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| Dante and Virgil exiting Hell |
Even though the Bible is still my primary source of comfort and guidance and inspiration, I'm also kind of a Dante nerd, and I often find the words of that Christian poet to have a deeply pacifying effect at times. If you haven't read Dante, I'll admit that it's not always the most accessible stuff, and the main reason I have been able to enjoy it is that I had a particularly good teacher on the subject (Prof. Tim Shutt at Kenyon). Prof. Shutt teaches a course on reading through Dante's Divine Comedy, helping students to follow and understand Dante's journey through the Inferno (Hell) into Purgatory and then on into Paradise. I love the character of Dante, the grieving romantic poet undergoing something of a crisis of faith in the political turmoil of Medieval Italy. Though the punishments depicted in the Inferno are sometimes quite gory, the journey is still a fascinating one as Dante witnesses more and more of the cosmos unfolding before his eyes. I love this book. In particular, there is one section of the Divine Comedy that I always read when I've just had a really rough day. I cued it up online a couple of times this summer when a church visit rocked my boat a little more than expected or when I got homesick. I wanted to go ahead and share it tonight.
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| Dante and Virgil seeing the stars again |
In this section of the poem, Dante has literally been through Hell. He has descended through every circle of the realm with the guidance of the deceased Roman poet, Virgil, and he has passed through the other side following an encounter with the Devil himself in Hell's iciest depths. The poet is shaken as he passes through the last traces of Hell and into the next realm: Purgatory, a place of purification but also peace, the mountain on the opposite side of the world which must be climbed to reach Paradise. Whether you believe in Purgatory or not (and, personally, I like the idea of purification prior to Paradise, but I can't really defend it biblically, so I choose not to hang onto it), the section is a beautiful description of passing through hardship into peace. When I read the section, I start at the end of Canto 34 of the Inferno and read into Canto 1 of Purgatorio (the break between cantos taking place when Dante and Virgil behold the stars, a symbol that appears at the beginning and end of each major section of the Comedy). I'm using the Longfellow translation:
The Guide and I into that hidden road
Now entered, to return to the bright world;
And without care of having any rest
We mounted up, he first and I the second
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;
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| Dante and Virgil beholding the heavens |
Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.
To run o'er better waters hoists its sails
The little vessel of my genius now,
That leaves behind itself a sea so cruel;
And of that second kingdom I will sing
Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself,
And to ascend to heaven becometh worthy.
Dante goes on to describe a barren but serene shore and the stars overhead, and though I didn't really want to type all of that up, it's great de-stressing reading, and
the whole text is available online. How great is it to pass from a cruel sea into better waters? How great is it to have the feeling of coming to a place of peace? Even though the spirit must still purge itself and humbly accept purification at the hands of God in Purgatory, when you feel like you've just been through Hell, the reminder of God's presence in the stars overhead is a greater comfort than anything else we could experience.
Peace and Blessings,
Tom
PS-- Read Dante this evening after Bellevue service. Didn't see eye-to-eye with that church on many things, but we're all still one body.
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