Notes on the Divine Comedy

Beneath the Poet’s Tongue Notes on the Divine Comedy © Lead Kindly Light 2020 All rights reserved Dedicated to all sincere seekers wherever they might be PREFACE The stars of luminous Night shed their many-coloured beams upon the slumbering Earth. Enwrapped is she in false hopes and dreams, in the illusions men call life. But, lo, the great circle of the Zodiac turns, and the hour of awakening approaches. The sun has drunk deep from night’s cup, and hand in hand with Sirius, he rises above the lip, crowned with #ire and splendour, da$$ling the eye with bla$ing light. While below, the many kinds of star-struck men still slumber on. The drama unfolds, the mighty heart of cosmos stirs, the air thrills, and the waters swell to #lood the plains with life. All that once was still begins to move. The sins of the wide world are washed away as if they never were. The rivers #low' the #lower of the dell lifts its head to wakefulness' the scented garden is bathed in morning’s dew' the choirs of creation sing as the singers of the forest alight upon the bough' and the mists that veil the valley #loor rise to melt once more to nothingness. Life from Light' Light from Life' Light and Life en)oined. Behold the blindfold pilgrim, lost upon the way, bewildered by the chequerboard of life. Good and bad fall thick upon his path. The dark threads of material life bind him fast and countless doubts en-cloud his mind. Sin and vice are his sorry lot. ,, where the purity of silent peace- Where the certitude- Where the aid of sweet companionship, as alone he wanders the worried world- Where the eternal light and life that set men free- .ay the hour of turning come. .ay the Lady of the Divine Spaces pierce the clouded regions and send him respite’s ray. .ay all the powers of divine providence protect him. .ay the song of )oy save him from his sorrow' and may gnosis be his redemption. /or whom but Thee , Lord, whom but Thee and She who is Thy Grace, can lift man’s heart and mind to life and light- Who but Thee and She can rescue him from the Shadow of his Destiny- INTRODUCTION Mercifully, divine principles are always veiled. They are expressions of divine power, and as such no mere man or woman can behold them as they are in themselves and survive the experience. The Hidden God remains as He is in Himself: Hidden. Coverings, increasingly dense as we descend, safeguard the beholder; and during the subsequent ascent, or way of return, these are removed one by one, step by step, or rung by rung on the ladder of being, according to the pilgrim’s inner abilities and attributes. Both descent and ascent have been allegorised in all sorts of ways, and have attracted to themselves an almost in*inite variety of sy bols – sy bols the selves being another anifestation of the veils and protective coverings that conceal, ore or less, the inexhaustible expressions of ,ivine Light and Life. -ust as words too, as every poet attests, cover and conceal the forces attendant upon inspiration. The descent is so eti es represented as abduction, or as an exile, an i prison ent, a falling asleep, or a forgetting, and so on. The ascent is so eti es an awa.ening, a pilgri age, a *light, a /ourney, a voyage, a scaling of a ountain or the cli bing of a ladder, and all the rest. )ut these and others li.e the are sy bols and not the thing itself. 0ew are ready for the actual return. 1t is not for the faint hearted; and there are i pedi ents. Those who show the signs of readiness are in a certain sense 1 set aside fro other .inds of en. They are, as it were, chosen. They are ear ar.ed for special attention; and are prepared for an experience – so e ight say an ordeal – not granted to others. They send forth a call; and in a *lash it is answered. Their destiny is bright indeed; but the way to its ful*il ent is often – nay, always – so ewhat less than bright. 0or each destiny also has its shadow, the dar. and devouring onster that bars the way and leads the vanquished protagonist bac. to Earth and all that it entails. )ut of course these too are but sy bols of so ething, and not the thing itself. So e of these sorts of ideas can be traced bac. to 5lato and Aristotle, and were subsequently wor.ed up further by the Neo 75latonists. 1n fact they can and have been traced bac. uch further than the Gree.s, but to do so here would ta.e us too far fro our present purpose. 8hat follows in these introductory re*lections is intended to reconstitute so ething of the ental at osphere in which ,ante began his great poe . And in doing so ideas si ilar to those we generally attribute to 5lato – though received by ,ante indirectly through the wor.s of others – will be seen as in no s all way contributing to that at osphere. 5erhaps unsurprisingly, as we proceed it will also be apparent that the )ible played a a/or part, together with the tenets and theologies of the Catholic Church. So too, the classical yths; and along with the the classical writers and poets who were in so e respects thought of by ,ante as his predecessors. Added to these were certain 1sla ic ele ents which perhaps had entered the Europe of his day with the returning crusaders. 2 We must include too all sorts of vision stories and allegorical journeys to the otherworld, stories which were no more popular than during the period usually referred to as the Middle Ages. And when in addition to these we notice the almost ever- present theme of politics; and the constant allusions to the biographical details of Dante’s life in Florence and of his subsequent exile, we can easily understand why the many kinds of men and women have understood his great poem in many different ways. It is inevitable that to some extent his readers have found in it something of themselves, something of their own lives and preoccupations. Many commentators rightly consider Dante’s ability to bring together all of these and other elements into a uni*ied, ulti7 faceted and ulti7layered vision to be evidence of his unique genius. Throughout our history of literature it had never been done before; nor, they say, has it been successfully atte pted since. Even when the way of return is considered to be little ore than a fascinating intellectual theory, it can be, has been, and still is understood in a host of different ways. )ut when the path beco es uch ore than this, that is, when the high7born one punctures the surface, then the aspects are further ultiplied, and his opportunities to discover and realise higher truth increase exponentially. Such a pilgri ta.es whatever they can ta.e, and fro wherever they can uncover it. They understand that facets of the light can be found everywhere. And thus, fro their point of 3 view, all roads, though they ay appear disparate on the surface, point in the end to Ro e. So, to so e he is predo inantly a theological poet whose pri ary ai was to set out the dog as and debates of edieval Christianity. 1n contrast to this there are those who prefer to concentrate on the technical aspects of his poetry, giving e phasis to his innovative style and use of language and so on. So e consider ethics to have been his overriding concern, while others stress his portrayal of the corrupt and corrupting politics of the ti e, particularly those concerning Church and State. So e are drawn to the personal, to the conte porary, to the biographical particulars of an individual life, while others *ind in his wor. universal truths applicable to all. So e co entators have seen in his poe a ystical /ourney fro Heaven to Hell and bac. again; and they say that he has turned this /ourney into a .ind of sacred dra a. Others have ta.en the view that a poet can only truly write about the selves, and so have adopted an exclusively psychological approach. So e read hi literally, while others see real or i agined allegories everywhere. Still others delve in the Co edia for hidden essages within its structure, rhy ing patterns and its use of nu bers. That The ,ivine Co edy can be read literally and allegorically see s undeniable. Although there has been debate a ong co entators and acade ics about its authenticity, ,ante(s letter to Can Grande della Scala a.es this clear. 0The meaning of this work is not simple. for we obtain one meaning from the letter of it and another from that which the letter signifies' and the first is called the literal, but the other 4 allegorical or mystical. And to make this matter of treatment clearer, it may be studied in the verse1 2When Israel came out of Egypt and the 4ouse of 5acob from among a strange people, 5udah was his sanctuary and Israel his dominion.’ /or if we regard the letter alone, what is set before us is the e6odus of the Children of Israel from Egypt in the days of .oses' if the allegory, our redemption wrought by Christ' if the moral sense, we are shown the conversion of the soul from the grief and wretchedness of sin to the state of grace' if the anagogical, we are shown the departure of the holy soul from the thralldom of this corruption to the liberty of eternal glory.

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