WEBVTT 00:00.540 --> 00:07.770 Prof: We'll continue the discussion we left open last 00:07.771 --> 00:08.631 time. 00:08.630 --> 00:14.430 Remember we are--we were saying a few things about Ulysses. 00:14.430 --> 00:22.130 The overarching question of my remarks-- 00:22.130 --> 00:27.660 and your questions actually took my remarks in a different 00:27.660 --> 00:32.900 and sometimes deeper direction than I had intended-- 00:32.900 --> 00:39.420 is the whole issue of Ulysses but around Ulysses, 00:39.420 --> 00:47.290 Dante's reading of what we call the Hellenic world. 00:47.290 --> 00:54.920 Around Ulysses--Ulysses is--appears in Canto XXVI with 00:54.920 --> 00:58.520 Diomedes who is silent. 00:58.520 --> 01:04.100 Ulysses, the polytropic intelligence of classic 01:04.102 --> 01:08.312 antiquity, the crafty mind is--he appears 01:08.311 --> 01:12.761 as a philosopher, but also as a rhetorician and 01:12.763 --> 01:18.523 this is exactly that kind of complicity between the two modes 01:18.524 --> 01:21.504 that Dante wants to explore. 01:21.500 --> 01:24.520 Let me continue with this overarching theme. 01:24.519 --> 01:29.869 The overarching theme is the reading of the Greek world. 01:29.870 --> 01:33.080 You remember that we saw Eteocles and Polyneices, 01:33.080 --> 01:38.370 that clearly for Dante is--the knowledge of which is filtered 01:38.373 --> 01:43.643 through a Greek Roman poet, Statius, who was born and lived 01:43.644 --> 01:46.274 in a Greek Roman city, Naples. 01:46.269 --> 01:51.289 So he's discussing through Eteocles and Polyneices the 01:51.294 --> 01:53.574 whole story of Thebes. 01:53.569 --> 01:56.419 The two brothers, who are enemies, 01:56.420 --> 02:00.310 the enemies-brothers, and therefore the tragic 02:00.307 --> 02:04.537 history, the tragic knot of Theban mythology. 02:04.540 --> 02:11.080 It is Diomedes who is silent and--but above all the focus of 02:11.079 --> 02:16.399 the canto falls on the greatness of this hero. 02:16.400 --> 02:21.020 Ulysses, who I repeat, plays a pivotal role in Dante's 02:21.019 --> 02:22.239 imagination. 02:22.240 --> 02:24.860 He is a paradigm, he has a paradigmatic role. 02:24.860 --> 02:31.470 Dante can't quite get enough of him, nor can he get over the 02:31.473 --> 02:33.943 phantasm of Ulysses. 02:33.940 --> 02:37.550 Ulysses literally appears in his dreams in Canto XIX of 02:37.554 --> 02:40.484 Purgatorio, and then Ulysses will also 02:40.479 --> 02:44.099 appear when Dante has to measure the great imaginative distance 02:44.104 --> 02:47.554 that he traveled when he's at the border of the physical and 02:47.554 --> 02:49.254 the metaphysical worlds. 02:49.250 --> 02:52.560 He looks back and he will see Ulysses, 02:52.560 --> 02:56.280 or he'll remember--he will see the place which has been the 02:56.282 --> 03:00.512 place of Ulysses' transgression, because this is apparently 03:00.512 --> 03:01.582 Ulysses' sin. 03:01.580 --> 03:06.970 Ulysses' sin is to have counseled his companions to go 03:06.973 --> 03:10.743 beyond the boundaries of knowledge. 03:10.740 --> 03:15.130 This is--so, it's the effects of counseling. 03:15.128 --> 03:17.808 Let me just say one thing, that for Dante there's no 03:17.813 --> 03:19.713 figure which is more interesting, 03:19.710 --> 03:23.340 more important, more full of--for whom he has 03:23.341 --> 03:27.551 so many questions than the figure of the counsel. 03:27.550 --> 03:32.660 A counsel was of course Pier della Vigna, how does he advise? 03:32.659 --> 03:34.319 How does he take the pressure? 03:34.319 --> 03:36.759 He's the secretary, the counsel. 03:36.758 --> 03:38.788 How does he take the pressure of the court? 03:38.788 --> 03:44.518 What does he counsel Frederick the Great, his emperor? 03:44.520 --> 03:46.360 And then we're going to see other counsels. 03:46.360 --> 03:49.220 We're going to find very soon, later today, 03:53.044 --> 03:54.344 father and son. 03:54.340 --> 03:56.650 He divides father from son. 03:56.650 --> 04:01.030 He breaches the unity of the body politic and we'll come to 04:01.032 --> 04:03.452 that in Inferno XXVIII. 04:03.449 --> 04:07.299 Ulysses is the counsel who--he gives the wrong counsel to his 04:07.295 --> 04:08.125 companions. 04:08.128 --> 04:12.528 He makes rhetorical promises which he knows he cannot quite 04:12.528 --> 04:13.058 keep. 04:13.060 --> 04:17.620 They are grand questions, but are--what questions does he 04:17.624 --> 04:20.074 pass on to these companions? 04:20.069 --> 04:24.259 What he says is, after the captivity, 04:24.259 --> 04:26.979 after they're being in bondage to Circe, 04:26.980 --> 04:30.440 he wants to reform them--the companions-- 04:30.439 --> 04:32.939 who as you know, are caught into the story that 04:32.944 --> 04:35.834 Dante may have read in medieval accounts with Ulysses: 04:35.829 --> 04:38.169 they had been metamorphosed into hogs, 04:38.170 --> 04:40.550 into pigs, into Epicureans. 04:40.550 --> 04:45.320 They had yielded to the pleasures of sensual happiness, 04:45.319 --> 04:48.939 the sensual understanding of happiness. 04:48.940 --> 04:51.900 He says, "you were not made," this is part of the 04:51.903 --> 04:54.053 speech that he makes to his companions, 04:54.050 --> 04:56.790 "you were not made to live as beasts," 04:56.790 --> 04:59.930 an illusion to Circe, to Circe's metamorphosis, 04:59.928 --> 05:02.818 "but to pursue, to follow virtue and 05:02.815 --> 05:03.965 knowledge." 05:03.970 --> 05:07.860 This is grandiose advice that he gives. 05:07.860 --> 05:11.060 Grandiose advice, but which has one little 05:11.055 --> 05:15.175 problem that Dante places him-- and that's not necessarily the 05:15.175 --> 05:18.125 major problem-- he places Ulysses and his 05:18.125 --> 05:21.865 companions as they are going to go beyond, 05:21.870 --> 05:24.630 as they are going beyond the Pillars of Hercules. 05:24.629 --> 05:28.849 It is as if Dante implies and seems to agree with, 05:28.850 --> 05:31.190 if one were to read the trajectory of the Divine 05:31.185 --> 05:33.925 Comedy, that there is no knowledge 05:33.930 --> 05:38.590 worthy of its name unless it is connected to some degree of 05:38.593 --> 05:39.963 transgression. 05:39.959 --> 05:43.499 That somehow transgression is part of knowing, 05:43.495 --> 05:46.085 of an original and new knowing. 05:46.089 --> 05:50.399 Ulysses has to go beyond the limits of the known world in 05:50.403 --> 05:54.333 order to truly uncover, discover something anew that 05:54.331 --> 05:55.951 nobody else knew. 05:55.949 --> 05:58.159 That makes him, as they used to say, 05:58.161 --> 06:01.071 a Renaissance figure avant la lettre; 06:01.069 --> 06:02.049 that's the way he's known. 06:02.050 --> 06:04.620 There is the famous joke of Ulysses, 06:04.620 --> 06:09.280 and the graduate paper refers to Ulysses as the great hero who 06:09.276 --> 06:13.926 is with one foot firmly rooted in the Middle Ages and with the 06:13.934 --> 06:17.804 other one, he salutes the rising sun of 06:17.798 --> 06:19.448 the Renaissance. 06:19.449 --> 06:23.729 It's a little bit of a comical account of Ulysses but it gives 06:23.730 --> 06:27.450 you a sense of how--the novelty that he represents. 06:27.449 --> 06:30.809 There is this bit of a transgression, 06:30.810 --> 06:34.320 but Dante doesn't seem to be terribly bothered by it, 06:34.319 --> 06:37.429 since he himself, in the different circumstances, 06:37.430 --> 06:42.050 is engaged in exactly the same kind of transgression of the 06:42.053 --> 06:43.013 perimeter. 06:43.009 --> 06:46.059 Apparently the geographic, even the cosmic, 06:46.057 --> 06:48.667 perimeter, he goes beyond the sun. 06:48.670 --> 06:52.800 He's even--he even goes farther than Daedalus and certainly 06:52.800 --> 06:55.650 farther than Icarus: these other mythical 06:55.649 --> 06:57.429 coordinates with him. 06:57.430 --> 07:02.190 How does Dante find out--how does he want us to know that 07:02.194 --> 07:06.964 somehow the promises Ulysses makes to his companions-- 07:06.959 --> 07:10.209 he wants to lead them to virtue of knowledge-- 07:10.209 --> 07:12.709 may really be a faulty promise. 07:12.709 --> 07:17.019 This is, I think, the substance of the canto. 07:17.019 --> 07:21.129 Dante will refer to it with a famous metaphor as a "mad 07:21.134 --> 07:22.184 flight." 07:22.180 --> 07:24.860 Remember Ulysses recounts how they made-- 07:24.860 --> 07:29.250 a mad flight out of the oars, mixing metaphors as Dante had 07:29.252 --> 07:33.662 done before-- the maritime journey and the 07:33.661 --> 07:35.181 air journey. 07:35.180 --> 07:37.610 This is the journey, the flight of the mind, 07:37.605 --> 07:40.705 the flight of the intellect as if it were described by a 07:40.709 --> 07:43.479 sailor; Ulysses is a sailor. 07:43.480 --> 07:48.060 How does Dante make us aware that this is indeed--there is 07:48.060 --> 07:52.080 madness in what Ulysses is trying to accomplish? 07:52.079 --> 07:55.529 Very simply, he puts him within a peculiar, 07:55.529 --> 07:59.479 distinct political and rhetorical context so that you 07:59.475 --> 08:03.185 really have to wonder: can he really deliver these 08:03.192 --> 08:07.292 promises and what are the political consequences of the 08:07.288 --> 08:09.488 promises that he makes? 08:09.490 --> 08:16.060 The whole Canto XXVI is literally littered with fallen 08:16.062 --> 08:17.182 cities. 08:17.180 --> 08:19.670 From this point through it begins with Troy-- 08:19.670 --> 08:23.380 I'm sorry with Florence--Dante has this apostrophe against the 08:23.377 --> 08:25.807 city of Florence: the city of Thebes, 08:25.810 --> 08:28.830 that's what he calls it, spreading its wings as if it 08:28.826 --> 08:31.766 were also-- as if cities were like heroes, 08:31.771 --> 08:33.671 engaged in great flights. 08:33.668 --> 08:39.028 That is a clear desire on Dante's part to have us connect 08:39.034 --> 08:43.064 the story of Ulysses' self-degradation, 08:43.058 --> 08:46.878 turpitude, with the story of Ulysses, 08:46.879 --> 08:51.449 Florence's turpitude and Ulysses' own fall. 08:51.450 --> 08:53.610 Then there is a reference to the city of Troy, 08:53.610 --> 08:54.380 a fallen city. 08:54.379 --> 08:58.049 There is a reference to Thebes with--through Eteocles and 08:58.048 --> 08:58.898 Polyneices. 08:58.899 --> 09:02.169 There is also a reference to Rome. 09:02.168 --> 09:06.948 The canto is full of references to cities from this point of 09:06.951 --> 09:07.521 view. 09:07.519 --> 09:12.619 Canto XXVI is a version--a brief version--of the epic, 09:12.615 --> 09:17.805 because the impulse of the epic is always political. 09:17.808 --> 09:21.028 There is no epic that you can think of which doesn't think 09:21.030 --> 09:23.660 about-- it's not trying to represent 09:23.662 --> 09:27.912 the--either the falling cities and the edification of new 09:27.905 --> 09:30.215 cities, or for that matter, 09:30.219 --> 09:34.189 some locating of a city that could be in a great, 09:34.190 --> 09:35.760 grand metaphysical drama. 09:35.759 --> 09:41.539 It could be in the heavenly Jerusalem, or it's Rome, 09:41.542 --> 09:44.832 it's Carthage, it's Thebes. 09:44.830 --> 09:49.750 Falling cities and rising cities: so this is the strategy 09:49.751 --> 09:50.721 of Dante. 09:50.720 --> 09:56.200 Dante's strategy is to show then how the grand philosophical 09:56.202 --> 10:01.592 claims of Ulysses have effects that make it appear as empty 10:01.591 --> 10:02.801 rhetoric. 10:02.798 --> 10:07.638 Dante places Ulysses nowhere, somewhere in the ocean without 10:07.644 --> 10:09.374 a particular place. 10:09.370 --> 10:12.250 He goes from one city to another, and at the same time 10:12.248 --> 10:15.128 because of this, he can never quite--doesn't 10:15.128 --> 10:18.688 seem to be able to deliver on what he has promised. 10:18.690 --> 10:23.080 It's a reflection on one particular aspect of the tragic 10:23.081 --> 10:24.601 story of Ulysses. 10:24.600 --> 10:29.830 It's the tragedy of language: a language that contains with 10:29.827 --> 10:33.977 itself all the most incredible mirages and yet, 10:33.975 --> 10:36.675 it falls short of reality. 10:36.678 --> 10:42.108 Ulysses is literally placed in the empty ocean away from all 10:42.110 --> 10:45.610 responsibilities and all locations, 10:45.610 --> 10:52.570 and it is this gratuitousness of his quest that also counts 10:52.570 --> 10:58.570 for his being in Hell among the evil counselors. 10:58.570 --> 11:03.240 This is what I was trying to tell you last time and I think 11:03.236 --> 11:08.386 that I have added on today a few other details but we can go back 11:08.388 --> 11:11.928 to that if there is to be a discussion, 11:11.928 --> 11:13.998 and I hope there will be, a little later. 11:14.000 --> 11:20.690 Let me turn now to Canto XXVII which I really like to read in 11:20.687 --> 11:24.187 conjunction-- it should be read in 11:24.192 --> 11:28.982 conjunction with Canto XXVI, because here we have what I 11:28.981 --> 11:32.841 would call a counter myth to the story of Ulysses. 11:32.840 --> 11:38.150 There is a contraction of focus; there's even a revision of the 11:38.147 --> 11:43.097 claims of epic grandeur that we have in Canto XXVI. 11:43.100 --> 11:45.840 Dante meets, and he's the one to become the 11:45.840 --> 11:48.870 interlocutor of, Guido da Montefeltro, 11:48.870 --> 11:52.820 an extraordinary figure, a political leader, 11:52.822 --> 11:56.712 that's what he was, who then experienced the 11:56.706 --> 11:57.686 conversion. 11:57.690 --> 12:02.530 He became a Franciscan friar and historically-- 12:02.528 --> 12:06.458 this is a historical figure--historically he is 12:06.457 --> 12:09.787 called in by the Pope Boniface VIII, 12:09.789 --> 12:11.199 by now you know him. 12:11.200 --> 12:14.540 He's not someone that Dante really holds in the highest 12:14.543 --> 12:17.983 esteem possible, but Boniface VIII, 12:17.981 --> 12:24.271 in an inversion of the relations between priest and 12:24.267 --> 12:27.677 cleric, high priest and cleric, 12:27.684 --> 12:31.494 asks Guido da Montefeltro for some advice. 12:31.490 --> 12:35.960 We are dealing again with evil counselors and the advice is the 12:35.964 --> 12:40.254 following: you have to teach me, you are a great man of arms, 12:40.251 --> 12:44.561 you have to tell me what is-- what are the strategies I 12:44.559 --> 12:48.819 should pursue in order to conquer Palestrina, 12:48.820 --> 12:50.370 a small town. 12:50.370 --> 12:53.360 You may know it as a place of--the origin of a great 12:53.364 --> 12:56.304 musician from there, but a small town near Rome. 12:56.298 --> 12:59.898 I want to conquer and destroy the city of Palestrina; 12:59.899 --> 13:02.829 you tell me how I am to do this. 13:02.830 --> 13:07.950 We're really dealing with a Machiavellian world of 13:07.951 --> 13:09.311 counselors. 13:09.308 --> 13:13.768 For Machiavelli, it's actually the language of 13:13.770 --> 13:17.440 Machiavelli avant la lettre. 13:17.440 --> 13:21.780 Machiavelli uses, takes the language I think that 13:21.783 --> 13:24.683 Guido will deploy for himself. 13:24.678 --> 13:28.588 At one point Guido says, my works were those of-- 13:28.590 --> 13:32.770 not of a lion but of a fox, and you remember, 13:32.769 --> 13:36.939 these are the two attributes in The Prince of Machiavelli 13:36.940 --> 13:40.370 that the man-- the perfect prince ought to 13:40.371 --> 13:40.901 have. 13:40.899 --> 13:43.709 That is to say, the perfect prince is the one 13:43.711 --> 13:47.611 who knows how to use strength, but how to use also slyness. 13:47.610 --> 13:50.540 You have to know when you have to be crafty and foxy. 13:50.538 --> 13:55.608 You have to know when to be violent and lion-like. 13:55.610 --> 13:58.930 Two images that clearly originate from Cicero. 13:58.928 --> 14:03.328 They are not Dante's own invention but--and it's likely 14:03.325 --> 14:08.045 that Machiavelli got them from Cicero, as well as from this 14:08.046 --> 14:08.856 canto. 14:08.860 --> 14:13.150 The connections between the two cantos are several. 14:13.149 --> 14:16.979 Let me just go--first of all, it begins-- 14:16.980 --> 14:20.610 Canto XXVII--there is this reference to the Sicilian bull, 14:20.610 --> 14:26.130 clearly a counter to the Trojan horse of the previous canto. 14:26.129 --> 14:28.229 "As the Sicilian bull which bellowed for the first 14:28.229 --> 14:30.459 time-- and it was just--with a cry of 14:30.458 --> 14:32.888 him who had shaped it with his file, 14:32.889 --> 14:36.669 used to bellow with a voice of the victim so though it was of 14:36.672 --> 14:38.552 brass, and yet it seemed pierced with 14:38.547 --> 14:39.107 pain; thus... 14:39.113 --> 14:39.683 " etc. 14:39.679 --> 14:40.989 What is the story? 14:40.990 --> 14:46.380 It's exactly the same version, a demotic, vulgar version of 14:46.379 --> 14:51.489 the great situation--of what has happened to Ulysses. 14:51.490 --> 14:56.990 Ulysses is condemned to be held prisoner of the flames and the 14:56.994 --> 15:00.584 two tongues of fire, literally tongues of fire, 15:00.576 --> 15:03.956 because here is a rhetorician, the philosopher, 15:03.956 --> 15:08.726 the neo-Platonist who actually is a rhetorician, 15:08.730 --> 15:14.170 trying to persuade others about his ideas, 15:14.168 --> 15:22.438 and managing, and being very proud of this-- 15:22.440 --> 15:25.450 his success, but then he gets caught by his 15:25.447 --> 15:26.377 own tongue. 15:26.379 --> 15:30.039 It's always the temptation of the artist himself, 15:30.038 --> 15:34.838 it's Daedalus who builds the labyrinth and gets caught by it. 15:34.840 --> 15:38.230 It's the story of the artist who becomes a captive of that 15:38.227 --> 15:40.247 which he himself is constructed. 15:40.250 --> 15:43.980 This is true for Ulysses, a rhetorician caught by his own 15:43.980 --> 15:46.460 language, and here Dante begins with a 15:46.464 --> 15:50.584 story of the Sicilian bull, the first victim of which was 15:50.577 --> 15:52.127 the artist itself. 15:52.129 --> 15:57.629 So I think it's literally a way of reflecting on the scene that 15:57.628 --> 15:58.868 precedes it. 15:58.870 --> 16:02.130 Virgil and Dante are interrupted, line 20: 16:02.125 --> 16:06.885 "O thou to whom I direct my voice and who now just spoke 16:06.892 --> 16:08.562 in Lombard." 16:08.558 --> 16:13.048 What an extraordinary little misreading of the language, 16:13.054 --> 16:17.064 of the rhetoric deployed in the previous canto. 16:17.058 --> 16:20.978 You remember in the previous canto, Dante has Virgil go out 16:20.984 --> 16:25.114 of his way to say don't talk to these people--they are Greeks, 16:25.111 --> 16:26.941 so let me talk to them. 16:26.940 --> 16:32.470 But now from the perspective of Guido da Montefeltro--they are 16:32.466 --> 16:36.626 not speaking some kind of Homeric, Attic Greek, 16:36.634 --> 16:40.264 they're speaking a dialect of Italy. 16:40.259 --> 16:43.569 Which is to say, that language--it's not a 16:43.573 --> 16:47.133 question of what kind of style you are using, 16:47.130 --> 16:50.770 language always shows a sort of distance. 16:50.769 --> 16:55.969 It shows you yourself where you are and the kind of distance 16:55.966 --> 16:59.576 that you have from the world of truth, 16:59.580 --> 17:03.280 or the kind of proximity that you may have to some 17:03.283 --> 17:06.763 self-complacency, as in the case of Ulysses. 17:06.759 --> 17:07.699 "You who ... 17:07.701 --> 17:08.811 now spoke Lombard... 17:08.809 --> 17:11.469 " Clearly a way of reading the pretence-- 17:11.470 --> 17:15.190 the rhetorical stylistic pretensions of the other two 17:15.188 --> 17:18.118 speakers in the previous canto saying, 17:18.118 --> 17:20.678 "Now go thy way, I do not urge thee more, 17:20.680 --> 17:22.600 though I have come, perhaps, somewhat late, 17:22.598 --> 17:25.198 let it not irk thee to stay and speak with me; 17:25.200 --> 17:28.040 thou seest that it irks not me, and I am burning. 17:28.038 --> 17:30.918 If thou hast fallen but now into this blind world from the 17:30.917 --> 17:33.827 sweet land of Italy, whence I bring all my guilt, 17:33.827 --> 17:36.697 tell me if the Romagnoles have peace or war, 17:36.700 --> 17:39.520 for I was of the mountains there between Urbino and the 17:39.520 --> 17:41.560 height where Tiber is released." 17:41.558 --> 17:46.828 As opposed to the lofty rhetoric of Ulysses in the 17:46.832 --> 17:51.122 previous canto, who speaks through the grandest 17:51.123 --> 17:55.453 generalities about what is the destination and destiny, 17:55.450 --> 17:58.610 and fate of human beings: virtue, knowledge, 17:58.608 --> 18:01.508 the journey to the west, going through a hundred 18:01.509 --> 18:02.619 thousand perils. 18:02.618 --> 18:05.878 Here the language becomes--there's a sort of 18:05.875 --> 18:09.515 deliberate diminution, a contraction of focus, 18:09.522 --> 18:13.262 as if the language becomes one of indeed local, 18:13.259 --> 18:17.149 peace and war between neighboring towns. 18:17.150 --> 18:19.230 "I was still bent down and... 18:19.230 --> 18:20.050 " etc. 18:20.048 --> 18:23.578 And then, as a way of adjusting the register, 18:23.576 --> 18:27.416 the stylistic register, Virgil will say to Dante, 18:27.423 --> 18:30.793 "Speak thou; he is Italian." 18:30.788 --> 18:34.878 Once again, on the surface, the observance of degrees of 18:34.883 --> 18:39.573 style and the laws of rhetorical decorum are always observed and 18:39.571 --> 18:41.951 now he continues: "O soul... 18:41.953 --> 18:43.223 " etc. 18:43.220 --> 18:48.980 And he will--the pilgrim will inform Guido da Montefeltro 18:48.976 --> 18:55.136 about the situation of Italy, and this is the whole paragraph 18:55.144 --> 18:56.794 on page 337. 18:56.788 --> 19:00.968 And then Guido goes on saying, "If I thought my answer 19:00.968 --> 19:04.568 were to one who would ever return to the world, 19:04.568 --> 19:07.408 this flame should stay without another movement. 19:07.410 --> 19:10.480 But since none ever returned alive from this depth, 19:10.480 --> 19:13.670 if what I hear is true, I answer thee without fear of 19:13.674 --> 19:14.724 infamy." 19:14.720 --> 19:17.780 This is a passage that most of you remember very well; 19:17.779 --> 19:19.349 you may know this very well. 19:19.348 --> 19:22.908 It's a passage that Eliot, T.S. Eliot, 19:22.911 --> 19:26.571 uses an epigraphy, an epitaph actually, 19:26.568 --> 19:31.188 for "The Love Song of Prufrock." 19:31.190 --> 19:35.970 So it gives you an idea of the kind of reading that Eliot has 19:35.974 --> 19:40.874 of his own modest-- the solitary--this man Prufrock 19:40.867 --> 19:47.407 and the kind of infernal reality that this figure also evokes. 19:47.410 --> 19:51.510 What I want to emphasize though here, at the level of style, 19:51.509 --> 19:53.039 is how Guido speaks. 19:53.038 --> 19:59.708 Curses, hypothetical sentences, parenthetical remarks, 19:59.710 --> 20:04.310 not just a style that is--deliberately goes contrary 20:04.306 --> 20:08.236 to the smooth high-- once again high style of 20:08.243 --> 20:10.853 Ulysses in the preceding canto. 20:10.848 --> 20:14.928 Then, "I was a man of arms, and then a corded friar, 20:14.928 --> 20:17.548 thinking, so girt, to make amends; 20:17.548 --> 20:19.858 and indeed my thought had come true, 20:19.858 --> 20:22.318 but for the Great Priest," here is the curse against 20:22.321 --> 20:24.211 Boniface, "may ill befall him!-- 20:24.210 --> 20:27.930 who put me back in the old sins, and how and wherefore, 20:27.930 --> 20:30.640 I would have thee hear from me. 20:30.640 --> 20:35.120 While I informed the bones and flesh my mother gave me." 20:35.118 --> 20:39.808 Another reference to birth with which, as you know, 20:39.809 --> 20:43.749 characters start telling us their story. 20:43.750 --> 20:47.730 The making of birth, the first major event of their 20:47.731 --> 20:52.831 lives and then whatever happens, whatever biographical account 20:52.828 --> 20:57.448 may be a descent from or a deviation from the promises that 20:57.449 --> 20:59.679 that birth may have held. 20:59.680 --> 21:02.370 "While I informed the bones..." 21:02.368 --> 21:05.528 etc., "my deeds were those not of the lion, 21:05.528 --> 21:07.208 but of the fox." 21:07.210 --> 21:09.050 This is Machiavellian--eventually will 21:09.054 --> 21:10.654 become Machiavellian language. 21:10.650 --> 21:14.410 We are moving into the secret halls of power. 21:14.410 --> 21:18.510 There where big deals are struck, big deals of the 21:18.510 --> 21:22.610 destruction of cities, where the pope will ask the 21:22.612 --> 21:25.712 secret advice from his counselor. 21:25.710 --> 21:26.820 Let's see what he says. 21:26.818 --> 21:30.438 "I knew all wiles and covert ways and so practice 21:30.443 --> 21:31.883 their arts..." 21:31.880 --> 21:37.320 I cannot but remark to you how Canto XXVI also takes place 21:37.319 --> 21:42.379 through the language of concealment and covertness. 21:42.380 --> 21:46.680 Even which is--in Italian it's actually the language for 21:46.683 --> 21:50.993 thievery at the same time, the furtiveness of it all. 21:50.990 --> 21:54.970 You remember Dante speaks of the sun through a periphrasis, 21:54.970 --> 21:58.870 to say that it was hidden, that sinners are hidden and 21:58.874 --> 22:02.194 concealed from view in the tongues of fire. 22:02.190 --> 22:05.760 This is the language of manipulation of the political 22:05.760 --> 22:10.020 stratagems and machinations and here it becomes highlighted and 22:10.019 --> 22:11.599 made visible to us. 22:11.599 --> 22:15.299 He continues the covert ways. 22:15.298 --> 22:19.268 "When I saw myself come to that part of my life where every 22:19.270 --> 22:22.300 man should lower their sails," as if he were 22:22.296 --> 22:25.996 another mariner like Ulysses, "and gather in the ropes 22:26.001 --> 22:28.751 that which before had pleased me then grieved me, 22:28.750 --> 22:34.310 and with repentance and confession I turned friar and-- 22:34.308 --> 22:37.368 woe is me!--it would have served. 22:37.368 --> 22:41.418 The prince of the new Pharisees--being at war near the 22:41.417 --> 22:44.547 Lateran and not with Saracens or Jews, 22:44.548 --> 22:48.228 for every one of his enemies was Christian and none had been 22:48.226 --> 22:52.086 at the taking of Acre or trading in the land of the Soldan-- 22:52.088 --> 22:55.968 regarded neither the supreme office and holy orders in 22:55.972 --> 22:58.752 himself, nor in me, that cord which used 22:58.753 --> 23:02.703 to make its wearers lean; but as Constantine..." 23:02.700 --> 23:06.890 It's really--we are moving within the--I said within the 23:06.891 --> 23:11.231 halls of--we say the Vatican today, but at the time it was 23:11.234 --> 23:12.534 the Church of St. 23:12.530 --> 23:16.110 John the Lateran, which was the residence of the 23:16.113 --> 23:17.793 Bishop of Rome. 23:17.788 --> 23:22.288 And it was famous then as it is famous now, for the mosaics 23:22.294 --> 23:26.104 about Constantine's Donation to Pope Sylvester. 23:26.098 --> 23:33.008 The whole issue of the temporal power of the papacy really is to 23:33.006 --> 23:39.466 be seen--it's to be glimpsed through this scene of Guido and 23:39.473 --> 23:40.903 Boniface. 23:40.900 --> 23:44.200 "He asked counsel of me, and I was silent, 23:44.202 --> 23:48.082 for his words seemed drunken; and then he spoke again." 23:48.078 --> 23:53.478 This is the extraordinary caricature of the holy office, 23:53.481 --> 23:58.791 giving the absolution before even the commission of the 23:58.787 --> 23:59.767 crime. 23:59.769 --> 24:02.439 You can go and do what you want, I give you absolution 24:02.441 --> 24:05.061 before you do anything, so it's, "Do not let thy 24:05.061 --> 24:07.731 heart mistrust; I absolve thee henceforth, 24:07.727 --> 24:11.797 and do thou teach me how I may cast Palestrina to the ground. 24:11.798 --> 24:14.278 I have power to lock and unlock," 24:14.279 --> 24:18.329 the new Peter, "Heaven, as thou knowest, 24:18.328 --> 24:24.548 for the keys are two which my predecessor did not hold 24:24.545 --> 24:26.065 dear." 24:26.068 --> 24:29.918 This is the famous story of Celestine V, 24:29.920 --> 24:33.970 who gave up the office of the papacy and who stands even in 24:33.971 --> 24:38.091 the historical recollections and scholarship of today as the 24:38.094 --> 24:42.464 embodiment of one of a pope, of a figure who understood that 24:42.461 --> 24:45.791 the drama and the issue is always between power, 24:45.788 --> 24:48.248 maybe a little bit too dualistically, 24:48.250 --> 24:52.080 and holiness and how the two for Celestine were really 24:52.078 --> 24:54.678 incommensurable and cannot quite-- 24:54.680 --> 24:59.020 there could not be a dialectic between the two and he gave up. 24:59.019 --> 25:05.029 Dante refers to him with a little bit of harshness for not 25:05.034 --> 25:09.994 being heroic enough and withstanding the tide of 25:09.991 --> 25:16.641 corruption and deciding to retreat to a contemplative life. 25:16.640 --> 25:20.000 "Then the weighty," let me continue-- 25:20.000 --> 25:22.120 this is a little sermon that I apologize for, 25:22.119 --> 25:23.499 let me continue with this." 25:23.500 --> 25:26.780 Then the weighty arguments drove me to the point where 25:26.781 --> 25:30.191 silence seemed to me the worst offense and I said," 25:30.186 --> 25:33.716 and this is the advice he gives: simple and spectacular in 25:33.717 --> 25:36.007 its simplicity, "Father, 25:36.009 --> 25:40.369 since thou dost cleanse me from this sin into which I must now 25:40.371 --> 25:43.591 fall," I love the "I must." 25:43.588 --> 25:46.938 I cannot--I find it so irresistible especially because 25:46.935 --> 25:50.535 now I am guaranteed of this absolution, I can really go on 25:50.535 --> 25:52.235 and do whatever I want. 25:52.240 --> 25:56.240 So there is not just a coercion on Guido, but a kind of pleasure 25:56.242 --> 25:57.262 that he feels. 25:57.259 --> 26:00.529 He feels now that it is a necessity for him to go out and 26:00.530 --> 26:03.420 perpetrate-- and commit the evil he will 26:03.416 --> 26:07.856 perpetrate and this is the advice: "Large promise with 26:07.858 --> 26:12.988 scant observance will make thee triumph in the lofty seat." 26:12.990 --> 26:14.280 What is he saying? 26:14.278 --> 26:17.378 Make promises and plan not to keep them. 26:17.380 --> 26:20.440 Go and tell the people in Palestrina that you are going to 26:20.442 --> 26:22.812 respect them, that you are going to make them 26:22.807 --> 26:25.277 even rich, whatever you want to tell them. 26:25.278 --> 26:28.368 Then of course, as soon as they open the gates 26:28.371 --> 26:31.671 of the city, don't keep any of these promises. 26:31.670 --> 26:37.940 This is the--a restatement by the way that one-- 26:37.940 --> 26:43.760 that finds its original source in Cicero's text about rhetoric 26:43.763 --> 26:48.703 which is known as-- it's not really Cicero's but it 26:48.699 --> 26:53.329 was thought to be Cicero's and this is the text. 26:53.328 --> 27:00.538 From the person to whom it was dedicated, it was meant for this 27:00.536 --> 27:02.276 Ad Herrenium. 27:02.278 --> 27:06.328 It was thought in the Middle Ages to be Cicero's rhetorical 27:06.328 --> 27:09.888 treatises and the rhetorical treatises is based-- 27:09.890 --> 27:14.220 all treaties--like many other treatises are based on one 27:14.222 --> 27:18.162 premise, that rhetoric is the art of 27:18.163 --> 27:25.343 making the city and the citizens agree in order to keep the city 27:25.335 --> 27:26.355 going. 27:26.358 --> 27:33.018 In a properly governed city promises are made and are always 27:33.021 --> 27:35.621 going to be observed. 27:35.618 --> 27:40.128 It's a way of explaining rhetoric in moral terms. 27:40.130 --> 27:43.690 What Dante's saying is those kind of dictates, 27:43.690 --> 27:47.350 those kinds of propositions can easily be turned around and they 27:47.351 --> 27:49.851 are being turned around in the practice, 27:49.849 --> 27:50.799 the historical practice. 27:50.798 --> 27:53.378 "Then, as soon as I was dead, 27:53.380 --> 27:56.120 Francis came for me," there is a little rivalry 27:56.117 --> 28:00.637 between Francis and the devil, fighting over the soul of Guido 28:00.638 --> 28:05.568 and Guido is-- Francis loses and Guido is, 28:05.567 --> 28:08.897 of course, here in Hell. 28:08.900 --> 28:13.740 I mention these details because you will see that Dante will 28:13.742 --> 28:17.932 pick up this genre of medieval disputation when-- 28:17.930 --> 28:21.930 later in Purgatorio--in a couple of weeks we'll hit the 28:21.931 --> 28:24.491 canto where Dante meets Guido's son, 28:24.490 --> 28:29.470 because in this poem fathers and sons do not necessarily 28:29.468 --> 28:34.628 belong in the same moral space and sons do not necessarily 28:34.626 --> 28:38.696 follow in the footsteps of their fathers. 28:38.700 --> 28:42.710 So you will see how Dante echoes this whole scene and this 28:42.709 --> 28:44.819 is a kind of pre-figuration. 28:44.818 --> 28:47.488 I'm giving you a pre-figuration of things to come. 28:47.490 --> 28:52.090 Then we come--and I really want to pay a little bit of attention 28:52.085 --> 28:56.385 to this Canto XXVIII because we're entering the world of the 28:56.388 --> 29:00.208 truly tragic world, the tragic--the most tragic 29:00.214 --> 29:03.064 section of the Divine Comedy. 29:03.058 --> 29:07.938 And I mention that because from here to Canto XXXIII, 29:07.940 --> 29:11.710 the story of Ugolino, we're going to talk about what 29:11.713 --> 29:15.713 does Dante think of tragedy and how can he go on really 29:15.711 --> 29:17.711 envisioning the tragic. 29:17.710 --> 29:20.730 After all, I just called the poem, as he calls it, 29:20.730 --> 29:21.410 a comedy. 29:21.410 --> 29:24.050 What is the role and the place of the tragic? 29:24.048 --> 29:28.528 Is there room for the tragic vision in Dante's comedy? 29:28.528 --> 29:32.918 The point is that the tragic--I want to make this point now and 29:32.919 --> 29:36.459 I will be elaborating it as we go on next time-- 29:36.460 --> 29:40.840 especially next time--the tragic is never the final 29:40.840 --> 29:41.630 vision. 29:41.630 --> 29:45.670 I will go on even saying something now that the essence 29:45.673 --> 29:48.973 of tragedy is always linguistic for Dante. 29:48.970 --> 29:55.140 It has to do with issues of the inherent ambiguities of 29:55.138 --> 29:58.438 language, the impossibility of decoding 29:58.442 --> 30:02.112 and deciphering what is being said by one particular-- 30:02.108 --> 30:05.128 by one statement as opposed to another. 30:05.130 --> 30:08.390 Here Dante begins then with a reflection about tragedy. 30:08.390 --> 30:09.540 Where are we now? 30:09.539 --> 30:15.249 We are in Canto XXVIII; it's the--Dante encounters the 30:15.251 --> 30:20.261 one figure, the figure of Bertran de Born 30:26.703 --> 30:29.273 Dante actually admires greatly. 30:29.269 --> 30:32.489 In the treaties on language that he writes, 30:32.490 --> 30:34.390 this famous--I have been referring to it, 30:34.390 --> 30:37.480 De vulgari eloquentia, he singles him out as-- 30:37.480 --> 30:41.920 Dante singles out Bertran de Born as a great poet because he 30:41.915 --> 30:45.295 knew how to write the most difficult genre. 30:48.415 --> 30:51.585 of Provence, wedged between the Ligurian 30:51.588 --> 30:57.248 part of Italy and France-- because he was such a great 30:57.250 --> 31:03.870 poet, because he knew how to rhyme and write war poems. 31:03.868 --> 31:07.438 This is really the most difficult type of poetry, 31:07.438 --> 31:12.048 aesthetically very difficult to sustain and Bertran de Born was 31:12.048 --> 31:13.608 a genius at this. 31:13.608 --> 31:20.288 Now Dante places him among the so-called makers of discord. 31:20.288 --> 31:23.348 This is Canto XXVIII, Bertran de Born. 31:23.348 --> 31:27.468 Let's see how--Dante starts with a reflection of war. 31:27.470 --> 31:29.570 I want to tell you a couple of things. 31:29.568 --> 31:34.068 This is a canto, a difficult canto. 31:34.068 --> 31:40.648 Dante begins with the story of by--with a reference to 31:40.648 --> 31:46.978 ineffability--would you please read the passages? 31:46.980 --> 31:51.550 I--my version is--my English version--from Canto XXVIII, 31:51.548 --> 31:54.288 the first paragraph, who could? 31:54.288 --> 31:57.548 Yes, do you want to do this--would you like to do it 31:57.545 --> 31:58.115 please? 31:58.118 --> 31:59.408 Student: Sure. 31:59.407 --> 32:02.747 "Who could ever tell, even with words untrammeled and 32:02.747 --> 32:05.907 the tale often repeated, of all the blood in the wounds 32:05.911 --> 32:06.791 I saw now? 32:06.788 --> 32:10.898 Surely every tongue would fail, for our speech and memory have 32:10.904 --> 32:13.474 not the capacity to take in so much. 32:13.470 --> 32:16.870 Were all the people assembled again who once in the fateful 32:16.873 --> 32:19.673 land of Apulia, bewailed their blood shed by 32:19.666 --> 32:23.506 the Trojans and in the long war which made the high-piled spoil 32:23.512 --> 32:26.632 of rings-- as Livy writes who does not 32:26.630 --> 32:31.770 err--with those who suffered grievous strokes in the struggle 32:31.765 --> 32:36.985 with Robert Guiscard and those others whose bones are still in 32:36.986 --> 32:41.946 heaps at Ceperano where every Apulian was faithless, 32:41.950 --> 32:46.440 and there by Tagliacozzo, where old Alardo conquered 32:46.439 --> 32:49.169 without arms; and were one to show his 32:49.173 --> 32:52.653 wounded limb and another his cut off, it would be nothing to 32:52.651 --> 32:56.071 compare with the foul fashion of the ninth ditch." 32:56.069 --> 32:57.179 Prof: Very well read. 32:57.180 --> 32:59.090 Thank you so much, excellent. 32:59.089 --> 33:01.229 What is this metaphor? 33:01.230 --> 33:08.740 It's the--we could call it the adoption of the so-called 33:08.740 --> 33:11.610 ineffability topos. 33:11.608 --> 33:13.608 You understand what I mean by ineffability topos? 33:13.608 --> 33:17.368 That is to say, usually it's a device, 33:17.368 --> 33:22.868 a poetic device, where the poet admits the 33:22.871 --> 33:26.081 difficulty, or even impossibility of 33:26.076 --> 33:27.896 describing a particular reality. 33:27.900 --> 33:29.410 It's called ineffability. 33:29.410 --> 33:32.910 It's so sublime; it usually has to do with, 33:32.907 --> 33:35.257 let's say, the vision of God. 33:35.259 --> 33:37.619 I cannot really go on: whoever has seen God, 33:37.618 --> 33:39.778 whatever mystic may have had a vision, 33:39.779 --> 33:44.519 they always fall into the contingency, 33:44.519 --> 33:49.339 the facticity of language that cannot quite grasp the sublime 33:49.338 --> 33:51.988 quality of what they have seen. 33:51.990 --> 33:57.610 Dante now deploys the same device for the world of--let's 33:57.613 --> 34:01.733 call it for what it is, the evil world. 34:01.730 --> 34:05.350 It is as if Hell now has its own sublimity, 34:05.348 --> 34:10.558 a sublime quality that is a parallel and counter to that 34:10.557 --> 34:16.427 which Dante will witness in the divine spectacles at the top of 34:16.429 --> 34:17.659 Paradise. 34:17.659 --> 34:23.249 This is the first thing; language cannot quite be 34:23.246 --> 34:27.526 adequate to the reality it wants to represent. 34:27.530 --> 34:32.120 What he's talking about now is all the--he wants to describe 34:32.123 --> 34:33.683 the whole of Hell. 34:33.679 --> 34:39.609 And all the limbs, the dismemberments of bodies 34:39.612 --> 34:47.222 from old wars cannot quite come close to what he has seen in 34:47.222 --> 34:50.062 this area of Hell. 34:50.059 --> 34:52.269 This is really the idea. 34:52.268 --> 34:55.758 What Dante first of all will go on describing is-- 34:55.760 --> 34:58.110 first of all then, the question of the 34:58.110 --> 35:01.120 ineffability topos, which we'll see what it means 35:01.115 --> 35:04.295 in the unfolding of the canto, and let me just continue 35:04.297 --> 35:05.467 actually with this. 35:05.469 --> 35:09.489 Then the canto really comes to a close with a meeting of 35:09.494 --> 35:11.914 a--with a poet Bertran de Born. 35:11.909 --> 35:17.959 So we go from the language of the ineffable and a language of 35:17.958 --> 35:22.418 the ineffable that is-- has also this little detail, 35:22.422 --> 35:26.012 a reference to Livy, a Roman historian. 35:26.010 --> 35:28.060 And his voice, and his authority, 35:28.061 --> 35:29.281 are unquestioned. 35:29.280 --> 35:31.690 Livy cannot make mistakes. 35:31.690 --> 35:36.290 They are unerring in their chronicles, 35:36.289 --> 35:38.309 in their accounts of what they have seen, 35:38.309 --> 35:43.499 but somehow the poetic voice is not quite the same thing as the 35:43.503 --> 35:45.183 historian's voice. 35:45.179 --> 35:51.049 You see what the tension is in the first few lines of the poem, 35:51.054 --> 35:56.644 and then the canto comes to a close with a different form of 35:56.644 --> 35:58.734 poetic reflection. 35:58.730 --> 36:04.340 Dante is here describing something altogether different, 36:04.340 --> 36:07.140 the meeting of Bertran de Born, and look how this scene-- 36:07.139 --> 36:12.309 this is the end of Canto XXVIII: "I stayed to watch 36:12.309 --> 36:17.289 the troop and saw a thing I should fear simply to tell 36:17.293 --> 36:20.963 without more proof," another, 36:20.960 --> 36:24.410 the threat of the ineffable once again. 36:24.409 --> 36:28.489 The poet is unable to represent--feels the difficulty 36:28.489 --> 36:32.959 of representing that--the extraordinary quality of what he 36:32.960 --> 36:33.980 has seen. 36:33.980 --> 36:34.570 ".. 36:34.572 --> 36:38.872 .but that conscience reassures me, the good companion which 36:38.865 --> 36:42.415 emboldens a man under the breastplate of his felt 36:42.418 --> 36:43.528 integrity. 36:43.530 --> 36:49.850 Verily I saw, and I seem to see it still, 36:49.849 --> 36:55.339 a trunk without a head, going as were the others of the 36:55.340 --> 37:00.170 miserable herd, and it held the severed head by 37:00.166 --> 37:03.056 the hair, swinging in its hand like a 37:03.061 --> 37:06.811 lantern, and that was looking at us and 37:06.809 --> 37:08.959 saying: 'Woe is me!' 37:08.960 --> 37:15.390 Of itself it made for itself a lamp, and they were two in one, 37:15.385 --> 37:17.805 and one in two." 37:17.809 --> 37:22.089 Strangely mathematical language, the divided body of 37:22.092 --> 37:25.702 Bertran de Born: he's a maker of discord and 37:25.702 --> 37:30.242 he's being punished by having his own body divided from 37:30.237 --> 37:31.327 itself. 37:31.329 --> 37:35.809 I'll come back to this metaphor in a moment, but the idea for 37:35.811 --> 37:40.221 now stylistically is that the two is one, and one is two; 37:40.219 --> 37:44.439 "how it can be He knows who so ordains." 37:44.440 --> 37:49.340 A mathematical language, as if there is no equality even 37:49.340 --> 37:50.320 possible. 37:50.320 --> 37:52.520 Remember that was exactly the language that he was-- 37:52.518 --> 37:57.048 he used for the metaphor, the impossible metaphor to 37:57.054 --> 37:59.884 contain all-- the description of all the 37:59.876 --> 38:03.366 battlefields and all the dead people at the beginning of Canto 38:03.367 --> 38:03.937 XXVIII. 38:03.940 --> 38:08.080 I cannot find a metaphor that somehow can equal, 38:08.079 --> 38:11.459 can give an idea, a fair idea, 38:11.456 --> 38:18.676 a proportionate idea of what I have seen in these bodies one on 38:18.677 --> 38:23.377 top of the other, limbs accumulated one on top of 38:23.380 --> 38:24.140 the other. 38:24.139 --> 38:28.909 And now Dante's using again the language of a quantity but sort 38:28.907 --> 38:33.597 of making us think that somehow there is some equality or some 38:33.597 --> 38:37.287 rationale in the disparity of one being two. 38:37.289 --> 38:39.219 I don't know, he says, but He knows, 38:39.217 --> 38:40.757 God knows, who so ordains. 38:40.760 --> 38:42.450 I don't know, that's what the statement 38:42.452 --> 38:42.812 means. 38:42.809 --> 38:44.759 "When it was just below the bridge, 38:44.760 --> 38:49.370 it raised its arm high, and with it the head so as to 38:49.371 --> 38:53.271 bring its words near us," and they were: 38:53.273 --> 38:57.003 "See now my grievous punishment, 38:57.000 --> 39:00.130 thou who, breathing, goest looking on the dead; 39:00.130 --> 39:04.530 see if any other is so great as this." 39:04.530 --> 39:10.010 Clearly, this is the first character in Hell who complains 39:10.014 --> 39:15.404 that the punishment inflicted on him is really beyond all 39:15.402 --> 39:18.772 justice, beyond all proportion. 39:18.768 --> 39:22.238 And there's no proportionality between what the punishment he 39:22.235 --> 39:24.425 gets and the crime he has committed. 39:24.429 --> 39:28.419 And he proceeds to explain: "And, that thou mayst bear 39:28.416 --> 39:32.126 news of me, know that I am Bertran de Born. 39:32.130 --> 39:36.900 He that gave evil backing to the Young King." 39:36.900 --> 39:39.440 And he explains, "I made rebellion between 39:39.438 --> 39:42.398 the father and the son; I divided father and son; 39:42.400 --> 39:46.870 Ahithophel did no worse," a biblical typology, 39:46.865 --> 39:51.775 "for Absalom and David with his wicked goadings. 39:51.780 --> 39:56.140 Because I parted those so joined I carry my brain, 39:56.135 --> 39:59.955 alas, parted from its root in this trunk; 39:59.960 --> 40:03.740 thus is observed in me the retribution." 40:03.739 --> 40:05.639 What is going on here? 40:05.639 --> 40:07.409 It's a number of things. 40:07.409 --> 40:09.719 Let me just explain a few things. 40:09.719 --> 40:14.819 Why should the Bertran de Born, the poet, be the one who bears 40:14.824 --> 40:19.514 now visible, the mark of the division on his own body? 40:19.510 --> 40:22.670 We know that this is the way punishments occur. 40:22.670 --> 40:25.910 The idea of a punishment in Hell is that a punishment is 40:25.911 --> 40:29.571 just usually the prolongation of what the extension of what one 40:29.565 --> 40:31.565 has chosen to do in this life. 40:31.570 --> 40:38.140 You choose to create division and it means that that's where 40:38.141 --> 40:39.591 you belong. 40:39.590 --> 40:42.900 You did not believe in the mortality of the soul and you 40:42.898 --> 40:46.508 are always after death you are going to be dead and so on. 40:46.510 --> 40:51.460 This is the reflection on punishment, or if you wish, 40:51.463 --> 40:57.273 on the justice that regulates this world of Hell or what Dante 40:57.273 --> 40:59.753 calls the retribution. 40:59.750 --> 41:03.980 The word he uses is, in Italian, contrapasso, 41:03.981 --> 41:08.631 means a counterpart I would say, or counter suffering. 41:08.630 --> 41:13.110 The last word in Italian is contrapasso which really 41:13.114 --> 41:16.444 means that there is--passo comes from 41:16.440 --> 41:18.220 passion, to suffer. 41:18.219 --> 41:22.819 You suffer equally for what you have done, that's it. 41:22.820 --> 41:25.670 It's--in a sense it's really the--not quite, 41:25.672 --> 41:29.522 but the equivalent of the eye for the eye and the tooth for 41:29.521 --> 41:30.451 the tooth. 41:30.449 --> 41:36.059 The whole idea of retributive justice: there is a fair 41:36.063 --> 41:42.743 correspondence between what you have done and what you are going 41:42.737 --> 41:44.217 to suffer. 41:44.219 --> 41:49.349 And Bertran de Born seems to do--why, what is the issue with 41:49.353 --> 41:50.313 the body? 41:50.309 --> 41:54.979 The whole point of this canto is that Bertran de Born divides 41:54.976 --> 41:56.296 father and son. 41:56.300 --> 41:59.780 He violates a principle of--fundamental principle of 41:59.777 --> 42:01.207 political theology. 42:01.210 --> 42:05.370 Whereby, if some of you are interested in this issue, 42:05.369 --> 42:07.869 you can read the work of a historian, 42:07.869 --> 42:11.369 a great medieval historian who died actually almost half a 42:11.369 --> 42:15.239 century ago: it's The King's Two Bodies by a historian by 42:15.239 --> 42:16.959 the name of Kantorowicz. 42:16.960 --> 42:27.290 Some of you may know it. 42:27.289 --> 42:29.099 What is the idea of the king? 42:29.099 --> 42:31.049 What do you mean by the king's two bodies? 42:31.050 --> 42:36.060 Yes, a king has always two bodies, the visible body that 42:36.061 --> 42:40.801 one has and also the mystical body of the royalty. 42:40.800 --> 42:45.030 They used to say in the Middle Ages, and we still do maybe, 42:45.032 --> 42:49.122 if you are into the news about royalty: the king is dead, 42:49.121 --> 42:50.801 long live the king. 42:50.800 --> 42:53.030 The king never dies. 42:53.030 --> 42:55.930 The king never dies because he has always two bodies; 42:55.929 --> 42:57.639 there are two bodies of the king. 42:57.639 --> 43:02.719 I may die as an incumbent but the office of the king always 43:02.722 --> 43:05.442 remains, this is fundamental. 43:05.440 --> 43:06.950 That's one idea. 43:06.949 --> 43:11.569 So, by dividing the father from the son, Dante has Bertran de 43:11.574 --> 43:16.204 Born breaching the unity of the mystical body of the king. 43:16.199 --> 43:18.179 The two, father and son, are really one. 43:18.179 --> 43:21.009 The other metaphor that is behind it, 43:21.010 --> 43:26.230 which we already saw a little bit--sort of traced, 43:26.230 --> 43:30.720 finally traced in the canto of Ciacco in Canto VI of 43:30.722 --> 43:35.922 Inferno was the idea of the body politic that you may 43:35.920 --> 43:38.740 remember I mentioned to you. 43:38.739 --> 43:42.779 The famous fable of Menenius, who thinks that the body, 43:42.780 --> 43:47.590 the city is really constructed like a body: an organic set of 43:47.594 --> 43:50.814 correspondences, organic correspondences like 43:50.811 --> 43:51.781 the human body. 43:51.780 --> 43:55.020 There's no difference between--there is a difference 43:55.023 --> 43:57.253 between patricians and plebeians. 43:57.250 --> 44:01.690 That's Menenius' argument, but they're all part of one 44:01.688 --> 44:03.698 organic unified whole. 44:03.699 --> 44:07.159 That is true for the body politic, from a Roman point of 44:07.164 --> 44:11.014 view, but it's the principle of so-called mystical body of the 44:11.007 --> 44:11.697 Church. 44:11.699 --> 44:14.889 Saint Paul, in the Letter to the Ephesians, 44:14.889 --> 44:18.549 refers to the Church as the mystical body of Christ a kind 44:18.554 --> 44:21.004 of-- so that the State becomes a 44:20.998 --> 44:24.328 secular counter, a secular extension of this 44:24.329 --> 44:25.419 mystical body. 44:25.420 --> 44:28.650 The Church, we are all members, some of us thumbs, 44:28.652 --> 44:30.772 other are just toes, or whatever, 44:30.766 --> 44:34.656 hair or whatever in this body, mystical body of Christ. 44:34.659 --> 44:40.299 I mention this because Canto XXVIII you have a political 44:40.304 --> 44:43.334 focus on Rome, or Bertran de Born, 44:43.327 --> 44:47.227 breaching the unity of father and son but also reference to 44:47.228 --> 44:51.468 Mohammed and I know there are a lot of people who just find this 44:51.465 --> 44:55.495 just absolutely odious that Mohammed should be placed, 44:55.500 --> 44:59.580 the prophet should be placed here in this area of Inferno. 44:59.579 --> 45:02.419 The only argument that one can have about this, 45:02.420 --> 45:06.430 is that, for Dante, Mohammed was actually a member 45:06.434 --> 45:09.554 of the Church who created a schism, 45:09.550 --> 45:11.330 which is different from heresy. 45:11.329 --> 45:14.679 We saw the heretics in Cantos IX and X. 45:14.679 --> 45:19.169 The heretics are those who do not believe in certain tenets of 45:19.173 --> 45:20.283 the doctrine. 45:20.280 --> 45:22.830 The schismatics are those who want to double, 45:22.827 --> 45:23.577 who divide. 45:23.579 --> 45:26.659 The word "schism" in Greek means to tear apart 45:26.657 --> 45:29.397 the unity, the world of unity, and doubling it. 45:29.400 --> 45:37.820 So this is really the argument, the symbols and images of Canto 45:37.818 --> 45:39.038 XXVIII. 45:39.039 --> 45:42.269 Let me go to the actual heart of this problem, 45:42.268 --> 45:46.718 the question of justice and the question of Bertran de Born. 45:46.719 --> 45:48.239 We will go back to that. 45:48.239 --> 45:50.699 "When I was just below the bridge... 45:50.699 --> 45:53.899 See now my grievous punishment, thou who, breathing, 45:53.902 --> 45:57.232 goest looking on the dead; see if any other is so great as 45:57.231 --> 45:57.841 this." 45:57.840 --> 46:03.030 Bertran thinks that there is no justice in this hellish world 46:03.027 --> 46:04.667 that he inhabits. 46:04.670 --> 46:08.040 All the ideas that the Ethics of Aristotle 46:08.041 --> 46:11.761 really account for devices that are so prevalent here, 46:11.764 --> 46:13.384 it's just not true. 46:13.380 --> 46:17.290 Not only that's not true, this idea of the retribution-- 46:17.289 --> 46:18.949 is it an idea, this idea of the 46:18.945 --> 46:22.405 contrapasso, is that an idea that Dante 46:22.414 --> 46:24.154 really believes in? 46:24.150 --> 46:27.310 There is a lot of--what kind of justice is that--what are the 46:27.307 --> 46:29.517 justices that we have in Inferno? 46:29.518 --> 46:33.068 Let me just give you a little bit of--a piece of intellectual 46:33.068 --> 46:35.018 history about this whole issue. 46:35.018 --> 46:37.598 I want to make it very simple, because it's really not a 46:37.601 --> 46:38.871 difficult problem anyway. 46:38.869 --> 46:42.929 It's not that I'm simplifying the issue, 46:42.929 --> 46:46.529 it's--there are two types: the people who think that the-- 46:46.530 --> 46:50.760 the thinkers who think about this issue and of course, 46:50.760 --> 46:52.740 Aristotle in the Ethics. 46:52.739 --> 46:56.469 And Dante's aware of the great commentary on Aristotle's 46:56.465 --> 46:58.765 Ethics by Thomas Aquinas. 46:58.768 --> 47:04.178 He keeps them in mind and they discuss justice and they wonder 47:04.181 --> 47:05.781 what is justice. 47:05.780 --> 47:08.970 This is a great problem for Dante, because Dante is--I have 47:08.969 --> 47:12.219 been calling him a number of things, but he's clearly a poet 47:12.215 --> 47:13.035 of justice. 47:13.039 --> 47:16.449 He really believes the whole point of his quest is to 47:16.445 --> 47:19.585 establish some degree of justice in his soul, 47:19.590 --> 47:22.010 try to find out justice in the city, 47:22.010 --> 47:27.530 and probe the possibility of some universal justice, 47:27.530 --> 47:31.850 as opposed to Lucretian ideas of anarchy and chaos in the 47:31.853 --> 47:32.553 cosmos. 47:32.550 --> 47:35.620 So there can be some continuity between the outside and the 47:35.615 --> 47:36.405 inside world. 47:36.409 --> 47:37.859 What is the idea of justice? 47:37.860 --> 47:39.820 What main types of justice do they have? 47:39.820 --> 47:42.660 They usually think about two types of justice. 47:42.659 --> 47:48.069 The so called--the retributive justice which is the one that we 47:48.074 --> 47:52.534 have in Hell here, but also distributive justice. 47:52.530 --> 47:54.820 Is Dante--is Dante aware of the two? 47:54.820 --> 47:58.300 Yes, it's impossible not to think of the representation of 47:58.300 --> 48:01.110 the Wheel of Fortune in Inferno VII, 48:01.110 --> 48:04.390 as anything less than a case of distributive justice. 48:04.389 --> 48:08.499 The distributive justice follows an arithmetical model. 48:08.500 --> 48:11.040 That is to say, in a distributive justice, 48:11.043 --> 48:14.213 as imagined in the Wheel of Fortune, some have more, 48:14.210 --> 48:15.390 some have less. 48:15.389 --> 48:17.459 If someone has five, you want to establish some 48:17.463 --> 48:20.233 justice, you take away from one who has 48:20.228 --> 48:23.478 five and give to one who has zero or one, 48:23.480 --> 48:25.240 and you create some kind of equality. 48:25.239 --> 48:30.409 Distributive justice has equality as its aim. 48:30.409 --> 48:34.519 In retributive justice, things are a little bit 48:34.518 --> 48:39.408 different because if I say-- and Aquinas reflects on this, 48:39.407 --> 48:42.757 this is not a concern at all of Aristotle-- 48:42.760 --> 48:46.910 if I say an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, 48:46.909 --> 48:51.119 am I really establishing justice or am I just doubling 48:51.121 --> 48:54.301 the offense that has been perpetrated? 48:54.300 --> 48:57.870 If I--someone takes an eye, plucks an eye out of me, 48:57.869 --> 49:01.449 if I do the same to whoever has damaged me that way, 49:01.449 --> 49:05.139 am I having--am I being restored in my original 49:05.137 --> 49:06.017 position? 49:06.019 --> 49:09.179 No, that doesn't happen. 49:09.179 --> 49:14.639 So how do you--how does one go around thinking about the whole 49:14.637 --> 49:17.677 question of retributive justice? 49:17.679 --> 49:20.779 Aquinas, and this also Aristotle, who goes on thinking, 49:20.780 --> 49:23.640 he says, well of course it's always very difficult to find 49:23.639 --> 49:26.149 exact counterparts between crime and punishment. 49:26.150 --> 49:31.270 If a clown were to slap the king, it's not enough for the 49:31.271 --> 49:35.851 king to slap the clown back because, one might say, 49:35.846 --> 49:37.946 well, its one slap. 49:37.949 --> 49:42.779 There is the violation of the office and then both Aristotle, 49:42.780 --> 49:45.140 that is implied, and it can never quite be 49:45.139 --> 49:48.019 restored by having the king slap the clown back. 49:48.018 --> 49:52.638 Both Aristotle and Aquinas say that's why money was invented, 49:52.639 --> 49:55.099 so one can really give whatever, there is a principle 49:55.096 --> 49:57.746 of inequality, one can go on repaying it 49:57.746 --> 50:00.696 through other forms, other punishments. 50:00.699 --> 50:03.299 The fact is, I think, that Dante--first of 50:03.300 --> 50:06.790 all, I want to go back to the structure of the canto. 50:06.789 --> 50:11.099 It's crucial that Dante should think about this fundamental 50:11.096 --> 50:15.696 problem of justice which is the aim of the ethical structure of 50:15.699 --> 50:18.669 the poem, in Inferno in particular, 50:18.670 --> 50:22.300 through the poet, through Bertran de Born. 50:22.300 --> 50:26.190 Not only through the poet, it's Dante himself who has just 50:26.192 --> 50:29.682 been announcing the impossibility of finding through 50:29.675 --> 50:33.485 language the exact metaphor, the exact correspondence 50:33.489 --> 50:36.219 between a reality and its representation. 50:36.219 --> 50:41.959 What Dante is doing, is telling us how arbitrary are 50:41.956 --> 50:48.206 his own judgments in Hell, how the notion of a position in 50:48.208 --> 50:53.698 the way punishments and crimes are related are never quite 50:53.702 --> 50:54.862 reliable. 50:54.860 --> 50:58.930 This is the--to understand this, and I know that I did not 50:58.925 --> 51:03.035 ask you to read it for today, but I have to--I have a few 51:03.043 --> 51:07.023 minutes and I want to go the-- ask you to turn to the very 51:07.021 --> 51:10.561 beginning of Canto XXIX because I think it becomes a 51:10.559 --> 51:14.789 retrospective gloss here on the problems that I've been trying 51:14.789 --> 51:17.009 to explain in Canto XXVIII. 51:17.010 --> 51:20.610 Dante goes through other forms of-- 51:20.610 --> 51:24.390 he will enter the world of the so-called alchemists, 51:24.389 --> 51:28.789 those who are engaged in diabolical mutations, 51:28.789 --> 51:32.029 unnatural mutations, personifications, 51:32.030 --> 51:34.520 impersonators, disguises, etc., 51:34.516 --> 51:39.946 but before he gets there, there is a little long passage. 51:39.949 --> 51:43.969 It's the first time in the whole poem that usually you know 51:43.974 --> 51:46.594 how-- what the narrative economy of 51:46.585 --> 51:49.135 each canto is, Dante comes to the end of the 51:49.137 --> 51:51.207 poem-- of a canto and usually closes 51:51.213 --> 51:54.523 off with the particular sin or the particular sinner, 51:54.519 --> 51:55.799 this is an exception. 51:55.800 --> 52:01.040 Dante goes into Canto XXIX and whatever situation he has been 52:01.043 --> 52:05.243 describing in Canto XXVIII keeps reappearing, 52:05.239 --> 52:07.379 it worries him and somehow--well let's see what 52:07.384 --> 52:08.554 worries him about this. 52:08.550 --> 52:13.220 "The many people and the strange wounds had made my eyes 52:13.219 --> 52:17.109 so drunken that they were fain to stay and weep; 52:17.110 --> 52:20.600 but Virgil said to me: 'What are thou still gazing 52:20.597 --> 52:24.297 at?'" The pilgrim is looking back at what he has 52:24.298 --> 52:24.938 seen. 52:24.940 --> 52:30.270 "Why does thy look still rest down there among the 52:30.271 --> 52:32.841 miserable maimed shades? 52:32.840 --> 52:35.790 Thou hast not done this at the other depths. 52:35.789 --> 52:39.379 Consider, if thou think to number them, that the valley 52:39.375 --> 52:43.485 goes twenty-two miles round and already the moon is beneath our 52:43.492 --> 52:44.092 feet. 52:44.090 --> 52:48.880 The time is now short that is allowed to us and there is more 52:48.882 --> 52:51.762 to see than thou seest here." 52:51.760 --> 52:56.450 Once again numbers, arithmetical language. 52:56.449 --> 52:58.609 What is the measure? 52:58.610 --> 53:00.090 What is the--how do we measure? 53:00.090 --> 53:02.790 How are we going to determine what is the exact 53:02.791 --> 53:03.791 correspondence? 53:03.789 --> 53:08.249 Let me just give you a little aside about this. 53:08.250 --> 53:09.960 As you know, a great reader of 53:09.963 --> 53:12.333 Inferno, and actually he began his 53:12.327 --> 53:14.987 career as a commentator of Dante, was Galileo, 53:14.987 --> 53:16.167 the scientist. 53:16.170 --> 53:21.760 That was the first work that he did, he published a famous work 53:21.757 --> 53:23.557 on Inferno. 53:23.559 --> 53:28.629 He tried to find out what the actual size of the whole of 53:28.632 --> 53:33.892 Inferno was, just by going by this little detail that Dante 53:33.887 --> 53:35.877 gives, the radius. 53:35.880 --> 53:40.530 And he comes up with the idea that Inferno is as large as the 53:40.530 --> 53:43.770 city of Florence, which is something that he 53:43.773 --> 53:46.813 probably would have said anyway, whether it was a 53:46.809 --> 53:49.519 mathematical--there was a mathematical proof for it or 53:49.523 --> 53:50.603 just his own joke. 53:50.599 --> 53:52.479 I'll leave it to you to decide. 53:52.480 --> 53:53.780 Let me continue with this. 53:53.780 --> 53:58.140 "If thou hadst given heed to my reason for looking,' I 53:58.143 --> 54:01.153 answered then, 'perhaps thou wouldst have 54:01.152 --> 54:03.412 granted me a longer stay.' 54:03.409 --> 54:08.489 Meantime the Leader was going on and I went after him, 54:08.489 --> 54:11.679 already making my reply, and I added: 54:11.684 --> 54:16.924 'Within that den where I held my eyes so intently just now I 54:16.922 --> 54:20.832 think a spirit," a kinsmen of his, 54:20.829 --> 54:24.829 "one of my blood, weeps for the guilt that cost 54:24.831 --> 54:26.951 so much down there." 54:26.949 --> 54:34.179 Dante knows that a relative of his is in this den of Hell. 54:34.179 --> 54:36.949 "Then said the master: 'Let not thy thoughts be 54:36.952 --> 54:40.712 distracted about him henceforth; attend to other things and let 54:40.710 --> 54:44.090 him stay there; for I saw him below the bridge 54:44.090 --> 54:48.340 point at thee and threaten fiercely with his finger, 54:48.340 --> 54:52.780 and I heard him called Geri del Bello," reminding him, 54:52.780 --> 54:54.280 here I am. 54:54.280 --> 54:58.180 "Thou was so wholly occupied with him who once held 54:58.182 --> 55:02.012 Hautefort that thou didst not look that way till he was 55:02.014 --> 55:03.084 gone." 55:03.079 --> 55:06.079 Dante responds, "'O my leader,' I said, 55:06.079 --> 55:11.559 'the violent death which is yet unavenged for him by any that is 55:11.556 --> 55:15.466 a partner in his shame made him indignant, 55:15.469 --> 55:18.889 and for that reason, as I judge, he went on without 55:18.893 --> 55:22.933 speaking to me and by this he has made me more compassionate 55:22.931 --> 55:25.701 with him.'" What's going on? 55:25.699 --> 55:28.439 How is this related to the previous canto? 55:28.440 --> 55:30.480 I think it's fairly clear. 55:30.480 --> 55:36.060 Dante meets a kinsmen of his who has been killed and that 55:36.056 --> 55:41.526 death is unavenged and clearly is going to be unavenged, 55:41.532 --> 55:44.822 is going to remain unavenged. 55:44.820 --> 55:48.720 Dante is so overwhelmed by pity and compassion, 55:48.719 --> 55:51.939 but he does not say, nor does he promise that he's 55:51.943 --> 55:55.763 going to go out and take revenge against the killers of his 55:55.760 --> 55:57.670 relative, Geri del Bello. 55:57.670 --> 56:01.490 What he is doing, he is redefining the notion of 56:01.494 --> 56:02.314 justice. 56:02.309 --> 56:07.829 The idea that justice is a doubling, or could be, 56:07.833 --> 56:09.563 of the crime. 56:09.559 --> 56:12.209 Someone is doing something, kills a kinsmen of mine, 56:12.206 --> 56:14.336 I'm going to go out and kill your kinsmen, 56:14.335 --> 56:17.185 because that's the way justice could be understood. 56:17.190 --> 56:21.320 The idea of justice as revenge, as a way of establishing the 56:21.324 --> 56:24.904 precise relationship is what Dante is giving up here 56:24.898 --> 56:25.948 completely. 56:25.949 --> 56:28.679 It's retrospectively a gloss on what I have been saying, 56:28.679 --> 56:31.329 that the notion of justice as the eye for the eye, 56:31.329 --> 56:36.139 or the tooth for the tooth, is no longer valid in this 56:36.141 --> 56:37.051 context. 56:37.050 --> 56:43.160 I think this is the beginning then of Dante's worrying about 56:43.155 --> 56:47.085 what is the nature of God's justice. 56:47.090 --> 56:51.340 What is--how arbitrary is my own claim of authority in 56:51.344 --> 56:55.604 describing these very issues, and continuing with this 56:55.597 --> 56:58.887 reflection as we shall see next time. 56:58.889 --> 57:02.739 Let me see if there are questions now about this whole 57:02.737 --> 57:06.727 problem--the problems we have been dealing with today or 57:06.728 --> 57:09.268 whatever problems you may have. 57:09.269 --> 57:16.569 57:16.570 --> 57:19.070 Yes? 57:19.070 --> 57:23.200 Student: I'm curious to know, how knowledgeable Dante 57:23.197 --> 57:27.047 was of the Hellenic world since he did not read Greek. 57:27.050 --> 57:31.740 Prof: The question is how knowledgeable Dante was of 57:31.737 --> 57:35.697 the Hellenic world since he did not read Greek. 57:35.699 --> 57:40.529 My answer is yes, indeed, he did not read Greek 57:40.534 --> 57:41.484 at all. 57:41.480 --> 57:47.530 He--for that matter nor did Aquinas really read Greek. 57:47.530 --> 57:53.600 So he knew the Hellenic world through Latin translations of 57:53.597 --> 57:58.927 texts like Aristotle's was being--the Ethics, 57:58.932 --> 58:02.702 the treatise On the Soul. 58:02.699 --> 58:04.509 Plato, he knew. 58:04.510 --> 58:07.710 He knew medieval romances that we'll be dealing with, 58:07.710 --> 58:11.970 the so-called medieval romances deal with the matters of France, 58:11.969 --> 58:15.199 the matters of Rome, the matters of Brittany, 58:15.199 --> 58:20.509 the Roman of Alexander which is part of the Hellenic world. 58:20.510 --> 58:30.150 He knew the--he lived in Ravenna which was part, 58:30.150 --> 58:34.430 by the way, until the year 1200 and more and later was part of 58:34.427 --> 58:37.157 the exarchy, a Greek exarchy, 58:37.155 --> 58:42.285 the church of Ravenna Exarchate, as it's called. 58:42.289 --> 58:50.119 So he knew this is where the resources and the conduit of his 58:50.121 --> 58:54.171 knowledge of the Greek world. 58:54.170 --> 58:58.300 Latin, and whatever survives in Latin, I mean for the 58:58.300 --> 59:01.320 philosophical schools of the Greeks. 59:01.320 --> 59:05.090 Clearly Cicero on the ends of man, De finibus, 59:05.090 --> 59:09.860 that is really the sourcebook for whatever he-- 59:09.860 --> 59:14.820 I've been saying about Stoics, Epicureans, Aristotelians, 59:14.818 --> 59:15.348 etc. 59:15.349 --> 59:18.989 He had some idea, Dante had some idea of the 59:18.985 --> 59:20.405 Metaphysics. 59:20.409 --> 59:25.009 He writes about in the Convivio--he writes about 59:25.014 --> 59:29.964 the need to connect ethics and metaphysics for instance. 59:29.960 --> 59:32.150 So he knew--that's what he knew. 59:32.150 --> 59:38.440 I could even add that I'm sure that--Actually there is going to 59:38.436 --> 59:40.766 be in Washington D.C. 59:40.768 --> 59:42.778 in about a year, we're going to have a 59:42.775 --> 59:43.475 conference. 59:43.480 --> 59:47.050 We're going to hold it in Washington for a number of 59:47.054 --> 59:49.794 reasons, but on Dante and the Greeks. 59:49.789 --> 59:53.139 So if you stay in touch with me, I'll let you know what 59:53.139 --> 59:53.759 happens. 59:53.760 --> 59:56.500 One thing that we are really looking at are the mosaics, 59:56.500 --> 59:59.220 the art world, the relations, 59:59.215 --> 1:00:04.735 the connections with Greek artists who have been traveling 1:00:04.744 --> 1:00:10.684 and were in Rome, in Sicily--that's what he knew. 1:00:10.679 --> 1:00:13.339 Yes? 1:00:13.340 --> 1:00:17.390 Student: Why is it appropriate for Dante to move on 1:00:17.394 --> 1:00:21.594 contrapasso punishment but for God to keep it in place 1:00:21.590 --> 1:00:22.430 in Hell? 1:00:22.429 --> 1:00:27.519 How does Dante reconcile those two things that Hell is 1:00:27.523 --> 1:00:32.093 supposedly a just place, but he's not supposed to look 1:00:32.092 --> 1:00:35.822 back towards like Canto XXVIII, that he's not supposed to-- 1:00:35.820 --> 1:00:40.230 Prof: The question is going back to the problem of 1:00:40.230 --> 1:00:43.380 justice in Canto XXVIII and then XXIX. 1:00:43.380 --> 1:00:48.650 How can Dante go on having some kind of hesitations about the 1:00:48.652 --> 1:00:54.192 idea of justice and at the same time hold the place in Hell, 1:00:54.190 --> 1:00:56.450 and plays according to some criteria. 1:00:56.449 --> 1:01:02.859 The answer is--it will appear a little bit complicated, 1:01:02.860 --> 1:01:07.730 but I'm not sure that it's complicated. 1:01:07.730 --> 1:01:11.690 This whole language of doubts about authority-- 1:01:11.690 --> 1:01:15.880 that Dante is the authority of himself as the one who can 1:01:15.875 --> 1:01:19.705 administer justice, the authority about 1:01:19.711 --> 1:01:26.641 the--himself as even capable of remembering that which he has 1:01:26.637 --> 1:01:33.097 seen and therefore the authority of the poetic voice. 1:01:33.099 --> 1:01:37.199 This is very extensive and really goes into all directions, 1:01:37.202 --> 1:01:38.762 has a counter to it. 1:01:38.760 --> 1:01:43.920 That's not the only aspect, the only facet of Dante's text. 1:01:43.920 --> 1:01:47.600 The way I see that is that he's also capable of taking on a 1:01:47.603 --> 1:01:51.413 prophetic voice, so that he appears as the one 1:01:51.411 --> 1:01:55.531 who has, by a singular grace of God, 1:01:55.532 --> 1:02:01.382 been chosen to explore the world in the beyond, 1:02:01.380 --> 1:02:04.800 which is really caught and understood in the most physical 1:02:04.800 --> 1:02:05.820 and direct way. 1:02:05.820 --> 1:02:09.590 So the two voices are simultaneously present. 1:02:09.590 --> 1:02:14.020 How does one condition the other? 1:02:14.018 --> 1:02:18.258 I think that that is really the tension of this poem. 1:02:18.260 --> 1:02:25.920 Dante is both a prophet and Dante is the poet who knows the 1:02:25.916 --> 1:02:30.796 arbitrariness of this construction. 1:02:30.800 --> 1:02:37.020 He's the poet theologian and the poet--the poetic allegorist. 1:02:37.018 --> 1:02:39.968 The two voices are simultaneously present. 1:02:39.969 --> 1:02:42.379 What is the point of doing this? 1:02:42.380 --> 1:02:49.650 In many ways this makes the poem the actual experience of a 1:02:49.650 --> 1:02:51.280 pilgrimage. 1:02:51.280 --> 1:02:55.970 That is to say, it's how you connect yourself, 1:02:55.969 --> 1:02:59.209 what kind of judgment do you give of what-- 1:02:59.210 --> 1:03:01.280 of the realities that Dante's representing, 1:03:01.280 --> 1:03:05.030 that is going to reveal to you yourself: who you are and where 1:03:05.034 --> 1:03:05.654 you are. 1:03:05.650 --> 1:03:08.650 It's a way of shifting the point of Dante's-- 1:03:08.650 --> 1:03:13.010 the voice of the master who can tell you how things are, 1:03:13.010 --> 1:03:18.210 to the interpretative journey, to an allegorical journey where 1:03:18.208 --> 1:03:23.318 you're going to decipher and all the time involve yourself in 1:03:23.320 --> 1:03:24.600 this story. 1:03:24.599 --> 1:03:27.659 This can be--can turn out--I think this is his wish. 1:03:27.659 --> 1:03:31.109 This story, which is his journey, can turn out to be your 1:03:31.112 --> 1:03:31.732 journey. 1:03:31.730 --> 1:03:33.680 You can tell your own story. 1:03:33.679 --> 1:03:35.029 Do you see what I'm saying? 1:03:35.030 --> 1:03:38.340 That's I think the--that's a very good question and I hope I 1:03:38.340 --> 1:03:40.360 have been clear in answering this. 1:03:40.360 --> 1:03:42.040 You may agree or not agree with it; 1:03:42.039 --> 1:03:44.969 that's another story, but I hope I've been really 1:03:44.967 --> 1:03:46.307 clear in the answer. 1:03:46.309 --> 1:03:47.409 Yes? 1:03:47.409 --> 1:03:49.439 Student: I have one more question. 1:03:49.440 --> 1:03:50.850 In terms of the narrow issue of justice, 1:03:50.849 --> 1:03:54.759 do you think that Dante doesn't have so much a problem with the 1:03:54.760 --> 1:03:58.610 system of an eye for an eye as with the idea that only someone 1:03:58.608 --> 1:04:01.888 with the intelligence of God could accurately see the 1:04:01.887 --> 1:04:05.547 correspondences and prescribe the right punishments for the 1:04:05.545 --> 1:04:06.425 crime. 1:04:06.429 --> 1:04:09.449 So it's not that the actual system is bad, 1:04:09.447 --> 1:04:13.717 it's just that Dante and humans can't presume to make those 1:04:13.719 --> 1:04:14.749 judgments. 1:04:14.750 --> 1:04:17.900 Prof: The other question that follows, 1:04:17.900 --> 1:04:21.870 the follow up question is: does it mean that Dante may-- 1:04:21.869 --> 1:04:25.659 can one say that Dante actually doesn't have problems with the 1:04:25.659 --> 1:04:29.149 basic structure, but only with the human ability 1:04:29.146 --> 1:04:30.856 to grasp how it works? 1:04:30.860 --> 1:04:34.430 I would agree with that. 1:04:34.429 --> 1:04:37.659 However, I think that what he really has problems with, 1:04:37.657 --> 1:04:40.107 is the notion, which was a practice at the 1:04:40.106 --> 1:04:44.056 time, the notion of revenge; the way of understanding 1:04:44.059 --> 1:04:45.759 justice as revenge. 1:04:45.760 --> 1:04:49.520 Now even the Bible will go on and tell you that the-- 1:04:49.518 --> 1:04:53.348 that 'revenge is mine, so says the Lord,' but Dante 1:04:53.353 --> 1:04:56.893 would say, that's God's voice and not the 1:04:56.889 --> 1:04:57.989 human voice. 1:04:57.989 --> 1:05:00.869 So he clearly has an objection to that. 1:05:00.869 --> 1:05:03.439 Is there some implication--because that's 1:05:03.436 --> 1:05:06.966 really what I think you're asking me, I hope that's what 1:05:06.965 --> 1:05:10.235 you're asking me, otherwise I'm completely off. 1:05:10.239 --> 1:05:15.709 Is there some implication that the universe itself, 1:05:15.710 --> 1:05:19.270 its divine economy, there may be something 1:05:19.271 --> 1:05:22.401 unfathomable and I would say yes, 1:05:22.400 --> 1:05:25.890 that the whole question of justice is something we cannot 1:05:25.889 --> 1:05:28.319 quite measure with human instruments. 1:05:28.320 --> 1:05:31.470 There is one great metaphor that Dante will give in Canto, 1:05:31.469 --> 1:05:34.869 I believe, XIX of Paradise where he goes 1:05:34.873 --> 1:05:38.943 back again to the question of justice and he talks about 1:05:38.942 --> 1:05:42.792 justice in terms of the salvation of the Hindus. 1:05:42.789 --> 1:05:45.679 Why shouldn't they be here? 1:05:45.679 --> 1:05:49.249 I mean what--he wonders about that and the answer that he 1:05:49.248 --> 1:05:52.878 gives is, he says that the question of justice is like the 1:05:52.880 --> 1:05:53.390 sea. 1:05:53.389 --> 1:05:57.359 When you are really near the shore you see the bottom and 1:05:57.364 --> 1:06:00.904 everything seems to be-- the waters are clear and 1:06:00.900 --> 1:06:04.990 transparent and you really seem to touch bottom and see the 1:06:04.985 --> 1:06:05.685 bottom. 1:06:05.690 --> 1:06:10.330 As soon as you go in, then the unfathomable ocean 1:06:10.331 --> 1:06:15.941 takes over and the foundation, the ground of it all remains 1:06:15.940 --> 1:06:18.940 invisible and inaccessible. 1:06:18.940 --> 1:06:22.470 Do you see what the argument--that's the argument he 1:06:22.465 --> 1:06:23.635 goes on giving? 1:06:23.639 --> 1:06:28.879 It's not an issue that he has resolved here once and for all, 1:06:28.878 --> 1:06:32.108 he will go back to these questions. 1:06:32.110 --> 1:06:35.340 Student: I have a question about the term you were 1:06:35.344 --> 1:06:38.584 using earlier, when you were talking about the 1:06:38.581 --> 1:06:42.421 ineffability, I couldn't make out if you were 1:06:42.420 --> 1:06:45.160 saying the ineffability trope? 1:06:45.159 --> 1:06:48.429 Prof: Yeah, I called it--because it's 1:06:48.431 --> 1:06:49.651 really jargon. 1:06:49.650 --> 1:06:53.630 The question is: I'm using ineffability trope. 1:06:53.630 --> 1:06:59.660 It's more a--trope is a device--I called it topos which 1:06:59.657 --> 1:07:04.067 is a place where some-- they talk about--topos is 1:07:04.074 --> 1:07:06.434 something that keeps, like a type, 1:07:06.427 --> 1:07:08.787 keeps repeating and can be used. 1:07:08.789 --> 1:07:12.769 Dante uses this idea of ineffability. 1:07:12.768 --> 1:07:16.208 What he's really talking about, the impossible metaphor that 1:07:16.210 --> 1:07:19.470 can hold or represent two different realities and I think 1:07:19.474 --> 1:07:22.804 that that's exactly the way he wants to think of crime and 1:07:22.798 --> 1:07:26.588 punishment: the relationship between crime and punishment, 1:07:26.590 --> 1:07:29.570 which is a metaphorical one, which is a kind of relationship 1:07:29.568 --> 1:07:32.088 that tries to equal-- an equal relationship between 1:07:32.092 --> 1:07:32.612 two terms. 1:07:32.610 --> 1:07:36.360 I called it topos, a Greek word. 1:07:36.360 --> 1:07:42.110 We call it commonplace, it means place. 1:07:42.110 --> 1:07:50.990 1:07:50.989 --> 1:07:54.049 Okay, we'll see you next time. 1:07:54.050 --> 1:07:59.000