THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
04/12/13 -- Vol. 31, No. 41, Whole Number 1749
George Washington: Mark Leeper, mleeper@optonline.net
Martha Washington: Evelyn Leeper, eleeper@optonline.net
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Topics:
Question (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Polish Film Posters (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Complete Popular Science (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Giant Robots Attack Montevideo Archive (comments
by Mark R. Leeper)
Argentine Ants (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Iphigenia (letter of comment by David Goldfarb)
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
VAMPIRE DIARIES (letter of comment by Susan de Guardiola)
This Week's Reading (THE AENEID, "The Gospel of John",
THE DIVINE COMEDY and MOBY DICK)
(book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
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TOPIC: Question (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Is CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF a vulpine Hammer? [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Polish Film Posters (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
Apparently Poland does not (always) use the international posters
for film. The distributor commissions their own posters with their
own interpretations of the films. The Open Culture website
presents a site with "50 Incredible Film Posters From Poland."
http://tinyurl.com/void-polish-posters
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Complete Popular Science (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
The Open Culture website points us to an archive the entire history
of "Popular Science Magazine". This magazine was often on the
borders of science fiction.
http://tinyurl.com/void-popsci
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Giant Robots Attack Montevideo Archive (comments by Mark
R. Leeper)
A review of the current EVIL DEAD remake mentioned that director
Fede Alvarez had previously directed a nice four-minute long film
of giant robots and their all-out attack on Montevideo. It is
mostly just digital effects without plot, but in so short a film,
who cares?
The film is "Ataque de Pánico!" ("Panic Attack!", 2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk
[-mrl]
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TOPIC: Argentine Ants (comments by Mark R. Leeper)
I don't know if you have been following this, but there is a World
War going on. Aliens are in the process of conquering much of the
Earth. Though they were first seen in Argentina and Brazil, their
empire now extends to every continent but Antarctica. So far it is
mostly just in regions that have a very temperate climate, but they
keep spreading. Toward the borders of their empire they are
ferocious fighters and are deadly to their enemies. This huge war
between the invaders and their enemies is going on right here on
earth. Some of you may be on the front lines of the war and not
even know it.
Oddly enough this is actually all true.
I'm serious.
This all sounds like a bad SF story, but it happens to be the
truth. And most of us are oblivious to what is happening. As you
might have guessed from my title, what I am talking about is a
battle for the world by Argentine ants.
What makes Argentine ants special? Ants generally form colonies.
Each member knows who is from their own colony and who is not by
scent. When the ants find another colony they can have peaceful
relations. Or they can end up in very nasty turf wars. They are
much like humans that way. If the choice is war a lot of ants can
be killed. If a single colony divides, their smells will slowly
change so the ants can tell the two new colonies apart. Two
colonies may have at one time been the same colony, but being
separated they will smell a little different from each other and
they may even war against each other. Bring one ant from each
colony together and the two ants will fight each other. So
colonies have limited size ... unless they don't.
In the 1800s an aggressive ant colony formed in Argentina, and it
plays by different rules. If you have two Argentine ants from what
appear to be different colonies they will not fight. They will
recognize each other like family. Effectively they were not from
different colonies after all. They were from what is de facto a
single colony in two parts. Argentine ants recognize as sisters
other Argentine ants from colonies continents apart. Effectively
what you have is not small colonies of ants, but one family of ants
spread over much of the world. Take an Argentine ant from India
and one from Indiana and they will know they are from the same
"super-colony." They will assist each other and even feed each
other.
Sometimes ants of most breeds will adopt the babies from other
colonies. Sometimes they capture and enslave ants foreign ants.
Argentine ants really have just one kind of relations with other
colonies. They want them exterminated. No adoption. No
enslavement. It is just "We'll help you die as quickly as
possible." The Argentine ants are excessively vicious against
other colonies. But when they find another Argentine colony like
quicksilver they merge. But when they each will have their own
queen but the ants themselves will cooperate as if they were a
single organism. Rather than fighting they groom each other as
they would sisters from the same queen. It is a bond stronger than
freemasonry and far more successful.
The boundaries of the super-colony are the front lines and their
ants are constantly at war to kill and take new territory. That
makes the ants seem very Spartan and warlike. But only a small
proportion of the Argentine ants live in the war zone. The
interiors of the colony--and with a super-colony there is a lot of
interior--are peaceful and one might even say they are the ant
equivalent of idyllic. Ants just live in an unchanging routine and
they thrive, each doing her part--they are mostly all female,
remember--to feed the colony and to help it to reproduce. For the
worker the hellacious foreign policy is paying off. Sadly, it is a
political philosophy that a Hitler or a Stalin might endorse.
Quite beyond serving as an unfortunate political metaphor argentine
ants do pose a threat to other animals and to humans. The horned
lizard is usually an ant predator. And the lizard does eat
argentine ants. But to these ants he is also prey. They come in
swarms to eat him. And even if they are not doing that he cannot
sleep for the ants trying to crawl all over him. The lizards just
get eaten alive by their own prey.
Now the question. Do we really care what ant colonies are
dominant? Actually the answer is that it could be disastrous for
humans. Some plants depend on non-Argentine for dispersing their
seeds. Some insect pests are kept under control by the predation
of animals like the horned lizard that are prey for the Argentine
ants. And the Argentines actually protect aphids with whom they
have a symbiotic relation but which cause crop damage. An
ecological shift like this could have major effects on crops.
Killing Argentine ant colonies is very difficult. A common
successful strategy man has used against ants is to kill the queen.
With most species of ants the best way to destroy a colony is to
kill the queen. Without a queen to lay eggs an ant colony dies.
You have a single point of complete vulnerability. Argentine ants
owe their allegiance not to any queen but to the super colony.
Kill a dozen queens and the super colony goes on. The surviving
ants from the colony just go to work for the nearest queen where
they are met with open mandibles of friendship.
Okay. Beat that. Right now the super colony, which incidentally
comprises more biomass than the entire human race, is unstopped and
seems unstoppable. So far its interests and humans' are only
tangentially in conflict. But the colony is growing and hungry.
The two species will eventually conflict. The future may belong to
them. [-mrl]
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TOPIC: Iphigenia (letter of comment by David Goldfarb)
In response to Evelyn's comments on AGAMEMNON and IPHIGENIA IN
AULIS in the 04/05/13 issue of the MT VOID, David Goldfarb writes:
As regards Iphigenia: I've just skimmed through IPHIGENIA AT AULIS
and not seen there the story I've read elsewhere, that Agamemnon
returning from a hunt rashly promised to sacrifice to Artemis the
first living thing belonging to him that he encountered. Guess who
was waiting at the edge of his lands for her dear father?
Euripides seems to have Artemis arbitrarily demanding a human
sacrifice, but other sources have her simply holding Agamemnon to
his promise. [-dg]
Evelyn responds:
The "I promise to sacrifice the first living thing I meet" story
seems awfully similar to the story of Jephthah's daughter in Judges
11:30-40. This was written in the 6th century B.C.E., about events
between 1380 B.C.E. and 1050 B.C.E. (IPHIGENIA IN AULIS was late
6th century B.C.E., but it seems unlikely there would have been any
direct influence.)
The idea also shows up in the story of Idomeneus, whose got caught
in a storm on the way home from the Trojan War and promised
Poseidon that he would sacrifice the first living thing he saw when
he returned home. In this case, it was his son, whom Idomeneus
sacrificed. This part of the Idomeneus story may be a later Roman
addition.
All in all, this trope seems fairly widespread. [-ecl]
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TOPIC: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (letter of comment by Dan Kimmel)
In response to Mark's comments on STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS in the
04/05/13 issue of the MT VOID, Dan Kimmel writes:
I get no bad vibe from the title STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. I think
it's much better than the previously proposed STAR TREK: THE BAD
NEIGHBORHOOD. :-) [-dk]
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TOPIC: VAMPIRE DIARIES (letter of comment by Susan de Guardiola)
In response to Dale Skran's review of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES in the
04/05/13 issue of the MT VOID, Susan Guardiola writes:
Two things re Dale Skran's review of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES. I
haven't seen the show, so I'm reacting purely to Dale's take on it.
1. Vervain is not just a "local herb". It's a flowering plant that
grows in both Europe and America with a long history of various
folk uses and association with the supernatural.
2. "Such questions would surely confront our genetic superhumans as
well. Whatever they might be able to eat, there is always the
temptation to over-indulge, something one suspects there is no
genetic cure for."
This feels weirdly off-target to me. Surely the issue at hand is
not the temptation to gluttony but the ethical problem of murdering
sentient beings to survive. That's not inherent to the idea of the
superhuman, but it is one of the distinguishing features of the
vampire genre. I think Dale's reaching here.
Also, given recent research into hormonal control of appetite, I
suspect there might indeed someday be a genetic cure for that
particular form of overindulgence. [-sdg]
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TOPIC: This Week's Reading (book comments by Evelyn C. Leeper)
Continuing in the philosophy/literature course I described over the
last two weeks, I have written at length about THE AENEID
previously (when I did a Teaching Company course on it in
conjunction with a Stanford University course, so I will limit my
comments here to the specific aspects of THE AENEID that fit in
with the Dreyfus's focus for this course.
Dreyfus did not cover the entire AENEID, just Books I, IV, and VI
(the introduction, the story of Dido and Aeneas, and Aeneas's visit
to the Underworld). One assumes the latter was included as much to
serve as a parallel with similar visits in THE ODYSSEY, THE
LIBATION BEARERS, and THE DIVINE COMEDY. (There is also one in
Christian tradition, based on I Peter 3:19-20, where Jesus visits
Limbo during his entombment and brings certain souls from Limbo to
Heaven. Dante references it in "The Inferno", Canto IV, line 53.)
If the interpretation of being in THE ODYSSEY is "mood", and in the
"Oresteia" it is "justice and the rule of law", then in THE AENEID
it is "pietas", an untranslatable word meaning piety, patriotism,
duty, and other emotions all combined.
So far, the course has covered three works, all about some aspect
of the Trojan War. The Trojan War itself is usually placed around
1190 B.C.E. Homer's ODYSSEY was probably written in the 8th or 7th
century B.C.E. The "Oresteia" was written in 458 BCE, and THE
AENEID between 29 B.C.E. and 19 B.C.E. So the composition of these
works spans over eight hundred years, and the events they describe
are four hundred years before the earliest of them.
In fact, one could say that there is also a Trojan link to THE
DIVINE COMEDY, which has Virgil as Dante's guide for at least part
of it. All this makes me wonder if someone has done a course
somewhere titled "The Trojan War in Literature Through History"
which begins with these works (and possibly additional works such
as Homer's ILIAD and Euripides' HELEN, IPHIGENIA IN AULIS,
IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS, and THE TROJAN WOMEN, and continues with
Geoffrey Chaucer's TROILUS & CRESSIDA, William Shakespeare's
TROILUS & CRESSIDA, and Johann Goethe's FAUST, PART 2.
It was when Dreyfus got to "The Gospel of John" that I realized
that I had some basic problems with his theories. Much of what he
said about "The Gospel of John" seemed to be based on questionable
translations or interpretations, and Dreyfus admitted he did not
know New Testament Greek. He would interpret "world" in "He was in
the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him
not" [John 1:10] as meaning social structure of the (physical)
world rather than the (physical) world itself. He seems to be
unique in this. He also claims that Jesus/Christianity elevates
the physical body in a way that the Romans did not, basing this on
the Incarnation of the former and the description of bodies by
those in the Underworld in the latter. Again, I do not recall any
other interpretation that feels that Christianity glorifies the
body. (If anything, various traditions emphasize the mortification
of the flesh.)
Dreyfus's explanation of the Trinity is ... peculiar, to say the
least. He argues that Jesus is a work of art--not that "The Gospel
of John" is a work of art, but that *Jesus* is a work of art, and
that there are three elements to a transformative work of art: the
"background practices", the exemplar, and someone or something to
explain how the exemplar embodies the background practices. In
"The Gospel of John" these correspond to the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. At least I think that is his claim, but I find it
extremely contrived.
Now, I thought I had a metaphor for the Trinity, from mechanical
drawing. A "puzzle" given to mechanical drawing students is to ask
them to visualize a figure that has its three aspects a circle, a
square, and a triangle. There is such a figure, but it obviously
looks very different depending on which side it is viewed from. (I
*really* wish that I could find an image on line, but I can't.) I
think of this as a parallel to how a single "being" could have
three very different "aspects". (I think that the Eastern Orthodox
interpretation of the Trinity, at least as I understand, may be
marginally closer to this than the Roman.)
However, reading "The Gospel of John", I find far too many verses
that do not fit with this interpretation. One that encapsulates
two types of contradicting statements is "The Father loveth the
Son, and hath given all things into his hand." [3:35] The first
half has one of the two performing an action toward or on the
second one that makes no sense if they are identical. The second
half makes a distinction between the two in their functions. So
when Jesus prays to his Father ("... And Jesus lifted up his eyes,
and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." [11:41])
that is a contradiction in the first sense, while when he says "For
the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the
Son:" [5.22], that is a contradiction in the second sense.
(While some might claim that John 10:30 ("I and my Father are
one.") and John 14:28 ("... for my Father is greater than I.") are
contradictions, in some mathematical sense they could both be true
if both the Father and the Son are infinite. E.g., there are the
same number of positive integers and even positive integers, yet
one can also say there are more positive integers than even
positive integers.)
Wwe next read Dante's "Inferno". I had recently (November 2011)
re-read this in the John Ciardi translation, and discussed some of
the differences my column in the 12/10/10 issue of the MT VOID.
Someone who read that recommended the Dorothy Sayers translation,
so when I had to read THE DIVINE COMEDY again for this course, I
read her translation instead of the Ciardi (which was the official
class translation). So first I will expand my comparisons to
include hers as well, even though that has nothing to do with the
class.
For example, the description of Dante climbing a steep hill is
rendered by Ciardi as:
"And there I lay to rest from my heart's race
till calm and breath returned to me. Then rose
and pushed up that dead slope at such a pace
each footfall rose above the last."
[Canto I, Lines 28-31]
Huse says:
"After I had rested a little my weary body,
I took my way over the lonely slope
[climbing] so that the firm foot always was the lower."
[Canto I, Lines 27-29]
Sayers is closer to Huse:
"Weary of limb I rested a brief hour
Then rose and onward through the desert hied,
So that the fixed foot always was the lower;"
[Canto I, Lines 28-30]
Huse and Sayers are clearer, but not as poetic as Ciardi. They are
also probably closer to the Italian, at least for the last line.
I said that in Ciardi one sometimes hears echoes of Bible verses:
"These are the nearly soulless
whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise.
They are mixed here with that despicable corps
of angels who were neither for God nor Satan,
but only for themselves."
[Canto III, Lines 32-36]
This reminded me of:
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would
thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
[Revelation 3:15-16]
Neither Huse nor Sayers has the compact "either-or" structures of
Ciardi.
And sometimes I saw something that might have been Ciardi taking
his inspiration from elsewhere:
"... [I] walked at his side
in silence and ashamed until we came
through the dead cavern to that sunless tide."
[Canto III, Lines 76-78]
This sounds a lot like:
"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
[Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"]
or:
"We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea."
[Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner"]
Huse renders this:
"Then with eyes ashamed and lowered,
fearing that my words might have offended him,
I kept from speaking until we reached the stream."
[Canto III, Lines 78-80]
which drops both the "dead cavern" and the "soulless tide". The
latter implied a "sea", while Huse refers merely to a "stream".
Sayers has:
"Abashed, I dropped my eyes; and, lest unmeet
Chatter should vex him, held my tongue, and so
Paced on with him, in silence and discreet
"To the riverside."
[Canto III, Line 79-82]
She has no caverns and a river rather than a sea.
I had found the inclusion of Saladin, Galen, Hippocrates, Avicen,
and Averroes in Limbo odd, since they lived after Jesus and
according to Ciardi the residents of Limbo are there because:
"And still their merits fail,
for they lacked Baptism's grace, which is the door
of the true faith *you* were born to. Their birth fell
before the age of the Christian mysteries,
and so they did not worship God's Trinity
in fullest duty. I am one of these."
[Canto IV, Lines 34-39]
In other words, only good pre-Christians are in Limbo.
But Sayers translates this differently:
"They sinned not, yet their merit lacked its chiefest
Fulfillment, lacking baptism, which is
The gateway to the faith which thou believest;
Or living before Christendom, their knees
Paid not aright those tributes that belong
To God; and I myself am one of these."
[Canto IV, Lines 34-39]
This says there are two categories of people in Limbo: good pre-
Jesus pagans and "sinless" post-Jesus pagans.
According to Sayers's note, this inclusion of post-Jesus non-
Christians in Limbo may be Dante's personal view rather than Church
doctrine. Certainly the presence of Saladin, who fought the
Crusaders, remains peculiar. In any case, her recognition of the
problem may account for the difference in translation.
For that matter, there is some confusion over Virgil's place in all
this. He is normally in Limbo, presumably because he is pre-
Christian, but he says that God "wills not that I, once rebel to
His crown," should be able to enter Paradise. [Canto I, Line 125]
But how exactly did Virgil rebel against God? And if he add,
wouldn't he be in the last circle with the other traitors to their
lords?
(In this age of electronic texts, I could look at the original, but
Dante predates even Chaucer, so I suspect his Italian would be
difficult enough for a native Italian speaker, let alone someone
who does not even know modern Italian.)
Another oddity is the semi-henothesitic view Dante seems to take.
Henotheism is defined as "the worship of one god without denying
the existence of other gods." Based strictly on the Biblical
texts, there is nothing heretical about this: Exodus 20:3, for
example, just says, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," not
that there are no other gods. But these days we think of
Christianity as allowing for the existence of only one God, and if
any other "gods" are in existence, they are considered as demons.
But Dante constantly sees creatures from Greek and Roman mythology,
and even some gods (e.g., Pluto). True, they're all in Hell, so
they could be considered demons, but I was still surprised to see
Dante acknowledging their existence.
(A fantasy novel that takes henotheism as its premise is Harry
Turtledove's THE CASE OF THE TOXIC SPELL DUMP.)
of course, none of this has anything to do with the course.
One thing that does have to do with the course is the translation
chosen. Dreyfus chose John Ciardi's translation, but then spent a
lot of time criticizing it (and Ciardi), explaining how Ciardi
changed the words to say what he (Ciardi) wanted it to say, and so
on. The obvious question is: why did Dreyfus pick this translation
at all, especially since my comparisons among Ciardi, Huse, and
Sayers indicate that Huse and Sayers are fairly consistent with
each other, but that Ciardi is often very different.
Dreyfus says that the views given of the sins are Virgil's (and the
Romans of Virgil's time)), and that is why Virgil is harder on sins
that Dante is not as concerned with, but the actual presence of
someone in a circle has to be Dante's decision as the author. You
cannot claim that Dante did not think that chivalric love (for
example) was not a sin, but that Virgil did and so that is why
Paolo and Francesca are being punished.
For that matter, Dreyfus keeps harping on the notion that Virgil
often gives speeches about the structure of the Inferno and
Purgatory and sin and virtue which are based on the Christian view
of them, but that this makes no sense, because Virgil's view would
be that of a Roman pagan, and he would not know all this Christian
theology. But why would one not assume that after death, everyone
is made aware of the Christian view of the universe (as being the
actual, true view)? All the pagans in Hell for having sinned seem
to know why they are there, and understand that there is an Inferno
and not a Hades, or Elysian Fields, or whatever.
Sayers says that the story of Paolo and Francesca mirrors that of
Lancelot and Guinevere (which may well have been the story they
were reading). In both cases, the man was sent to woo the woman
for someone else. (Think of it as the "John Alden Syndrome"--or
doesn't anyone learn about John Alden any more?) But Sayers does
not mention Tristan and Iseult (who are mentioned--or at least
Tristan is), and their story is the same one.
Dreyfus says that Virgil takes Dido to task as "untrue to Sychaeus'
ashes," but that he (Dreyfus) knows of no ethical system that
requires loyalty to a dead husband. Surely he has heard of the
Hindu system, where even if the wife does not immolate herself, she
is expected to become live celibate the rest of her life. (I found
it odd that, although Dido "slew herself for love," she is not in
the Wood of Suicides, nor is Socrates. According to Sayers,
however, suicide is only a sin for Christians.)
The Inferno, according to Dante, is divided into two parts, the
outer and the inner. The outside is for sins of excess, the inside
(the City of Dis) for sins of rebellion: "willfully opposing gods
will so as to will what you will." Dreyfus insists that the city
is a fortress rather than the prison Ciardi describes it as,
because there are guards on the walls that try to keep Dante and
Virgil out and speak of "invasio." But a prison is also a
fortress, with guards on the walls and the possibility of
"invasion" (an attempt to stage a break-out), and while the demons
and fallen angels may remain by choice, it is certainly
questionable that the souls in torment do.
Dreyfus keeps referring to the war in heaven (described in
Revelation) and assumes everyone knows it, though he felt he had to
explain the Incarnation and many other theological points in "The
Gospel of John" for students unfamiliar with them.
Less time was spent on "Purgatory" than on "The Inferno", and even
less on "Paradiso". (As a side note, why do most people refer to
the three pieces as "The Inferno", "Purgatory", and "Paradise"? It
would seem as though either the first one should be "Hell", or the
last two "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso".)
In one of the appendices to "Purgatory", "Note C: The Sacra Fame
Riddle", Sayers writes, "But if Dante is really taking that to be
the original meaning of Virgil's line, then he has committed the
biggest howler in history, beside which the 'pink emu' looks pale,
and the 'sorrowful wolf' hides its diminished head." I had no idea
what this meant. Googling "pink emu" was not helpful at all, but
"sorrowful wolf" got me the following extract from Thomas Hughes's
TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS":
The boy who was called up first was a clever, merry School House
boy, one of their set: he was some connection of the Doctor's and a
great favourite, and ran in and out of his house as he liked, and
so was selected for the first victim.
'Triste lupus stabulis,' began the luckless youngster, and
stammered through some eight or ten lines.
'There, that will do,' said the Doctor, 'now construe.'
On common occasions, the boy could have construed the passage well
enough probably, but now his head was gone.
'Triste lupus, the sorrowful wolf,' he began.
A shudder ran through the whole form, and the Doctor's wrath fairly
boiled over; he made three steps up to the construer, and gave him
a good box on the ear.
Apparently this refers to Virgil's 3rd Eclogue, lines 80-81:
triste lupus stabulis, maturis frugibus imbres,
arboribus venti, nobis Amaryllidis irae
translated by H. Rushton Fairclough as:
Baneful to the folds is the wolf, to the ripe crop the rains,
to trees the gales, and to me the anger of Amaryllis!
I still have no idea what the "pink emu" refers to.
The lectures covered Dante's arrival in Purgatory, a discussion by
Virgil of free will and determinism, and the pageant upon
Beatrice's arrival to meet Dante for the last leg of his journey,
whereupon Virgil rather abruptly vanishes. Not surprisingly,
Dreyfus chose the Cantos that would serve to illustrate or support
his thesis that Dante's world view is one of order and of rankings-
-an orderly universe designed by a Creator where everything has
been made for a purpose, and which is extremely hierarchical.
Unlike the Underworlds of Homer, Aeschylus, or Virgil, where
everyone seems to mingle together in a sort of equality, the
Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise are places where people are
assigned a position based on their worth, and some are definitely
better than others.
Similarly, Dreyfus chose a limited number of cantos in "Paradiso",
concentrating on those connected to his thesis (although as I
noted, he somewhat expanded his original selection.)
The hierarchical nature of Paradise leads to the question, of
course, as to whether the residents of Paradise who are further
from God wish they were closer to God. The spirits having come up
through Purgatory, where there is room for advancement (as it
were), one might think that they would hope for something similar
in Paradise. But, no, as one resident of the most distant area
says:
"If we could wish to bide in lofty bowers,
Our wish would jangle with that will of His
Which hath assigned our proper place and powers;
[Canto III, Lines 73-75]
Dreyfus seems to make an error when he claims that the lowest level
of Paradise is inhabited by all the nuns. (This is the Moon,
though this is symbolic rather than indicating that they actually
reside on the moon.) It is clear from Dante's description that it
is inhabited by those who were inconstant in their vows, not just
all nuns:
"From the vain world my eager girlhood leapt
To follow her; I donned her habit, chose
Her order's rule, and vowed it should be kept;
But men more apt for ill than good arose
To snatch me out from the sweet cloister's fold,
And what my life thenceforth became, God knows.
[Canto III, Lines 103-116]
One might argue that the omission of any monks from this lowest
level indicates some amount of misogyny--were not some of them
inconstant to their vows?
The symbolism connecting the Moon with inconstancy cannot fail to
remind us of Juliet's speech in ROMEO AND JULIET:
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
And isn't it convenient that the flaws of those in Paradise are in
same same hierarchical order as the heavenly bodies connected with
them?
And to top it all off, someone asked what should have been an
obvious question (but I do not recall having heard before): what
makes Dante so special that Beatrice, Lucy, and Mary arrange for a
personal tour for him through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise? There
are millions of sinners in the world, but apparently Dante is
either the only one worth saving, or the only one who requires such
an elaborate attempt. (Which is just as well, because can you
imagine the chaos if Hell was filled with a never-ending stream of
tourists being guided through by dead Romans?)
As noted, Pascal's PENSEES was dropped. For my comments on MOBY
DICK, see http://leepers.us/evelyn/mobydick.htm, which has links
to comments for each chapter. (So far I have written over 40,000
words, and am only to Chapter 56 of 135 chapters.) [-ecl]
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Mark Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries,
defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.
--Gore Vidal