Dante's Inferno 4 & 5 | Virtuous Pagans, Visionary History, & Bad Love
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- In Cantos 4 & 5, Dante introduces me to the Virtuous Pagans, those poets, political heroes, and philosophers of the classical world. With this visionary history, I wonder what Dante expects me to gain from such a parade of ancient persons. Finally I'm confronted with bad love, the lustful, and the story of Francesca de Rimini.
#spiritworld #spiritualjourney #visionary #tradition #badlove #philosophyfortheliving
Very well done. Much to think about too. Thanks.
Thank you!! I appreciate this. Love.
5:14 Unfortunately, this is a misreading of the text. While the 'virtuous pagans' are indeed sinless, they ARE punished for dying without baptism and correct acceptance of Christ. These are faults that preclude them from salvation, which cannot be absolved by goodness or innocence. Remember, Limbo is in Hell proper, a place for the eternally damned which promises 'eternal pain' and where they shall 'abandon all hope'. The fate of the unlearned, according to Dante, is an eternity of conscious deprivation from God's grace, and thus unceasing anguish without end.
From Mandelbaum's translation of Inferno, Canto 4:
The sighs arose from sorrow without torments,
out of the crowds- the many multitudes-
of infants and of women and of men.
The kindly master [Vergil] said: "Do you not ask
who are these spirits whom you see before you?
I'd have you know, before you go ahead,
They did not sin; and yet, though they have merits,
that's not enough, because they lacked baptism,
the portal of the faith that you embrace.
And if they lived before Christianity,
they did not worship God in fitting ways;
and of such spirits I myself am one.
For these defects, and for no other evil,
*we now are lost and punished just with this:*
we have no hope and yet we live in longing."
Thanks for this reply! I especially appreciate that you gave evidence from the text. Though I'm quote from Longfellow in the videos to be safe re: copyright, in fact I'm also reading the Mandelbaum translation. Thanks again for sharing this!