completes his life journey, there's no uh you know there's no start. Okay. How can I like give me some personal advice? Okay. Yes. Yes. If people pray for you then it's going to speak. And who's going to pray for me? Not you guys. No. No. My family. Do you understand? Okay. That's what Donna is saying here. It's revolutionary, right? You can be as famous as you want. You can have a trillion dollars. You can be a massive celebrity. It doesn't matter. Okay. What matters is your family. What matters are your neighbors. What matters is your community. Because these people are going to pray for you every single day with all their heart and soul. Yeah. I mean your fans might now and then say oh you know let's give a prayer to professor J that doesn't matter okay

122:55what matters is your you have to put your heart and soul into praying for someone and only your family would do that okay so so that's what Donnie is saying here don't chase fame fame doesn't get you anywhere chase love chase family okay be kind to the people around you and they will pray for you after you die case. Does it make sense? All right, let's keep on reading. Line 85. Another shade then said, "Ah, so may that desire which draws you up. The lofty mountain be granted with kind pity help my longing. I was from Montelro. I'm Buen Conte, Jovana, and the rest. They all neglect me. Therefore, among these shades I go in sadness, and I to him, what violence or chance so dragged you from the field of Campaldino that we know nothing of your burial place? Oh, he replied, across the casantino there runs a stream called Araniano, born in the Epanines above the Hermitage. There at the place where that stream's name is lost, I came my throat with peers, fleeing on foot and bloody the plane. And there it was, as that I lost sight and speech. And there, as I finished, I had finished uttering the name of Mary, I fell, and there my flesh alone remained. I'll speak the truth. Do you among the living retell, I was taken by God's angel, but he from hell cried, "You from heaven, why do you deny me him? For just one tear carry off his deathless part, but I shall treat his other part in otherwise." You were now in the air, moist vapor will gather and again revert to rain as soon as it has climbed where cold unfolds. His evil will which only seeks out evil conjoined with intellect and with the power his nature grants he stirred up wind and vapor. And then when day was gone he filled the valley from Pramanu far as the great ridge with mist. The sky above was s saturated. The dense air was converted into water. Rain fell and then the gullies had to carry whatever water earth could not receive. And when that

124:56rain was gathered into torance, it rushed so swiftly toward the royal river that nothing could contain its turbulence. The angry archano at its mouth had found my frozen body, and it thrust it into the Arno and set loose the cross that on my chest my arms and pain had formed. It rolled me on the banks and riverbed that covered girded me with this debris. Pray after you returning to the world when after your long journey and you've rested the third soul following the second said may you remember me who am laia Sienna made me mma made me he who when we were wed gave me his pledge and then as nuptial ring his gem knows that so these are souls who died in battle okay and right now in history a lot of people are dying in battle it's basically gang warfare throughout Italy okay factional fighting just endless is wars. And so if you die in the battlefield and uh you repent um you're put in in purgatory, but if you die violently, you don't you don't have a chance to repent. You're still put in purgatory and you have to wait a bit before you can move on. Okay. So again, what Donn is trying to emphasize is God is merciful and God is just. Okay, count six. When dicing's done and players separate, the losers left alone disconulate. Rehearsing what he thrown, he sadly learns. All the crowd surrounds the one who won. One goes in front and one tugs at his back. And at his side, one asks to be remembered. He does not halt but listens to them all. And when he gives them something, they desist. And so he can fend off the pressing throng. And I, in that persistent pack, was such this way. In that I turned my face to them and making promises escaped their clutch. There was the Aritine who met his death beneath Gino Daco's Beastio hand and one who drowned when in pursuit he ran. There with his outstretched

126:58hands was Federico nolla praying and the peace on who made good Marso who show his fortitude. I saw Countso and I saw the soul pluffed from its body out of spite and envy. Not it is so it said because it had been guilty. I mean Pierre de la Brass and may the lady of Braent while she still knows this world watch her ways or end among a sadder fog. As soon as I was free from all those shades who always pray for others prayers for them so as to reach their blessed state more quickly. I started Oh my light. It seems to me that in one passage you deny expressly that prayer can bend the rule of heaven. Yet these people pray precisely for that end. Is there hope therefore only emptiness? or have I not read clearly what you said? Okay. So, what Donnie is doing is he's listing a lot of people from his real life. Okay. And there's a lot of people from his real life. Um, we don't know who they are. He But he knows who they are. Why is he doing this? Why is he listing so many people from his real life who who died? Why would he do that? Uh yes, Shakespearean where if I write you in poem you live everlastingly. So that's one thing to commemorate his peers. That's a great point. Yes. And then the other one is to console their family who read it and be like hey by the way your son is in purgatory you know like don't be too sad. Yeah that's a great point. So his so even though we don't know who they are, his readers will know who they are and they're consoled by the fact that their loved ones are in purgatory. Um and so what's the effect of that to know that your loved one is in purgatory? Yes. To the widows and the mothers and the family and and and what will they do with their hope? Pray really hard for them.

128:58It's it's it's making people live a life of faith, hope, and love, right? Because because otherwise they don't know where their loved ones are. They could be the they could be in hell. They could be in heaven. So without this hope, what would they do? Usually what what are rich people people doing at this time? You guys know add on to corruption. That's exactly what they're doing. Okay. They're ex They don't know. They're uncertain. So they're going to give huge bribes to the Catholic Church which as you point out feeds the corruption which feeds this in a cycle of violence right by saying don't worry your loved one is in purgatory don't buy the church pray for this person. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. All right. Okay. Let's let's keep on going. Line 34. And he to me my Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I I forgot. Okay. All right. So Dante hears and knows that if you pray if if you pray for a loved one enough, this is this is going to reduce the loved one's time in purgatory. But we already we already said God is not transactional, right? God has perfect justice. You you're punished for the crime you committed. If your loved ones are praying for you, why should that matter? And what Donna says to Virgil is, hey, in your INIAD, okay, you said very clearly, we mortals cannot at all impact the decision of the gods. We have absolutely no say in this divine cosmos. So what is it? Okay, that's a question that D asked Virgil and like let's u analyze Virgil's response. Line 34. And he to me, "My text is plain enough, and yet their hope is not elusive, if

130:59one scrutinizes it with sober width. The peak of justice is not lowered when the fire of love accomplishes in one instant the experation owed by all who dwell here. For where I sed this, that prayers could not mend their fault. I spoke of prayers without a passageway to God. But in a quandry so deep, do not conclude with me, but wait for word that she, the light between your mind and truth, will speak. Lest you misunderstand that she I mean is Beatress upon this mountain's peak. There you shall see her smiling joyously. This is such a great response from Virgil. Okay. D is asking him, "Hey Virgil, didn't you say in your text in the Iniad, which is the Bible, right? Um we cannot at all impact the decision of the heavens." And here in purgatory, we're seeing clearly prayers are lifting people up faster to the heavens. So what is it? And what is Virgil's response? Can you paraphrase for me what he's saying here? It's such a great response and it shows you so much into his character. What does he say? Parap paraphrase for me his response. Yes. When I wrote it, prayers didn't work like that. Why not? Because Jesus hadn't died or Mary had not given birth to him. That's right. So this is so I was talking about the pagans, guys. This this is Christian. Do you understand? That's his first response, right? Well, what I meant was the pagan world, not the Christian world. Now it's different. And what is the second response? Excuse me. Yeah, don't bother me, man. Go talk to Beatatric. Okay, his two responses are one, well, it's different now because

132:59it's a Christian world. And two, go talk to Beatatrice. Okay, so so why is Virgil responding the way he is? Again, this is different from Beatatric, right? where Beatric will actually tell you the answer, right? What? Yes. He really doesn't want Dante to slow down and just get involved. You're such a generous, optimistic person, man. Yes. That authoritarian teacher is like, "Shut up and move on." Okay? Don't question me. I'm your teacher. Kind of just go shoot. Like if you ask someone these questions, that question says, "Well, it's a different world now and also go talk to another person." Why would you think that person has responded the way that he or she wants like has responded? He just coping. It's cope. Yes. But it's also what? Dodging the questions. You mean dodging the question? Yeah. He doesn't want to think about this. You understand? He He does not want to think about why this is happening. Dante proposed a contradiction. and he's like, "Well, actually, there's a loophole." Okay, he's he's like being a lawyer here. He's trying to dodge the question. He's trying to avoid the question because he does not him him he himself does not want to reflect on what's really going on. Okay? He wants to maintain his worldview, right? We talked yesterday about fixed mindset versus growth mindset. It's a fixed mindset, right? Okay. Uh let's keep on going. And I Oh, actually line 49. And I, Lord, let us move ahead more quickly. For now, I'm less weary than before. And you can see the slope now cast a shadow. As long as it is day, we'll make as much headway as possible, he answered. But our climb won't be as rapid as you thought. You will not reach the peak before you see the sun returning. Now he hides behind the hills. You cannot interrupt his light. Okay. So, D says, "Lord, let us move

135:01ahead more quickly, for now I'm less wary than before." And you and you can see the slope now cast a shadow. Why is Dante less wary than before? Yes. Because he's left his fans behind, but he's happy that he had fans. Yeah. Again, you're so generous with Dante. No. Think big think big think big think big think big think big think big think like like Dante is a really proud people person. Yes. Uh yeah that's way too generous for Dante. Yeah. Why is Dante really excited now? Yes. He's like, I saw all the loopholes that you make and now I'm above you in a way intellectually. No. No. What does Dante care the most about right now? Yes. To progress your journey so that he can meet more fans. What did Dante see that makes him happy now? Dante himself. No, no, no. Guys, read the text. I'm asking you a question. What did Donnie see? Yes. The slope now casts a shadow. Yes. What did he see now? Well, people or No, guys. What's he seeing now? That's like Whoa. Yes. Wait. No. No. No. No. Come on. What? What's he seeing right now? Literally

137:01the peak. Literally. What's he saying? Literally. He sees what? He's focused on this. Maybe a friend. So 61, we came to him. Oh, Lombard. No, no, no, no, no. You're jumping ahead. I I just want to focus on these three sentences, right? What's he seeing now? That the slope is easier. This is so hard for you guys. Okay. He sees something. It makes him really, really happy and excited. What is it? Let's keep on going. Okay, let's go. Huh? Yeah. Like you guys can't can't see it, right? He sees it. It makes him really really happy. Beatress. Okay, let's read it again. Okay, there's only like so many possibilities here. And you got I I just want something he sees here that makes him really really happy. Yes. The slope cast a shadow. But what is he seeing? Light casting a shadow on something other than himself. Guys, visualize this. What is he seeing right now? What's he focused on right now? did not line 46 47. The No, no, no. I'm Let's just focus on on these three lines. The what three lines? Three lines. Oh, 49 to 51. Sorry. Sorry. Can Can you read again for everyone? 49 to 51. Sorry. And I, Lord, let us move ahead more quickly. For now, I am less weary than before. And you can see the slope now casts a shadow. What does he see? Is it that purgatory is real to him now? No. What does he like literally see right now? Another shadow. He sees a shadow and he's really happy about it. Why? Because he's he's also still in the cave

139:01mentally, right? So So why is he happy to see the shadow? What's going to happen now? Maybe another friend. He's going to chase the shadow. Right. Right. So, so this is what's happening is he sees a shadow and so so what he knows so what does happen what's what's going to happen now shadow is cast. He's being mobed by his fans again, right? You understand? So that's what makes him excited. Not Beatric, not God, not the slope, not purgatory. He's like screw all that. I want my shadow, man. That's what I care about. Okay. Every time I cast a shadow, people are going to run up to me and says, "Hey, can I have your autograph?" So, he's become addicted to his own fame. Do you understand the idea here? Okay. He's narcissistic. He's like, "All I care about is my shadow now." Like, forget Beatric, forget heaven. I care about my shadow. That's it. Okay. And this is also true for people who are celebrities today. Right? All they care about is your fame. Right. If you're a social media influencer, what's the only thing you care about? Exactly. Right. The metrics, the number of subscriptions you you have, the um amount of views you get, right? That's all you care about. And you're always like, "How do I get more of these subscriptions?" And so what happens eventually to some? Yes. Buy it. Consumed by it. So then they are eaten alive. So then they do all kinds of extreme outrageous things because blood and gore is what sells the newspaper. So then you at the end turn into destruction of yourself. Yeah. I mean like I mean there's so many examples, right, of social media influencers who kill themselves or who do outrageous things to attract attention because like they all they care about are the ratings. Okay.

141:01Right. So So that's what uh Donnie is saying here like fame makes you egotistical, narcissistic, and it's an empty life. Okay? Because like literally all he cares about now is his shadow. Okay? Which is just an illusion. Right. That doesn't make sense to you guys. All right. Uh let's let's keep on reading. 52. As long as it is day, we'll make as much headway as possible, he answered. But our climb won't be as rapid as you thought. You will not reach the peak before you see the sun returning. Now he hides behind the hills. You cannot interrupt his light. But see beyond a soul who is completely apart and seated looking toward us. He will show us where to fly most speedily. We came to him, oh Lumbard soul. What pride and what to stay and were in your stands. Your eyes moved with such dignity, such gravity. He said no thing to us but let us pass. His eyes intent upon us only as a lion watches when it is at rest. Yet Virgil made his way to him, appealing to him to show us how we'd best ascend. And he did not reply to that request, but asked us what our country was and who we were. at which my gentle guide began. And that spirit who had been so solitary rose from his position saying, "Oh, Manuan and I'm Sodello from your own land." And each embrace the other. Okay. So, uh, Virgil has met another poet, Sudello, who is actually a very important poet. He is something called a trodor, which is a love poet, uh, a poet of the quoted love tradition. Okay? Uh, and they're both from from the same place. And so, they embrace each other. And you can see how happy and enthusiastic Virgil is to meet someone from um the same area. Keep on going. Line 76. Uh object Italy. You're you in of sorrows. You ship without a helmsman in harsh seas. No queen of provinces but of bordello. That noble soul had such enthusiasm. His city's sweet name was

143:02enough for him to welcome there his fellow citizen. But those who are alive within you now can't live without their waring. Even those whom one same wall and one same oat and close nod each other. Squalid Italy search around your shores and then look inland. See if any part of you delight in peace. What use was there in a Justinians mending your bridal when the saddle's empty? Indeed, was there no rains? Your shame were less. Are you who, if you understood what God ordained, and would then attend to things devout, and in the saddle, surely would allow Caesar to sit. See how this beast turned spheres because there are no spurs that would correct it, since you have laid your hands upon the bit. Oh German Albert, you who have abandoned that steed become recalcitrin and savage. You who should ride a stride at saddle bo bows upon your blood may the just judgment of the stars descend with signs so strange and plain that your successor has to feel its terror. For both you and your father and your greed for lands that lay more close at hand allowed the garden of the empire to be gutted. Come you who pay no heed do come and see. Montichi Capaleti said already and filled with fear. Manaldi for the Peshi come one come see the tribulation of your nobility and heal their hurts and see and how disconulate it's Santaure. Come see your Rome who widowed and alone weeps bitterly both day and night. She moans my Caesar, why are you not at my side? Come see how much your people love each other. And if no pity for us moves you, may shame for your own repute move you to act. And if I am allowed, oh highest job, to ask, you who on earth were crucified for us, have you turned elsewhere your just eyes? Or are you in your judgment step devising a good that we cannot see, completely decided from our way of understanding? For all the towns of Italy are full of tyrants, and each townsman who becomes a partisan is soon a new Marcelis.

145:02My Florence, you indeed may be content that this degression would leave you exempt. Your people striving spare you this lament. Others have justice in their hearts and thought is slow to let it fly off from their bow. But your folk keep it ready on their lips. Others refuse the weight of public service. Whereas your people eagerly respond even an ass and shout, "I'll take it on." You might be happy now for you have caused you with your riches peace judiciousness. If I speak truly facts won't prove me wrong. Compared to you Athens and less a dayon though civil cities with their ancient laws had merely sketched the life of righteousness. For you devised provisions so ingenious whatever threats October sees you spin. When mid November comes will be unspun. How often in the time you can remember, have you changed laws and coinage, offices and customs, and revised your citizens? And if your memory has some clarity, then you will see yourself like that sick woman who finds no rest upon her feather bed, but turning tossing tries to ease her pain. Okay. So, this kind of is about into two parts. Okay. The first part we see the vanity of Dante, right? All he cares about is this shadow because this shadow is bringing him everlasting fame where he is. But in the second half of the KTO, Dante goes on this lament about Italy uh and is returning to the prophetic tradition where he is um saying that Italy is full of of sin. He's almost appealing to divine justice and saying that Italy um is terrible. It's full of sin. It's like Sodom Gomorrah. And so how can we explain this uh dichconomy right on one hand he is just focused on his fame his shadow but on the other hand he goes on this lament about uh the fate of Italy yes I think

147:02because he's thinking what good could my fame ever do other than change Italy and he's using this as an opportunity he's thinking about well I'm famous now it's kind of meta thing to the reader. Speaking of fame, what should a good famous person do but instruct his nation? Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? Yes. I think also that he's talking about how he feels the pull of fame even in himself, but there are people he's talking about that are even beyond that when they're not even asked to to do something. They just try and gain power immediately. Who's your favorite celebrity? Like a movie star or like um I just tried to ditch all them for Jesus because they all had flaws. Okay. Does anyone have a celebrity that they worship or whatever? What are they like? Yes. Kanye West. Yeah. Kanye West. Okay. All right. So, why do you what what does Kanye West say about the world that allows you to admire him? Uh, not nec not necessarily about his opinion on the world. Um I admire him because he there's there's a saying of him uh is um we just what what what we do um we we should be we we uh how should I phrase this? Um basically he's telling us to be who we are and to uh embrace us ourselves be be more courageous. Yeah. Okay. So you admire him for his songs which deliver a message of courage and

149:03um hope. Okay. Yes. I would say uh Kanye pretty much shares the same uh perspective with Dante on on the on world. Uh like um choose love over fear like be fearless and always be certain like be always be certain about who you are and like what your impact on the world, right? And be uh be imaginative, right? Are you a concern at all about his personal life? the fact that, you know, he marries and divorces and he seems to pay no attention to his kids. Are you at all concerned about his personal life? I'm pretty much concerned about his personal life but and uh I don't think I I it doesn't seems good to me but uh besides those his personal life I think he still sticks to himself and he's pretty much hadn't changed a bit uh among all this chaos and and uh yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. So, this is hard. Okay. Um, but I want to uh uh bring up an idea that we learn in paradise, which is there is the absolute will. Absolute will is just what you believe and who you are. Okay, your absolute will. Who you are, what you believe, what your ideal state is. And then there's the contingent will. Okay, we learned this in paradise. Contingent will, which is what you choose to do. Okay, an example is Picarda because Picarda is a just um person who is devoted to God, right? She is a princess and she's like I don't want to participate in this world of politics. I want to go to a nunnery and devote my myself to God. That's the absolute will. The contingent will are the choices you make in your life. And so when her

151:06brother sent soldiers to kidnap her from the from the comment, she did not resist. She went with them. Okay. So this is something to to keep in mind as we continue to read Dante. There is a difference. Okay. There's difference between what you believe and what you say and what you do. Okay. So yes, so he is very much concerned about the fate of the world. But at the same time, Don is obsessed with his fame. And and this is not necessary a contradiction. And in life, what what we're trying to do is align the two, right? The alignment of the soul. And that's hard to do. Okay. All right. All right. So, let's go to the next um KTO. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Before we begin, I I I I want I want you to like think about this. So Dante is obsessed with his shadow because it's what's bringing him all all this attention. Okay? And so he's slowing down. He's looking for like wherever his shadow is. Okay? And he gets really excited when he see when he sees his shadow. It's almost like like a drug now. Okay? And how does Virgil feel about all this? What is going in the mind of Virgil as he's seeing this? Anyone? Yes. I can't believe that Beatrice sent me for this guy. Yes. Right. It's like what douchebag this guy is. Right. What a douchebag. Okay. What else? Uh, yes. Yeah. Um, maybe Virgil is happy. Virgil is happy. Why? Because um he finally corrupted. Yeah. Like I I told him to do things for everlasting fame. Now he's doing what I want. So now and so now I control him.

153:06Yeah. No. No. That's that's not how Virgil thinks. What is Virgil's major emotion right now? It's kind of frustration, right? Like what a douchebag this guy is. But what else? What's the major emotion you would feel if you were Virgil? impatience, right? He's telling Ver tell me to hurry up. Yes. A little bit of jealousy. I I think jealousy, right? I think if I were Virgil, I I I'd be very jealous about this. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay. All right. So, remember where we are where Dante is obsessed with his shadow and Virgil's like, "Oh my god, what a douchebag." And like he and so he he so Virgil wants to move as fast as fast as possible. Right. Okay. Okay. Uh let's let's continue read. Kto 7. When glad and gracious welcomings had been repeated three and four times. Then Sordella drew himself back and asked, "But who are you?" Before the spirits worthy of ascent to God had been directed to this mountain, my bones were buried by Octavian. I'm Virgil and I'm deprived of heaven for no fault other than my lack of faith. This was the answer given by my guide. Okay. Um, we we know Virgil is lying here. What is false about what he just said? So they'll ask him who are you and I Virgil and I'm deprived of heaven for no fault other than my lack of faith. Where's the lie? Yes. I deprived for heaven because of his lack of faith. It's his active ego that he chose to be. Okay. So, we know it's a lie. Okay. And how do we know it's a lie? But for a fact it's a lie. And how and how do we know? We know it's a lie. He may not know. Yes. Because he could never have made it to heaven. Uh because he was born before

155:08uh m Mary gave birth to Jesus. So, he was never going to make it anyway. He was always going to end up in limbo. Well, that's what Virgil believes, but we know it's a lie. Why? We know for a fact it's a lie. Also, because he betrayed God through his work. No, no, no, no, no. I'm saying like we know for a fact it's a lie because of what evidence? Pagans in pagans in purgatory. But how do we know that? Kato. Kato. Do you understand? We know this is a lie because we just saw Kato in purgatory. And Kato, we know for a fact, is a pagan. And Ko was like, "Oh, I'm a Christian now." No, no. He's like, "I'm still Ko." Okay, so we know this is a lie, right? Does Virgil know he's lying here? We know it's a lie, but does he know it's a lie? No. No. I'm saying does Virgil know it's a lie? Right. Yeah, sure. Uh I I think he he don't he doesn't know know it's a lie. Yeah. I feel it's hard not to know that it's a lie because he met Kato. He talked to him, right? You know, he's like, "You're the other me and why are you here? I'm not like, hello." We had this major encounter between Ko and Virgil. It's a very embarrassing, awkward encounter, right? So, how could Virgil not know he's lying? That's exactly it. Con of dissonance. Okay, that that's the idea here. Okay, again what's amazing is con of dissonance, right? What's amazing is that this is written in the 14th century and already Dante knows about Mar psychology, right? This is kind of dissonance. And what is called dissonanceology?

157:12So you hold on to your own worldview because you you can't let it shatter. It's too much to All right. Do you guys understand? So uh yeah. Did you want to add to that? Yes. So when you hear something that someone else's else says that is different to your own perception of the worldview, you feel uncomfortable. No. No. It's not you don't feel you don't feel No, no. You don't feel uncomfortable. What do you do? You reject it. Do you understand? Okay. So, what's happened is Virgil had this encounter with with Ko. It was so traumatic for him that he just blocked it out. He doesn't remember he this encounter. He doesn't remember Ko. Uh did you want to say something? Yeah. I was uh just recently I looked up the the definitions and etmological origins of a an illusion and a delusion. An illusion is like a magic trick and your mind's like, "Oh, that's not real." But you know it's not real. And a delusion is when you accept it into your whole essence, right? Exactly. Okay. So that's what this this is really interesting what's happening, right? where Virgil goes to purgatory for the first time, meets Ko, knows for a fact now that pagans are allowed access to purgatory and he's like screw this. I don't I don't and he forgets about it and it's like forever blocked from his memory. Okay. So, this reveals so much about his character and his motivations, right? All right. Um let's keep on going. Line 10. Even like one who suddenly has seen something before him and then marveling dust and does not believe saying it is is not. So did Sordalo seem. And then he bent his brow, returned to Virgil humbly and clasped him where the lesser presence clasps. He said, "Oh glory of the Latins, you through whom our tongue revealed this

159:12power. You eternal honor of my native city. What merit or what grace shows you to me? If I deserve to hear your word, then answer. Tell me if you're from hell and from what cloister. Through every circle of the sorry kingdom, he answered him. I journeyied here. A power from heaven moved me. And with that I come. Not for the having, but not having done, I lost the sight that you desire, the sun. That high sun I was laid in recognizing. There's a place below that only shadows, not torments, have assigned to sadness. Their lament is not an outcry but a sigh. There I am with the infant innocence, those whom the teeth of death had ceased before they were set free from human sinfulness. There I am with those souls who were not clothed in the three holy virtues, but who knew and followed after all the other virtues. And if you know and you able to, would you point out the path that leads more quickly to the true entry point of purgatory? Okay. Sorry. So let's let's let's Okay. So Sodello says, "Oh my God, you are him. You are the Virgil." Um, and how and so like Silo humbles himself before uh Virgil. He basically bows down to Virgil. And how does Virgil feel about this? How does Virgil feel about this? Bit sweet. Bittersweet again. And you're so generous. Um, not bittersweet. No, just happy. He's ecstatic. Okay. He can be happier in his life. Why? Why can't he be happier in his life? Yeah. I mean, he's gained he seems to have got a taste of the fame even though he's has no shadow and that his achievements in life seem to have raised him above the state and that the guy still really loves him even though he

161:12asks, "Are you from hell?" And he goes, "Yeah, kind of." But the guy's like, "Oh my god, I still really love you." What is Virgil really pissed off about right now? What is Virgil not happy about right now? Yeah. Uh he he's pissed off for the Dante. Seems like Dante has gained more fame over him. Yes. Exactly right. He's pissed about Dante. Like why is Dante more famous here than I am? And now he meets someone like oh you're more famous than Dante and V is like oh yes I am. Okay. And how do we know he is ecstatic? Let's let let's read his speech. Okay. And tell me what in his speech tells us he is ecstatic. through every sorry uh sorry uh uh line 22. Okay. Line 22. Through every circle of the sorry kingdom he answered him. I journeyied here. A power from heaven moved me. And with that I come not for the having but not having done. I lost the sight that you desire. The sun that high sun I was laid in recognizing. There's a place below that only shadows, not torments, have assigned to sadness. Their lament is not an outcry but a sigh. There I am with the infant innocence, those whom the teeth of death had ceased before they were set free from human sinfulness. There I am with those souls who were not clothed in the three holy virtues, but who knew and followed after all the other virtues. Okay, so he's ecstatic and we know because of his speech. What is interesting about about his speech here? You guys analyze the language. Yes. The first point that jumps out is that he says he is in the other virtues. So that he didn't have the three key ones, but that he is very much exemplifying all the others in his life. Yeah. So if you're really happy, you you tend to like boast about yourself, right? It's like look how great I am.

163:12Yes. Okay. That's that's one thing. Yes. What else? Yeah. when he talks about his traveling through the circles, he doesn't mention Dante or the mission. He just says it's a power of heaven. He says, "I came up through the he focus all of his attention, right?" He forgets to say, but before he was like, "Okay, well, I'm helping guide Dante through uh um hell and purgatory." But now it's just like me me. Okay. Again, that's if you're really ecstatic, you just focus on yourself, right? What else? And again this this is different from his other speeches. Okay. Uh yes. Well um I lost the sight that you desired the son that high the high son I was late in recognizing. So in a way he now does recognize the the Christian God basically. And he he also recognizes that he he's wrong or he was wrong. Before No, he's not. That's not that's not what he's doing here actually. Okay. I guess I think he's beautifying the places that he he is at and he's trying to kind of photoshop it like lemon is not a outcrop but a side and I'm with the innocent and it's just too bad I died before you know Jesus came. Is that really my fault? He's using a lot of adjectives. Okay, he he is exaggerating. He's he's making he's creating like this opulent th flowery language and that's different from his speeches before where he was very tur. Okay. Very brief and to the point. Now he's just like look um like trying to show off his poetry. Do you understand he's trying to impress? Yeah. It's full of sim uh simile and meals. That's right. He's making himself an angel almost. He's forceful. He's bragging and he's trying to impress. Yes. Yeah. One more thing or will there are more? Yes.

165:12He also mentioned that in hell they're full of shadows. So this is him saying that the fact that Dante has shadows behind him is not a great deal. That is very clever. Yes. I didn't see that. But that's exactly correct. Yes. He's like why you guys like bra like like focus on his shadow? There's shadows everywhere in hell, man. Right. He's still pissed about Dante. Exactly. Yes. I thank you. Thank you for that. Yes. Anyone? Anyone else? Okay. And I Yes. Anyone else? Yes. I thought the infant innocents go to Paradesia. Oh, no, no, no. Um, it depends on the situation. Uh, most in infants go to limbo, but there are some parents who pray for the infant and who do so many good deeds that uh their actions help the infants ascend to heaven. Okay. Okay. So th those are special cases. Um Okay. Yeah. I would also point out that he uses he uses I a lot, right? I And he also this is actually pretty long by the standards of Virgil speeches. Okay. So it just shows you how ecstatic he is. I finally someone finally recognizes him and knows he's better than Dante. Yes. Like takes up six stanzas. Yeah. Compared to all his short verses. Yeah. Yeah. dot. He's usually very very uh tur. Yes. Uh keep on going. In 40 he answered, "No fixed place has been assigned to us. I'm free to range about and climb. As far as I may go, I'll be your guide. But see now how the day declines. By night we cannot climb. And therefore it is best to find some pleasant place where we can rest. Here to the right are spirits set apart. If you allow me, I shall lead you to them. and not without delight you'll come to know them. How is that? He was asked. Is it that he who tried to climb by night would be impeded by others or his own lack of power? And good Sord Delo, as his finger traced along the ground said,

167:14once the sun has set, then look, even this line cannot be crossed. And not that anything except the dark of night prevents her climbing up. It is the night itself that implicates your will. Once darkness falls, one can indeed retreat below and wander aimlessly about the slopes while the horizon has enclosed the day at which my lord as if in un in wonder said lead us then to there where as you say we may derive the light from this night's day. Okay. So there's a very particular rule to purgatory which is like once it's night you can't move anymore or you can't cross certain boundaries anymore. Okay. Why would they have this rule in purgatory? You didn't have this in hell. You don't have this in heaven. Why would you have it in purgatory? Uh yes, you you then you okay taking a real place like as it is on earth. So if you're traveling on earth back then in middle ages, you can Okay. So it's trying to imitate the real world as much as possible. Uh what else? I was going to say something similar, but I also think that other than imitating the real world. It you're basically trying to purge your shadow. So in in the mystic world of purgatory, it's pretty difficult to know where you would try and chase if you were like trying to cleanse yourself if there there was no light at all to be a reference. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Let's let's be very simple about this. Okay, in the day they're walking, right? And these souls are so excited that at night if they could they walk would walk as well. And so they have this rule which is like at night you cannot proceed any further. Okay, you cannot advance your progress. This is very strange because you would think that and very very idea of purgatory is to encourage you to expedate your sins as as fast as possible. So why would they have this rule um you cannot advance during the

169:16night? Yes. It's maybe a moment for people to self-reflect. Yes. Why? Like because you don't move. Then you're just thinking about where you are, why you are there, and then what's going on. Well, well, if it's night and you can't move, what are you doing? You're like talking to people, imagining. Oh, yeah. Dreaming. Talked about it. You're sleeping, right? When you sleep, what happens? You dream, right? You understand the And you're you're right. The the entire point of purgatory is to cause self-reflection. And one way to to provoke self-reflection is just to have the guy sleep, man. You know, because when you sleep, you dream. and your dreams reveal things to you that you couldn't know before. Does that make sense? Okay. So, the entire point of purgatory is to force self-reflection and that's what's that that and that's what what makes it different from hell. But there are different ways in which you can force self-reflection, right? So, one way is through the discussion but another way is through dreaming. Okay? And what's another way to force self-reflection? Can you guys guess? Dreaming, sleeping is a way to force self-reflection, right? Talking to other people is another way. But but there's also other ways. And what are they? Seeing someone else do the actions that you do. Yes. That's right. Yes. Good. What else? Worshiping. Praying. Yes. Exactly. And they do worship and pray here. Yes. What else? Yes. Abstinence from things. So any kind of indulgence or process that you do just taking it away and seeing what is left in the void of your life. Okay. All right. So yeah, that that's correct. Okay. But but I want more common things. Okay. So sleeping is one way and then another way is do people ever take a step back in

171:16purgatory? There is it is it a beline one step in front of the other always progress? Because I self-reflect when I fail or I have a shortcoming. Sure. Sure. Yes. So, so they will be forced to like stand still and and fail. Yes. Okay. But, but and what is the really common way in society that forces our self-reflection? Maybe walking. Excuse me. Maybe take a walk. Uh, yes. You learn from mistakes. Yes. Writing. Maybe writing. Yes. But what's causing all this? Like like reading or go to class or something? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, we're running out of time. Okay. But art, guys. Art. A R T. Art. Does it make sense to you? When you go when you go to a museum and you see all these paintings, when you hear great music, when you watch a great movie, it forces self-reflection on you, right? Does that make sense? So, dreaming artwork. Okay. And we'll see a lot of artwork in purgatory. All right. Uh, let's keep on going. Line 64. We had not gone far off when I perceived that just as valleys hollow mountains here in our world, so that mountain there was hollowed. That shade said, "It is there that we shall go to where the slope forms of itself a place will await the day's coming. There was a slanting path, now steep, now flat. It led us to a point beside the valley, just where its bordering edge had dropped by half. Gold and fine silver, coinial white lead and Indian likenite. Highly polished bright fresh emerald at fresh emerald at the moment it is dampened. If placed within that valley all would be defeated by the grass and flowers colors. Just as the lesser gives way to the greater and nature there not only was a painter but from the sweetness of a thousand odors she had derived an unknown mangled scent. Upon the green

173:17grass and the flowers, I saw seated spirits singing Salv Regina. They were not visible from the outside. Okay. And also nature as well, right? You have art, but you also have nature. Okay. Keep on going. Before the meager sun seeks out its nest began the manuan who led us here. Do not ask me to guide you down among them. From this bank you'll be better able to make out the acts and features of them all than if you were to join them in the hollow. He who is seated highest with the look of one to two lax in what he undertook whose mouth although the rest sing does not move was Emperor Rudolfph one who could have healed the wounds that were the death of Italy so that another later must restore her. His neighbor whose appearance comforts him governed the land in which are born the waters of Moldow carries to the Elbby and the Elby to the sea named Ottoar in swaddling bands. He was more valiant than his son, the bearded Vince Claus, who feeds unwantedness and ease. That small-nosed man who seems so close in counsel with his kindly friend died in flight, defflowering the lily. So see how he beats his breast there, and you see the other shade, who as he sides, would rest his cheek upon his palm as on a bed. Father and father-in-law of the pest of France, they know his life. It's filled its vice. Out of that knowledge grows the grief that has pierced them. That other who seems so robust and sings in time with him who has a no so manly wore the cord of every virtue. And if the young man seated there behind him had only followed him as king, then valor might have been poured from vessel into vessel. One cannot say this of his other heirs. His kingdoms now belong to James and Frederick, but they do not possess his best. How seldom human worth ascends from branch to branch. This is willed by him who grants that gift that one that one may pray to him for it. My words suggest the large-sed one no less than they refer to Peter singing with him whose air brings pulon's distress. The plant is lesser than its seat just

175:17as the man whom Beatatrice and Margaret w is lesser than the husband Constance has. You see the king who let the simple life seated alone. Henry of England he has better fortune with his progeny. He who is seated lowest on the ground and looking up is William the Marquee the marquee. For him both Alexandria and its war make Monerato and Kovves mourn. Okay. So these are monarchs, right? Uh and again they are anti- purgatory. They are waiting until they've made their penance and they're ready to climb uh purgatory. Okay. All right. This is going to be uh purgatory 8. Kanto 8. It was the hour that turned seafarious longings homeward. The hour that makes their hearts grow tender upon the day they bid sweet friends farewell. The hour that pierces the new traveler with love when he has heard far off. The bell that seems to mourn the dying of the day. When I began to let my hearing fade and watched one of those souls who having risen had signaled with his hand for attention, he joined his palms and lifting them he fixed all his attention on the east as if to say to God, "I care for nothing else." Tuchi's auntie in issued from his lips with such devotion and with notes so sweet that I was moved to move beyond my mind. And then the other spirits followed him devoutly, gently. Through all of that hymn, their eyes intent on the superal spheres. Here, reader, let your eyes look sharp at truth. For now the veil has grown so very thin. It is not difficult to pass within. I saw that company of noble spirits silent and looking upward, pale and humble as of an expectation. And I saw, emerging and descending from above, two angels bearing flaming swords, of which the blades were broken off without their tips. Their garments, just as green as newborn leaves, were agitated, fanned by their green wings, and trailed behind them, and one angel came and

177:17stood somewhat above us, while the other descended on the opposite embankment, flanking that company of soul between them. My eyes made out their blonde heads clearly, but my sight was dazzled by their faces, just like any sins bewildered by excess. Both come from Mary's bosom, said Sord Delo, to serve as the custodians of the valley against the serpent that will soon appear. At thus, not knowing where its path might be, frozen with fear, I turned around, pressing close to the trusty shoulders. And Sord Delo continued, "Let us now descend among the great shades in the valley, we shall speak with them, and seeing you, they will be pleased. I think that I had taken but three steps to go below when I saw one who watched attentively trying to recognize me. The hour had now arrived when air grows dark, but not so dark that it deprived my eyes and his of what before they were denied. He moved toward me, and I advanced toward him. Noble judge Nino, what delight was mine when I saw you were not among the damned. Okay. All right. Um, so one last question, and then we'll take a break. Okay. So um clearly there are references to the Garden of Eden. Um because if you read Genesis, what happens is we we get banished from the Garden of Eden and there are two angels with flaming swords that now watch over the Garden of Eden to bar entry. Um what are the two angels doing here? Did you guys spot that? What what are the two angels doing? The flaming swords. What are they doing? Hands at the valley against the serpent. Yeah. So, what what what does that mean? They're to protect the mountain from the devil, right? From the snake. And what does that mean? What? What? What does that mean?

179:17Yes. that even in self-reflection the devil can come in or that in like this is a place of art of looking at great people of history for Dante. Um but he's being reminded that this is not a place safe from all evil and that there's still temptation and trouble in Paris. That's right. The snake will always be there. Okay. The snake is eternal. Yes. Um okay. Let's just say that you you we're all going to purgatory. Okay. Um and we see these angels. What would our first fear be? Oh, sorry. Um we'd be afraid, right? Because we think these angels, what are they doing here? They're safeguarding purgatory from from evil. But so so if I'm going through the gate, right, I see these angels, I'd be worried that they might stop me. Yes. Right. Right. Because Genesis, the Bible told us that these angels are are to protect the Garden of Eden. Which means what now? Which means what? What's it saying? Why is there a snake here? Where's a snake trying trying to go? because we're in the Garden of Eden right now. Okay. So, the first idea is there is a Garden of Eden and that's where the snake is trying to go, right? Okay. So, the Garden of Eden is actually on top of Mount Purgatory. Okay. But what but if you're But again, if you're a Christian, you're kind of surprised by all this. Why? Why would you be surprised to hear there are two angels guarding against a snake in purgatory? Yes. I don't know whether this is my paradise lost knowledge talking, but I thought that Satan comes into a snake who's in

181:18the Garden of Eden already. He doesn't have to make a journey through any other places. So you'd be confused that the snake has to do anything to get in there, right? So, so remember we are now in the future, right? So what's happened is Adam and Eve were tempted by the snake and they ate the fruit and now they've been banished from and they were banished from the Garden of Eden. And so why would this all be surprising for us? Yes. uh maybe because uh people just feel fear you know so they don't want to die and uh they just want to leave and this kind of fear and desire and uh if you're a Christian yes after Jesus died for our sins are we allowed to go back to the garden of we're allowed to go back now guys okay it's open now the angels are there not to bar entry they're there to bar the snake from entry we're allowed to go in out, right? Were you taught this in Christian school? And it makes sense logically, right? If Jesus died for our sins and we're now redeemed in the eyes of God, theoretically, we should be allowed back in the Garden of Eden, right? And that's what T is saying here. If it is true that we're redeemed, then the Garden of Eden should be open, right? And who redeemed us from our sins? Not Jesus, Mary. And and h and and how do we know that? Because Virgil tells us. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying in the text. How do we know that? Mary that Mary the angels come from Mary's bosom, right? Mary redeemed us and so she they came from our heart.

183:28Okay, good afternoon. Welcome back. Um, so I just received an email from Professor Brahmich and he he he said, "You guys are lovely." Which is a pretty high praise coming from him. Okay. Uh, but he is right. um you uh have improved a great deal and um I think that our discussion right now is very deep. If Dante were here, he would approve. He would he would be smiling at us. Okay. So, uh congratulations on everyone. Uh okay. So, any questions from this from this morning? Any issues from this morning that you would like to any questions? Yes. I'm just a little bit confused about what would you say is the major point of the long canto where he lists all the kings because he's such an economical poet. Yes. But there's just so many kings listed. I'm assuming that's to weigh down on the reader something, but I'm not 100% sure what that is. Yeah, you're absolutely right in that Dante does not waste words. This is why this is poetry. it is um the best economic uh poetry. Um so again this is all speculation but what I think Dante is achie trying to achieve is one of totality one of completion right so he wants so at his heart he's democratic so he's trying to speak to everyone he's trying to give people a sense of the unity of the world and so he's trying to create good role models and at this time in history there are a lot like really bad kings, right? And what he's trying to say is that even if you're a bad king, there is hope for you, right? Because what's the most common thing to do? If you sin, you're like, "Well, I'm

185:28screwed anyway, so go for it, man." You know, I'm going to hell anyway. Who cares? I'm just going to enjoy my time on Earth for the next 10 years, kill as many people as as possible, then I'll burn in hell for all eternity. You know, at least I'll die of a bang, right? Because there's no hope for me. So, um, at this time in history, people are are very black and white about the way they perceive the world. What Don is trying to say is, no, no, no, guys, that's not how it works. There's hope for everyone. You can you can be the total for all of your life, but at the very last minute, you're like, you know what, I want to repent and God will give you a chance. It may mean you are in purgatory for like the next million years, but there's still hope for you, right? Does that make sense? Okay. But that's what I I think is happening. Okay. But there are I'm sure there are other explanations any but thank you for that. Any more questions before we continue? Uh yes. My last query is that if Virgil is so smart, why does he feel jealous ever? What do you mean by that? Well, like I tr I was told from when I was young that jealousy is is bad. So I just tried very hard for all of my life to try and not be jealous of other people. I thought that was like an obvious mission. So I thought that people who were very developed in their mind and soul would have left jealousy behind. So it strikes me as surprising that Virgil would feel jealous of anybody, but I can see how he would be in this scenario. Okay. So that's a very interesting point you make. So there are many religious traditions that teach you that the ego is a source of sin and you turn away from the ego you move towards God. But D doesn't believe that. D believes that the ego is the source of our imagination. These emotions that we have whether they be jealousy, anger, hatred, they're part of who we are and they help develop our imagination with color and

187:29with nuance. So it's not about avoiding these emotions. It's coming to terms with these emotions through experience, through reflection and it's a process of uh self-doubtment. Okay? And and this this is why divine comedy is constructed the way it is. It's a journey, right? Because remember in hell Donnie is just like the biggest right? He he tells the father of his rival, "Your son's burning in hell, right? That's just pure jealousy, pure envy. But what will happen is that through in the in purgatory he will move into a process of redemption and salvation. Okay. So so so that's what Dante believes. Does that make sense? Great. Okay. Any more questions? All right. Let's let's continue. Um KTO 8 verse 52. He moved toward me and I advanced toward him. Noble Judge Nino, what delight was mine when I saw you were not among the damned. There were no gracious meeting we neglected before he asked me, "When did you arrive across long seas beneath this mountain side?" I told him, "Oh, by way of the sad regions, I came this morning. I'm still within the first life, although by this journeying I earned the other." When they heard my answer, Sord Delo and Judge Nino just behind him drew back like people suddenly astonished. One turned to Virgil and the other turned and called to one who said there up Curado come see what God out of his grace has willed. Then when he turned to me by that a special gratitude you owe to him who hides his primal aim so that no human mind may find the ford to it. When you return across the wide waves ask my own Jovana. There were there where the police of innocence are answered to pray for me. I do not think her mother still loves me. She gave up her white veils. Surely poor woman she will wish them back again. Through her one understands so easily how brief and woman is love's fire when not rekindled frequently by

189:30eye or touch. The serpent that assigns the Milan their camping place will not provide for her a toous fair as with Galora's rooster. So Nino spoke. His bearing bore the seal of that unswerving seal which though it flames within the heart maintains a sense of measure. My avid eyes were steadfast staring at that portion of the sky where stars are flour even as spokes when they approached the axle. And my guide, son, what are you staring at? And I replied, I'm watching those three torches with which the southern pole is all of them. Then he to me, the four bright stars you saw this morning now are low beyond the pole. And whose and where those four stars square, these three now are. Even as Virgil spoke, so Delo drew him to himself. Drew him to himself. See there, our adversary, he said, and then he pointed with his finger. And so adversary is the name of Satan, right? Satan literally means adversary in the Hebrew Bible, right? So So again, it's referencing back to um the garden Adam, the garden of of Eden, and it's saying to us that we've redeemed ourselves. Our adversary has been defeated. Okay, keep on going. Line 97. At the unguarded edge of that small valley, there was a serpent similar perhaps to that which offered Eath the bitter food. Through grass and flowers the evil streak advanced. From time to time it turned its head and licked its back like any beast that pins it and sleeks. I did not see and therefore cannot say just how the hawks of heaven made their move. But I indeed saw both of them in motion. Hearing the green wings cleave the air, the serpent fled, and the angels wheeled around as each of them flew upward back to his high station. The shade who, when the judge had called, had drawn closer to him through all of that attack, had not removed his eyes from me one moment. So may the lantern that leads you on high discover in your will the wax one needs enough for reaching the enamelled peak

191:30that shade began. If you have heard true tidings of Baldi Mara or the lands nearby, tell them to me, for there I once was mighty. Curado Malaspina was my name. I'm not the old Curado, but I am descended from him. To my own I bore that love that here is purified. I answered, I never visited your lands, but can there be a place in all of Europe where they're not celebrated? Such renown honors your house, acclaims your lords and lands, even when one has not yet to journey there. And so may I complete my climb. I swear to you, your honored house still claims the prize, the glory of the purse and off the sword. Custom and nature privilege it so that though the evil head contorts the world, your kin alone walks straight and shun the path of wickedness. And he be sure of that the sun will not have rested seven times within the bed that's covered and held fast by all the rams four feet before this gracious opinion squarely nailed into your mind with stouter nails than others talk provides if the divine decree has not been stained. Okay. So uh he lists a lot of people from his real life right and you can imagine um what he's doing is he is in exile from Florence and he needs to make a living right so basically by including families uh that he knows from uh Florence into this divine comedy he's also soliciting donations from them does that make sense it's like Yale you know taking donations. Okay. All right. Let's keep on going. Oh, he has a question. Yes. We saying Dante was sponsored in a way. He had a He had patrons. Patrons. That's right. But you could always ask

193:31for more. All right. Okay. Kanto nine. Now she who shares the bed of old Tiffanus, abandoning the arms of her sweet lover, grew white along the eastern balcony. The heavens facing her were glittering with gems set in the semblance of chill of the chill animal that a salesman with its tail. While night within the valley where we were, had moved across two of the steps it climbs. And now the third step made night's wings and climb. When I, who bore something of Adam with me, feeling the need for sleep, laid down upon the grass where now all five of us were seated. At that hour close to morning, when the swallow begins her melancholy songs, perhaps in memory of her ancient sufferings, when free to wander farther from the flesh, and less held fast by cares, our intellects envisionings become almost divine. In dream I seemed to see an eagle poised with golden pinions in the sky. Its wings were open. It was ready to swoop down. And I seemed to be there where Ganimi deserted his own family when he was snatched up for the high consistry. Within myself I thought this eagle may be used to hunting only here. Its claws refused to carry upward any prey found elsewhere. Then it seemed to me that wheeling slightly and terrible with lightning, it swooped, snatching me up to the fire's orbit. And there it seemed that he and I were burning, and this imagined confflration scorched me so. I was compelled to break my sleep just like the wicking of Achilles when he started up casting his eyes above about him not knowing where he was after his mother had stolen him asleep away from Chiron and her arms had carried him to Skyros. The aisle the Greeks would later make him leave. Such was my starting up as soon as sleep had left my eyes and I went pale as will a man who terrified turns cold as ice. The only one beside me was my comfort. By now the sun was more than two hours high. It was the sea to which I turned

195:32my eyes. My lord said, "Have no fear. Be confident, for we're well along our way. Do not restrain, but give free rain to all your strength. You have already come to purgatory. See there the rampart wall enclosing it. See where that wall is breached, the point of entry. Before at dawn that ushers in the day, when soul was sleeping in your body, on the flowers that adorn the ground below, a lady came, she said, "I'm Lucia. Let me take hold of him who is asleep that I may help to speed him on his way." Sardella and the other noble spirits stayed there, and she took you, and once the day was bright, she climbed, I following behind, and here she set you down. But first her lovely eyes showed that open entryway to me. Then she and sleep together took their leave. Just like a man in doubt who then grow sure exchanging fear for confidence. Once truth has been re revealed to him, so was I changed. And when my guide had seen that I was free from hesitation, then he moved with me behind him up the rocks and toward the height. Okay. All right. So let's analyze this. This because this is a very important um section because this is the first time he has a dream. He he'll actually have many dreams because as he points out dreams uh come from the divine. Okay, the divine is giving you a message and what happens is that um he falls asleep he has a dream of an eagle snatching him and he wakes up startled and Virgil says don't worry it was actually Lucia who came down from heaven to carry you to the gate of purgatory. Okay, before they were anti purgatory, now they reach the gate of purgatory and now they will make their ascent. And so that's the plotline of the first half of this kanto. Now if I were Dante's writing teacher, okay, and he came to me and he showed me this, I would be like, Dante, you're lazy. Okay, it's like you're trying to move the plot along along and you need to get

197:34to the gate of purgatory really fast. So he like you just make something up. I'm like okay an angel took me to to to the gates of purgatory. That's it here. Okay. So C minus for you Dante. Which is basically a fail at Yale. Um convince me I'm wrong. What would Donnie say? Right. I'm reading I'm reading this. I'm thinking like this is this is lazy writing, man. You're just skipping the plot. Right. You don't know how to move the plot along. just well then we just got to purgatory because the angels took us. Convince me I'm wrong. How would Donnie defend himself and says no no no no. This is actually perfect. Yes. With the divine plan or his cosmology that you cannot enter purgatory without the love for support or the angel prayer of your f family or friends and that's how you get there. So it suits the deep the theory. That's right. Okay. So one possibility is that Lucia and all the woman Rachel uh Rof and and and Beatatric all praying for him. And so this is how he gets to the gate of purgatory. Okay. That's one possibility. Yes. Um so this whole journey, I don't want to say it's a dream, but it's like a vision of of some sort. And so he's having a dream inside of a a dream, so to speak. Um could this be um him him willing it like where there's a will there's a way. So he dreams that he's carried and then therefore he is carried. I would just I I would say the opposite right because Lucia literally carries him right. Lucia literally carries him all the way to the gate which is a long way and Virgil and Sodell have to walk. Anyone else want to try? Yes. So this entire trip like down the hell

199:35and up the mountain purgatory is supposed to be an experience that the reader can actually like participate in. So like if we're if we're to be like truly experience what Dante has experienced, we need to like like listen listen him like listen someone else reporting what happened during our dream so that we can feel the same sense of um doubt and um yeah doubt to towards what he actually dream, right? And I agree with that. But but the problem is like it's like if you were to do that, you would write about how arduous the turn journey is, right? You would write about your emotions during this journey. You wouldn't say like I had a dream and then I got to where I am. Right. So So that's why I I would give him a C minus because he's being lazy here. I'm I'm I'm trying to get you to convince me I'm not he doesn't he deserves an A+. Yes. I'm I just think that for him to describe the arduous journey, any detail is a distraction and not true because of course he's creating the cosmology, but he he would have to say there were some really tricky rocks. There were some animals, but what do these signify? I just think he doesn't want to confuse us with any detail that we'd read into before we get to the gates because there's so much symbolic imagery. Even when he's trying to get through the gates, there's like three steps made out of different rock and stuff. And I just think any detail of the journey towards the gate would distract us from the symbolism past the gate. Uh so yesterday we talked about this, right? How the details add to the journey, how details make us part of the story. Uh yes. Well, I don't know about um Dante, but like in life sometimes to get through purgatory, to get through life, you need

201:37help from other people. And sometimes these forms of help come at you without you necessarily being aware or conscious. I don't know if that this is a message that it's trying to convey. Okay. Um but it is conscious because Virgil tells him what the dream is about. Uh yeah, go ahead. Um I I would connect it back to prior our one hour prior to our one hour break. Uh we were just told by Sardello that nobody can move ahead at night, but this is actually um you can move ahead by at night. And so I would argue that um you know there's transcendence to this and you can actually transcend whatever rules there are. Right. Okay. I actually took this to I actually interpret this as like he was so tired he slept he slept through the day and and so like Virgin kept on walking and like he like he was asleep. So Luc is like I have to come and get him. Okay. Uh, yes. Yeah. I had your same interpretation, but then there's a line. It's like the sun rose and then they were Yeah. Yeah. So, it's daytime. He's still asleep. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um, any other suggestions? Yes. Is it possible that dentist is so happy? Because when people get so happy, they they can't remember so many things and they just maybe Okay. All right. So um we have to remember that ultimately this is a movie. Okay, this is a journey, a movie where the characters are real. What is Dante's state of mind right now? What does he really care about right now? What what what is he in love with right now? His shadow. Okay. Okay. So he's in love

203:37with his shadow. So he's like walking really slowly. He's procrastinating. He's oversleeping. He's spending a lot of time with the other shades getting like offering autographs. Okay. Beatress and watch is up there watching this and and what is she thinking right now? Yeah. She's kind of pissed right now, right? Why is she pissed? Yeah. She's like, "What about me, man?" Right? I only I only did you this favor because I thought you truly love me and only love me and now you're in love with your own shadow. All right. So, if you're future, what are you going to do? This guy and just bring him to me closer. No, but I but but like why not just go and like punch the guy, you know? Like just curse the guy. Why are you like lifting a guy and carrying him to the gates of purgatory? Yes. Okay. Right. No, but I'm trying to figure out why not why not just like curse this guy like like like because Virgil would do that, right? Right. Yeah, be interested in heaven isn't going to curse anybody. But um what is St. Lucia? St. is is that a clue? Uh St. St. Lucy. St. Lucy. So there's argument about who she is. But um what most most people believe is that she is someone who gave who who um became a Christian and then when she was forced to get married, she killed herself rather than um uh get married. And so she she's like the opposite of Picardia. Yeah. Um there's

205:40there are lots of these saints in the in the church. Yes. I think if you're coming from a mother or like a wife perspective or girlfriend because you love this guy so much and you know that he has his faults and he's stupid sometimes. But right but you still forgive him and you want to speed him alone. And so then you're like, I'm going to send you help so that you just skip this part of temptation that's going to make you fall, make you slow down. It's a nudge, right? And this nudge is going to force starting to think, why did this happen? Why did they have this dream, right? Because it's a dream. It's a Neil coming to snatch you up. What does this dream signify? Right? So it's two things. It's one, it's like the dream and Donny's forced to think about how to interpret this dream. It's also Lucia coming down from heaven um herself and carrying Dante. If you are Dante, what are you thinking right now? What are you thinking right now? Yes. I'll probably feel a bit guilty and then I'll just stick to my task. No, you're not going to feel guilty. What are you going to fe feel? Yes. Maybe annoyed. Not annoyed. Lucky? No. If you're Dante and this happens to you, what are you going to feel? Ashamed. Uh, ashamed maybe. But also, no. I mean, like like yes, right? It's like, oh man, all my fans now I don't get to see them. No. I would feel fear. What? Why would I feel fear? Was mad he's no longer going to get all the help from her and then he'll just be left in the purgatory. Uh no, it's it's actually much more subtle than that. C can you try? Um because the story of Ganymede is kind

207:42of creepy to me because he was like kidnapped by the eagle. Yes. and he became the cup bearer. So he's like basically the slave in heaven. Yeah, that that's exactly right. The dream is making him afraid, right? Do you understand? The dream isn't like, oh wow, Lucia came to like, you know, take me to P. I'm really really happy. No, it's fear. The emotion in the dream is fear. He's afraid, right? But I'm trying to figure out why he' be afraid. Because Lucia came to help you out, right? Why? Why would he be Why Why would he be afraid? Do you guys not have like girlfriends? Do you not know how girlfriends behave? Yes. Yeah. Oh my god, guys. Do you not have girlfriends? Okay. Or wife or mother? Like, they're really pissed at you. What What do they What do they do? Yes. Well, Beatatrice thinks that Dant is kind of cheating or on her basically. Basically, yes. And she and so they will the the angel will judge him maybe for it. So that's what he's afraid of that that that he's going to get judged based on that. Right. Okay. So So I like like I this is hard but but this is a life lesson for our guys. Okay. Truly. If you're a girlfriend, right, and like you do something stupid, um, and she shots she shouts at you, right, she hits you, you're good. Okay? But if she like she buys you dinner and gives you flowers, you're really screwed. She's going to kill you now. Okay? Life lesson for for for the guys in here. All right? So Dante is now terrified, right? You understand? He had this dream which is like, "Ha, someone's pissed at you, Dante." Right? This dream is an omen.

209:44It's a divine message. And then Virgil says, "Lucia came and like and then Virgil and I thought like Lucy is best friend, right? I'm now in a lot of trouble, right? And he knows it's because for the past, you know, whatever he's he's been in love with of his own shadow." Okay? But but you see how how amazing this is, right? Because it gives you complete insight into human psychology and it's very real. Okay. All right. Let's let's keep on going. Verse 70. Reader, you can see clearly how I lift my matter. Do not wonder, therefore, if I have to call on more art to sustain it. Now we were drawing closer. We had reached the part from which where first I had seen a breach, precisely like a gap that cleaves a wall. I now made out a gate, and there below it three steps, their colors different leading to it, and a custodian who had not yet spoken. And I looked more and more directly at him, and I saw him seated on the upper step, his face so radiant, I could not bear it. And in his hand he held a naked sword, which so reflected rays toward us that I time and again tried to sustain that sight in vain. Speak out from there. What are you seeking? Though he began to speak, "Where's your escort? Take care lest you be harmed by climbing here. My master answered him. But just before a lady came from heaven and familiar with these things told us, that's the gate. Go there and may she and may she speed you on your path of goodness. The gracious guardian of the gate began again. Come forward therefore to our stairs. Okay. So um Dante and Virgil are approaching the gates of purgatory. And with each gate in purgatory, there's been an angel guarding it. And um this is very similar to hell right where there are certain demons guarding certain passages in hell and virgin has to come forward and say uh we've come here we come here u with a mission from heaven

211:44and uh what's the difference in responses for um between the demons and the angels the demons in hell and the angels here what is the difference again it's these like these subtle details that make divine coming so um imaginative. Yes. The demons usually say why have you come but the angels say what do you want or what are you looking for that the demons are usually angry or just are disturbed. What's the most common response when Virgil says that we have a mission from heaven? What is the most common common response from the demons? You guys remember and again this is what makes uh divine calming so uh magical because because he pays attention to these details. They're silent, right? Okay. You don't know the you don't know what the response is. They're just silent. Uh whereas these angels are actually enthusiastic. Great. Sure. Come in. Let me help you. Okay. All right. So So again, this attention to detail. I thank you. Can you keep on going? Four. There we approached, and the first step was white marble, so polished and so clear that I was mirrored there as I peer in life. The second step, made out of crumbling rough, rough, textured, scorched with cracks that ran across its length and width, was darker than deep purple. The third, resting above more massively, appeared to me to be of pfery, as flaming red as blood that spurts from veins. And on this upper step, God's angel seated upon the threshold, which appeared to me to be of adamant keep his feet planted. My guide with much goodwill had me ascent by way of these three steps and joining me. Do ask him humbly to unbolt the gate. I threw myself devoutly at his holy feet, asking him to open out of mercy. But first, I beat three times upon my breast. Upon my forehead he traced seven P's with his sword's point and said when you have entered within take care to

213:44wash away these wounds. Okay. So the seven P's the P stands for pakata which is Italian for sin. Okay. So the idea is that Donna has to climb seven terraces which are the seven deadly sins. He has to purge himself of these seven deadly sins. Each time he purges himself an angel will come and take away a pee. Okay. So he's tracking his progress through for through purgatory. Okay. Okay. Uh, keep on going. Line 115. Ashes or dry earth that has just been quarried would share one color with his rope. And from beneath that rope, he drew two keys. The one was made of gold. The other was of silver. First with the white, then with the yellow key, he pied the gates as to satisfy me. Whenever one of these keys fails, not turning appropriately in the lock, he said to us, "This gate of entry does not open. One is more precious but the other needs much art and skill before it will unlock. That is the key that must undo the knot. These I received from Peter and he taught me rather to in opening than in keeping this portal shut whenever soul pray humbly. Then he pushed back the panels of the holy gate saying enter. But I warn you he who would not he who would look back returns again outside. And when the panels of that sacred portal, which are of massive and resounding metal, turned in their hinges, then even tarpia, when good metalas were removed from it, from which that rock was left impoverished, did not roar so nor show itself so stubborn. Hearing that gate resound, I turned attentive. I seemed to hear inside and words that mingled with gentle music to deum lo and what I heard gave me the very same impression one is used to getting when one hears a song accompanied by organ and now the words are clear and now are lost. Okay, so the angel is saying two things about this gate. Okay, the first thing about this gate is that they're generous. They will let in more people than they actually need to. They want to give people opportunities and a chance. Okay. Second thing is the moment you

215:44come in, don't look back. Go in with total faith and be resolute. The moment you lose your uh faith, the moment you become doubtful, then you you'll be kicked out again. Okay? We'll let anyone in, but once you come in, you have to be pretty harsh on yourself. Okay? And and those are the rules for purgatory, which is very different from what the church teaches you at this time, which is that it's very hard to get in. Once you're in, you're good. Okay, it's the opposite. Okay, so this is purgatory 10. When I had crossed the thresh threshold of the gate that since the soul's apparent love would make the crooked way seem straight is seldom used, I heard the gate resound and hearing knew that it had shut. And if I turn toward it, how could my fault have found a fit excuse? Our upward pathway ran between cracked rocks. They seem to sway in one, then the other part, just like a wave that fleas, then doubles back. Here we shall need some ingenuity, my guide warned me, as both of us draw near this side, or that side where the rock wall veers. This made our steps so slow and hesitant that the declining moon had reached its bed to sink back into rest before we had made our way through the needle's eye. But when we were released from it in open space above, a place at which the slope retreats, I was exhausted with the two of us uncertain of our way. We halt it on a plateau lonier than desert paths. The distance from its edge, which rims the void into the base of the steep slope, which climbs and climbs would measure three times one man's body. And for as far as my sight took its flight, now to the left, now to the right hand side, that terrace seemed to me equally wide. There we had yet to let our feet advance when I discovered that the boring bank less sheer than banks of other terraces was of white marble and adorned with carvings so accurate not

217:46only policies but even nature there would feel defeated. The angel who reached earth with a decree of that peace which for many years had been invoked with tears. The peace that opened heaven after long interdict appeared before us his gracious action card with such precision. He did not seem to be a silent image. One would have sworn that he was saying a for in that scene there was the effigy of one who turned the key that had unlocked the highest love. And in her stance there were impressively words at Anchila day precisely like a figure stamped in wax. Your mind must not attend to just one part. The gentle master said he had me on the side of him where people have their heart. At this I turned my face and saw beyond the form of Mary on the side where stood the one who guided me another story upon the rock. Therefore I moved past Virgil and drew close to it so that the scene before me my eyes was more distinct. There carved in that same marble were the cart and oxen as they drew the sacred ark which makes men now fear casts not in their charge. People were shown in front and all that group divided into seven choirs made two of my senses speak. One sense said no, the other said yes, they do sing. Just so about the incense smoke shown here shown there, my nose and eyes contended to with yes and no. And there the humble psalmist went before the sacred vessel dancing, lifting up his robe. He was both less and more than king. Facing this that scene and shown as at the window of a great palace, Macau watched as would a woman full of scorn and suffering. To look more closely at another carving which I saw gleaming white beyond Macau. My feet moved past the point where I had stood and there was the noble action of a Roman prince was presented. He whose worth had urged on Gregory to his great victory. I mean the emperor Trajan and a poor widow was near his bridal and he stood even as one

219:47in tears and sad in his wood. Around him horsemen seemed to press and crowd above their heads on golden banners. Eagles were represented moving in the wind. Among that crowd a miserable woman seemed to be saying, "Lord, avenge me for the slaying of my son. My heart is broken." And he was answering, "Wait now until I have returned." and she as one in whom grief presses urgently and Lord if you do not return and he the one who will be in my place will perform it for you she what good can others goodness do for you if you neglect your own he be consoled my duty shall be done before I go so justice asked so mercy makes me stay this was the speech made visible by one within whose sight no thing is new but we who lack its likeness here find novelty while I took much delight in witnessing these effiges of true humility dear to see because he was their maker. The poet murmured, "See the multitude advancing, though with slow step on this side, they will direct us to the higher stairs. My eyes which have been satisfied in seeking new sight, a thing for which they long did not delay in turning toward him." But what I would not have you, reader, be deflected from your good resolve by hearing from me now how God would have us pay the debt we owe. Don't dwell upon the form of punishment. Consider what comes after that. At worse, it cannot last beyond the final judgment. Master, I said, what I see moving toward us does not appear to me like people, but I can't tell what is there. My sight bewildered. And he to me, whatever makes them suffer their heavy torment bends them to the ground. At first I was unsure of what they were, but looking intently and let your eyes unravel what's beneath those stones, you can already see what penalty strikes each. Oh Christians, arrogant, exhausted, wretched, whose intellects are sick and cannot see, who place your confidence in backward steps? Do you not know that we

221:47are worms and born to form the angelic butterfly that source without defenses to confront his judgment? Why does your mind presume to flight when you are still like the imperfect grub the worm before it has attained its final form? Just as one sees a time at as corbal for support of ceiling and or of roof a figure with knees drawn up into chest and this oppressiveness unreal gives rise to real distress in him who watches it. Such was the state of those I saw when I looked hard. They were indeed bent down, some less, some more, according to the weights their backs now bore. And even he whose aspect showed more patience, and tears appeared to say, "I can no more." Okay. All right. So, they are passed against the purgatory. They're now inside purgatory proper. And what's the first thing that he sees? What's the first thing he sees? What's there awaiting him in in purgatory? First thing, excuse me. Rocks. Yeah. Right. And what are these rocks? What's inside these rocks? Carvings. Okay. This is artwork. The first thing that Donnie sees when he enters purgatory is artwork, carvings off the rock that depict scenes of humility. Okay, these are just famous scenes. And um what Donnie does is that he turns these scenes into basically a movie, right? A story that he plays in his head. So what he's trying to suggest here is if you want to really redeem yourself, if you really want to cleanse yourself,

223:50what do you need first and foremost? What enables you to redeem yourself? What we what allows you to absolve yourself? Reflection. Uh yes, humility. um examples of humility to copy uh you need reflection but what drives the hum the reflection art but but why art imagination imagination okay that's what D is saying here if you really want to start the process you need imagination so what I want to do now is let's draw let's drop the Mona Lisa okay is the is do you guys like like the Mona Lisa okay or maybe some something else do do you guys prefer the monisa or another piece of art. Huh? The Last Supper. Okay, let's do both. Okay, let's let's let's do both the Mona Lisa and Last Supper. Okay. All right. So now what I want to do is this. What Donnie is suggesting is like the act of looking at art. Okay. The act of interacting with art of art betters you as a person. Okay. And I I want to figure out why. All right. So, you have the artwork. Okay. The painting. And it could be Mona Lisa or the Last Supper. Let's let let's let's just do uh Last Supper. Yeah. Let's just do Last Supper. Okay. All right. And I want to figure out why this is the case. Why when you look at art, it changes you for the better and it and it enhance your imagination. Okay. Let's try to figure this out. You you go to uh the Lou. Where's the last supper? The last supper is in and you've seen it, right? Right. So So So let let's let's say you're you're there, right? And you you have the room to yourself and you're sitting down for a whole afternoon and you're looking at

225:51the last supper by yourself. Okay? And what Donn is saying is like when you do that, it changes you as a person and you become a more virtuous person. I'm trying to figure out why that's the case. All right. Has has anyone actually done that? Has anyone just sat down in front of a painting for a whole afternoon and just looked at it? Okay. Well, tell me what's going on. All right. Let's let's let's just list them. What What is your mind doing as you're looking at at the painting? Yes. Uh yeah, I I used to uh uh try to keep looking down at that kind of painting and uh I I don't know. I just feel so so strange. I just I was just in a painting. I was in the painting. I was in the uh in Jesus position or even try to imagine myself if I were in the painting. I was standing on a table and what should I think? So So you participate in it. Yes. Okay. What else? Well, first I would try to figure out who the people are in the painting first. Like so their background, what what Yeah. Like just knowledge about them so I can better understand them and where they come from. Okay. So what what you're trying to do is you're trying to fill in the story, right? Does that make sense? There's a story inside the painting. You're trying to fill it in. You're trying to figure out who they are, what what they're doing. Okay. Yes, I'd put try and put try try and put myself in the shoes of of the artist and ask you know why is he put a certain detail in the painting. Okay. Right. Okay. So analysis you do analysis technical analysis. Yes. Sure. Right. So you're switching perspectives. Okay. Sure. What else? Yes. Good. Yes. Okay. You're trying to uh connect it to yourself. Connection.

227:52Good. Yes. Excellent. Uh yes. You start looking at the colors and you see the picture as a whole, but you also start focusing on the details. Yes. Okay. Right. Okay. So, you're trying to uh focus on the details. Details. Focus. Yes. And why would you do that? because you already see the whole picture. So you want to see what each part of the picture is like. Okay. Right. So So you're basically trying to world build. Okay. World build. Okay. Anyone else? Yes. I will try to understand what the um what the artist try to convey. Okay. Okay. The the the story. Okay. The message. Yes. Anyone else? Yes. I usually try to dissolve myself, a kind of disassociation in order to assimilate within the painting, trying to forget yourself, trying to forget yourself. And it's like, how do you get moved by a painting where you have to disassociate into the painting? Okay, that's a really interesting comment. Okay, but I want you to break it down for us and try to try to like literally explain what's going on. So it's like constantly trying to eb and flow between doing what being the viewer and being the artist, being the subject and being the physical object and you're just trying to play back and forth between who am I and what is the painting and trying to bring them together. Right. Okay. So it's a dialogue, right? A dialogue assimilation. Okay. Yeah. Similation, right? Would would it be fair to say that when you do this, you're also moving beyond time and space? Okay, so you're moving outside of time and space, which creates unity. Okay, does that make sense, guys? Time and space creates separation, but once you move out of time and space, it creates unity. All right, thank you. Yes,

229:52I like looking at proates of people. So, at Oxford, all our dining halls will have like all the famous alumni alumni hanging or like and then they will be looking down on you as you're eating and then you you feel like you have this connection with them. They used to sit at these halls and tables and eat under the same candle light. And then you wonder if they are still somehow alive in heaven looking down on you and expecting you to do some great things as well. So that one day your pictures will be hang up here. That's a really good comment. But but like try to explain how this connection works. There's connection. You're in Oxford and all these great people these ports are all around you and it looks it seems as though they're staring at you from heaven. Explain how that could happen. Because the pictures were positioned so high up on the ceilings and then literally they're like looking down on you while you look up at them while you're eating and like it feels like there's this eternal capsule of their souls in essence somewhere left in the painting or their memories of this hall resonates with you. Okay. Right. Okay. So like all on wonder resonance. Sure. Resonance. Okay. Um so Benjamin Franklin, sorry not Benjamin Franklin, Walter Benjamin would have a phrase for he calls it aura. Okay. And his argument is this. Okay. It's a very strange argument. Okay. But but like like obviously we can't know with this, right? But in the in the real last supper in the church in Florence, is it Florence or? Yeah. So you're sitting there. Okay. Whenever you're sitting there, that painting is sucking up your energy, right? So it has its own aura. It's alive. Okay. Right. And so and that aura then becomes reflect reflected in you as well. Right. And so that that's what Walter Benjamin would say. Every

231:53artwork has its own aura, meaning its own personality. Uh developed over um hundreds of years of audience participation. Okay. Any other Come on, you guys have all looked at artwork, right? Yes. I guess just looking at the lines we just read. Um yes about resolving paradoxes but also using your imagination to give life to the painting cuz like the first carving he says two senses were inside me one sense said no they're not seen like that's the realistic material Dante and the other sense yes they do sing. Yes. So I guess it's giving yourself over to the reality of the painting. I don't don't know what to call that process. Well, I I would say it's co-creation, right? Because the artist has created a reality with your imagination, you are making this reality much more vibrant and you're changing the dynamic dynamic of this reality, just a co-creation process, right? Uh yes. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Um so this is before pictures or cell phones or anything like this. So you're capturing a moment of time. Um, and there's like a duality going on here of like declaring yourself into the universe or even narcissism, however you want to call that, but also um putting yourself out there to empathize and be empathized with, right? Okay. So, it's almost like a form of meditation, right? A meditation that creates a sort of mystical experience, mystical connection. Does that make sense, guys? Right. When you're looking at a painting. Yes. Um, so when I went to Florence and one of to one of the museums there, uh, I went with a friend and uh when I just start when I started looking at the paintings, I we just started to like debate about the paintings. We we we looked from different perspectives what the artist was trying to convey. Yes. And we we like we really went deep and

233:54we kind of that's really how I started to understand the picture more through debates to listening to someone else's perspective as well. Yeah. But what's interesting is what the painting has done is enhance your individuality. And so when you're engaging debate, you're expressing your individuality, right? But but the main point is first of all, your individual individuality was activated, right? And that's why everyone who looks at a painting is going to have a different interpretation because we're all unique individuals. Okay. So um it really activates your individuality. Good. Okay. Anyone else? Yes, I think this is why one the Catholic church will always have the stained glass window with a lot of stories and greeted on them. The the whole point is that most of the time you are illiterate coming into the church and then all you can do is look at pictures and then the pictures can kind of you know wash away the sin in a way right like art kind of purifies you plus it makes you bow in humility towards the beauty of God like the minute you enter this hall of pictures and light shining through the window shining on you and make you feel elevated in a sense you know you go without the organ you can feel the organ you know and And so it's like very spiritual experience, right? Uh can can we go to the Mona Lisa, please? Who who's actually seen the Mona Lisa like in real life? All right. Okay. What is unique about the Mona Lisa? Only the Mona Lisa does this. Can you tell us? Probably talking about the fact that what wherever you are in the room, she looks at you. It's really weird. Do you guys like experience it when you walk around? Her eyes follow you. They track you. It's really weird, right? You really feel it because like wherever you are in the room, the aura is here and you can just like turn your back and then look back. She's still here. Like

235:55you can't move away from like the energy of this. It's really weird. I've never been, but like you know I I've read stories. Yes. Not just that, but there's a song by Nat King Cole, the singer. He sings a song called the Mona Lisa. Yes. Where he says, "Is your smile to tempt a lover?" Um or is it just another work of art you're putting on your face? So when you're in front of her, it's very about co-creation because it's your inner feeling in that moment defines what you read her smile as because it's such an elusive smile. And it's amazing standing in front of it because sometimes she's upset with you. Sometimes she's like Beatric like saying, "Come on, you need to rise up." And then sometimes she's saying, "Wow, it's okay. You're a human being, right? It's like she's alive, right? Uh uh sorry. Did you did you your your experience with with a Mona Lisa? Can you talk about it? It it's really, you know, really hard to actually look carefully at Mona because there are so many people just in front of you. So, uh I understand that. Yes. Yeah. And uh I feel the energy. Yeah. I feel the energy. But you felt the energy, right? Yeah. I feel the energy. Yeah. That's that's that's the Yeah. Uh it's that that's the aura. Yes. Yes. I guess I wanted to expand on these ideas. Then would art would art show you what is possible and therefore expand your imagination? Yes. That's right. That's right. You're forced to expand your imagination in order to have all these feelings. Right. And the more feelings you have, the more your imagin expands. Yes. Exactly. Um any other Yes. Yeah. Because I've often uh heard that her Lisa's hands is not the woman's hand. It must baby infant's hand and uh the face is is like a like man is not a woman. So maybe it's uh the fancy who just try to portray himself. So and even the bone I think it's kind combination

237:56between the baby between a woman between a man. So it's kind of carnation or Okay. Yes. U just to add on to that about art is actually one of the reasons why me and my husband converted from Protestantism to Catholicism because in Protestant religion like you you can only have the cross which is a symbol for Christ there's no art very little music well there is hill song but that's it um so there was no mystical stuff no incense no but Catholic church is like man full on you know like art music incense all this very materialistic almost you know like down to earth things that really incites like kind of all your senses to feel God. And then with Cathol uh Protestantism is all abstract ideas, symbols, theories, concepts that's very soul or spirit. But Catholicism is very bodily, it's very female, it's very womenly. It's very artly or musically. And that kind of has a connection to your soul or your body like in a way your senses awaits your awakes your soul or spirit to feel closer to God. So this concreteness you know. Right. Great. Okay. So we've established what art is and what the impact of art is on you. But now we want to figure out why the imagination expanding the imagination would necessarily make you a more virtuous person. Right? That does that doesn't actually connect. Okay. Yes. We know art expands your imagination, but why would that make you a much more virtuous person ready for um catharsis, ready for purgatory? Why would the first step to self self- salvation and redemption be art? Why? Yes, can create consciousness about your emotions. Because like when you see art, then you feel something and then you think about it. Why am I feeling this? Yeah. Okay. So, so, so let's um let's go

239:56over this. Okay. One is the emotions. Okay. The entire point of art really, okay, is to like shock your emotions to the forefront, right? So, your emotions are now like alive and you actually feel them much more uh closely. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? So, that's the first one. Okay. Art will shock you and then your emotions come to the forefront. Right. Then what happens? Yes. Well, to add to that point, it strengthens your empathy for especially the artist obviously who tries to express his own emotions and then you can start to emphasize with his emotions and then that's how you expand your imagination because you can put yourself into his shoes and feel as though you are him. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So, imagine this. Okay. Your emotions are being shocked, right? They're in jolt. They're they're in motion now. And what the artwork does is refocus your emotions in order to empathize with the painting, right? So it's reordering your emotional state. Okay. Does that make sense? All right. And obviously um it makes you more virtuous. But why? Yes. I guess my first practical answer would be you realize that acting virtuously is what creates a universe where imagination can flourish and come into being. So the virtues are designed so agents in a universe act so that everybody can imagine more and there can be more in the universe. Um okay that's true. Okay but I want to go into the technical details of how this happens. Okay. what you say is abstractly true but like I I wonder how concrete it happens. Yes. Um the word that comes to mind is dissociation and then the ability to put your center away from yourself and I guess comes back to empathizing with the artist's emotions, empathizing with the

241:56technique he uses, the process, his story, everything like being able to think outside of yourself. Okay. Yes. of love with the artist and you become thankful to him for creating this. Sure. But I'm saying like what does that it's like love. So like basically you there's a relation between you and the art and so you and the artist and then thanks to this you become thankful through this like Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes. But that's the end. Okay. I I think I think you first of all your emotions are are forced into motion. Okay. Then your emotions become more focused on the artwork and then there's a step and then at the end you are you have a sense of gratitude to to to the artist. You have a sense of connection to the artist but what's the missing step? What focus your emotions? Um self-reflection like you what is art? It forces you away from the material and you think about more of the abstract. You guys are thinking too hard about this. What is art? Why do we watch art? Yes. I guess fundamentally it's proof that other minds exist. Like it's against soypism. So what draws you to the art? Beautiful. It's beautiful. It's beauty. Do you understand? Okay. You see how this works? The beauty shocks your emotions. Okay? It's like seeing a beautiful woman on the streets. You're like, "Oh my god, I need to meet her." Okay? Your emotions are shocked into place. The beauty then focuses these emotions and then orders the emotions into something that is virtuous. But why would why would beauty be virtuous? What's the between beauty and virtue? Yes. Because on the surface of beauty and uh and after the surface of beauty and in the depths of an artwork is love. So eventually the greatest artwork eventually has to uh be the most

243:56associative and the most associative power I think is is love. Yes. Okay. Yes, that's right. Beauty will lead you to love. But what but what is it about beauty that allows you to love? Yes. I think because beauty as a construct has formulas in a way like we talk about geometry, numerology and all these essence just the same way you see math and science reflects the beauty of the in the design or whatever divinity reflects in it and so the moment you see beauty you kind of makes you think about the smart designer who you know has designed this things. Yes. Okay. Uh yes maybe because curving because the you can see the women they got curving waves they got shape which quite like up and down right so there are mathematical principles to beauty right there's symmetry there's the um uh pi principle right yes you want to have a yeah so um I'm a member of the Cormack McCarthy society and he has this line beauty and truth are one yes that's right exactly the the key is the word you just said symmetry um in all great art that's symmetrical when you see a beautiful man or woman, there's symmetry in their face. The how how this correlates to truth is um we don't just say I'm wearing a gray shirt that's shirt that's not truth that's a just a fact. If I say the Vietnam War started because of XYZ, that's not the truth because I need to know what happened right before it and what happened right before that and what happened on the move and what happened a thousand years before and and and the reason that we can't get to truth or no journalist can get to truth is because he can't write everything. But there was is one entity that can write everything and know all and that's God. Yes. And so beauty and truth are one. Exactly. Okay. So do you guys see how this works? Right. The beauty there's a mathematical principles behind the beauty including symmetry all that and that go that takes you into the mind of God the very center of God and that's and then that becomes truth and that's what allows you to love. You understand?

245:56Okay. So art great artwork gives you access into the very mind of God. allows you to connect with the universe and that's what makes you virtuous. Okay. It activates the love inside of you. All right. I guess is that not a very Plleonic view like Plato really thought about mathematics and its connection to God? Yes. But he still but I what I don't understand is then he still denied art as a form of God or like a expression of God. Right. Okay. That's a really good question. Okay. So, it is true that for Plato, uh, mathematics is the mind of God. It is also true that if Plato were to see the Mona Lisa, he'd be horrified. Why would he be horrified? Do you guys know why? Yes. Because it's just a falsity. It's like an just an illusion. And it's Yeah. It's being praised as for, right? It's a shadow. And we and so for for for Plato what to really access the mind of God is you can you have to avoid the beauty and just focus on the mathematics. You understand? For him it's not beauty gives you access to mathematics. It's beauty distracts you from the mathematics. Just just focus on the mathematics. Okay? Don't don't look at the painting. Just look at the mathematics behind the painting and that's what gives you access to God. But Plato's wrong. Okay. I mean like just because he's Plato doesn't mean he's right all the time. Does that make sense? Okay. Uh, yes. Do you personally think maybe that's why some mathematicians go crazy? They're getting I agree. Yeah. C can you explain that they're getting too close to God or No, I think it's because they're too far away from God. Yeah. I I think it's because they create their own reality and they've lost connection to the real. And that's why, you know, like the best mathematicians, they do the best math at maybe around 20 to 30 that that age group. and then afterwards they go insane. Okay? And it's it's no different

247:56from I would say computer programmers if that makes any sense. Like once you create your own reality and you try to inhabit this reality uh and you lose your connection to the divine through beauty and through truth and through love, you're going to go crazy. Okay. Um and and and yes uh but how does that um looking at the painting make people a more virtuous person? Okay. So the process is this. Okay. The beauty the the beauty of the painting draws you. Okay. Compels you to look at it forever. Okay. You lose you lose a sense of time and space. You just focus focusing on it. You become one with the painting. In this process, what happens is your emotions become jolted. They become out of place. Okay. What this basically means is that your world view is evolving. And through this process then your emotions become rearranged in a new world view that focuses on the painting. Okay? And the the painting once you keep looking at more more at it, you access truth. Why? Because beauty and truth are one. If if if it's God, right? So you're giving access into the mind of God. And then that uh because you know that God is love that forces your emotions to be rearranged in a way that allows for more love which is more virtue. Does that make sense? Okay. Yes. I have a question just on about what you personally feel. So there's a fractal called the mandler set. Okay. Which maybe it'd be good if we saw a picture of it. Sure. Let's try it out. And it's basically a small very short formula which uh lists points to do with primes and and and you'll see it. I've been obsessed with these and I and they move me so much from when I was a very very small child that you can zoom in with infinite complexity. Do you think this is more beautiful than any human art because it's literally the art

249:58contained within mathematics? uh yes major at Pecking University and when he saw these images he's also a computer programmer he got the Olympics into uh for computer programming but he said that it is what that moves him to God in as a middle schooler because the minute he saw the science and the design and the numerology the symmetry the golden ratio and all of these is that you cannot study science without knowing Logus without understanding ending like all these design. So that's how he moved from atheism to religion. But but let me ask you this question. Would you rather spend like 10 years look looking at the Mona Lisa or 10 years look at the monroad set? You can zoom in the manro set forever and it's never the same. You can zoom in and it it changes forever and ever and ever and ever. What do you feel emotionally when when you look at the Monro set? Not like a human being. What do you mean by that? Like when I feel when I want to feel like a human being, the Mona Lisa and things, they really do it for me. Yes. But then there's some kind of transcendental feeling when your individuality leaves you and you're just trying to be with the mind of God or whatever you think that is. Right. I understand. I understand. And um if you do it for a long long time that might be problematic. Yeah. I think definitely in 10 years Mona Lisa is is is better. She's a bit of company. She's a bit of company. So yes. Yes. Okay. I would think so. All right. Okay. Good. Let's let's continue guys. Okay. All right. Let's let's go to count to 11. Okay. Okay. So we are now in the first terrace which is to purge you of pride. Okay. So um you have to learn humility in this terrace. Okay, let's uh let's read.

251:59Okay. Our father, you who dwell within the heavens but are not circumscribed by them out of your greater love for your first works above. Praise be your name and your omnipotent by every creature just as it is seemingly to offer thanks to your sweet affluence. Your kingdom's peace come unto us. For if it does not come, then though we summon all our force, we cannot reach it of ourselves. Just as your angels, as they sing hosana, offer their wills to you, a sacrifice, so may men offer up their wills to you, give unto us this day the daily mana without which he who labors most to move ahead through this harsh wilderness hold back. Even as we forgive all who have done us injury, may you, benevolent, forgive, and do not judge us by our worth. Try not our strength so easily subdued against the ancient foe, but set it free from him who goats it to perversity. This last request we now address to you, dear Lord, not for ourselves who have no need, but for the ones who we have left behind, beseeching thus good penitence for us and for themselves, those shade moved on beneath their weights like those we sometimes bear in dreams. Each in his own degree of suffering, but all exhausted, circling the first terrorist, purging themselves of this world's skorier. Okay. So again, these are people with pride and so they're giving weight and they have to move very slowly um on this terrorist and they um they're they're being burdened by these weights and this is meant to um relieve them of their pride and then they will have learned humility. How is this different from hell? What's the difference? Yes. Okay. I don't understand. If you were in hell, it'd be the same thing, right? Well, they But they want to do it. Like, they know why they do it. They understand why they do it. the people in

254:01hell who punished I don't think they like I mean they they know they're guilty but they don't think that it's fair that they're being punished. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Anyone else? They are receiving this punish in the hope that one day they will reach paradise and then they know that they did something wrong and they are kind of like punishing themselves physically but then they still have hope that one day they'll make it into like upper tears or like make it to heaven. Yes. Okay. Exactly. But I don't understand why the people in hell can't be like, you know what, you just do this for 10,000 years and then we'll send you to purgatory. It's always like, no, in hell it's for all eternity. What What's the logic of this? Maybe unlike those in hell, they did not do deeds that puncture the fabric of society. and so discord or create societal ills that they would not be doing this forever. Yeah, we don't know that, right? Because um the condition for being in purgatory is that one, you repent and second is that people pray for you, right? It doesn't say there are certain crimes that um prevent you from going to purgatory. Okay. So again, this is a question for us where it seems as though the punishment is the same. So if they're doing the same punishment, could you have a system where in hell if you do this for 10,000 years, you're given access to purgatory? Why? Why not do that? Yes. Because even the promise of 10,000 years would not give you a growth mindset. So I think in this scene, they're just

256:01singing themselves into the growth mindset. So the actuality of what they're doing is purifying them. Yes. And so that if you were in hell, even if you knew you that by doing this for 10,000 years you might make it out, it wouldn't give you the growth mindset that would actually render you above. Yeah. But why? I'm asking you why, right? Why? Because you have to do it every second with no thought of the end. You can't do it as if there's a finish line. You have to just do it as if you're doing it forever. And the mindset that you have in every second is what counts. Okay. So, this is actually really important question. If you really understand Dante, why are people in hell and why are people in purgatory? What's the difference? Yes. So, I'm seeing this as like an arisatilian golden mean. And so the example I have, even though bravery is not something that will get you into heaven, is the two extremes that Aristotle would see would be cowardice, but then also recklessness. Yes. And those would get you in this fictional hell. But it's a spectrum. And so the closer you get to bravery on either end of the extremes, then you're going to end up at a point which I don't know why you would end up God would say that's good enough that you get into into purgatory. Yes. Okay. Um, uh, Donnie has read a lot of Aristotle and he would definitely agree on on on this idea, but that still doesn't clarify for me why if it's the same punishment, right? Why what's the difference between heaven? What's the difference between hell and purgatory? Yes, maybe people in hell, they just by reason. But in purgatory, people, they don't just always by reason. Is it just uh by inspiration or what? Or hope or what? Okay, this is like hard. Okay, but what Dante suggests I I know D believes this. Okay, is that people are in hell because

258:03they choose to be there. People are in purgatory because they choose to be there. It's a law of free will. Okay, does that make sense to you guys? That's where the growth mindset comes from. Because you believe you can be better. But if you like, I don't believe I can be better, then I'm just better off in hell, right? Okay. Why? What? Why are people in purgatory doing this thing? Because they think that by doing this thing, I can be better. Why? But in hell, you're like, you make them do this. Like, well, I'll keep on doing this, but it's not going to change me. It's just my punishment, right? So, it's perception where people in hell see it as their punishment, but people in purgatory see it as their opportunity. Does that make sense? That's the difference. his attitude and that's his fundamental understanding Dante and how he sees the world. Okay, let let's let's keep on going. Line 16. Even as we forgive all who have done us injury, may you benevolent forgive and do not judge us by our worth. Try Oh, sorry. Um line 25. Beseeching thus good good good penitence for us and for themselves. Those shades moved on beneath their weight like those we sometimes bear in dreams. Each in his own degree of suffering but all exhausted circling the first terrace purging themselves of this world's if there they pray on our behalf what can be said and done here on this earth for them by those whose wills are rooted in true work. Indeed, we should help them to wash away the stains they carried from this world, so that may pure and light they reach the starry wheels. Ah, so may justice and compassion soon burden you, so that your wings may move as you desire them to and uplift you. Show us on which hand lies the shortest path to reach the stairs. If there is more than one passage, then show us that which is thus steep. For he who comes with me, because he wears the weight of Adam's flesh as dress, despite his ready will is slow in his ascent.

260:05These words which had been spoken by my guide were answered by still other words we heard. For though it was not clear who had replied, an answer came, "Come with us to the right along the wall of rock, and you will find a path where even one alive can climb. And where I not impeded by the stone that since it has subdued my hotty neck, compels my eyes to look below. Then I should look at this man who still alive and aimless to see if I recognize him and to move his pity pity for my burden." I was Italian, son of a great tuskcin. My father was wigmo elbowesco. I do not know if you have heard his name. The ancient blood and splendid deeds of my forefathers made me so presumptuous that without thinking on our com mother, I scorned all men past measure. And that scorn brought me my death. The cian know how as this each child in Capatico. I'm Ombberto, and my arrogance has not harmed me alone, for it has drawn all of my kin into calamity. Until God has been satisfied, I bear this burden here among the dead, because I did not bear this load among the living. My face was lowered as I listened, and one of those souls not he'd spoken, twisted himself beneath beneath the weight that burdened them. He saw and knew me and called out to me, fixing his eyes on me laboriously as I completely hunched, walked on with them. Oh, I cried out. Are you not Odorisi? Glory of Gubio. Glory of that art they call illumination now in Paris. Brother, he said, the pages painted by the brush of Franco Bolognese smile more brightly. All the glory now is his. Mine but apart. In truth I would have been less gracious when I lived so great was that desire for eminence which drove my heart. For such pride here one pays the penalty and I not be here yet. Had it not been that while I still could sin I turn to him. Oh empty glory of powers of humans how briefly green and doors upon

262:05the peak unless an age of dullness follows it. In painting Zimabu Chim Chimabou thought he held the field and now its jotto lay a claim. The former only keeps a shadowed fame. So did one Guido from the other rest the glory of our tongue and he perhaps is born who will chase both out of the nest. Worldly renown is nothing other than a breath of wind that blows now here now there and changes name when it has changed it course its course before a thousand years have passed a span that for eternity is the space that an eye blink for the slowest fear in heaven. Would you find greater glory if you left your flesh when it was old than if your death had come before your infant birth was spent? All Tuskania claimed his name, the man who moved so slowly on the path before me. And now they scarcely whisper of him, even in Sienna, where he lorded it when they destroyed the raging mob of Florence. Then as arrogant as now its prostitute, your glory wears the color of the grass that comes and goes. The sun makes it wither first drew it from the ground till green and tender. And I to him your truthful speech has filled my soul with sound humility abating my overswide. But who is he who of whom you spoke now? Provenzan Salani he answered here because presumptuously he thought his grip could master all Sienna. So he has gone and so he goes with no rest since his death. This is the penalty extracted from those who there overreached. and I. But if a spirit who awaits the edge of life before repenting must, unless good prayers help him stay below and not ascend here for as long as time as he had spent alive. You tell me how Salvani's entry here has been allowed. when he was living in his greatest glory said he that of his own free will he set aside all shame and took his place upon the comple of Sienna there to free his

264:05friend from suffering in Charles's prison humbling himself trembled in each vein I say no more I know I speak obscurely but soon enough you'll find your neighbor's acts are such that what I say can be explained this deed delivered him from those confined okay so um Here we meet a man who uh did a lot of wrong. Okay. But once he did some good, okay? Once he helped his friend um escape a prison and he begged uh his neighbors to help him free his friend. Okay. So the idea here is look, you can spend your you could you could live a life of complete sin. Okay. But the moment you choose to do one good act, it will be it will be remembered and it will redeem you. Does that make sense? Okay. So this is extremely radical of D to say look you for 100 years you could have lived a terrible life but if you just commit yourself to doing one good thing before you die that's going to redeem you in the eyes of God. So there is always hope and salvation no matter who you are no matter what you've done. Uh yes. So when you asked that question prior to the reading of like what makes the same thing uh what makes the same sin uh differentiate from from hell and purgatory? This the Catholic Church would say repent at your death. And are you saying that Dante says that works are are what can get you into purgatory and not just uh it seems like I could sin sin sin and then sincerely repent at my death and make it into purgatory would be the Catholic Church's interpretation, right? The formula isn't that simple. Um there are there are lots of like conditions. Okay, but the way to understand this is uh the conditions to

266:05get into purgatory are a lot more flexible than the conditions to get into hell. If that makes sense, right? If you do something really really bad like murder your guest that condemns you to hell automatically. But um the criteria conditions for purgatory are much more wide, much more flexible than people um imagine. So it's possible you repent. It's possible you were uh murdered accidentally. You were murdered and you didn't have time to repent. It's possible that you did one good work and that helped a lot of people. Okay. So, do you understand there's a lot of different things you can do to get into into purgatory? And the reason why is once you're once you're in purgatory, you have to show total commitment. Okay. All right. So, as the angel says, it's easy to get in, but once you're in you're in, you have to work really, really hard. Okay? You're really if you're if you want to commit yourself to working hard for eternity, then you you come in. Okay? Because the thing about purgatory that's very upsetting for a lot of people is um it's a really long time, right? It could be 10,000 years. It could be 10 million years. Okay. And some people like screw that. I I'll spend time in hell. It sounds It sounds a lot easier, right? Okay. All right. Uh let's let's go to count 12. Con 12 exen yoke proceed a breast. So I moved with the bird and soul as long as my kind pedagogue allowed me to. But when he said leave him behind and go ahead for here it's fitting that with wings and ores each urchith boat along with all his force. I drew my body up again erect the stands most suitable to man. And yet the thoughts I thought were still submissive then. Okay. So during the um um his time in

268:05the terrace of humility he lowered himself to um develop humility. Okay. Does that make sense? Because remember before he came here he became really famous because of a shadow and he was proud and to um uh redeem himself he held himself low. Okay. All right. Keep on going. Um, line 10. Now I was on my way, and willingly I followed, and my teacher stepped, and we together showed what speed we could command. He said to me, "Look downward, for the way will offer you some solace if you pay attention to the pavement at your feet." As on the lid of pavement tombs, there are stone effiges of what the buried were before, so that the dead may be remembered. And there, when memory, inciting only the pious, has renewed their mourning, men are often led to shed their tears again. So did I see, but carved more skillfully with greater sense of likeness effiges on all the path protruding from the mountain. I saw to one side of the path one who had been created nobler than all other beings, falling lightning like from heaven. I saw upon the other side Veras transfixed by the celestial shaft. He lay ponderous on the cold and fatal cold. I saw Thumb Brees. I saw Mars and Palace still armed as they surrounded Job, their father, gazing upon the giant scattered limbs. I saw bewildered Nimrod at the foot of his labor, great labor, watching him were those of Shiner who had shared his arrogance. Oh Ni, what tears a deflated me when on that path I saw your I saw your effigy among your slaughtered children seven and seven. Oh Saul, you were portrayed there as one who had died on his own sword upon Gilboa which never after knew the rain the dew. Oh mad Arachne, I saw you already half spider wretched on the ragged remnants of work that you had brought to your own hurt. Over Habboam, you whose effigy seems not to menace

270:06there, and yet you flee by chariot, terrified though none pursues. It also showed that pavement of hard stone how much elkmeon made his mother pay the cost of the illomen ornament. It showed the children of Santaer as they sailed their father in the temple then left him dead behind them as they fled. It showed the slaughter and the devastation wrought by Tomarice when she taunted Cyrus. You thirsted after blood with blood I fill you. It showed the route of the Assyrian sent reeling after Halofhan's death. It also showed his body what was left. I saw Troy turned to caverns and to ashes, oh Iliam, your effigy and stone. It showed you there so squalled, so cast down. What master of the brush or of the stylus had there portrayed such masses, such outlines as would astonish all discerning minds? The dead seem dead, and the alive. I saw headbent treading those effiges as long as well as those who'd seen those scenes directly. Now, sons of Eve, persist in arrogance, in hotty stands do you let your eyes bend, lest you be forced to see your evil path. We now had circled more of the mountain, and much more of the sun's course have been crossed than I, my mind absorbed, had gauged, when he who always looked ahead insistently as he advanced again. Lift up your eyes. It's time to set these images aside. See there an angel hurrying to meet us and also see the sixth of the handmaidadens returning from her service to the day. Adorn your face and acts with reverence that he be pleased to send us higher. Remember today will never know another dawn. Okay. Stop. Okay. All right. So they've passed through the terrace of um pride to learn humility. Now they have entered new terrace and of course there's more artwork and what is Dond's emotional reaction to this artwork. What's he doing

272:09when he sees his artwork? What is his response? He seems quite shocked and sad. What's what's he doing literally? remembering and rem like what's a word what's he what what is his action he's sad what what is his action what does the text say what's he literally doing right now as he's watching this artwork looking down looking at his feet no what what what is he literally he doing right now? What is he doing right now? As he's watching this artwork, as he's watching this, as he's looking at this artwork, how is he feeling? What is he doing? Yes. I'd say grieving. He's crying. Yeah. Right. It literally says he's crying. Okay. So, now I I want to talk about tragedy. Okay. Because like things he saw, this artwork, they are tragic. there's tragedy in everything that he's seen. Right? So, I want to discuss tragedy and why what crying does. Okay? Now, think of a movie uh you've seen that made you cry. Think of think about a theater that made you cry. Think about an artwork that made you cry. A song that made you cry. Okay? But just think of something that made you cry. All right? What does crying do? Yeah, it's catharsis, right? Okay. Ctharsis. Does everyone know what catharsis means? What is ctharsis? Purifying to release, releasing your tears, your sorrows. It's purging. You understand? Katharsis literally means purging. Basically,

274:10throw up and release your emotions. Okay? That's what crying is. You're purging yourself. Okay? So, why would that be? Why would that be? What would that lead to virtue? Yes. I guess you can start to feel all over your body the pain of of other people who have also felt tragedy because like what leads to the crying is the empathy, right? That is what leads to the crying because you see the pain in others, right? If you didn't see the pain in others, you you would be laughing like haha, you know, he got his top ch head chopped off. Okay? So, it's the empathy that allows you to cry. Okay? And so, why do you have empathy? Where does empathy come from? I think imagination and emulation from evolution. I think so. It starts with imagining the position of another person or a situation and then trying to feel that within yourself. But a lot of the time it's more too complicated for you to feel. So you just try and feel the sadness that you can see in another person. And it's to um comfort people by showing that you understand and that their pain is enough to move you beyond your normal state. So are you saying that it is a an adaptation of evolution? Yes. Okay. Where then where where where is empathy located in our brains then? Um I think there are certain regions that activate in a mother's brain when

276:10her baby is crying and I think that crying is like does has anyone study psychology where where how how do our brains actually achieve empathy? Do you guys know or we can call it cortex the cortex is let's believe here the term is mirror neurons. Yeah let's google mirror neurons. Okay. And and and like I I want to see if this is actually true. Okay. Do mirror mirror are mirror neurons responsible for empathy? Okay. Are they responsible for empathy? Like yes, I had sometimes problems growing up and like I knew people that um had problems like when sometimes I'd see people crying. I would laugh because I didn't know how to properly emulate it. Like there's an interview with Messi where the interview is so over wrought with emotion at interviewing him because it's his live stream and Messi just goes starts laughing. Okay. Because right. Yes. So, there's a psychological experiment where they take a a 2-year-old um and they they put like a I don't know ball in a drawer and then the parent comes in and the parent doesn't know that the ball's in the drawer or something like this. Um the I'm screwing this up, but the way that this works is like um if you're under two years old, then you can empathize. Oh, my parent doesn't have that information. It falls in the door. And if you're over two years old, then you can say, oh, my parent doesn't know. I need to inform them. And and so two years old is when we get empathy according to psychologist. Okay. So two years old is when we develop the mirror neurons, right? Okay. All right. Um I'm not convinced mirror neurons actually exist. It's a theory, but do we have any concrete evidence evidence that

278:11it it actually exists? What what does Google say? Do m do mirinors actually exist? It's a theory. Okay. We don't we don't even know how this works. What? Yes. I am totally on your side. I believe that empathy is is beyond one mind and it's definitely a divine emotion. Right. Right. And so what would Donnie say? What is empathy? But how do you connect to God? Imagination. Connect to God by connecting to others among you, your peers, their pain. But but what does that love compassion for another person? Okay. So, um the idea is there's a spark, right? And so empathy, how it works is the two sparks, the two sparks connect together. Does that make sense? Okay. So that's why you cry because when you see another spark in pain, your spark also feels pain and you cry. Okay. So um why would that lead to virtue? Yes. Because if you can connect to another person's pain and sorrow, then um it makes you not want to commit that same sin that could inflict pain on other people. So you want to be a better person so that you don't cause this kind of suffering in the world. That's right. That's right. That's right. So that's the idea here where if you where a tragedy is watched by a group of people and the fact that they cry together connects them together and that builds community. Okay. All right. Okay. So let's let's keep on going. But but you can see how complex comedy is, right? Because it's a treatise on everything, philosophy, religion, art. Yes. Yeah. It also kind of makes me think about Lazarus death and Jesus went and cried at his funeral. It's like, oh, if

280:11you got told me, you know, I'll come earlier. But Jesus cried a lot at the funeral. Even though 10 minutes later, he resurrected Lazarus anyways. So people like, well, what the heck with the crying if you could just resurrect him? You know, are you pretending? Is this theater? You know, but Jesus kind of explains, you know, that he needs to sympathize with Mary and Meline on the loss of Lazarus even though he's going to resurrect him 10 minutes later. Yes. Because it's a human reaction, right? Something you can control. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yes. Um, let's keep on going. Line 85. I was so used to his insistent warnings against the loss of time, concerning that his words to me could hardly be obscure. That handsome creature came toward us. His clothes were white and in his aspect he seemed like the trembles trembling star that rises in the morning. He opened wide his arms then spread his wings. He said, "Approach. The steps are close at hand. From this point on, one can climb easily." His invitations answered by so few. Oh humankind, born for the upward flight. Why are you driven back by wind so slight? He led us to to a collect within the rock and then he struck my forehead with his wing that done he promised me save journeying as on the right when one ascends the hill where over. So so just to clarify the angel strikes uh D on the forehead to wipe him of a P. Do you understand? So each time he clears a terrorist a P is wiped off. A picata sin is wiped off. Okay. Uh keep on going. As on the right, when one ascends the hill where over Rubicont's bridge there stands the church that dominates the well ruled city. The daring slope of the ascent is broken by step that were constructed in an age when record books and measures could be trusted. So was the slope that plummets there so deeply down from the other ring made easier. But on this side in that high rock encroach while we began to move in that direction be a pop spirit was sung. so

282:12sweetly it could not be told in words. How different were these entryways from those of hell, for here it is with song one enters, down there it is with savage lamentation. Now we ascended by the sacred stairs, but I seem to be much more light than I had been before along the level terrace. At this I asked, Master, tell me what heavy weight has been lifted from me so that I in going notice almost no fatigue. He answered, "When the peace that still remain upon your brow, now almost all our faint have been completely like this pee erased, your feet will be so mastered by goodwill that they not only will not feel travail, but will delight when they're urged uphill." Okay? So, as more sins are purged from your system, you will literally be lighter. Okay? You will feel lighter and you'll be lighter. So, you will move faster. And keep on going. 127. Then I behave like those who made their way with something on their head of which they're not aware till other signs make them suspicious at which the hand helps them to ascertain. It seeks and finds and touches and provides the services that sight cannot supply. So with my right hands outspread fingers I found just six of the letters once inscribed by him who holds the keys upon my forehead. And as he watched me do this, my guides spine. Okay. Count to 13. Now we now had reached the summit of the stairs where once again the mountain whose ascent delivers man from sin has been indented. There just as in the case of the first terrace, a second terrace runs around the slope except that it described a sharper arc. No effigy is there and no outline. The bank is visible, the naked path, only the livid color of raw rock. If we wait here in order to inquire of those who pass, the poet said, I fear our choice of path may

284:14be delayed too long. And then he fixed his eyes upon the sun, letting his right side serve to guide his movement. He wheeled his left around and changed direction. Oh gentle light, through trust in which I enter on this new path. May you conduct us here, he said, for men need guidance in this place. You warm the world and you illuminate. Unless a higher power urges elsewhere, your race must always be the guides that lead. We had already journeyied there as far as we should reckon here to be a mile and done it in brief time. Our will was eager when we heard spirits as they flew toward us, though they could not be they could not be seen. spirits pronouncing courteous invitations to love's table. The first voice that flew by called out aloud, "Venum non avent." And behind us that same voice reiterated its example. And as that voice drew farther off before it faded finally, another cried, "I am a resty." It too did not stop. What voices are these, Father, were my words. And as I asked him this, I heard a third voice saying, "Love those by whom you have been hurt." And my good master said, "The sin of envy is scourged within the circle. Thus the cords that form the scourging lash are applied by love. The sounds of punished envy envy curved are different. If I judge right, you'll hear these those sounds before we reach the pass of pardon. But let your eyes be fixed attentively and through the air you'll see people see it before us. all of them on the stone terrace. I opened wider than before my eyes. I looked ahead of me and I saw shades with cloaks that shared their color with the rocks. And once we'd moved a little farther on, I heard the cry of Mary pray for us. And then heard Michael, Peter, and all saints. I think no man now walks upon the earth who so hard that he would not have been pierced by compassion by what I saw next. For when I had drawn close enough to see clearly the way they paid

286:14their penalty, the force of grief pressed tears out of my eyes. These souls, it seemed, were cloaked in coarse hair cloth. Another shoulder served each shade as prop, and all of them were bolstered by the rocks. So did the blind who have to beg appear on pardon days to plead for what they need. Each bending his head back and toward the other. that who that all who watch feel quickly petty's touch not only through the words that would entreat but through the sight which can no less beseech and just as to the blind no son appears so to the shades of whom I now speak here the light of heaven would not give itself for iron wire pierces and sews up the lids of all those shades as untamed hawks are handled lest unrest lest they fly off it seemed to me a gross discourtesy for me going to see and not be seen. Therefore I turned to my wise counselor. He knew quite well what I though mute had meant and thus he did not wait for my request by but said, "Speak and be brief and to the point." Virgil was to my right along the outside near the terrace edge. No parapad was there to keep a man from falling off. And to my other side were the devout devout shades. Through their eyes sewn so atrociously the spirits forced the tears that bathed their cheeks. I turned to them and you who can be certain. I then began of seeing that highlight which is the only object of your longing. May in your conscience all impurity soon be dissolved by grace so that the stream of memory flow through it limpidly. Tell me for I shall welcome such dear words. If any soul among you is Italian, if I know that, then I perhaps can help him. My brother, each of us is citizen of one true city, what you meant to say with one who lived in Italy as pilgrim. My hearing placed the point from which this answer had come somewhat ahead of me. Therefore, I made myself heard farther on, moving. I saw one shade among the

288:15rest who looked expectant and if any should ask how its chin was lifted as a blind man is spirit I said who have subdued yourself that you may climb if it is you who answered then let me know by your place or name know you by your place or name I was see she answered and with others here I mend my wicked life weeping to him that he granteth himself I was not sapient though I was called sapien And I rejoiced far more at others hurts than my own good fortune. Unless you should think I have deceived you, cure and judge if I was not. And I have as I have told you mad when my year's arc had reached its downward part. My fellow citizens were close to Kle where they joined battle with their enemies and I prayed God for that which he had willed. There they were routed, beaten. They were reeling along the bitter path of flight. And seeing that chase, I felt incomparable joy, so that I lifted my daring face and cried to God. Now I fear you no more. So did the blackbird after brief fair weather. I looked for peace with God at life's end. The penalty I owe for sin would not be less than now. Thy penitence had not one who was sorrowing for me because of charity in him. Pierre Peto remembered me in his devout petitions. But who are you who question our condition as you move on? Whose eyes, if I judge right, have not been sown, who uses breath to speak? My eyes, I said, will be denied me here, but only briefly. The offense of enemy was not committed often by their gaze. I fear much more the punishment below. My soul is anxious in suspense. Already I feel the heavy weights of the first terrace. and she who then let you appear among us if you believe you will return below and I he who is with me and is silent I am alive and therefore chosen spirit if you would have me move my mortal steps on your

290:15behalf beyond ask me for that oh this she answered is so strange a thing to hear the sign is clear you have God's love thus help me sometimes with your prayers I ask of you by that which you desire most if you should ever tread the tusk and earth see my name restored among my kin. You'll see them among those fang ones who have put their trust in Telmonite. Their loss and hope will be more than Diana cost. But there the admirals will lose the most. Okay. So why is it that in the terrorists of envy their punishment is their eyes are shut? What would that be the case? So they don't constantly look at others and compare themselves to others, right? Yes. Um and so so and so once their eyes are are shut are sewn shut, what effect does it have in them? Yes. Self. And you work on yourself. You're no longer comparing yourself to others. And you work on yourself to make yourself better. That's right. And not because I want to be better than the other guy next to me. That's right. Exactly. Okay. All right. Um, and how would it be different in hell? What would the punishment in hell be? You have to keep looking at others. Okay. And why would that be punishing? Because you have well well because in hell you're not really reflecting so you still don't look at yourself and try to better yourself but you feel more jealousy to other people. You're forceful at other people.

292:15I I'm trying to figure out how visually that works. Right. Yes. I think in hell it would just like in the pride circle be a mindset difference. So in hell everyone would believe that everybody else could see and they were lying to them and somehow they were the ones that couldn't see and that would be the ultimate envy because they would never be able to check. Yeah. It be the same punishment guys. Okay. But as you point out the attitude would be different, right? Where if you're not if you're not if you can't see another person it drives you insane. It makes you believe like that person is able to see. I can't see. Do you understand the logic here right here? Because these people have a growth mindset because they are on the path to redemption. They recognize that I should take the time to focus inward. But in hell, they be like they they're still stuck focusing on other people. If you can't they can't they can't look at other people, it drives them insane because they have to imagine that their lives are so much better than my life, right? Does that make sense? It's the ultimate hell in a way. It's in hell, right? Okay. So, it's really interesting to think about, but yeah, the punishments would be the same, but the way that the person be reacts to the punishment would be completely different. Okay. All right. Uh let's go on to 14, please. Countto 14. Who is this man who, although death has yet to grant him flight, can circle around our mountain and can at will open and shut his eyes? I don't know who he is, but I do know he's not alone. You're closer. Question him and greet him gently so that he replies, "So are two spirits leaning toward each other, discussing me along my right hand side." Then they bent back their heads to speak to me, and one began, "Oh soul, who still enclosed within the body, make your way toward heaven. May you through love console us.

294:15Tell us who you are from where you come. The grace that you've received, a thing that's never come to pass before has caused us much astonishment. And I through central Tuscanyany there spread the little stream forth born and felona 100 miles can't fill the course at need. I bring this body from that river's banks to tell you who I am would be to speak in vain. My name has not yet gained much fame. If with my understanding I have seized your meaning properly, replied to me, the one who'd spoken first. You mean the Arno? The other said to him, why did he hide that river's name even as one would do in hiding something horrible from view? The shade to him this question was addressed or paid with this. I do not know, but it is right for such a valley's name to perish, for from its source at which the rugged chain from which Polaris were cut off surpasses most other places with its massive mountains until its end. point where it offers back those waters that evaporating sky through from the sea that streams may be supplied. Virtue is seen a serpent and all flee from it as it it were an enemy either because the sightest illst starred or their evil custom goat them so therefore the nature of that swallowed valley's people has changed as if they were in Cersei's pasture. That river starts with miserable course among foul hogs, more fit for acorns than food devised to serve the needs of man. Then as that stream descends, it comes on curves that though their forces feeble snap and snar snarl, scornful of them, it swerves its snout away, and downward it flows on. And when that ditch ill-fated and a cursed grows wider, it finds more and more the dogs becoming wolves, descending then through many dark ravines, it comes on foxes so full of deceit. There's no trap that they cannot defeat. Nor will I keep from speech because my comrade hears me and it will serve you two to keep in mind what prophecy reveals to me. I see your grandson. He's become a hunter of wolves along the bank of the fierce river and

296:17he strikes every one of them with terror. He sells their flesh while they're still alive. Then like an ancient beast, he turns to slaughter, depriving many of life himself of honor. Bloody he comes out from the wood he's plundered, leaving it such that in a thousand years it will not be the forest. And it was that was just as the face of one who has heard word of pain and injury becomes perturbed, no matter from what side that minister, so did I see that other soul who turned to listening, growing anxious and dejected when he had taken in his comrade's words. The speech of one, the aspect of the other, had made me need to know their names, and I both queried and beseeched at the same time at which the Spirit who had spoken first to me began again. You'd have me do for you that which to me you have refused. But since God would, and you have his grace glow so brightly, I shall not be miserly. Know therefore that I was Guido Deluca. My blood was so a fire with envy that when I had seen a man becoming happy, the lividness in me was plain to see. From what I've seown, this is the straw I reap. Oh humankind, why do you set your hearts there when our sharing cannot have a part? This is Reeri. This is he, the glory, the honor of the house of Kboli. But no one has inherited his worth. It's not his kin between the Poe and the mountains and the Reno and the coast who have lost the truth good and lost the good of gentle living too. Those lands are full of poison stumps by now. However much one were to cultivate it is too late. Where is good Lizio, Ario Marinardi, Pierre Travis, Guido de Compinia or Ramanololis return to Bastardi? When will a Fabro flourish in Bolognia? When in fenza a penine defosco the noble offshoot of a humble plant don't wonder tuskin if I weep when I remember ugalino datadso one who lived among us and guido de guido de praa the house of traversara of anastagi both

298:18houses without heirs and feder tinoso and his gracious company the ladies and the knights labors and leisure to which we once were urged by courtesy and love where hearts now host perversity. Okay, sorry. Um, we'll stop because we're running out of time. But but but I'll ask you one more question and then uh we'll end today. What what does it mean to say to say why do you set your heart there where our sharing cannot have a part? Someone interpret what this means and then and then we'll we'll end the session. Yes. Humans are obsessed with zero sum games. Exactly. Okay. But but explain to everyone else what that's what this means. So it means your actions if if you are operating in a sphere where there is a limited amount of resources there has to be winners and losers. Yes. And there cannot be anything else. Yes. And people really like this because you feel like your actions are meaningful and every gain feels like it matters so much more because you really know. It's not that you're constantly thinking about the loss of another person, but you are aware of it and you know that everything you gain is something that someone else had to lose. Exactly. Yeah. So, so what this is saying is we're materialistic and all we care about is material accumulation and so it becomes a zero sum game, right? Because if I have this, you can't have that, right? Um, so what is the solution then? How how do we get out of this zero sum game? Is there a solution? Yes. So that you can have a win-win situation. And what is a win-win situation? Try to cocreate something instead making the cake bigger instead of cutting of the cake.

300:18What is a win-win scenario for humanity? Yes, the solution um to which we once were urged by courtesy and love where hearts now host perversity. So love I would say. Yeah. But but what what what does it mean in practice? Well, instead of trying to wear down others, you help them and you have empathy for them. And instead of trying to gain everything for yourself, you try to have like Yeah. Okay. So, so be generous. Right. Right. If you need help, I'll help you. And then what are you going to do? You'll help others and then they'll help others as well. Right. So rather than a zero sum game where there's only finite resources, generosity creates infinite love. Okay? Does that make sense? All right. Okay. Um we'll we'll end uh here and then we'll start with canto 15 tomorrow and we'll try to do at least 10 possibly more than that and that'll give us room and space for the final day to talk more in depth about um Dante and how he sees our world. Okay. Um also I want at the last day to give people an opportunity to talk about your personal experience with Dante. I think that's very very important. Okay. So, uh if possible for the next two days, think about what it's been like to read Dante and how you as a person have changed and also think about where you think in the future you'll go from here. Okay? Has this been a life transforming experience for you? Has it changed the trajectory of of your life? And you know, there's no there's no right or wrong. You don't you don't have to answer but I think that everyone would appreciate it if you could share your emotional journey with Dante and because we have such a diverse

302:19crowd of people I think everyone's journey will be different okay so I think we will all appreciate that but any questions before we we conclude today okay great so I will see yes one one question yes so I noticed that it took nine kantos for Dante to reach the gate of purgatory, but it only took three candles to reach the gate of hell. So, I wonder why it's different. Um, do you do you have a theory? Uh, yes. I've thought about this. that I think there's more there's more sins that aren't like all the the betrayal of u against country and family and stuff like this that don't end up in purgatory. Okay. Uh yes. So at what kind of do they enter this? But you you can actually check it. What kind of do what kind of inferno do you think they they start to enter disc we'll we'll check this. Okay. Can you go to Inferno 9 and see what happens in Inferno 9 or Inferno 10? I think I can't remember which it is. Okay. Let's figure out where where they are inferno 9 first. Okay. So, Inferno 9 they are outside the gates of disc. Infernal 10 is when they enter disc. So it's the same thing. Do you understand? Because in infernal there there's one additional kanto for the introduction. So all three are can 33 kantos. And so what's happening is this is where hell proper is. And then the other circles they're kind of like not that serious. Do you understand? And any p and like

304:19before they enter purgatory they have to go through anti-purgatory. Okay. So, so, so, so symmetrical. Okay. All right. Thanks for the question. Okay. I'll see you tomorrow. Okay.