143: Purgatoryhohoho

Hi, welcome to Classical Stuff You Should Know, a podcast about classical education, classical books, and the intellectual movement sweeping the nation. Okay. Of classism. Oh, yeah.

Anyway, we are three guys who work at a classical school in Austin, Texas, called Veritas Academy. My name is Graham Donaldson, and I'm joined with my classical brothers, Mr. Arthur Young-Hannenberg. Me.

And, Mr. Thomas, Thomas. Thomas, Maggie. Thomas, Maggie.

Thomas, Maggie. Hello, everyone. I wish that there was something that I could do to make me forget, that terrible introduction. I feel like I've struggled through it, but I ultimately prevailed.

And at the end of it, I achieved some sort of higher status. Wow. I would like to move forward without having to think, remember it. Thomas, do you see that?

Why are you? It's all going to turn into an informal one. On down to the river left, yeah, seriously. But we are talking about, oh, one thing I should mention before we get into it, you can patronize us on Patreon.

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But it's less sort of in the, this well-defined genre of podcasts. This is very impressive. We have devoted patented podcast formula that is working. Can you tell me what the formula is?

Agent Air Goofy and we make you annoying during your podcast. You can also find all of our quarantine episodes, which now are only available on YouTube. Do we have quarantine stuff you should know is there? I mean, no attention to YouTube.

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Cool. All right. Now that that is not at the end of the podcast, but at the beginning, maybe help us forget. Can I also give a shout out for our YouTube?

We are, I think literally one subscriber away from being able to edit the URL for YouTube. So please do that person to be our next subscriber. That would really make my day. If you search classical stuff, you'll find it at some point soon, YouTube.com slash classical stuff.

Oh, right. Not that day. It's still like x, y, seven until the animation part. Random string of letters and numbers is really obnoxious.

So please be that loud. Capital A, lowercase A, lowercase C. Yeah. Capital D.

I got it wrong at the beginning again. It's really obnoxious. So please be that one person that would really make my day. Okay.

Again, Graham's making a reference that you won't understand until you listen to the whole episode. That's part of the formula. Yeah, it is actually, I guess. Break out of the formula, man.

Don't be a sheeple. Okay. So I will be finishing up Dante's purgatory today. Yeah.

The sign that this is going on very long as I think the last title was, we're almost at the top. I can tell how everyone is feeling about this. So I will be going from Canto 28 to the end, which is Canto 33, and that'll get us through the Riverlath where we can forget all these episodes that have happened. And then you know where we'll remember, I don't know, better episodes we've done before.

Another reference you won't understand until the end of this podcast. Okay. People who are Graham and AJ, where are we so far? What's happened so far?

So we are in purgatory. I believe we've got to the last level where we burn away all of our lustful impurities by sitting in the burning fire and... We had to pass through a wall of flame, right? Yep.

And we had to turn a lot. We didn't have to watch really like wholesome love stories. We had to watch like real hallmark movies. Yeah.

Well, the people who were in the circle of the lustful were like kissing each other on the cheek and like enjoying, you know, they were enjoying that, but not enjoying more than that. Yeah. Yeah. They were enjoying like, you know, other people to the right level and not beyond that level.

That's right. Well, you lingered on my cheek a little too long. I learned another three years here. That's kind of happens.

Dante, anyway. Dante kind of does that in the section that we'll read today. They're like, hold on Dante. Control yourself.

And for pride, yeah, we had to like stare at the dirt. Right? We had a big stone on their back. Yeah.

We passed through a bunch of circles of purgatory. The whole point of this place is to purge you of certain sins. And so Dante has made it through all of those at this point. So we finished up the seventh circle, which was lust.

So we've passed through pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, lust. If you want. So our previous episodes that are currently available, there's one that goes avarice through lust, which is the most recent one literally last week for you all listening right now. And then there's one that covers envy, wrath and sloth, which is before that episode on pride.

You have to find on Patreon or on YouTube and the one that covers like anti-chamber, like stuff before the mountain of purgatory is also now only on Patreon and YouTube. So check it out there if you so desire. This will be the very end. So we've passed beyond the seventh circle of lust and we are beyond it.

Any guesses? I guess you all have read purgatory before. Okay. And you all actually know.

So where do we end up after we get out of the circle of the lustful? In the Garden of Eden? Yeah. So this is an early paradigm.

In the Garden of Eden? In the Garden of Eden? In the Garden of Eden? Yeah.

So this is an early paradigm. In the Garden of Eden? In the Garden of Eden? In the Garden of Eden.

So Dante says that the Garden of Eden is still around. Does it have a flaming sword in the angel being like, nuh-uh-uh? I guess there are kind of, didn't say the magic word. Isn't that from Jurassic Park?

It's from Jurassic Park. So kind of we'll get into all the weird things that are here in just a second. But Canto 28 is our introduction to this early paradise, which I got, it's visual humor like this that makes me appreciate that we have a YouTube channel. So please check this out.

Okay. So we're layered, we're layered podcasts. Yeah. Yup.

So Dante gets to this early paradise at the very top of all the circles of purgatory. And I just wanted to, I referenced this in our AMA that Patreon listeners just got. But this answers a question from a few podcasts ago as do other animals worship and I'll just read this. They weren't blown a scatter on the spray.

What is this about leaves? Yeah, I think it's about leaves. So roughly the little birds would cease to ply their art, but in the fullest joy, saying mittens from the crowns of all the trees, receiving from the rustling in the limbs, a whispered tenor to their melodies. So we got birds that are singing mittens in the trees.

So now is that only purgatory birds that are singing? Oh, it was right. And you're wrong. So, okay.

So when birds are singing outside, if I'm walking around outside, they are singing to the Lord. Man's is one of the liturgies of the hour, one of the daily office prayers. So I think why am I wrong? Because they're singing their worshiping God.

I said they didn't. Remember way back when we were talking about like, remember we're talking about paying marriage before that. I said that they were saying like food, food, food, food. It wasn't about birds.

This was meant to be a 30 second comment. Okay. So when Dante gets up to the circle and sees birds that are worshiping, he also sees a pretty lady. Does anyone know who this pretty lady is?

That Beatrice. It is not. It is Matilda or Matilda. Apparently you can translate it either way.

There's another pretty lady. And she's just up here. She is up there picking flowers and she is walking around this terrestrial paradise. Dante goes on and on about how pretty she is.

But you know, that's weird. So I'll just. Don't say we've been to the circle less, buddy. I was going to say he knows better than this point.

Step it back. I feel like he's got the same feelings about this woman that I have towards. What's that woman that's saying come away with me? What's her name?

She's famous. Look at him. Nor Jones. Yeah.

If I had a huge crush on her when I was young in high school, if I could get her to like walk along a river and sing songs to me? Yeah. That would be your structural paradise. So that's what Dante's going on.

Has going on right here. And then you think he's going to move on to the conversation, but no, he just keeps talking about how pretty she is. He's like, I'm like, what's that? What's that?

What's that? She is. And in my prayer, she contended me coming so close that I could understand the lyrics of her lilting melody. So she comes close to sing her song, which is great.

Dante has some questions about like, what, where is he? Which I think is like the majority of his questions throughout his time here. And Mattilda's answer is, I'll read this. The highest good, please and itself alone made man good.

And for good gave him this place as an earnest of eternal peace. By his own fault, man did not dwell here long. By his own fault, he took up grief and toil ponning his honest laughter in sweet play. So this is the Garden of Eden where they are.

They don't actually call it that, if I'm remembering correctly. So they'll call it, earthly paradise, terrestrial paradise, but not the Garden of Eden as they go through this. But very clearly that's what it's talking about. This place was meant as when it says an earnest of eternal peace and earnest as a thing intended or regarded as a sign or promise of what is to come.

So this was supposed to be the sign of the peace that was to come later. The man was made to enjoy this beautiful place, this beautiful nature and design of things, but instead rejected it and chose instead grief and toil over these things, which is super mama. Running through this place are two rivers. So they'll talk about Garden of Eden that the Tiger's in Euphrates, right?

But apparently like the river that flows into the Tiger's in Euphrates according to Dante are these two other rivers that Graham has made reference to. One of them is the river left and one of them is the river, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, both you know, okay, the river left. What do you know about this river? You, it's, it's, it shows up in a lot of different myths and it's where you go.

And I think it shows up in the Aeneid where they're exiting from hell and you, if you're a soul and you've been in, in, sorry, Hades, then, and you're being reincarnated, you need to forget everything you knew about your previous lives and the underworld. And so you drink deep of left and then head back up and you're like a newborn, cleanly wiped slate. Totally. You did an episode recently that involved drinking for the river left, right before they could, before people could be essentially reincarnated, right?

Yeah, was it the end of Plato? I can't remember if they did a, a less drink and that one. But they had to forget their past life to, they, their last action before they entered the new life was to pick their next life. But then they would forget everything and go into their next life.

And so Dante's picking up, you know, classical image of the river left. Do you have any associations with this river? Is this a say? Yeah, who is it for?

Is this a punishment? Is this a reward? What is, what is like the feeling associated with the river left? I've never seen it as like a direct punishment, but it didn't seem like it's a good thing.

I don't know. You know, to me it sort of has this like complacencies, the wrong word. It's got like this, you're, you know, you're going back and you're doing it all over again. You don't get to take any of the lessons you learned with you kind of thing.

Yeah, I take it as a negative, generally personally, it's a type of like annihilation, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the end of whatever that, that person was before, the memories are gone, that personality is gone. I've always taken it as a type of, as a kind of negative.

But I feel like, no, it's accidentally delete the file. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

But to me it's, it's tightly tied to oblivion. Because some oblivion is attractive. And so if I have lived a terrible life full of misery and, and I can obliterate all of that by simply drinking from a river, that's a really positive thing. Sure.

And you can forget all of it, right? It's no longer with you. The sadness is no longer there. Exactly.

I was actually thinking for like, what if you mentioned the river? I was like, what would it be like if my shower water was left, left water? Yeah. And so every morning I just totally, I started clean, clean slate and then had...

You'd be a terrible teacher. Oh, yeah. It was just awful. What are we doing today, Mr.

Hamburg? Who are you? Yeah. So, I will, so I have the, I have the more negative connotations tied to the river left.

I don't think, re-interverts it a little bit, and so I'll, I'll read from him here, for, this is Matilda speaking, I believe, for on this side, the stream descends with power to take away all memory of sin, but on the other side it will restore all memory of good deeds. Hence, this is called left, forgetfulness, in that you know a good memories, which it will not bring unless you taste of left first, and yet its taste surpasses all. So, left here is not only taking, it's not taking away all memory, it's taking away memory of sin. So, left is the removal of the bad stuff, you know a is the restoration of the good stuff.

So, you, you will only enter into paradise with good memory as you go forward. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. It's not a total Bolivian, which is a more traditional like, it's like that little bleeper quarter in a black.

Oh. So, like, aliens are gone. Like, the little metal pen looking thing? Yeah.

Yeah. Or what was that movie? It's an old sunshine on the spotless mind. Yeah.

You pick, which they are removed. Yes. And so, that's, again, not to paint this as a good thing. We'll learn more about the effect of the river left as we go, but that's just an interesting thing.

So, do pass into paradise. All souls must pass through these two rivers. Wanna forget the bad they did, one to restore the memory of, and to only have memory of the good things that they did in life. Good memories is what you know a means from the.

So, there's a period where they're in a Bolivian part way between the two of them. Yeah. We'll actually get to see that later before we have a. It's just like a blank page and then you flip the page and it's not, it ends up not being like a total.

I expected that. I expected Dante to like have this moment of like, who's Beatrice, like where am I, what's going on. It becomes more of like a, um, a disassociation where Dante is aware that like someone in the past like forgot his love to Beatrice, but he forgets that it's him. Does that make sense?

It's, it's the separation of the sin from the person, but I will get to that. I always say that and then we never do. So, maybe this is all you'll hear about it. Sorry.

It's part of the formula. I like the formula lesson lessons you describe it. Okay. So, um, Dante, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You like it lesson lessons or more? What do people listen to? I don't even know. Please listen to us.

Okay. So, Matilda will go on to set. So, at this point, you know, Dante has a couple, um, people who are with him. He has, um, uh, Virgil, who's been with him the whole time and he also has a poet whose name is escaping me right now.

Oh, that guy. He's still falling around. Yes. So, he's been with him the whole time.

Um, and so the three of them are passing along, um, into this terrestrial paradise. All three of them are there together. I don't have the name in front of me. Sorry.

This one line that I love and again, if we have more, I don't know, I'll say it and see if you'll find it interesting. If not, we'll move on. I think it ties in really well with, um, a few episodes ago where we were talking about romanticism and kind of just looking toward the past, uh, but this is Matilda speaking about this terrestrial paradise. Again, she's already said man was made for this place.

This was, this is what man longs for. This is what man should have experienced for all the days of their life and then gone to, you know, bliss was what earth was supposed to be and then like super bliss is what paradise was supposed to be or it is, but you know, that's what the nature, that's what man was supposed to experience going forward, but we send and we walked away from that. So Matilda says, the poets in their melodies of old may have dreamed on Parnassus of this spot singing about the happy age of gold for here, the human race was innocent forever spring and fruit upon the vine. This is the nectar which the poets meant.

At that I turned around to look upon my poets, the two poets with and I saw that with a smile they greeted her last words. And once again, I turned my gaze upon the lovely girl weirdo daunting. But what he's saying here is that when people are talking about the golden age, the happy age of gold is what he calls it here. The place they're describing is the garden of Eden.

The thing that the poets long for in their poetry is an actual place in purgatory in this case, the terrestrial paradise. They are having dreams and memories of a place that did exist and does exist now in one day they will reach if they're on the path to paradise. I don't know if you tie that in with the romantics or the thing that they look for in their past is actually a destination of theirs in the future. Yeah.

I mean, that's sort of the error of the romantics is that they are thinking that it's some sort of past thing, that it's some sort of thing that they had when they were younger and now they don't have it and it's an nostalgia and they're longing for it. But the reality is that it is a hunger for the place where it's supposed to be, which is the earthy paradise as they were made for this place. So it isn't nostalgia, but it's not as nostalgia as something they've personally experienced as for something nostalgia for something they have yet to experience, but they were made for. Yes.

So yeah. But it takes away the tragedy in some way of the romantics, the thing that they long for they will experience one day if they're on this path to paradise, right? And that's, I don't know, I think that a lot through purgatory of the things Virgil is still with Dante at this point. Human reason is capable of bringing a person to that early paradise.

Yeah. In many ways romanticism is just like a CD given a literary genre, right? Yeah. Like it's just at some point you just sort of decide that you're going to wallow in the sadness and try to, and like dress it up and make it seem tragic and romantic, but it's, you know, in the end, like it maybe sounds good on paper, but it's not no way to live.

Yes. But maybe the, I'm thinking that maybe you all disagree, I'm thinking this earthly paradise in some way is possible right now. If we take seriously our sin and overcoming our sin and we have communities of people who are trying to fight that sin to become better people, I think that's what's meant by Virgil following Dante all the way up to this dress rule of paradise, all the way up to this garden of Eden. Like a good life is possible here now.

And if we do the work to approach that, I think we can experience that here now. And you know, obviously Dante's comedy doesn't end at purgatory, it goes on to paradise. So is there like a, not a self-help, but is there like a practical side of the purgatory where it's like, okay, for the next month, I'm really going to focus on my pride, my pride person. And I'm going to actually maybe even make my own little liturgy where I'm going to stare at the dust or I'm going, I don't know, what is it?

I'm not going to make something like that or something like that, right? Like you purposefully give yourself a task to do over and over to try to kind of like what you do in land, right? And again, that's, I think this is like early self-help in some way. So the example of the prideful having to remember stories of humility and they're forcing themselves to do the stone, the stone isn't there just like her, they're back, it's to focus their eyes on the stories in front of them so that they read them over and over again.

I think that's the point of this book is to give examples of a contra-possoe, I think is the Italian, maybe, I don't know, maybe that's wrong, but it's, you know, what you're looking for is that? No, no, no, I'm talking about the contra-possoe in the inferno. It's not, yeah, it's not spot on in good conversation. But pronunciation, I'm not sure.

It's the right word. It's supposed to mirror the problem. And so again, just to say that, I think there's something really powerful that I'm thinking through where's the pride in my life, where's there envy in my life, where's there greed in my life, you know, through the rest of the list. And again, to say Virgil has traveled with Dante this entire way, this isn't only for Christians, this is for anyone who wants to live as good a life as Earth can offer, terrestrial paradise, is through conquering these different categories of sin as a religious word, but vices would be a more classical word, right?

I don't know, that's just something I have bouncing around my head as we enter into this. So how do you square this with the more Protestant bent of like salvation is through the act of faith, not through works? I think that's true. These in purgatory is saved.

There's no question about that. They will eventually get to paradise. Why do they got to work? Because they're not ready for it yet.

So God who is holy cannot be around unholy. It's like those weird stories in the Old Testament about like the ark destroying people who come near it or touch it because God who is all holy, being mirror, they're not perfect. But if I'm close in Christ's righteousness, then how come I don't just like get to skip the mountain? Yeah, again, this will be Dante's answer to you two are the ones who might believe in an actual purgatory Christ sacrifices what got them on the mountain in the first place.

They don't deserve to be here. And these were some of the stories early on in the purgatory where like, I don't remember the exact example, but it's in the anti purgatory, someone who's like has like the kind of blood lust, like really wants to kill people in their last words upon their lips are Mary save me. And that's what gets them into purgatory. You know what I mean?

These aren't, we do have pious people. We'll meet more of them in the parody. So, but the amount of faith necessary to inter purgatory is like a mustard seed. It's a very small amount that's necessary to get them here.

So just to say, again, I've repeated this every time because I think it's important purgatory is the one part of the comedy that happens on earth. So I think it has something to say to us in this life, no matter what you believe about what happens after this life. Just a, and my final thing on this before moving on, what brought me to reading the Divine Comedy is Rudraer's book, How to Don't Take His Age Your Life, and in that book, he's following his life story as he's reading Dante's comedy, right? So the Inferno matches with the dark period in his life, the purgatory matches with an improvement in his life, and the parody so is, at some point we should arrive somewhere.

At some point, our lives should move toward a destination of a life. Right, but the American conservative being a successful lover? Yeah, but like the life you want to lead, you should get there eventually and then enjoy that life. You know what I mean?

Living in small town Louisiana. These are all like more metaphorical ways of reading this book, but just to say there's something bigger happening here than just here are the levels that Don't Take His Age. This is how our life can be. This is how we need to face evils in our life, we need to see the gravity and the inferno, we need to overcome those in the purgatory and then we need to live a better life for the parody so.

But I mean, I was thinking about this on the, which was the level where everyone has to go jogging. That's a lot. So I was thinking about this one. And I actually bought a pair of running shoes and my rolling shoes had a hole in them.

And I'd just been avoiding buying new ones because once I do, then you got to start running. And I was like, I got to work for the expenditure. I know. So then I got these shoes and I've actually been thinking like, okay, not only is this going to be healthy, just for like, you know, get your heart pumping, but it doesn't actually have the spiritual benefit is like physical exercise, a spiritual remedy for sloth.

Yes. I don't know about sloth specifically, but people talk about this as this is why you set small goals, the small wins set up your next win, right? So your ability to, you know, even walk for one mile every day, set you up to eat better, right? Knowing that you have control over one part of your life, set you up for control over.

Well, that's an example of a story of humility that the pride of watching. Like if I was a, if I was like just a big full of myself jerk bag and I realized it, what is like a humble story to focus on? I don't know. I'm trying to think of like, how do you solve that?

I'm just thinking about like, if you wanted to set this up as like a practical, okay, I am going to improve morally. I am going to improve and virtue. And I'm going to use the purgatory as a guide. What would you do on your like, you know, your pride widget?

Okay. 12 would be your go to. So I won't go through all of them because I think there are 12 examples in here. But from the examples, can you derive like a type?

Like can you derive the token or if they're the token, can you derive like? So most of them are, most of them are Greek examples and all these are warning so far. I'll just read it. You all know more about these than I do.

Mark Briarius lying on the earth massive stuck through with a celestial lands and on the far side in the chill of death. So an example of pride being punished. Mark Arias and Apollo stealing arms. Mark palace standing all about their father gazing upon the giant scattered limbs.

Mark Nimrod at the foot of the great tower bewildered gazing with the men who shared his arrogance in the valley of Shenar. So people who are like ambitious and prideful who got like, oh, yeah, and they, so they look upon this is what, yeah, at the end of scruity letters, Lewis has this thing about how he thinks that sins in the future will be like more smaller sins, whereas like sins in the past are like bigger sins. I'm not stating this well, but here it's like all these horrible old examples are big examples of pride. But the people have to realize the thing they're doing leads to the same destruction, right?

They just weren't brave enough to go the full way as these other characters did, right? But they were walking along the same path. So like reading King Lear. Yeah, sure.

Okay. Right. As warnings, right. So I think that would be if you're taking it the self-help direction or the like, what is the practical takeaway?

That's the practical takeaway. Each of these steps tells you what to do in response to these sins. Do that, right? Try it for a month and see if I'm focused on how pride has destroyed people, again, like if your new consumption is mostly about like self-important tech millionaires, like, you know, doing their own thing and being prideful, you're probably going to be more prideful, right?

There's your obvious statement for the day. If you spend a month focused on thinking about how pride comes before a fall, where you focus on prideful people who are punished for that behavior, you will be different at the end of that time, right? You're here with that. Interesting.

So I think that's a, I'm preempting like, you know, where I post them thing because I'm already past the seven circles. I feel like I'm deriving like a corset in my own brain, like a curriculum in my own head. I think there should be. I thought this with the ladder of heaven.

I'll focus that from. It's one of the old mystics. But I think there's a way where these things just need to be adapted to a modern audience. And I think would be very useful.

We're going to be miners. I don't know about that. But like these old books were very structured in their approach to how to overcome sin. And so instead of like a, the answers were not what you watch.

I guess is what I'm saying. Dante would say, if you struggle with gluttony, you need to fast. If you struggle with sloth, you need activity to motivate, his example is running. You need something to motivate love inside yourself.

Anyway, I just find this an imminently practical book. So. Well, I was just thinking like I've thought about, you hear these stories about how these old pilgrimages come to be, right? So the pilgrimage to Canterbury to see where Thomas Beckett was murdered.

I thought about how this happened. I think it was like in 2015 or 16 somebody in a small Texas town shot a bunch of people in the church that small church. That was in Austin. I don't know if it's in San Antonio.

It was just, it was east of here, south east of here. So it's just outside San Antonio. And it was, you know, somebody with a dark heart to mind. West Free Way Church of Christ and white settlement.

I don't know. I can't remember it. But I thought to myself like, I wonder, yeah, that was probably it. I've often wanted to myself like, are these little, like, what?

Cause it's about a seven miles from Austin. Something like that. Well, how, that you could turn that, that could very easily be, you know, you walk from Austin to that church and have that be like a contemplative time where you're thinking about sort of violence and faith and another modern expression, another modern, you know, example of something that used to happen very naturally a thousand years ago. I think people did, like anyway, but most people need that set up for them.

But the pilgrimage just happened because. I'm sorry to. But that's what, apparently we're just going to reference the Lindy effect every episode we do. For some, at some level, people go on these pilgrimages because for the last hundred years they have.

So yes, it started at some point. But I think the same thing needs to happen now. Someone needs to start those pilgrimages to say what you just did. Here's the destination.

Here's what to think about on the time. Even bringing groups of people together because pilgrimages happened with groups of people. Right. These weren't like, sometimes they were so low, but not always.

Let me, anything else I did before. I'm just thinking about your, what's the solution to pride? I think there's a bunch of different ones. If you move on, we can move on.

I'm trying to look up because this, uh, Vegris talked about this, right? When he talked about the seven deadly sins and his solution was you need to, because he was talking to monks was you need to recall your older life. Think about what kind of a dirt bag you were. Um, and I was thinking like if you need to solve your pride, maybe contemplating number one, your position in the universe.

What can you do? What can you not do? And what kind of virtues do you see in people that you typically view as lesser than you? And also ask your friends what flaws you have.

If you're a prideful person, they will know them and they'll tell you. If you are really wanting to beat pride, asking your friends what your problems are is a real good way to start. The middle ages, fairies were supposed to help you out because they were supposed to humiliate you. Like when you're drinking water, they're supposed to like tip it so you spill it all over yourself.

So you wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Anyway, um, so this is, no, this is great. Uh, I will keep tracking along to get onto the second of our six can't over the day.

We're 30 minutes in and I've made it three one six. So we're, no, this is great. The rest of this will not be as practical as what we discovered. So most of the rest of this will be just trying to understand what the heck is happening.

Uh, can't do 29. Um, um, you know, because I'm a millennial, I'm now using Rome research for my, like, no taking tool. I'm going to use it for anyway. My top sentence on this is, this is where things get weird.

So, um, buckle up, I guess, as you all say. Okay. So Dante is in this terrestrial paradise. He's hanging out with Matilda.

He hears people singing, which is normal. And then out of nowhere, he hears a new sweet melody, uh, rippling through the light fill air. And this melody makes him remember how much he, uh, represents the bold pride of the bold proud sin of Eve. So suddenly it's brought to mind how much he hates that Eve took a bite of the fruit.

So that happens. Suddenly a, he hears a, that, that same melody that reminded him of how much he hated that sin. It's louder and louder. And it makes the air glow under the green limbs of a tree, like a bonfire set ablaze.

So he starts seeing these like weird images of this tree with a spider under it. He looks out. He sees seven golden trees that aren't actually trees. It turns out that they're candelabra.

He thinks the candelabra are singing. Turns out it's actually a different choir that's singing instead of this candelabra. Dante in the middle of this is like what is going on. He's like just very confused of what's happening.

He looks a Virgil. Virgil has no words. He just also like Dante looks stunned. Um, behind these candelabra are these crowds of people following after them.

They're following after the lights. He then sees a rainbow that goes above the candelabra and under that rainbow are 24 elders that are walking two by two. After the elders, these four living things pass by and they're crowned by green fronds. Um, and these four living things, I think, are also six winged angels.

Six winged angels are somewhere in this parade as we go. They cover the eyes, they cover the feet and that kind of thing. I don't think it says that specifically, but he does reference. Is that the easy account of angels?

He does reference as he heals specifically. It's like rings and wheels and all sorts of crazy things. So there is a chariot being pulled, but not like the, not the angel with the wheel or whatever. Um, so, um, these four living things pass by.

Then a Griffin passes by and the Griffin is drawing a chariot. And then there are three ladies dancing on the right of the chariot. There are four ladies dancing on the left of the chariot. Then there are two old men.

Then there are four men and then there's a sleeping man and then everyone stops walking. And that's the end of it. That's the end of it. That's the end of it.

Sounds like a part of my house through back in college. Exactly. Yeah, you probably seen the stuff before. Chariots and a couple old guys and dancing girls.

Yeah. Okay. So, um, hearing all of that, does anything come to mind with all these like weird images that are happening in this canto? It's evocative of like all the images of the temple throne room that you get in like Isaiah and Ezekiel and Revelation.

You have like, you know, these, you know, these candlesticks representing these candlesticks, representing the seven original churches, all that kind of stuff. Exactly. Yeah. Um, so I will be drawing heavily from Dr.

Esselen, again, the translator of this version of the purgatory as we go. Um, he, the summary of what just happened is a history of divine revelation. So we start with Eve. That's the thing that the memory that kicks off all of these things happening.

And we end with a sleeping man. Does anyone want to give it to John? John. Yeah.

Exactly. So John, who wrote the revelation, um, is an, is often portrayed as an old dude, is, is the like, uh, what, what's the right way to say? That's traditionally when we think that he had the revelation. He has to say, and it came to him as a dream, right?

So that's who is bringing up the rear of this parade. So we go from the beginning to the very end of, um, revelation as a, um, over the course of the canto. I won't go through all of the images because there are lots of them, but starting with, these are essentially saints moving into heaven is what we're seeing right here. Um, and the images of the elders are tying together some Old Testament imagery with some revelation imagery.

Uh, Eslyn interprets these four living things as the four gospels. So they are, um, the glorious, the crowned, they, um, are passing on that glory. The griffin that comes with them. This is a weird one to me.

What is a griffin? It's like a lion. It's a, a griffin, I believe is lion body eagle head and wings. Yeah.

Um, and so apparently this is like a traditional image. Can you all think of anyone else who has like two different natures that are like tied together? But Christ. Yeah.

So, um, instead of, you know, as, you know, straight up lion, we get cool, Jesus Griffin, um, and yeah, uh, I mean, Wikipedia tells me this is a traditional image, so whatever. One of the, wait, aren't there also animals associated with the four gospels? Yes. And it's the griffin.

One of them. Um, John's the man. Yes. Uh, one's an ox.

One's a bird. I can't remember. It doesn't matter. You can't know about this.

I can read the, read the, read the, read the notes from here. I'll try and look that up in a second. But the, the griffin is an image of Christ that there are two different natures that are tied together here. The nature of, or two of animals rather, it's, um, lion and eagle, right, are brought together.

So this griffin is, um, is both, but somehow neither is like fully, eagle, fully lion, but somehow more than that. Um, so that's the, that's why there's a griffin who shows up randomly here, even the description of this griffin, makes it clear, um, uh, the, uh, all of his limbs that were birds were gold, the rest were white, stained with the red of blood. Um, so, you know, that gives it away. Yeah.

A little bit. There's a quote layer that like literally gives it away even further. But anyway, that's what the griffin is. These three ladies that are dancing are the theological virtues, faith, hope and love, yeah.

Faith, hope and love or charity depending on how you want to interpret that. They go through the colors, which I didn't list for you, but that's kind of the giveaway. Faith, white, hope, green, charity, red, love, red, whatever, um, the, which, if those three ladies are the, the, the logical words to justice, courage, temperance, the other four ladies are the cardinal virtues. Yeah.

Exactly. Though apparently one of them is three eyes. So whatever that's about prudence, prudence has three eyes, for some reason. This is a weird canto.

It's interesting. Third eye. With open up your heart. Third eye.

Um, the two old men are St. Luke and St. Paul. The four men are Peter James John in Jude, author of short letters in the New Testament and the old man is St.

John. So cool. You can read more about this if you want to. Essentially Dante has this like insane division, which is in line with like revelation feels like as you're, as you're reading it.

But it's all the greatest hits. Yeah. Actually, good way putting it. The remastered for 2020.

Yeah. I mean, tell me about it or 13, whatever. 13, yeah. What was it?

1350? 1350? You tell me. Oh, man.

I think it was 1300. You think I would know this stuff. But anyway, so, uh, that happens. That's, can't switch.

29. So all that happens. And I'm very thankful to be reading a book with great footnotes as I go through it because otherwise it makes no sense. And I guess you all who have read the parody.

So is the parody so like that of just like lots of imagery. I read once in undergrad. You remember it? I was more giant flower at the end.

Okay. I read the first third and got bored. Okay. So, like five or six kanto.

I don't think it will do it. Yeah. Just like it's weird. It's just hard to read.

So maybe I'm just a boring person. I remember that there's a lot of like sacred geometry. Like everything's a triangle or a square or a cross shape or there's just lots of speaking points of light. Then just a very few people.

Yeah. That's, uh, he, in throughout purgatory, he has these, maybe this is in the inferno also. He has all these references to time and like where the planets are in relation to where he is. And I was just kind of like skip over those parts or like I read them, but I'm like, don't know what that means.

Um, but when he's in paradise, it's like literally he's in space, right? Like literally planets planets. So I don't know if I would understand. Yes.

Whatever. One day. Okay. So purgatory.

Yokanto 30 is what happens next in 29. We just went to 29 move on to 30. 30 is where we finally meet Beatrice. So Beatrice finally shows up on the scene.

Um, Beatrice is the, she like kicked off this whole thing, right? Yeah. So in, um, he's wandering in the woods, you know, back in kanto one of the inferno and then Beatrice, summon him essentially to go on this journey. What's the, how does, where does Beatrice show up before this point?

She, there's a trio of heavenly ladies and Beatrice specifically goes to find Virgil and says, Hey, you got to help out my buddy Dante. He's lost and he's having problems because Dante finds himself in the forest on his own volition. He's not like in Italy having a good time. And she is like, Hey, let's take it to her through hell.

He's lost. He's trying to get up the mountain to see God and he can't. And he's having problems in there. These three animals.

And so that's how she starts it as she sends Virgil as kind of a guide to help him on his journey. Yes. And I guess Lucy or Lucio is one of the other three. Yeah.

And then I think Mary, right? Yeah. That's the third problem. It sounds right.

I think it's, I'll check. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to tell that won't even be named until the very last kanto here.

She shows up five kantos before she's even named. So it's kind of weird. Okay. So Beatrice appears.

Yeah. And Dante is overwhelmed by this. Then my soul that had passed a long time since it had felt the crushing glory of her presence and had trembled mute with awe knowing more than my eyes could truly prove by motion of her secret power unseen felt the great might of all its ancient love. So he sees her and he's overwhelmed by this.

He's been so long since he had seen her, right? So she was a cute Italian who died young, right? And he saw her like coming out of church one day. Yes.

So that's Beatrice the real person. I guess also in the context here he actually gets that in sector where he'll go into little more detail of all that. But someone that he's loved for a very long time who was trying to point him to God is, I guess, enough to know for right now. So Dante looking at Beatrice is like so overwhelmed in her presence that he has to break out into poetry and he tries to do that.

And this happens. I turned left as a little child will do wide eyed and running over to his mama when he's afraid of something or he's hurt to say to Virgil. So he's running left. He wants to say to Virgil, not a drop of blood runs in my veins that isn't trembling now.

I know the traces of the ancient flame. It's a quote from the Aeneid. He wants to turn to Virgil to quote the Aeneid to Virgil. But Virgil had to...

That's a bold play. Right? It's kind of sweet though. He's trying to get back to me.

One of my quotes from a previous podcast about... Yeah, dope. But on the rap. But Virgil had deprived us of his light.

Virgil, the sweetest father of Virgil, he and whom I trusted that I might be healed. And he goes on from here. But Virgil had to deprive us of his light. Virgil is no longer there.

Virgil has disappeared. He has returned to... They don't say that, but we assume... Return to Limbo.

Right? Where he'll... So he's not there anymore. So he was...

He made it through 29 cantos and then 30 is where he has disappeared. Did he even get to say goodbye? He's not going to say goodbye. Well, he's goodbye.

I read at the end of our last episode which... I'm sure everyone remembers perfectly, but it's the perfect thing for him to have said goodbye too. I'll go back and listen to the other episode. He gets this rousing speech to Dante where he tells Dante to trust in his judgment now that it's been purged of its vices.

It's a very good talk, very good final word that he gives him. Okay. So then, Beatrice shows up. What would you expect her first words to be to Dante?

You did it. Right. You did it. You did it.

He's actually my older. He's actually my older. Do it for the past few days or above. He's been over a couple of...