Oh will, I can't fine The other Dante thread, so, I'll point out a thing, that is a bit of a hobby horse of mine, that is so clear, written so big in Dante's Commedia that it seems to have become a footnote for Dante geeks like me. Isn't it ironic that the more evident, the more highlighted is a message, the more it becomes obscure? Now this is a message to all those who take religion as 'repetition of what someone told them'... Beware... Dante puts you in Hell... One may even read these lines as a challenge to dogmatism altogether... How cheeky in the High Middle Ages, one would think...erroneously, as the High Middle Ages were not as bigoted as we, modern and hubris-ridden beings, would like to believe.
There are many reasons why people go to Hell according to the greatest poets in Human civilisation, but the main reason, the reason that links them all is so often forgotten, and yet it's explained by the Guide, Virgil, when Dante is at the Gates of Hell, one of the most iconic and most famous passages from Inferno:
Per me is va nella città dolente per me si va nell'esterno dolore per me si va tra la perduta gente. Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore facevi divina potestate la somma sapienza, e'l primo amore, dinnanzi a me non fuor cose create se non etterne, e io eterna duro. Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.
These are, of course, the words on the Gates (I might have forgotten a few commas, for which I will burn in literary hell forever, but I am quoting by heart and rusty), however, the Pilgrim is not clear about their meaning and asks Virgil for an explanation:
Queste parole di colore oscuro vid'io scritte al sommo d'una porta Ch'io, 'Mestro, il senso lor m'e' duro.' Ed egli a me come persona accorta, 'Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto ogni viltà convien che qui sia morta Noi siamo giunti al loco ov'io t'ho detto che tutti vedrai le genti dolorose c'hanno perduto il ben dell'intelletto.'
Forgive my poro translation, but the last three lines read, 'We have now come to which that I had told you/ Where you will see the sorrowful people/ who have lost the gift of intellect. [italics mine]
You may go to hell for one or the other as on, but you will surely go to hell if you don't use the gift of your brain..l
There are many reasons why people go to Hell according to the greatest poets in Human civilisation, but the main reason, the reason that links them all is so often forgotten, and yet it's explained by the Guide, Virgil, when Dante is at the Gates of Hell, one of the most iconic and most famous passages from Inferno:
Per me is va nella città dolente
per me si va nell'esterno dolore
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore
facevi divina potestate
la somma sapienza, e'l primo amore,
dinnanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io eterna duro.
Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.
These are, of course, the words on the Gates (I might have forgotten a few commas, for which I will burn in literary hell forever, but I am quoting by heart and rusty), however, the Pilgrim is not clear about their meaning and asks Virgil for an explanation:
Queste parole di colore oscuro
vid'io scritte al sommo d'una porta
Ch'io, 'Mestro, il senso lor m'e' duro.'
Ed egli a me come persona accorta,
'Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospetto
ogni viltà convien che qui sia morta
Noi siamo giunti al loco ov'io t'ho detto
che tutti vedrai le genti dolorose
c'hanno perduto il ben dell'intelletto.'
Forgive my poro translation, but the last three lines read, 'We have now come to which that I had told you/ Where you will see the sorrowful people/ who have lost the gift of intellect. [italics mine]
You may go to hell for one or the other as on, but you will surely go to hell if you don't use the gift of your brain..l