Speaker 1: Hello everyone, because we're getting ready to do our last
class of Dante's trilogy of Dante's Comedia, We're going to
do the Paradiesel very soon with the Deacon Seraphim Roland.
I thought that because now it's getting dark, and because
it is fall and winter is coming and the days
are getting shorter and we're in the season of Halloween,
that I could maybe read the first conto of Dante's Comedia,
of Dante's Inferno with you, and you can see how
masterful Dante is in terms of symbolism, how he is
able in a poetic form of pulling in all of
these analogies that are related to this idea of being
lost in the dark wood. And so what I'm going
to do is I'm going to I'm literally I'm going
to read the canto and we will stop in certain
places in order to look at how beautiful and how
power orful Dante is able to contract all of these ideas.
This is Jonathan Pegel, Welcome to the symbolic world. Hello everyone,
we are finally announcing our Paradiso class. We have done
two already. We have the Inferno, we have the Purgatory,
and now we are moving to paradise.
Speaker 2: That is right, Dante himself says Inferno that we prefer
hell to paradise, and similarly, most of us prefer to
read Inferno, but when we come to reading Parodiso, we're
very confused. So we're going to be actually taking you
through that poem line by line like we did with
Inferno Purgatoria, and actually looking at how Dante very carefully
reconciles some of the contradictory traditions about the heavens in
the Christian apocalyptic tradition and does that through the persons
of the saints.
Speaker 1: And so this is truly important for us right now
with the re enchantment of the world happening, we have
to be able to look at those that that did
it in the most powerful way that we're able to
reconcile the ancient pagan traditions with Christianity, with his modern understanding,
the most modern understanding of the cosmos that he had.
And so this is the work that we need to do.
So we need to learn from Dante. So the course
it starts November fifth to December third, right, is that
what I've got five weeks two to five on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: So the cost is going to be one hundred ninety
dollars US, but we do have an early bird sale
through the month of October, which bumps it down to
one hundred and sixty one. You can use the code
early Paradiso and that is good through the end of October,
and the.
Speaker 1: Inferno and the Purgatorial class are also on sale at
the same time, so you have fifty percent off during
the month of October Code Dante fifty. And you know
that means you have no excuse. So if you haven't
taken the first classes, now is the chance to scoop
all that up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you don't want to watch live or
it doesn't work for your schedule, you'll be able to
follow along at your own pace. Just like with all
of our courses. You'll have access to lecture recording, slides,
additional readings, and you can still ask questions and interact
with your fellow classmates in our circle forums.
Speaker 1: And so join us. After all of this suffering through
Inferno and Purgatorio, the symbolic world finally goes to heaven. Yeah,
join us. So, of course many of you know the beginning.
I'm reading from the version by John Carty. This is
the version we're using in the class as well. So
midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the
straight road and woke to find myself a loan in
a dark wood. Good start, right, And so he strays
from the straight road, right, and finds himself alone in
a dark wood. And so all ready you have this
image of going away from the path. You know, I
just gave you an interpretation of Little Red writing Hood,
and I talk about this idea of going astray or
getting off the path of life. Until midway on the
road to Grandma's house, Little Red riding Hood goes astray
and she finds herself in the dark wood, where she
will encounter some beast right, just like Dante did. How
shall I say what wood that was? I never saw
so drear, so rank, so arduous. A wilderness. Wilderness is
important here, right, the idea of that which is outside
of civilization. Right. Usually when we translate the the idea
that the Israelites left Egypt and were in the desert,
Actually what it really means is more like the wilderness, right.
It has more to do with the woods and that
wild place, the place where you know, identity doesn't make
sense anymore. Right, the place where there is no road,
there is no there is no planning, right, it is
just chaos that is out there. It's very memory gives
a shape to fear. Death. Could scarce be more bitter
than that place. But since it came to good, I
will recount all that I have found revealed there by
God's brace, goy, God's grace. Of course, this idea of
death as bitterness is very important. It is a very
very important symbolism in the Bible. If you think, for example,
of the Israelites who go into the desert and they
first find bitter waters, right, they found Mara, the Mara waters,
the waters that are bitter. And this bitterness, of course
has to do with a lack of fertility, it has
to do with death. It has to do with something
that is incapable of being assimilated. Right. If something is bitter,
it is it's not something that you can assimilate in
your body. It's like poison. And so this is of
course how we related to death. And of course anybody
who's read any literature is used to this imagery of
talking about death is bitter. But it's important to understand
that when you're reading biblical symbolism, and notice, for example,
when Naomi's mother in law says that you know, because
her sons have died now she is bitter. Her name
is Mara, and this is related to the bitter waters.
It's related to this lack of fruitfulness, right, this moment
where you're stuck where nothing, you don't have fruits of
your actions. Okay, how I came to it? I cannot
rightly say so drugged and loose with sleep had I
become when I first wandered there from the true way?
Look at all the image is there, It's perfect right,
the idea of being inebriated, the idea of being drugged,
the idea of being loose, right of not being girded.
All this imagery in the Bible of girding yourself in
order to perform a proper actions. Well, if you are loose,
it means you're not focused, right, you're I mean you
know that because when you want to relax, you dress loose.
If you want to do something particular, if you're going to,
I don't know, go like saw some saw some planks
of wood. You don't want bits hanging off of you.
You don't want it. You don't want to be loose.
You want to be tight in terms of your of
your things. Right. But then also this idea that he's
loose with sleep and that he has wandered. Right, All
of these images are perfect. He is sleep. That is
this relationship between bitterness and sleep and death and wilderness,
and then ultimately the idea of wandering, right, of wandering,
of not being following your true way, of being distracted. Right.
Think again of Literat riding hood on the path going
to her grandmother, who is distracted and wanders off the
path and finds herself in the wilderness. But at the
far end of that valley of evil, whose maze had
sapped my very heart with fear, I found myself before
a little hill and lifted up my eyes. Its shoulders
glowed already with the sweet rays of that planet whose
virtue leads men straight on every road. Look at how
beautiful this is. And Dante is powerful because he works
in these little microcosms. Right, he's already seeing the entirety
of the story right there in that little paragraph becomes
he descends into a valley. Right, So add that to
all the images that we've talked about death, bitterness, sleep,
going down the mountain, right, going down into the valley,
and then amaze, amaze, where you don't have a straight way,
where all the ways are crooked, where all the ways
are confusing, and you have to wander and puzzle yourself
in order to be able to find your way through.
But right away he finds himself in front of a hill,
and this hill is ultimately the Hill of Paradise itself.
Of course, he describes it as a little hill, but
there is this whole sense in which it is a
microcosm of the whole structure. He sees the hill, and
then the hill is glows with the sweet rays of
the sun. So he goes down into the valley of darkness,
right the valley of death that's described by the Psalmist.
But he can see ahead of him the mountain Zion.
He can see the mountain. He can see the revelation
at the top of the mountain, of course, but he
will not be able to get there right away. He'll
have to take a bit a detour in order to
kind of replay this little bit of a moment in
an entire kind of cosmic cosmic scope. And the shining
strengthened me against the fright, whose agony had racked the
lake of my heart through all the terrors of that
piteous night. Right, look at how beautiful this is the
lake of my heart. Right, And so this idea that
now his heart has become this lower waters, right, his
heart has we see say that right, my heart sank.
My heart went down into the bitterness, into the bitter
water that are at the bottom of the world. And
this is of course related to being afraid, to the terror,
and of course to that night right, the night that
is contrasted to the hill on which the sun is
shining at the top. So, just as a swimmer who
with his last breath flounders ashore from parallel sees, might
turn to memorize the wide water of his death, so
did I turn my soul, still fugitive from death's surviving image,
to stare down that pass that none had ever left alive. Right,
So he describes himself now as drowning. Right, he's in
the waters, he is reaching his last breath. He realizes
that no one has gone through this alive. Noah has
gone through the waters. Right, he is looking. He is
at the end of a world, and he sees the
flood in front of him. That flood is the red
sea that the Israelites crossed. That flood is, of course
the flood of Noah. And he is sees it as
the wide water of his death, right as this image
of death and water and all the things that we've
already mentioned. And there I lay to rest from my
heart's race till calm and breath returned to me. Then
rose and pushed up that dead slope at such a
pace each footfall rows above the last, and lo almost
at the beginning of the rise, I face the spotted leopard,
all tremor and flow, and God he pelt. So he
falls down right, so he dies right this he sleeps.
He goes down horizontal, which in all the Bible is
an image of this death, or this little death. And
then he finds the courage right, he resurrects. He lifts
himself up, and he wants to go up the hill.
He's willing to go up the hill, but he can't.
He finds an obstacle which is stopping him from getting back.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: There is a animal there. There is a beast there.
Of course, that beast is all of the beasts that
you encounter before the going up the hill. Right, it is,
of course, the it is the spa of Oedipus. It
is it is you know, the ogre that is on
the bridge, the gargoyle, and of course it is also
the wolf in Little Red riding Hood that is an
obstacle to Little Red riding Hood reaching her grandmother's house
and accomplishing her purpose, getting to home, getting to safety.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So he talks about the leopard, and it would not pass,
but stood so blocking my very turn that time and
again I was on the verge of turning back to
the wood. This fell as the first widening of the dawn,
as the sun was climbing areas with those stars that
rode with him to light the new creation. Right. So
he is standing in front of a new beginning, right,
he is watching the sun rise. He's watching a new
creation that he can see it, right, But he there's
something blocking him. There are these guardians, these these animals,
these gargoyles. Thus the holy hour and the sweet season
of commemoration did much to arm my fear of that bright,
murderous beast with their good omen So, of course he is,
you know, as you don't know this like this is
happening of course also on Holy Friday. That is, this
experience that he is having is also related to the
crucifixion of Christ. And so he is there on Holy Friday,
at the day of the death of Christ, and he
is encountering, of course his own death. And he can
see of course the resurrection ahead of him in terms
of Easter, right in terms of the liturgical calendar. But
he can and he can also see a new beginning
for him after having gone through this difficult time. But
there are obstacles along the way, right, So you can
see how powerful I mean, imagine now all of the
layers that Dante has already put into this, into this poem. Yeah,
not so much. But what I shook with dread at
sight of a great lion that broke upon me, raging
with hunger, its enormous head held high as if to
strike a mortal terror into the very air, and down
his track a she wolf drove upon me, a starved horror,
ravening and wasted. Beyond all belief. She seemed a rack
for avarice, gaunt and craving. Oh many the souls she
has brought to endless grief. She brought such heaviness upon
my spirit. At sight of her savagery and desperation, I
died from every hope of that high summit. And like
a miser, eager in acquisition but desperate in self reproach.
When fortune's wheel turns to the hour of his loss,
all tears and attrition, I wavered back. So let's stop
a little bit. I don't want to go too much
into the symbolism of the three beasts. You know, there
are plenty of places where you can look at them.
The most important thing to understand, at least in our
what I'm trying to describe to you in terms of
the three beasts is that they're beast, right, is that
they are ravenous. That they are they are hungry, They
want to eat him. Right. They are something like his passions,
are something like his enemies. They are related to all
of these these oppositions of things that are either inside you,
like your desires, your passions, or outside you in terms
of your enemies, the people that want to harm you,
that are in the way of experiencing this new light.
Of course, this is you know, the wolf in the
little red riding hood that wants to eat little red
writing hood and wants to prevent her from becoming a woman,
from reaching her purpose. Okay, And it's important to see
how he relates this to Fortune's wheel, you know, because
this idea of the turning, right, this idea that in
some ways he's at the mercy of the world. Right,
when you talk about the wheel of fortune, you're talking
about the world in a way that you don't have
any control over the causality, right, you are in some
ways completely subject to the whims and to you know,
the chaos of this wheel that turns and will stop
wherever it stops. You know, it is not the It
is the contrary of an image of a path. So
he has a path that he wants to get to
the top of the mountain, but he's caught in a wheel.
He's caught in this circle and this turning where he
is not able to reach the top. Okay. I wavered back,
and still the beast pursued, forcing herself against me bit
by bit, until I slid back into the sunless wood,
and I fell to my soul's ruin. A presence gathered
before me on the discolored air, the figure of one
who seemed horse from long silence right, so he backs down.
He basically returns back to the darkness. He can see
the image right, You can almost see him like going
back into the water, right and sinking back into the mire,
sinking back into the pond and seeing the beasts that
are preventing him from going up the hill and reaching
the new beginning, reaching the sunlight. And so what happens
is that you could say, there is another type of
intermediary figure that appears right. So you can imagine that
intermediary figures have different functions. Some intermediary figures are obstacles
and some intermediary figures are help. And so Dante will
encounter this intermediary figure at sight of him in that
friendless waste, I cried, have pity on me, whatever thing
you are, whatever shade or living man, and it replied,
not man, though man I once was, and my blood
was Lombard, both my parents Mantuan. I was born though
late sub Julio, and bred in Rome under Augustus in
the noon of the false and line gods. I was
a poet and saying of old Achilles, noble son who
came to Rome after the burning of Troy all right.
So now I want you to notice the way that
he presents himself. Right. So he says he is going
to be Dante's guide. Of course, this is Virgil, Virgil,
the great poet, the great pagan poet. He is going
to be Dante's guide. But the first guy that Dante
encounters has to have something in common with the world
that he's in. It has the first mediator that the
first bridge, you know, the guide to carry you across,
has to have something in common. And so Virgil has
something in common with the dark Woods, the dark Woods
that Dante was in. That is he he says himself
that he was born in Rome and was you know,
and grew up under Augustus in the noon of the
false and lying in gods. So he says that he
was raised, that he was under the false gods. He was.
He is an image of the dark Woods in which
in which Dante is lost. But there's something different about him.
There's something which instead of him being having something of
that dark woods but belonging to the woods, he has
some enough of that dark Woods in order to bring
Dante out of it, right, in order to be a
kind of bridge to move him up into the next
step right to kind of guide him to where he
needs to go in order to go on his way.
But you so so now he is saying, but you,
why do you return to these distresses instead of climbing
that shining mount of Joy, which is the seat of
the first cause of man's bliss. Right, So he's like,
why are you not going up the hill? You know
what's stopping you from going up the hill? And it's
beautiful because it says it's the mount of Joy, which
is the seat of the first cause of man's lists.
So now you can see that this little hill that
he saw, right, that he says, I see, and that
I'm that I'm kind of moving towards, is the hill
of Paradise. Right. It is the great Mount Zion, on
which the seat of the Messiah is there, right on
which on which God's Holy Temple is set, on which
the Garden of Eden is there at the top of
that mountain. Right. So then Dante askims, and are you
then that Virgil and that fountain of pure speech? My
voice grew tremulous Glorian light of poets. Now, maybe that
zeal and Love's apprenticeship that I poured out on your
heroic verses serve me well. Right, So he's saying, you
describe yourself as this pagan poet, right, you describe yourself
as the man who rose in the time of the
pagan gods. But he sees Dante sees rather right, that
he is someone of pure speech, right, that he is
the great and light of poets. I would look at
the image he's using. He's connecting him with the light
that's at the top of the mountain he's he's saying,
you're like the mountain. Virgil says, I'm like the I'm
like the dark woods. And so. But ye's because he
has this kind of transition figure. And so in seeing
in Virgil an aspect of the place where he wants
to go the top of that mountain. By saying that
he is light, the light of poets, and that he
and that he uh, he has this apprenticeship of love,
says he hopes that it will serve him well, that is,
that it will guide him towards higher and higher truth,
that it will take him out of the darkness in
which he is and guide him to higher truth. All right,
And so Donta continues, he says, for you are my
true master and first author, the soul maker, from whom
I drew the breath of that sweet style, whose measure
have brought me honor. So there immortals age the beast.
I flee for my soul's salvation. I beg you guard
me from her, for she has struck a mortal tremor
through me. And he replied, seeing my soul in tears,
he must go by another way. Who would escape this wilderness?
For that mad beast that fleers before you, there suffers
no man to pass. She tracks down all, kills all,
and knows no glut. But feeding she grows hungrier than
she was. She mates with any beast, and will mate
with more before the greyhound comes to hunter her down.
So you know, there are some political commentary here, but
look at what he's also saying. He's attributing to this
wolf the hunger of devouring, but also this kind of mixture, right,
this chaos, like a wolf that mates with all kinds
of beasts is of course impossible. So there's a an
imagery of kind of of transgression and hybridity in the
image of the beast. And so that's why Virgil says, like,
you can't go this way. You know this, This sphinx
is too powerful, right, this beast is too strong. You
have to go around, right, You kind of have to
go around. He will not feed on lands nor loot.
He's not about the greyhound, but honor and love and
wisdom will make straight his way. Right. So, even without
knowing who the greyhound is, notice what he's saying, right,
he's talking. He's using that imagery of straightness, compared to circle,
to circularity, to light, right instead of darkness. He will
rise between Feltro and Felter, and in him shall be
the resurrection and new day.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So these are political. You can look them up if
you want to. But notice what he's saying. Right, He's
using the imagery of the resurrection. The imagery of the
sun coming back is the imagery of light. And that's
sad Italy, for which Nicenesses died, and Turnus and Aurelius
and the made Camilla. He shall hunt her through every
nation of sick pride till she has driven back forever
to hell, whence envy first release her on the world. Therefore,
for your own good, I think it well, you follow me,
and I will be your guide and lead you forth
through an eternal place. There you shall see the ancient
spirits tried in endless pain, and hear their lamentation as
each bemowns the second death of souls. Next, you shall
see upon a burning mountain, souls in fire and yet
content in fire, knowing that whensoever it may be, they
will mount into the blessed choir. Right. Notice what he's doing.
It's amazing, Like this is the second like microcosm that
we have. We have this first microcosm where the very
structure of Dante's situation, where he is going down the
valley into this darkness, he sees the light and the
hill above. And now Virgil is saying, we're gonna go
We're gonna repeat your gesture, but at a bigger scale.
We're gonna go down not just this hill, you know,
into the water. We're gonna go down into hell. Then
you're gonna go up the mountain of purgatory, which is
what he's describing of the idea of souls in fire,
but content and fire, and then ultimately you're going to
go up into heavens. Right. So this idea that in
someone it's a detour is true, but it's also he's
repeating the same thing that he just told you. And
so there's this like beautiful microcosm, and it's so interesting
because it's like it's such a different sense of how
to tell the story. You know, in modern storyteller telling,
we modern storytelling, we like surprises, you know, we like
to to trick our readers so that they don't know
what's going to happen and kind of surprise them with
different twists and turns. But here he basically tells the
whole story right at the beginning. He's like, this is
what we're gonna do, and you're gonna follow me along
on this trip. So then he talks about they will
mount into the blessed Choir. So he means that those
people that are in purgatory, that are going up the
mountain but still suffering, will ultimately reach the top and
will enter into the choir, to which if it is
still your wish to climb and worthier spirit, a worthier
spirit shall be sent to guide you with her. Shall
I leave you for the King of Time, who rings
on high, forbids me to come there, since living I
rebelled against the law. He rules the waters and the
land and air, And there holds court, his city, and
his throne. Right, so he's saying, at the top of
this hill is the heavenly Jerusalem, right, it's the Escaton
is there at the top of the hill. And because
I am, you know, he's now again notice what he's saying.
He is relating himself to the darkness. He's saying, because
I am from the darkness, I can't go there, you know.
But because Dante sees in him light, then he will
go away, you know, with him. He will be his
guide to bring him closer to the closer to the paradise.
And the imagery is very beautiful because it's like a court,
a city, a throne. You know, all of these images, acquire,
all of these images of order, right of the heavenly Jerusalem.
You know of the order that comes from heaven, et cetera.
Poet by that God, to you unknown, lead me this
way beyond the present ill and worst to dread, Lead
me to Peter's Gate, and be my guide through the
sad halls of hell. And he then follow and he
moved ahead in silence, and I followed where he led.
And so that is the first canto of Inferno. It
is a masterful poem you know, and is masterful in
the capacity that Dante has to pull pretty much a
whole master class of symbolism into one conto and to
give you an image of the entire cosmos while telling
you of the specific moment of the beginning. Right because
because this is the beginning, and because Dante is the
symbolic thinker. Just like in the beginning of Genesis, you
have the entire cosmos. Just like in the beginning of
the Gospel of John, you have the entire cosmos. So
too in Dante's Inferno. At the beginning of Inferno, he
gives us a glimpse of the entire story of the
whole cosmos, the discent, the ascent, and of course the
you know, the divine revelation that will come at the
end of the entire comedia. And so if you like me,
love Dante, if you if you see the power in
the stories, I want to invite you to join us
for Paradiso that is starting very soon. All the details
are in the description and that we hope see you there.
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