Dante's Revolution

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0:00So, we have a two-part lecture series to finish The Divine Comedy. So, uh today we start part one, and then next Wednesday we do part two. So, The Divine Comedy is the most influential work of literature in European history. Why? Because Dante's Comedy will give rise to the Protestant Reformation, as well as the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, Renaissance, basically modernity itself. Okay? So, the question is, how did Dante accomplish this? He accomplished this basically by responding to Virgil. Okay? So, for the longest time, for about a thousand years, Virgil was the most dominant thinker in European history. And Virgil's Aeneid, which we read, becomes the basis for Augustine. Um he wrote two major books, Confessions and City of God. And this will become the basis of the Catholic Church. All right? So, how did Virgil come to become the soul of the Catholic Church? With the He came up with the idea of human nature. Okay? So, Augustine will emphasize the idea of

2:01original sin. Okay, so the original sin was an act of disobedience when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the fruit or sorry, the the tree of knowledge, okay? They ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. That's an act of disobedience because God explicitly said, "You can do whatever you want in this garden of Eden, but don't eat that fruit." And they disobeyed God. And Augustine points out that what compelled this original sin is pride. We humans cannot bear to serve God, to be humble before God. We seek to overthrow God. And so God had no choice but to punish us. Okay? So, what drives this original sin? What drives this original sin is that yes, it is true that God he breathed life into us, okay? He breathed life into us so that our soul is the divine spark. That is true. The problem though is that our bodies are made from dust. Okay? Dust. And as a result because we are dust, we strive for dirty things such as lust, uh pride, gluttony, sloth. Okay, the seven deadly sins. Okay? And we can't we can't help ourselves. And the only way to repair the world, the only way for us to seek salvation and redemption, the only path to heaven is obedience, okay? What uh Virgil will call piety.

4:03And so, as long as we are loyal to the Catholic Church, we'll be fine. The Catholic Church will guide us like a shepherd guides his flock to heaven. But, what's really important to understand is that our nature is dirty. We are sinful by nature, and therefore, we can't trust our own intuition. Okay? And this This becomes a framework for medieval Europe, which lasts about 1,000 years, and this is what led to something called the Dark Ages, when basically the entire world surpassed Europe in terms of innovation, wealth, um and intellectual creativity. So, what Dante's going to do is he's going to assert the power and the truth of individual intuition. Okay? So, the major argument that Dante's is going to make is that, yes, it is true that we are made of dust. It is true that we have bodies. We uh seek pleasures. But, that divine spark in us, it never went away. And much more importantly, that divine spark still connects us to God. Okay? So, as long as we're able to activate this divine spark, we can be imaginative. We can seek truth for ourselves. We don't need the Catholic Church. All right? So, Dante, what he's doing is he's um asserting the primacy of love. We don't need to obey others. We don't need the church because love, if we just activate the love with within us, this will connect us back to God. And this connection will drive our imagination, which will make us creative. And creativity is the ultimate purpose of the universe.

6:03Okay? So, what what I will do in this two-part two-part lecture series is the first part, look at Virgil, what the argument he's making, okay? And then um on Wednesday, I will continue with Dante. All right? So, any questions so far about this framework? Okay. So, again, the argument the debate it's very simple. Is human nature fundamentally good or bad? Okay, if you think it's bad, then you need to create a hierarchy to to control human behavior. But if you if like Dante, you're optimistic, um then you don't need to control human behavior. In fact, you want to encourage individual intuition as much as possible, okay? So, that's a fundamental debate. All right. So, um let's look at the basic structure of the Divine Comedy, okay? So, we've read the entirety of Inferno. Okay? And from Inferno, Virgil and Dante will go to Purgatory, where souls will cleanse themselves of sins so that they are ready to go to Paradise. Okay? So, we're going to look at Purgatory today, and then next class we'll look at Paradise. All right. So, Purgatory is modeled very much uh in a very similar way as the Inferno, okay? So, the wonderful thing about the Divine Comedy is it's structured. It's very visual. So, in Purgatory, what you do is first of all, you enter Purgatory, okay? You enter Purgatory. But the moment you enter Purgatory, what an angel who guards the Purgatory will do is stamp seven P's onto you, okay? Each P represents a sin. And so, what you do is you climb each terrace of this mountain, and each terrace um has an a particular sin, okay? So, terrace one is pride, terrace two is

8:04envy, terrace three is anger, terrace four is laziness, terrace five is covetousness, terrace six is gluttony, and terrace seven is lust, okay? So, it's almost like the inverse of Inferno. [snorts] And so, each time you clear a terrace by absolving yourself, by cleansing yourself of a particular sin, a P is removed from your forehead. And once you remove all P's, you climb up to essentially the Garden of Eden up here. And then, up here, what's going to happen is that Beatrice is going to descend from heaven and pick Dante up so that they can ascend to heaven together, okay? So, Virgil is going to guide um Dante through the process of Purgatory and then leave Dante to Beatrice. Okay, that that that's the basic structure of um Purgatory. Any questions so far? All right. All right. So, we're going to start reading, okay? All right. So, again, remember that the fundamental difference between Dante and Virgil is that Virgil is ultimately skeptical about human nature, whereas Dante is optimistic. Okay, so we're we're first going to figure out what Virgil's argument is. Okay, so Avery, can you read please? And even as I turned towards him, I asked, "What did the spirit of Romagna mean when he said 'sharing cannot have a part'"? And his reply, "He knows the harm that lies in his worst vice. If he chastises it to ease its expiation, do not wonder. For when your longings center on things such as sharing, then then portions less to each, then envy stirs the bellows of her sighs. But if the love within the highest sphere should turn your longings heavenward, the fear inhabiting your breast would disappear. For there, the more there are who would say "ours", so much the greater is the good possessed by each,

10:04so much more love burns in that cloister. Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So, um what So, they're they're are in the terrace of envy. And here people must expiate themselves of their envy of others. And envy comes from misguidance, okay? People are focused on the material world. And in the material world, things are finite, right? So, we struggle over food, over water, over wealth. But if we focus on the spiritual world, if we focus on God, [snorts] okay, the spiritual, then resources are infinite, okay? And in the spiritual world, the more you share with others, the more wealth is created. Okay? Because you're uplifting each other's spirit. So, that's the difference between the material world and the spiritual world, where in the material world, sharing can be punished because it's a zero-sum game. If someone has an apple, you don't have it. If you have that apple, someone else doesn't have it. But in the spiritual world, um we're focused on love, generosity, forgiveness. The more you love, the more generous you are, the more generosity creates in the world, right? If you smile at someone, that other person smiles back at you. You're kind to that person, that person is kind to others. All right? So, that is the misconception. That's why people have envy because they are ignorant of the nature of the universe. Envy is too much of a focus on the material world, and to expiate yourself of envy, you must focus on the spiritual world. Okay? So, here Virgil and Dante do not disagree. Keep on going. I am more hungry now for satisfaction, I said, I I of course it's Dante, right? Keep on going. than if I had held my tongue before. I host a deeper doubt within my mind.

12:04How can a good that's that's shared by more possessors enable each to be more rich in it than if that good had been possessed by few? And he to me, But if you still persist in letting your mind fix on earthly things, then even from true light you gather darkness. That good, ineffable and infinite, which is above, directs itself towards love as light directs itself to polished bodies. Where ours are, that good gives of itself, and where more love is, where more love is, there that good confers a greater measure of eternal worth. And when there are more souls above who love, there's more to love well there, and they love more, and mirror-like each soul reflects the other. And if my speech does not appease your hunger, you will see Beatrice. She will fulfill this [snorts] and all other longings that you feel. Now only strive so that the other five wounds may be canceled quickly as the healing we are. The wounds contrition heals. Okay. All right. So, what he's saying here is that the spiritual world is the good, right? God, basically. And so, the more um kindness, the more love you generate to other people, they reflect that. And that spreads love and kindness all around the universe, okay? So, when we need to visualize this, it's with something called Indra's net. And this is a concept from Hinduism and Buddhism, okay? So, what is a soul? Who are we? Well, we are a pearl in a universe of pearl of pearls, okay? It's a net. And the thing about a pearl is that it reflects everything. So, within us, we reflect the universe. Okay? So, within us is the universe, okay? So, do you guys see this? And the idea here is that our souls are a fractal of the universe. And therefore, whatever

14:05we do is reflected throughout the entire universe, okay? If this pearl chooses to smile, every other pearl reflects that smile. If this pearl chooses to be angry, that the other pearls become angry as well. That's why um being sinful or being good is so important, because literally we have the entire fate of the universe in our hearts. Okay? So, again um Dante and Virgil do not disagree here. So, do you guys understand the concept here? This is very important for Dante, okay? And this concept is something that we expand it on when we get to paradise. That we are just a reflection of the entire universe. All right, can you continue, Aubrey? Tell me, my gentle father, what offense is purged within the circle we have reached? Although our feet must stop, your words need not. And he to me, "Precisely here, the love of good that is too tepidly pursued is mended. Here the lazy hour applies harder. But so that you may understand more clearly, now turn your mind to me, and you will gather some useful fruit from our delaying here. My son, there is no creator and no creature who ever was without love, natural or mental, and you know that. Okay, so here the idea of love is just a reflection of God. Okay, remember God breathed his life into Adam, and so we have the aspect of God in us. Okay, so everything has love in it. The question is the degree of love, and the question is how impact is love in our lives. Okay, keep on going. Natural is always without error, but mental love may choose an evil object or errs through it too much or too little vigor. As long as it's directed towards the first good and tends towards secondary goods with measure, it cannot be the cause of evil pleasure. But when it twists towards evil or attends to good with more or less care

16:06than it should, those whom he made have worked against their maker. Wait, stop. Okay, so this is the idea of a dual duality, right? Where you have the soul, and the soul is pure love, and it comes from the divine, and it's eternal. Therefore, it's always good. The problem is that the soul is inside a body, okay? The body is made of dust, and as a result, it's constantly striving towards evil. And so within us is this constant conflict between the soul and the body, which seeks material pleasures, which basically seeks uh sin. All right? And again, what Virgil will say is honestly, most of us basically cannot uh withstand the temptation, and that's why we need the church, an authority, and obedience. Okay, keep on going. From this you see that, of necessity, love is a seed in you of every virtue and of all acts deserving punishment. Now, since love never turns aside its eyes from the well-being of its subject, things are surely free from hatred of themselves. And since no being can be seen as self-existing and divorced from the first being, each creature is cut off from hating him. Thus, if I have distinguished properly, ill love must mean to wish one's neighbor ill, and this love's foreign in three ways in your clay. There is he who, through abasement of another, hopes for supremacy. He only longs to see his neighbor's excellence cast down. Then there is one who, when he's outdone, fears his own loss of fame, power, honor, favor, whose sadness loves mis- misfortune for his neighbor. And there's who There There is he who, over injury received, resentful, for revenge grows greedy and angrily seeks out another's harm. Okay. All right. So, again, the original sin is a sin of pride, okay? So, what Virgil is saying here is, "Look, it's

18:07impossible for you to hate God because God is the ultimate good. It's impossible for you to hate yourself. So, the hate comes from your envy of others, your pride, the fact that you want to stand above other people. And if other people are above you, then you you conspire against them, and that's the source of all sin, okay? All right. Let's keep on going. This threefold love is as expiated here below. Now, I would have you understand the love that seeks the good distortedly. Each apprehends confusedly a good in which the mind may rest and longs for it, and thus all strive to reach that good. But if the love that urges you to know it or to reach that good is lax, this terrace after it adjusts repentance punishes for that. There is a different good, which does not make men glad. It is not happiness, is not true essence, fruit and root of every good. The love that prof- profligately yields to that as whipped on three terraces on the three terraces above us, but I'll not say what three shapes that love takes. May you seek those distinctions for yourself. Okay. All right. So, the purpose of purgatory is for us to cleanse ourselves of our material wants and desires. Okay? To focus on the spiritual. To remember where we came from and to remember our connection with the good that will allow us to access heaven at the end, okay? Keep on going. The subtle teacher had completed his discourse to me. Attentively, he watched my eyes to see if I seemed satisfied. And I, still goaded by new thirst, was silent without, although within I said, "Perhaps I have displeased him with too many questions." But that true father, who had recognized a timid want that I would not tell aloud by speaking, gave me courage to speak out. At which I said, "Master, my sight is

20:08still illumined by your light. I recognize all that your words have clarified. Therefore, I pray you, gentle father dear, to teach me what love is. You have reduced to love both each good and its opposite." Okay. So, basically, what Virgil is saying is that love is the fundamental force of the universe. If we move away from love, we do bad things. If we move towards love, we do good things. Okay? So, now Dante is like, "Then tell me exactly what love is. Be specific about love." All right? He said, "Direct your intellect's sharp eyes toward me, and let the error of the blind who served who serve as guides be evident to you. The soul, which is created quick to love, responds everything that pleases just as soon as beauty awakens it to act. Your apprehension draws an image from a real object and expands upon that object until soul has turned toward it. And if so turned, the soul tends steadfastly, then that propensity is love. It's nature that joins the soul anew and anew through beauty. Then, just as flames ascend because the form of fire was fashioned to fly upwards towards the stuff of its own sphere where it lasts longest, so does the soul, when seized, move into longing, a motion of the spirit, never resting till the beloved thing has made it joyous. Okay, okay, so this is really important, okay? So, let's try to understand what he's saying here. So, the soul comes from the divine, okay? It is a memory of God. And it is inside a body, okay? A body that allows it to experience the world. This body confuses the soul, and the soul is lost. And the soul believes that whatever is beautiful, I must seek, okay? So, the soul, if you leave it alone, it's going to it's going to want to return to God. But, if it sees something beautiful, okay?

22:10It doesn't know if it should if it's good or bad, okay? All All it knows is like, I want to go to it. So, what happens is the soul expands outwards and tries to encompass it. And then what it does is it moves towards it and tries to swallow it whole. It consumes it, okay? Right? So, think of Dido and Aeneas, where Dido sees Aeneas in the Aeneid, falls in love with him, and he must have him, okay? He moves towards him and tries to consume him. It drives her insane. And the moment he leaves her, she has to kill herself. Okay? So, that's the issue with the soul. The soul moves towards what's beautiful. And it doesn't even know why it's doing so. And when it moves, it tries to absorb and consume it, okay? Because if it because that's what it was trained to do, right? God created it so that the soul would one day return to God. But because as a body, the soul becomes confused. And if it sees a beautiful woman, the soul is like, I must have her. I must have sex with her. It doesn't matter if I rape her. It doesn't matter if I marry her. I don't really care. But I must have her. I must control her, okay? I must consume her. All right, keep on going. Now you can plainly see how deeply hidden truth is from who would insist that every love is in itself praiseworthy. And they are led to error by the matter of love because it may seem always good, but not each seal is fine although the wax is. Your speech and my own wit that followed it, I answered again, have shown me what love is. But that has that has filled filled me with still greater doubts. For if love's offered to us from without and is the only foot with which soul walks,

24:11soul going straight or crooked has no merit. And he to me, what reason can can see here I can impart past that for truth of faith. It's spiritual truth alone you must await. Every substantial form at once distinct from matter and conjoint to it and gathers a force that is distinct to be its own. The force unknown to us until it acts is never shown except in its effects just as green sprouts boughs display the life in plants. Okay, so Dante's confused by this formulation because if we are trying to consume something that we love, then how can we know what's good and what's evil? Right? What is the mechanism that tells us what's good and what's evil? The soul is doing what it must do, right? The soul must seek out what's beautiful and consume it. The soul thinks that whatever is beautiful must be God. But if it gets confused and think that a woman is beautiful and the soul tries to control that woman, then that's a bad thing, right? So, why would God create a system in which you are naturally compelled to do evil? All right? And uh can I go on going? And thus, man does not know the source of his intelligence, the primal notions, and is tending towards desires, primal objects. Both are in you just as in bees, there is the honey-making urge. Such primal will deserves no praise and and it deserves no blame. Now, though all other longings may conform to this first will, there is in you, inborn, the power that counsels, keeper of the threshold of your ascent. This is the principle on which your merit may be judged, for it garners and winnows good and evil longings. Those reasoners who reach the roots of things learn from this inborn learn of

26:12this inborn freedom, the bequest that thus they left onto the worlds if is ethics. Even if we allow necessity of source of every love that flames in you, the power to curb that love is still your own. This noble power is what Beatrice means by free will, therefore remember it if she should ever speak of it to you. Okay, the power to curb that love is still your own. This is This is what what free will is, okay? So, here's the logic here. The logic is love is not good or bad. Okay? It is natural part of you. It's like an animal desires food. Is that good or bad? It's just who we are. So, in this circumstance, what is good? What is good is our capacity to control our emotions. Right? In other words, obedience is good. Obedience is what is free will. Okay? If we're able to shift from emotions to reason, that is good. What is reason? Reason is the capacity to restrain our emotions by obeying authority. It's It's only authority that allows us to control ourselves. Do you know what's right and wrong, okay? And this And this was the essence. This was the main message of the Aeneid, right? Aeneas is on a mission to found Empire. He goes from Troy to Carthage to the Italian Peninsula. But it's actually a spiritual journey because when he starts his journey, he's very emotional. He sees Helen. Um and he wants to kill Helen because he thinks that Helen is the person who caused the destruction of of Troy. Troy's being destroyed and Aeneas wants to fight the Greeks and die in the

28:12process because he wants to save his homeland even though it's being destroyed, okay? He goes to Carthage. And he's not supposed to be the act Carthage. He falls in love with Dido and he wants to stay there. And each time the gods have to come and say, "Hey, man, listen, you have a mission to do. Go Go You have to go to um Italy in order to found Rome, okay?" So, and then towards the end of the uh Aeneid, Aeneas recognizes his mission is to obey the gods. He has He can no longer obey his emotions. Therefore, But the end, when he's fighting Turnus and Turnus is defeated, he wants to show mercy to Turnus because Turnus has become very pitiful, but he recognizes, "No, I cannot allow my emotions sway me. I cannot trust my intuition. I can never ever show love to others. I must obey the gods. I must obey my mission. I must be reasonable." And so he kills Turnus, and that's how the Aeneid ends, okay? Does that make sense? That is the main argument that Virgil is making. It is not love that defines who we are, it's reason that defines who we are, reason as defined by obedience. If we are able to obey, that demonstrates our free will, okay? All right. So, let's let's move on to another passage, okay? Keep on going. Natural thirst that could never be quenched except by water that gives grace. The drought the simple woman of Samaria sought tormented me. He spurred me on the path of crowded souls behind my guide, and I felt pity, though their pain was justified. And here, even as Luke records for us that Christ knew, risen from his burial cave, appeared to two along his way. A shade appeared, and he advanced behind our backs while we were careful not to trample on the outstretched crowd. We did not notice him until he had addressed us with, "God give you, oh my brothers, peace."

30:12We turned at once, then after after offering suitable response, Virgil began, "And may that just tribunal May that just tribunal which has consigned me to eternal exile place you in peace within the blessed assembly." Okay, so what's happening here is that Virgil and Dante are making their way up the mountain, okay? And there's seven terraces, and a soul has to clear all seven terraces before the soul can enter paradise. When a soul is able to complete the mission, the entire mountain shakes, okay? It is an earthquake to signal that a soul has been cleansed of all sins is now is now about to ascend. So, there's a shade, okay, who is in a rush to ascend to heaven because he he's cleared all seven terraces. And so, he's going to rush to heaven. It's been 500 years. Um and so, he's going to and he so, he meets Virgil and Dante. They're in his way and they're like, "Excuse me, please. I'm on my way." And Virgil's like, "Okay. Um sure. All right." I'm going. "What?" he exclaimed as we moved forward quickly. "If God's not deemed you worthy of ascent, who's guided you so far along the stairs?" "If you observe the signs the angel traced upon this man," my teacher said, "you'll see plainly. He's meant to reign with all the righteous. But since But since he she who spins right and nights and day had not yet spin spun the spool that Clotho sets upon the distaff the staff and a dress for everyone, his soul, the sister of your soul and mine in in his ascent could not alone have climbed here for it does not see the way we see. Therefore, I was brought forth from hell's broad jaws to guide him in his going. I shall lead him just as far as where I teach can reach. But tell me, if you

32:12can, why just before the mountain shook and shouted all of it, for so it seemed, down to the sea bathed shore?" Okay, so the soul is confused because um if you reach this point in the mountain, then you're going to heaven. So, you should be going as fast as possible. And then, Virgil's trying to explain that actually um they are not part of purgatory, okay? Keep on going. His question threaded so the needle's eye of my desire that just the hope alone of knowing left my thirst more satisfied. The other shade began, the sanctity of these slopes does not suffer anything that's without order or uncustomary. This place is free from every perturbation. What heaven from itself and in itself receives may serve as cause here, nothing else. Therefore, no rain, no hail, no snow, no dew, no hoarfrost falls here any higher than the stairs of entry with their three brief steps. Neither thick cloud nor thin appear, nor flash of lightning. Thamus' daughter, who so often shifts place in your world, is absent here. Dry vapor cannot climb any higher than to the top of the three steps of which I spoke, where Peter's vicar plants his feet. Below that point, there may be small or ample tre- tremors, but here above, I know not why, no one concealed in earth has ever caused a tremor, for only it trembles here when some soul feels it's cleansed, so that it rises or stirs to climb on high, and that soul follows. Okay, so the mountain only moves if a soul has been cleansed, okay? The will alone is proof of purity and fully free surprises soul into a change of dwelling place effective Okay, so this is a really important idea, right? So, what's driving uh this cleansing is just the will. If you have the will, you can always

34:12achieve heaven, okay? So, people in inferno, the reason why they're there is they choose to be there. Peo- People in purgatory are there because they choose to be there as well. It may take you a long time, but if you have the will, you can always cleanse yourself of all your sins. God is all forgiving. Okay, keep keep on going. Soul had the will to climb before, but that will was opposed by longing to do penance as once to sin instilled by divine justice. Okay, this is a very important, okay guys? The issue is not that God has not forgiven us. The issue is that we have not forgiven ourselves. Do you understand? We want to do penance in order to make ourselves worthy of God. Okay, keep on going. And I who have lain in this suffering 500 years and more just now have felt my free will for a better better threshold. Thus, you heard the earthquake in the pious spirits throughout the mountain as they praised the Lord, and may he send them speedily upward. So did he speak to us, and just as joy is greater when we quench a greater thirst, the joy he brought cannot be told in words. And my wise guide, I now can see the necks did not impede impeding you, how one slips through, and why quakes here, and what makes you all rejoice. And now may it please please you to tell me who you were, [snorts] and in your words may I find why you've lain here for so many centuries. Okay, so this is a really important correction to Virgil's understanding, okay? Virgil believes that a soul moves to whatever is beautiful, okay? So obviously if you're close to God, you want to go to God as soon as possible. But this person here is saying, "No, that's not true actually. The soul, yes, wants to move to God, but the soul is love. If you truly love God, you must first love yourself. That means cleansing yourself of all sins so that you are worthy to be with God, okay? So love seems to be also restraint

36:12and judgment. And this is very different from Virgil who believes that love is incapable of restraint and judgment. Okay? It's love that tells you that, "No, I must first forgive myself because if I don't forgive myself, then I bring any doubt, any hatred, any sin to heaven, this would be unworthy of God. Okay, I must be the pearl that reflects the universe, and therefore I must be a perfect pearl. Okay, keep on going. In that age when the worthy Titus, with help from the highest king, avenged the wounds from which the blood that Judas sold had flowed, I had sufficient fame beyond. That spirit replied, "I bore the name that lasts the longest and honors most, but faith was not yet mine. So gentle was the spirit of my verse that Rome drew me, son of Tolomeus, to her, and there my brow deserved a crown of myrtle. On earth my name is still remembered, Statius. I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles. I fell along the way of that last labor. The sparks that warmed me, the seeds of my ardor, were from the holy fire, the same that gave more than the thousand poets light and flame. I speak of the Aeneid. When I wrote my When I wrote verse, it was mother to me, it was nurse. My work without it would not weigh an ounce. And to have lived on earth when Virgil lived, for that I would extend by one more year the time I owe before my exile's end." Okay, so Virgil is very impressed by this man, and so Virgil asks, "Who are you?" And then the person says, "My name is Statius, okay? You may not know who I am, but when Titus was alive" and then Titus was a Roman emperor who lived around 70 uh CE. This is important because Titus was the one who destroyed the um the temple, okay? The second temple of the uh Jews. Okay, so he's a very important figure in

38:12Christian mythology. Um and he's saying that during this time, and this is this is only like, you know, 40 years after the death of Jesus, and Jesus is not very well known at this point in history. Statius says that I was a poet, okay? But he was also a Latin poet. And who was my hero? Virgil. Okay? But not only But not only is Virgil my my hero, [snorts] the Aeneid was my mother. She nursed me. She fed me. I aspire to be Virgil. I want to write the Aeneid. Okay? So now what what happens is you have a paradox created. Right? Where we just said that Virgil is in hell because he wrote the Aeneid and because he's proposing a theory of love that's not consistent with God. How is it possible that a son of his, a student of his, named Statius, how is he able to ascend to heaven? Okay? This is really weird. It's a paradox. And we'll see a lot of paradoxes in the Divine Comedy. Okay, you keep on going. These words made Virgil turn to me, and as he turned, his face, through silence, said, "Be still. And yet the power of will cannot do all, for tears and smiles are both so faithful to the feelings that have prompted them that true feeling escapes the will that would subdue Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So you have the scene, right? Where Virgil and Dante are talking to Statius. And Statius doesn't know who they are. And having this conversation, and Virgil's saying to Statius, "Who are you?" And Statius is saying, "I admire Virgil the most." And Dante is like, "Oh my god! Wow! Virgil!" And so Dante feels tremendous happiness for both Virgil and for Statius. Virgil

40:12because he's found a fan, and Statius because he's found his mentor. What is strange though is Virgil's reaction. Virgil saying to Dante, "Shut up, man. I know what you want to do. I know you want to tell him, but don't do it. Keep quiet. I don't want him to know who I am." This is This is a paradox. [snorts] This is a paradox. Why would you do that? Also, remember Virgil has shown tremendous respect and admiration to Statius for being able to cleanse himself of all his sins and to be able to ascend to heaven. Right? So, Dante is so confused by this that he doesn't actually respond to Virgil's command to shut up. Virgil's Dante's actually going to tell Statius that, "Yes, this is Virgil, man. Keep on going." But I smiled like a man whose eyes would signal. At this, the shade was silent, and he stared with sentiment in the clearest of my eyes and said, "So may your trial labor end so successfully. Do you tell me why just now your face showed me the flashing of a smile?" Now I am held by one side and the other. One keeps me still, the other conjures me to speak. But when therefore I sigh, my master knows why and tells me, "Do not be afraid to speak, but speak in answer what he has asked you to tell him with such earnestness." At this I answered, "Ancient spirit, you perhaps are wondering at the smile I smiled. But I would have you feel still more surprised. He who is guide, who leads my eye on high, is is that same Virgil from whom you derived the power to sing of men and the and of the gods. Do not suppose my smile had any source beyond the speech you spoke. Be sure, it was those words you said of him that were the cause." Now he had bent to kiss my teacher's feet, but Virgil told him,

42:12"Brother, there is no need. You are a shade. A shade is what you see." And rising he, "Now you can understand how much love burns in me for you when I forget our insubstantiality, insubstantiality, treating the shades as one treats solid things." Okay, all right. So, so sorry. I I was wrong, okay? So, Dante is sort of stuck, okay? Because he knows he wants to tell Statius, but Virgil doesn't want him to tell Statius. And then Dante looks at Virgil and Virgil says, "Fine, man. Go go tell him, okay?" And as you can see, Statius is ecstatic. And he's so excited that he forgets that he's actually just a shade. He has no body. So, he he goes down and he kisses Virgil's feet. And Virgil's like, "Stop this, man. You're just a shade. You're just a shadow. You can't actually kiss my feet." And so, this shows both Statius's excitement, but it also shows Virgil's embarrassment. He's embarrassed by all this. He's mortified, in fact. He He is so embarrassed by all this. And it's very confusing. You've got this huge fan, Statius, and he's a great person, and he should be he should be ecstatic about this. So, why is he so mortified? And the logic is this, okay? Let's imagine that um you guys take the great books of me, okay? And then you go on to America, where you go to Harvard, and become a professor of Dante, okay? And then you come back, and I don't I don't know that you're now teaching at Harvard and you're teaching Dante, but you come back and I'm still here after 20 years, unfortunately. And you say to me, "Professor Jiang, I want to take you out to lunch, um because you're such an inspiration." I was like, "Um, okay, sure. I'm very happy about this." And then I asked you, "Hey, where are

44:12you teaching now?" And you say, "Harvard." I'm like, "Okay, I I need to go now, guys. Okay, see you later, okay?" So, this is what's happening here, where Statius is supposed to be lower than Virgil. He's supposed to be Virgil's student, but how is it that Statius is able to transcend Virgil? Virgil's still stuck in limbo, but Statius is going to heaven. Okay? What happened? All right, keep on going. [snorts] [clears throat] Virgil began, "Love that that is kindled by virtue will in another find reply, as long as that love's flame appears without. So, from the time when Juvenal, descending among us in hell's limbo, had made plain the fondness that you felt for me, my own benevolence towards you has been much richer than any ever given to a person when when he's not seen. Thus, now these years have seemed short. But tell me, and as friend, forgive me if excessive candor lets my reins relax, and as a friend, exchange your words with me. How was it that you found within your breast a place for avarice when you possessed the wisdom you had nurtured with such care?" Okay, so Juvenal is another poet. That's a contemporary of Statius. Okay, so this is really where it's where Statius is able to ascend to heaven, but Juvenal goes to limbo. It's Remember, limbo is a place not for bad people. It's It's for people who were born before Christ or who never really acknowledged Christ, okay? So, most people end up in limbo. And so, Virgil is basically asking Statius, "How did you end up here in purgatory when you should be in limbo? This makes no sense to me." Right? This is destroying Virgil's framework for the universe, where you have to believe in God, you have to swear allegiance to Christ in order to ascend to heaven. Okay, keep on going. These words at first brought something of a smile to Satius. Then he answered, "Every word you speak to me is a dear

46:14sign of love. Indeed, because true causes are concealed, we often face deceptive reasoning and and things provoke perplexity in us. Your question makes me sure that you're convinced. Perhaps because my circle was fifth. That in my in the life I once lived, avarice had been my sin. Know then that I was far from avarice. It was my lack of measure thousands of mouths months have been have punished. And if I had not corrected my to my corrected my assessment by my understanding what your verses meant when you, as if enraged by human nature, exclaimed, "Why cannot you, oh holy hunger for gold, restrain the appetite of mortals?" I now, while rolling weights, know sorry ghosts. Then I became aware that hands might open too wide like wings in spending. And of this, as of my other sin, I did repent. Okay, so he's saying, "Yes, I should be here because of avarice, but the issue is not avarice, okay? The issue is I don't really understand the universe. Okay, so it took me 500 years for me to truly understand the universe and my place in it. All right, keep on going. Um Sorry, let let me uh All right, sorry. Okay. [snorts] How many are to rise again with heads cropped close, whom ignorance prevents from reaching repentance in and at the end of life? And know that when a sin is countered by another fault directly opposite to it, then here both sins see their green wither. Thus, I join those who pay for avarice in my purgation, though what brought me here was prodigality, its opposite. Now, when you sang the savage words of

48:15those twin sorrows of Jocasta, said the singer of the bucolic poems, it does not seem from those notes struck by you and Cleo there, that you would yet turn faithful to the faith without which righteous works do not suffice. If that is so, then what sun or what candles drew you from darkness to to so that in their wake you set your sails behind the fisherman? Okay, so Virgil's confused by all of this. Like, you're not a Christian. Why are you here? He went on going, And he said to him, "You were the first to send me to drink within Parnassus' caves, and you the first who, after God, enlightened me. You did as he who goes by night and carries lamp behind him. He is of no help to his own self, but teaches those who follow. When you declared, the ages are renewed, justice in man's first time on Earth return, from heaven a new progeny descends, through you I was a poet and through you a Christian. But that you may see more plainly, I'll set my hand to color what I sketch. Disseminated by the messengers of the eternal kingdom, the truth faith by then had penetrated all the world, and the new preachers preached in such accord with what you'd said and I have just repeated, that I was drawn into frequenting them. Then they appeared to me to be so saintly that that when Domitian Domitian persecuted them, my own laments accompanied their grief, and while I could, as long as I had life, I helped them. And their honest practices made me the saint full of all other sects." Okay, so again, um Virgil's asking Statius, like, "How are you here? You're not a Christian." And what Statius is saying is like, "Yes, it's true that I never publicly converted to Christianity, but I was always I was always sympathetic towards Christianity, and it's your book, the Aeneid, in which made me convinced

50:15that Christianity is a good religion, okay? For you, I was a poet, and for you, a Christian." Right? But But Virgil said that uh Virgil's Aeneid um goes against the teachings of the universe. So, what this is telling us is that Statius purposely misread Virgil. He loved Virgil for for his poetry, but instead of believing Virgil, he in his heart chose to believe in himself. Okay? He chooses his own intuition. And that's what saved him. All right. Keep on going. Before within my poem, I led the Greeks onto the streams of Thebes, I was baptized. But out of fear, I was a secret Christian Christian, and for a long time showed myself as pagan. For this half-heartedness, for more than four centuries, I circled the fourth circle. And now may you, who lifted up the lid that hid from you the good of which I speak, while time is left us as we climb, tell me where is our ancient Terence and Caecilius Caecilius and Plautus? Where is Varius, if you know? Tell me if they are damned and in what quarter. All these and Persius, I and many others, my guide replied, are with that Greek to whom the Muses gave their gifts in greatest measure. Our place is the is the blind prison, its first circle, and there we often talk about the mountain [snorts] where those who are nursed as always dwell. Okay, stop. Okay, all right. So, um Statius is saying I was a secret Christian, okay? So, I was secretly baptized and I became a secret Christian. But, if you're a secret Christian, are you really a Christian? Um so, again, [snorts] there's no there ain't there are many ways that you can interpret this, okay?

52:15But, obviously, this is a paradox. And this is confusing Virgil. And it's telling us that maybe everything that Virgil says is not correct. Okay? This is actually subtly um and with nuance undermining the argument of Virgil. Okay? All right. So, now we are moving towards the final uh part of our tour when Dante is able to ascend to the mountain top where Beatrice will come and uh meet him, okay? Keep on going. [snorts] I have at times seen all the eastern sky becoming rose as day began seen adorns and ruby blue the rest of heaven. And seeing the sun's face rise so veiled that it was tempered by the mist and could permit the eye to look at length upon it. So, within a cloud of flowers that were cast by the angelic hands and then rose up and then fell back outside in the chariot, a woman showed herself to me. Above a white veil, she was crowned with olive boughs. Her cape was green, her dress her dress beneath flame red. Within her presence, I had once been used to feeling trembling, wonder, dissolution, but that was long ago. Still, though my soul, now she was veiled, could not see her directly, by way of hidden force that she could move, I felt the mighty power of old love. Okay. So, Dante hasn't seen Beatrice in a long time, in decades. And his his heart has loved Beatrice all his life. And so, he's really excited that Beatrice is before him, okay? His entire body shakes. And his first response is he wants Virgil to share in his happiness because he owes everything to Virgil. It's Virgil that brought him through inferno and brought him through purgatory so that he may finish his

54:15journey with Beatrice, okay? So, that's what Dante wants. He wants to share his happiness with his teacher, um, Virgil. He got away. [snorts] As soon as that deep forest has struck my vision, the power of that, when I had not yet left my boyhood, had already transfixed me. I turned around into my left, just as a little child afraid or in distress will hurry to his mother, anxiously, to say to Virgil, "I am left with less than one drop of my blood that does not tremble. I recognize the [snorts] the signs of the old flame. But Virgil had deprived us of himself, Virgil, the gentlest father, Virgil, he to whom I gave myself for my salvation. And even all our ancient mother lost was not enough to keep my cheeks, though washed with dew, from darkening again with tears." Okay. So, he is extremely happy. He's ecstatic to see Beatrice. He turns to Virgil. And he's assuming that Virgil was beside him. And he says, he he wants to tell him how happy he is. And then when he sees that Virgil is not there, Virgil has disappeared, he becomes despondent. His ecstasy becomes, um, a depression, okay? That's how high he's got and that's how low he's fallen. Because all he wants is share share happiness with Virgil, but Virgil has run away. So this is a paradox again, okay? The Divine Comedy is nothing but paradoxes. Why did Virgil run away? Right? Okay? This makes absolutely no sense. First of all, Virgil should be proud and happy for Dante, right? He loves Dante, Dante wants to be with Beatrice again, and Virgil made it happen. You would think that he would want to see Dante and Beatrice together again, okay? That's one problem. Another problem is that

56:17Beatrice was the one who asked Virgil to take Dante on this journey. So Beatrice owes him a favor. And you would think that Virgil can say, "Hey, um Beatrice, I did you this favor, so maybe you can do me a favor and like get me to heaven." Right? This is like really strange. And the third uh problem is that this is like really awkward, [laughter] okay? This is like really strange. The least you can do is basically say to Beatrice, "Listen, I brought Dante here and now he's yours." Okay, that's as polite you can do. This is like not typical of uh Virgil. So this leads this leads a huge question in our mind as to why Virgil did this. Okay? Keep Keep on going? Dante, though Virgil's leaving [snorts] you, do not yet weep. Do not weep yet. You'll need your tears for what another sword must yet inflict. Just like an admiral who goes stern and proud to see the officers who guide the other ships encouraging their tasks, so on the left side of the chariot, I turned around when I heard my name, which of necessity I transcribe here. I saw the lady who at first appeared to me beneath the veils of the angelic flowers look at me across the stream. Although the veil she wore Wait, stop. Okay, all right. Okay. So, what is interesting is Beatrice is saying to Dante, Virgil's gone. Forget him. He's not important. What's important is your mission in paradise. Focus on that, Dante. Let's forget Virgil. All right? Let's forget him. And this creates a huge paradox in our minds. What is going on here? Why did Virgil

58:17run away? Okay? And again, you can interpret this as many ways as you want, and there's no right or wrong answer, but one interpretation is that Virgil is first and foremost um he believes he is right. He is in hell because he believes that he should be there. No one put him there. He just put himself there. And he believes he should be there because God can only let in those who are Christians, okay? And along the way, we discover that's not actually true. Cato, who is not a Christian, is a guardian of purgatory. Statius, who is a secret Christian, he's able to ascend to heaven. So, clearly Virgil's framework is wrong. Virgil does not want to see Dante and Beatrice together again. Okay? Because the relationship between Dante and Beatrice is the opposite all through our relationship between Virgil and Dido, okay? Both are literary creations. The difference is that Dante put Beatrice into paradise. [snorts] Whereas Virgil put Dido into hell, right? In the inferno. Dante believes that love is funda- fundamentally about giving. Whereas Virgil believes that love is funda- fundamentally about receiving and conquering. Okay? So, these are two major dichotomies. And Virgil does not want to see the power of Dante's love for Beatrice, where Beatrice rejected him, Beatrice was never with him, but Dante loved kept on

60:20loving her, okay? Dante was willing to give. He understood that living that true love is about sharing, is about bestowing, is about giving yourself. Whereas Virgil has always claimed that love is about taking, about consuming, about controlling. Okay? So, that's why Virgil had to leave because he did not want to be wrong. OKAY? HE DID NOT want his worldview to be destroyed. So, he'd rather burn in hell for all of eternity than to say, "I am wrong." Okay? All right, any questions? All right, so we will finish the Divine Comedy next Wednesday.