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[00:00:00]Describing the state of Florence at the time Dante was writing, Henry Napier writes in his Florentine history, "It was not the simple movement of one great body against another, not the force of a government and opposition to the people, not the struggle of privilege and democracy, of poverty and riches, or starvation and repletion, but one universal burst of unmitigated anarchy."

[00:00:23]In the streets, lanes, and squares, in the courts of palaces and humbler dwellings, were heard the clang of arms, the screams of victims, and the gush of the blood. The bow of the bridegroom launched its arrows into the very chambers of his young bride's parents and relations, and the bleeding son, the murdered brother, or the dying husband were the evening visitors of Florentine maids and matrons and aged citizens.

[00:00:48]Every art was practiced to seduce and deceive, and none felt secure, even at their nearest and dearest relatives. In the morning, a son left his paternal roof.

[00:00:59]Do you know the source of the anecdote about Dante being a bed climber?

[00:01:03]>> It's not so much an anecdote.

[00:01:05]It's something Ruskin talks about in a book of his. There's a long extract from it in Longfellow's footnotes.

[00:01:11]>> Yeah. Throughout the comedy, Dante often depicts Virgil as needing to carry him around. Do you remember which Kto that's from?

[00:01:18]>> Which K is the footnote?

[00:01:20]>> Yeah.

[00:01:20]>> Well, the ascending or descending slope.

[00:01:22]I can't remember which one.

[00:01:24]>> I think it's towards the end of the inferno. Dante uh describes this one slope as very alpine. And Ruskin goes into what Dante would have meant by an alpine slope.

[00:01:34]I like how uh you Dante doesn't idealize his poetic persona as this uh great climber whether it's literal physical strength or you know allegorical moral strength emphasizes the uh strength of his master Virgil carrying his Wait.

[00:02:32]So the other day I became really interested in um contextual thinking and in relation to psychedelic drugs. So I started reading the encyclopedia of psychoactive drugs because in there they had provides some like contextual history to them and I became really interested in this uh clavicle perpia which is um what LSD is derived from most people know and actually one of the things that it's comes from is eratamine and in the 20th century um Albert Hoffman had discovered it and like realized that it was beneficial for psychiatry. So it became this like whole neurossychophobological perspective. But what's really funny is in the like 16th and 17th century it became this like metaphysical Christian theological perspective and the fungus was actually considered the devil's bread or um St. Anony's fire. People actually thought the devil would possess the bread and then possess the eater of the bread and I just found that like extremely fascinating. So >> cool.

[00:03:28]>> Yeah.

[00:03:29]>> I've been studying uh sort of along the same lines. I've actually been reading a medieval grimoire. Mhm. Why are you interested in that? [clears throat] >> Well, mainly I think it's interesting how uh medieval uh magic uh might represent a holdover of uh pagan religious practice into Christian times like uh in Constantinople for instance in the 8th century. So you know 4 or 500 years after the last temple to Alexander the Great had been closed. uh a Byzantine writer tells us that people are still wearing amulets with Alexander's image for magical protection against disease >> and you know in that time and even later the Alexander romance was still highly popular work depicting Alexander like a god >> so that uh in the art of the time he's often depicted as a type or forerunner of Jesus.

[00:04:21]>> H that that's interesting. I actually read something briefly about Alexander Romans the other day. What's that about?

[00:04:26]Uh it was uh the main source for uh late antique and medieval people on uh Alexander the Great's life.

[00:04:35]>> Uh it uh portrays him with these mysterious divine attributes like two different color eyes and this uh pleasing aroma that he exuded all the time. He he had goes on these crazy adventures like uh traveling uh to heaven and back and conquers his enemies with god-like power.

[00:04:56]Uh but in the Renaissance people uh started uh looking past that to more authentically ancient sources like uh Senica, Libby, Plutarch and re-evaluating Alexander the Great and the Romance fell into disrepute.

[00:05:13]Copies of the romance from this time uh have headings like uh this is based on apocryphal tales and one manuscript from the Renaissance actually ends abruptly with this note by the scribe. from scribe quandibus neios fabulosis. I didn't want a copy anymore because what came next was too ridiculous.

[00:05:38]Here it is. This is the book that I uh photocopied the Dante stuff out of earlier.

[00:05:51]They thought that a work dictated by the Holy Spirit was an absolute text. In other words, a text in which the collaboration of chance was calculable as zero. This portentous premise of a book impenetrable to contingency of a book which is a mechanism of infinite purposes. move them to permute the scriptural words, add up the numerical value of the letters and capitals, seek acrostics and anagrams, and perform other exoggetical rigors which it is not difficult to ridicule. Their excuse is that nothing can be contingent in the work of an infinite mind.

[00:06:27]I've never read the uh Bourhees book this quote is from.

[00:06:31]Where do you find this?

[00:06:32]>> Uh I came across it in a library a while ago. I wound up purchasing it like three weeks ago. I'm pretty much finished with it. You can borrow it if you want to.

[00:06:40]>> I might.

[00:06:49]>> My brother and his wife are coming over in about an hour. Have you ever met them?

[00:06:53]>> I don't think so.

[00:06:54]>> I thought maybe you had. They're from New Jersey. I'm thinking of buying my brother's car. He's getting rid of it.

[00:07:01]>> Do you drive? Well, technically, yes, but I I have a license, but I haven't driven in about four years.

[00:07:08]>> What do you need a car for?

[00:07:10]>> I don't know. He was thinking about selling it, and I thought I might buy it. It would definitely be practical.

[00:07:18]>> Did I tell you about the opera I went to the other day?

[00:07:21]>> No.

[00:07:22]>> Uh, well, I saw a flyer in a cafe for Rialletto, and uh, it was a little strange. The uh name of the tenor had been struck out and replaced with this guy Don Greenberg. And uh the name of the singer in three smaller roles, Lena Maru Wentz, had also been struck out. I found out later that she was the girl.

[00:07:40]>> Oh, sorry. That may be my brother earlier.

[00:07:47][snorts] >> [snorts] >> All right.

[00:10:10]Yeah, I think I can make it.

[00:10:25]Okay.

[00:10:44][ __ ] Hey, is this yours?

[00:11:00]>> Yes.

[00:11:00]>> You left it inside the meeting house.

[00:11:02]>> Thank you.

[00:11:03]>> Are you a friend?

[00:11:05]>> No, I've just been coming out to see the city's historic uh meeting houses, churches, synagogues, seeing the architecture.

[00:11:11]>> Do you know the Pal House?

[00:11:14]>> No. Uh what's the Pal House? Well, it's the one house in Philadelphia from the colonial era that's a real high society kind of house. It's Well, it's right around the corner. Would you like to see it?

[00:11:24]>> Sure.

[00:11:25]>> All right. Let me show it to you. All right.

[00:11:33]So, this is it. Pow! House might not look like much, but that's kind of the point. It's a uh middle Georgian building after the style that was popular in London about a half century before. Takes a while for these kind of trends to travel from the mother country to the colonies.

[00:11:53]Now you can fairly conclusively date this building to the 1750s based off of the flat pediment of the front pus above the door. This was a device first used in Philadelphia by Edmund Woolly at the state house, now Independence Hall. And after it was used there, it became prominent at a number of Philadelphia buildings for a time.

[00:12:14]Now, if you take a look at the rest of it, you can see we have a two bay front room followed by the entrance way. This disrupts the symmetry that this style so values. The way this house makes up for it is that it's a mirror image of the neighboring house. Now, this isn't original, but the original house would have had the same layout. So, the symmetry that's lost in the level of the individual house is gained on the street as the whole. If we were to go inside, you would see it'd be a completely different world. You would lose the decorous public view of this house from the street and you get into the private side of things, the sumptuous side of things. The this is where high society happened in revolutionary era Philadelphia. General and Lady Washington were frequent guests here at the balls that the Powels would put on.

[00:13:01]And this almost certainly happened on the second floor where since you don't need an entrance way, you can give over the whole front of the house to a grand ballroom.

[00:15:38]Hey, Cal. What are you doing up so early?

[00:15:41]>> I have a doctor's appointment. They couldn't give me any other time. What are you doing up already?

[00:15:48]>> I haven't gone to bed yet. The past few nights, I had the worst insomnia.

[00:15:53]I was up all night reading.

[00:15:56]When the sun came up, I went for a walk.

[00:15:59]>> Does that help?

[00:16:00]>> No, it's something to do, though.

[00:16:04]>> What are you reading?

[00:16:05]>> Different things. Poetry mainly, simple poetry in English. Last night I was reading Denise Lever.

[00:16:14]>> I don't know her.

[00:16:16]>> She grew up in England and started writing poetry there, but then she moved to New York. She was close with William Carlos Williams and her poetry is a bit like his.

[00:16:25]I think she became a Catholic later and also very politically engaged in the 60s.

[00:16:32]Last night I was reading a collection about her impressions of everyday life.

[00:16:37]I particularly like her first two volumes that she wrote in America here and now in Overland to the Islands. I can lend them to you if you want.

[00:16:45]I'm not holding you up, am I?

[00:16:47]>> Oh no. Where are you going?

[00:16:50]>> Home eventually. You going this way?

[00:17:08]I got to go home after find anything.

[00:17:24]>> The Renegado by Philip Messenger. I read it a few years ago.

[00:17:29]Why should I study a defense or comfort in whom black guilt and misery, if balanced, I know not which would turn the scale. Look upward, I dare not, for should it but be believed that I die deep in hell's most horrid colors, should dare to hope for mercy, it would leave no check or feeling in men innocent to catch its sins the devil taught mankind yet. No, I must downward downward. Though repentance could borrow all the glorious wings of grace, my mountainous weight of sins would crack their opinions and sink them to hell with me.

[00:18:04]I was really surprised by the play's approach to religious themes given the time it was written. Some people uh argue, you know, Shakespeare was secretly a Catholic uh because of the way he portrays Catholicism in some of the plays. Other people say, "No, this is just a local color because the plays are set in uh Italy or pre-reformation England." But Messenger goes way beyond local color, like goes out of his way to introduce in a neutral or positive light justification by works, uh, baptismal regeneration, the sacrament of confession, uh, the miraculous power of relics, like everything calculated to offend an English Protestant audience in 1624.

[00:18:46]H. Yeah, I've never heard of it.

[00:18:49]>> Now's your chance to get acquainted.

[00:18:52]>> I'm curious, but I'm not going to get anything.

[00:18:55]I have too many books at home already.

[00:18:58]And then there are so many things I've read, but I'd have a hard time quoting anything for you.

[00:19:03]There are books and essays I consider fundamental in terms of how I see the world, but I feel like I forget them so easily.

[00:19:11]>> Do you keep a notebook?

[00:19:13]>> Sometimes, but I'm not consistent.

[00:19:16]Maybe that could help. I don't know.

[00:19:20]Whenever I go to visit my parents, I usually end up bringing books back too to read again.

[00:19:25]>> Are you going to get that?

[00:19:27]>> No, I already have a copy at home.

[00:19:41]>> Sorry. I don't know how much longer this is going to take, but it's been on my mind, so I figure I'm going to get it done. I'm corresponding with this architect in Germany. He's written a book comparing Philadelphia and Cologne of all places. It's actually the most comprehensive book about the freeway revolt in Philadelphia that I've read.

[00:20:02]Do you know the story? The expressway that would have cut right through South Street if it if it had ever been built.

[00:20:08]>> Good thing it never was. Yeah, but it's not really that simple. So, to put it into context, it's the 1950s. There are no expressways. Certainly not in Philadelphia. But the city planners at the time, they have this idea of an expressway box around Center City. And this is pretty much what we have today.

[00:20:26]You have the Delaware Expressway 95 along the Delaware River. You have the Skookul Expressway along the Skookul River. You have the Vine Street Expressway sunken along Vine Street. And then you would have had to complete the Bucks an expressway that cut right along South Street. I mean, in some sense, this is a heroic story. This is the big planners from on high coming down and planning planning an expressway that would have gone right through the neighborhood. And then you have the little people who actually live in the neighborhood who go out into the street and say, "No way." And they fight the expressway. They kill off the expressway and they preserve the neighborhood. This is the story people like to hear. But the thing is, these folks, these neighborhood activists, they actually had a positive vision of neighborhood developments that went alongside their negative vision of no expressway. But they took the city planning operation to task. They fought, they won, and suddenly they've delegitimized the one institution that actually had the power to do coordinated neighborhood developments. And so it's left to the markets, which did a pretty poor job providing naturally.

[00:21:31]I don't know. Coordinated neighborhood development doesn't sound that much better than even the expressway.

[00:21:36]>> How do you mean?

[00:21:38]>> Well, you said this was uh the early 50s, right? So, coordinated neighborhood development isn't going to get started till when? The 60s7s. And what would have been built in that time? You know, South Street as we know it still gets demolished. And in its place, we get what row after row of concrete and glass boxes that all look the same. You know, library, health clinic, department store, branch bank. you know, set back from the street with a parking strip for their customers to, you know, come in from the suburbs where they actually want to live. While Philadelphia is left with a street with no character, no grander, no sense of permanence, no architecture.

[00:22:15]>> What if it doesn't meet your standards?

[00:22:17]It's not even architecture.

[00:22:19]>> My the three virtues of architecture have been recognized since antiquity as commodity, firmness, and delight. You know Vuvius was a hack, right?

[00:22:32]>> I know he was a hack who represents the accumulated wisdom of his age. And I would take a hack of Vuvius's time over a leading architect of modern times.

[00:22:42]Like take Franklidd Wright. Do you know every one of Franklidd Wright's buildings leaks >> that has nothing to do with anything.

[00:22:49]>> It it shows their entire attitude is wrong. Franklidd Wright says, "I want a flat roof." So, you know, against the weight of all human history and common sense, he wants a flat roof. So, he builds a flat roof. But then winter comes and the snows pile up. And of course, in the spring, the rain forms ponds and the roof leaks right onto the little people who actually live in the house. While architects stand around and say, "Oh, a flat roof. We've never seen that before. How innovative. What a genius."

[00:23:15]>> Well, you know, when you're trying something out for the first time, you don't always get it just right. But we've done a pretty good job since then on flat roofs and we can make one these days that doesn't leak.

[00:23:25]>> Well, why did a flat roof need to be tried out for the first time in the first place? You know, architecture is supposed to reflect timeless proportions and man's embedded relationship with nature. And you Franklidd Wright's houses may be pretty. They're beautiful.

[00:23:44]>> I'm not denying his houses are even beautiful. They just don't fit in with the real world. You know, they're works of art, not architecture.

[00:24:31]Thanks. So, uh, Evelyn is already here and, uh, Chris should be here shortly.

[00:24:38]Okay.

[00:24:46]I picked this up in Venice on my last trip there in the spring. This original Italian beautiful illustrations.

[00:24:54]>> Very nice.

[00:24:57]>> And one began. Each one has confidence in thy good offices without an oath, unless the eye cannot cut off the eye will. Whence I, who speak alone before the others, pray thee. If ever thou dost see the land that Twix Roman lies in that of Charles, thou be so courteous to me of thy prayers and fauno, that they pray for me devoutly, that I may purge away my grave offenses.

[00:25:20]From thence was I. But the deep wounds through which issued the blood wherein I had my seat, were dealt me in the bosom of the antinori, there were I thought to be the most secure.

[00:25:31]It was he of est had it done, who held me in hatred far beyond what justice willed. But if towards the Myra I had fled when I was overtaken at Oryako, I still should be Orier where men breathe.

[00:25:44]I ran to the lagoon and Reeds and Meer did so entangle me I fell and saw there a lake made from my veins upon the ground.

[00:25:55]Then said another, "Ah, be that desire fulfilled that draws thee to the lofty mountain as thou with pious pity atest mine. I was of Monte Feltro and among Giovana nor none other cares for me.

[00:26:09]Hence among these I go with downcast front and I to him.

[00:26:14]What violence or what chance led the astray so far from Compalino that never has thy seleure been known. Oh, he replied at Constantino's foot a river crosses named Archano born above the hermitage in Apen.

[00:26:29]There where the name thereof becometh void did I arrive pierced through and through the throat fleeing on foot and bloodying the plain there my sight lost I and my utterance ceased in the name of Mary and there I fell and tenetless my flesh remained truth will I speak repeated to the living God's angel took me up and he of hell shouted oh thou from heaven why dost thou rob me thou barest away the eternal part of him for one poor little tear that takes him from me. But with the rest I'll deal in other fashion.

[00:27:05]Well knowest thou how in the air is gathered that humid vapor which to water turns soon as it rises where the cold doth grasp it. He joined that evil will which I seeks evil to intellect and moved the w the mist and wind by means of power which his own nature gave.

[00:27:21]Thereafter, when the day was spent, the valley from Pratmano to the great yolk covered with fog and made the heaven above intent, so that the pregnant air to water changed. Downfell the rain until the gullies came, whatever of it earth tolerated not. And as it mingled with the mighty torren toward the royal river with such speed it had long rushed, that nothing held it back.

[00:27:45]my frozen body near unto its outlet the the robust archan found and into Arno thrust it and loosened from my breast the cross I made of me when agony overcame me it rolled me on the banks and on the bottom then with its booty covered and begurt me ah when thou hast returned unto the world and rested thee from thy long journeying after the second followed the third spirit do thou remember me who am the pia sienna made me unmade me Marimma He knoweth it who had encircled first, espousing me, my finger with his gem.

[00:28:23]>> Evelyn, you had said before that you especially liked the second half of KTO 5.

[00:28:28]>> Yeah, I was really struck by the narrative progression.

[00:28:32]>> Would you like to begin there?

[00:28:34]>> Sure, but there's a few things in the beginning, too.

[00:28:37]>> I was struck by the speed the souls are walking. It's a lot faster than the ones in the previous KTO who excommunicated and who walked very slowly. It's as if the souls in KTO 5 had pushed off responsibility until the last minute and then are making up for it by moving very quickly.

[00:28:53]And I remember Dante looking at their faces to see if there's someone he could recognize.

[00:28:59]I could just imagine him looking.

[00:29:00]>> I actually had a question in the same section. There was a line I couldn't understand. It was kind of confusing to me.

[00:29:08]>> Which one is that, Chris? Um, unless the I cannot cut off the I will.

[00:29:15]>> But yeah, that confused me too.

[00:29:17]>> Yeah, maybe it's just the way it's translated.

[00:29:19]>> Yeah, the translation is uh pretty odd.

[00:29:21]I didn't get it either till I looked back at the Italian.

[00:29:27]So, uh, it's not unless the I cannot cut off the I will, it's unless the I cannot cut off the I will. So, they trust in Dante to pray for them. uh unless his desire to do so is uh overpowered by his human weakness.

[00:29:44]>> Okay. Thank you, Kel.

[00:29:46]>> I also looked up the song the souls are chanting as they're walking. It's Psalm 51.

[00:29:57]Have mercy upon me, oh God, after thy great goodness. According to the multitude of thy mercies, do away mine offenses.

[00:30:04]It reminds me of Amazing Grace. Hm. Is this psalm also sung at funerals?

[00:30:09]>> I'm not sure.

[00:30:11]>> Yeah, it is uh traditionally chanted at funerals and uh any other penitential occasion. The same psalm is sung as the uh asparagus at the beginning of the traditional Sunday mass.

[00:30:23]>> Thank you, Cal.

[00:30:25]>> There's a footnote later on in the book with an excerpt from the convivio. It relates to this, I think.

[00:30:37]Hence we see children desire exceedingly an apple, and then going farther desire a little bird, and farther still a beautiful dress, and then a horse, and then a woman, and then we not very great, and then greater, and then greater still. And this cometh to pass, because she findeth not in any of these things, that which she is seeking, and trusteth to find it farther on.

[00:31:02]In the misery, the souls are asking for help from God and guidance.

[00:31:07]And here Dante's talking about the idea of the soul being led by the supreme desire to eventually find God.

[00:31:13]>> I wonder why some souls are in hell and some in purgatory when they all are born with the desire to reach God.

[00:31:20]>> Do any of you know if Dante believed in free will?

[00:31:23]>> Yeah, he did.

[00:31:25]>> Yeah. Uh it's uh freedom. Uh but freedom has a purpose. It's not uh an indifferent choice what to do with your life. It's a freedom to uh pursue uh man's final purpose.

[00:31:38]>> And what is that purpose?

[00:31:39]>> Um you know to uh know and love God, the highest good, the first cause and final end of all things.

[00:31:46]>> So is that innate or by choice?

[00:31:49]>> It's an innate end of human nature and it's a choice to pursue it or not. Like if I give you a box labeled right side up, uh you you can uh turn it right side up or you can turn it some other direction and face the consequences, but it has that innate orientation. Thank you, Cal. Would any of you like to discuss the three souls Dante talks to?

[00:32:12]>> Yeah. I wonder why my utterance ceased in the name of Mary.

[00:32:18]So in his last moments, he couldn't even get her whole name out.

[00:32:21]>> Wasn't that her whole name? Isn't it just Mary? Mary Barat Joakim, Mary of Nazareth. Uh I think in the Greek liturgy she's called our all holy spotless and most highly blessed lady, mother of God and ever virgin Mary.

[00:32:35]>> Okay. But she didn't have those names in her own time, right?

[00:32:39]>> Well, uh Bonante died in Dante's time, didn't he? He can call her whatever he wants.

[00:32:43]>> Anyway, his last moment in life, his last word is Mary. Now he wants to go on speaking to say all the words he couldn't say in life or that he didn't. Not that he couldn't say them, he just didn't. Here, >> thou shalt open my lips, O Lord, and my mouth shall show thy praise in the misery.

[00:33:06]>> I guess in relation to that, uh, their need to tell their stories is what they're asking Dante to do for them.

[00:33:13]>> It evolves throughout the KTO, like the details as well. The first two are very graphic and detailed with Yakapo del Caserero was assassinated for political reasons and Bon Conte who died in battle and the third one Pia is very short and has almost no details.

[00:33:29]>> Yeah. When uh Yakapo and Bon Conte ask Dante and anybody else Dante can get to pray for them to speed their souls passage into purgatory. Yakapo asks Dante to get everybody from Fano where he's from to pray for him. Uh, Pon Conte says, "Uh, get my family to pray for me." And then Pia asks Dante alone to remember her in his prayers.

[00:33:52]>> Yeah. When he has the time.

[00:33:54]>> What did all of you think about the use of the description of rain in uh, Bon Conte's story?

[00:34:00]>> There's a lot of nature imagery in this one.

[00:34:03]>> What does Yakapo mention about his body?

[00:34:05]>> About the pool of blood.

[00:34:07]>> Yeah. But the deep wounds through which issued the blood wherein I had my seat.

[00:34:13]I ran to the lagoon and reads and mire did so entangle me I fell and saw there a lake made from my veins upon the ground. Yeah, I noticed that too. The notes in Longfellow and in the Italian edition both cite this one verse from Leviticus. I guess in the Vulgate translation it says the blood is the seed of the soul. And when he says the blood where I had my seat, it's a human soul that's speaking, not a whole human person. Which is why in the beginning of the KTO, the souls in antipurgatory are amazed when uh Dante comes in in his body. And this uh image of the separation of blood from the body uh to me serves as a visceral image of the separation of the soul from the body.

[00:35:00]>> That's really prominent here. The image of the body and the soul being separated. Bonante says, "And there I fell in tenetless my flesh remained."

[00:35:10]And Pas says, "She is unmade."

[00:35:16]>> I think the footnotes are more enjoyable than the poem itself >> because of the language.

[00:35:21]>> Yeah, a little bit.

[00:35:23]I heard the translation by Carlile, which was the most popular before Longfellows, is similar in style but uh easier to understand.

[00:35:31]>> Why is that, Cal?

[00:35:33]>> Well, in general, there are fewer inversions and uh Carile tends to prefer Anglo-Saxon words where Longfellow chooses romantic and Latinate ones.

[00:35:44]>> My stumbling block is less the language and uh more the obscurity, the reference points. Every time I'm reading it, it's and someone new is introduced. I'm reading two or three columns of notes about who they were, which is fine.

[00:35:57]>> But you find the biblioraphic material more interesting.

[00:36:00]>> I think so. But I have to read each kanto twice, which isn't a complaint necessarily.

[00:36:06]>> I think anyone who reads it today would have that problem.

[00:36:09]>> Yeah. Not just today. I was reading some of the uh critical excerpts in the back of the book, the uh stuff in French after the paradiso and even in the 18th century people were already complaining it's impossible for anyone to understand the comedy now because Dante packed it with so many references to people and events of his own time.

[00:36:29]>> There's very little knowledge as to who Pio was and very little agreement about it either.

[00:36:35]>> But that works, I think, without knowing anything about her. Or maybe that's the point.

[00:36:41]Yeah, of the three people Dante meets here, uh, Pia is the closest to leaving antip purgatory to enter purgatory proper, and she doesn't want to focus on herself. Uh, of the three, she makes the most modest request of Dante.

[00:36:56]>> I remember a footnote quoting Ruskin's lives of the painters about Dante Skill and conveying so much in such a brief and compressed space in contrast to Virgil. But I guess you'd have to read Virgil to really see it.

[00:37:10]You have these three successive stories.

[00:37:13]Then there's this progression in the details and the kinds of details and the style of the storytelling and also in terms of the kinds of things they're asking Dante to do for them. And it culminates in this the briefest, the most compressed and the saddest.

[00:37:30]This woman who just wants to be remembered.

[00:37:44][snorts] There's nothing to drink here.

[00:38:39]>> What is this place?

[00:38:41]>> I mean, who lives here?

[00:38:44]>> It belongs to Larry Mikler.

[00:38:45]>> Well, Mr. Mikler's upstairs, unconscious in the bathroom, and Mrs. Miklers's in the bedroom.

[00:38:52]>> Someone insulted the hostess earlier.

[00:38:56]>> Well, I guess that means we have the living room to ourselves.

[00:39:18]Come on, let's get out of here.

[00:39:20]>> Well, you want to go get dinner?

[00:39:22]>> No, I already had a sandwich.

[00:39:26]>> You think we should say goodbye to Larry?

[00:39:28]>> I suppose.

[00:39:30]>> I think I'm going to go home and go to bed.

[00:39:32]>> Oh, you can't go just yet. I ran into Sam Holmes the other day. She's having a party tonight. She has a party every Thursday. I promised her I'd go.

[00:39:49]So, were there a lot of martyrs at this time during the English Reformation?

[00:39:53]>> Oh, yeah. There were many martyrs.

[00:39:56]One martyr who had an interesting career was St. Edmund Campion.

[00:40:01]Uh, as a young man, he was a student at Oxford, a poet, a scholar, gentleman.

[00:40:07]And the normal course of a university education at that time was seen as preparation to enter the clergy. So he put off his theological studies as long as possible because at this time you having opinions on theological questions could get you killed. There had been Catholic persecution of Protestants then Protestant persecution of Catholics then Catholic persecution of Protestants again then Protestant persecution of Catholics in Campion's time. So he stuck as long as he could to less controversial issues of philosophy and natural science. But there came a point in his studies where he had to move on to theology. So he started reading the church fathers, the Christian authors from the first centuries. And uh the experience of many people reading these ancient books and at least Campion's experience is that it's a slam dunk for Catholicism being the ancient faith over any Protestant denomination. Yeah. At the same time, he's uh close friends with the bishop of Lincoln whose name is Dick Cheney. And Bishop Cheney is as close to a Catholic as you can be as an Anglican bishop of that time or even closer than you can be. He's actually excommunicated by the other bishops for his ultra high church opinions, what would later be called high church. And uh Campion is reading the church fathers. He's uh listening to his friend Dick Cheney. And uh he's uh in such doubts he goes to a friend of his who is a specialist in petristic theology and he says you know well how do you reconcile this? How can you know as much as you do about the fathers and still accept the uh theology of the state church? And apparently the guy openly told him well if I believed the fathers as well as read them I'd be a Catholic.

[00:41:46]I go along to get along. So Oxford at this time is still a pretty pro- Catholic uh academic environment and Campion can be open about the way his studies are leading him. But uh the authorities in London are turning up the heat. At this time if you're in any public office, you have to swear an oath recognizing Queen Elizabeth as the head of the church. And if you refuse to take the oath twice, the penalty is death.

[00:42:11]So, uh, as the pressure ramps up, Campion has to get out of town and he goes to Ireland where the same laws officially apply, but everybody who is anybody is Catholic and you can, uh, you can get away with it. Uh, but, uh, then this pirate Thomas Dukley shows up in Spain and, uh, tells the king of Spain he can conquer Ireland for him. And the king of Spain isn't really interested in the offer. But uh spies bring information of this back to England and Lord Bergley uh stirs up fears of this impending Catholic invasion of Ireland and tells the authorities in Dublin round up any suspected Catholics. So Campion has to get out of even there and sail for Europe. And on a ship to Europe, he's actually intercepted and the ship is searched and he's found and arrested and brought back to English shores. But the captain, fortunately, is more interested in taking Campion's wallet than actually getting the prisoner all the way back to London. So, he's able to raise some money from his uh friends and get on another ship. This time, he actually makes it to France. Uh there he ends up entering the Jesuits and becomes a priest. And the Jesuits at this time are dedicated to sending as many missionaries as possible back to England to minister to the faithful. The English Reformation is often thought of as this bottom-up revolt of the people against the church, telling them what to think. uh but modern historians see it as more top down uh from uh church and government officials. Most people were perfectly happy with historic English devotion. And uh the reality in most places was people uh hid away their rosaries and statues until things blew over or even openly kept them out against the orders of the bishops. Uh supposedly in some places the parish priest would begin the day saying mass for the Catholics in his own house. Then he'd go over to the parish church and do his official duties of saying morning prayer. Uh so uh not everyone agrees with the Jesuits uh sending the flower of English Catholic youth to be martyed in England, but apparently the Jesuit superiors think it's worth it. So Campion and his companions arrive in England and they decide to write these personal statements in case they're captured and killed, they can put out against any government propaganda saying who they really are and what they're really here to do. So Campion writes this uh letter in a very audacious tone saying, you know, I'm Father Edmund Campion SJ. I'm here to win England back to the true faith and the one true church and I'll take on any of their Protestant bishops and theologians anytime, anywhere and prove to them how wrong they are from scripture and the fathers. And uh this uh letter uh begins to circulate in all the towns and villages and Campion already becomes quite famous as he enters the life of an underground priest. He goes from place to place uh ingratiates himself in the great houses of aristocrats and merchants who are still Catholic in sympathy. Lives in uh secret hidden rooms. Uh at night says mass ministers to the servants and uh trees people. Uh at night Campion and his companions will uh each celebrate uh five or six masses in a row and people sit through it because in a time like this you take the masses you can get. Uh and then Campion begins to preach and none of his sermons are written down. We only have fragmentaryary quotations. But we know in his own time they were the main basis of his fame. Uh by night he preaches.

[00:45:28]The next day people go around saying, "Oh, the famous Father Campion was here.

[00:45:32]Greatest sermon I ever heard. Changed my life." So he draws larger and larger crowds everywhere he goes. One night he's visiting this noble house. They say, "Well, while we have Father Campion here, we have to hear him preach.

[00:45:44]Everyone says it's not to be missed. So, uh, word is sent out. A crowd gathers and one guy who gets in is a bit unscrupulous and runs off to the authorities to inform on Campion. They come and arrest him and bring him to the Tower of London where he's tortured trying to get him to inform on other members of the Catholic underground. And at one point, he's even uh brought into the presence of the queen and her ministers and offered a chance to recant, become a good Protestant again, and uh re-enter the Anglican clergy.

[00:46:14]There's still no telling how high he might rise in the Anglican church. But uh he stands firm. So one morning he's uh woken up early uh brought out in chains uh and uh led uh to his surprise into this room to have the debate he had challenged these Protestant theologians to in his letter. And it's a little uh lopsided because he's uh you know tortured, sleepd deprived, and relying only on memory against these multiple guys with access to books. But the judgment of the sources at the time apparently is that Campion still had the upper hand. Like there were broadside ballads being sold in the street, making fun of the state church for being unable to take on Campion. But, you know, winning the argument uh isn't able to save him. He still ends up being uh hanged, drawn, and quartered.

[00:47:19]Have you written anything recently? I saw some of your stuff in Sedition. I thought it was really nice.

[00:47:24]>> Thanks. I haven't. I'm not much of a poet.

[00:47:27]>> You don't happen to have any manuscripts on you now, do you?

[00:47:30]>> Sorry. Ask someone else.

[00:47:37]There's this way, you know, before you get your bearings in a place when you're new, you spend time with people you wouldn't normally.

[00:47:44]>> How do you mean?

[00:47:49]>> Folks, I'm going to go get some more beer. You guys want anything?

[00:47:52]>> No thanks.

[00:47:53]>> All right.

[00:48:00]I bought this book called The Cats of Copenhagen by James Joyce, which was advertised like it's this great classic children's story, but really it's just this extract from a letter he wrote to his grandson or something, and it didn't really work as a story. So, I decided I was going to get my $10.

[00:48:14]>> That's so obnoxious.

[00:48:17]>> Sorry, >> that question.

[00:48:20]If I was carrying around a manuscript of poetry or something, he knows just what to say to get on my nerves and make me not want to talk, why would I be? And why would I want to share something like that here anyway? I don't know why I can't speak to people more directly. You don't find him annoying.

[00:48:36]>> No, not really.

[00:48:38]>> You find it easy to tolerate people who like to hear what you have to say.

[00:48:42]>> He wanted to know the history of >> and you filled him in. You have a kind of smuggness about your relations with other people that's getting on my nerves more and more. It's irritating.

[00:48:56]But I guess you have another one of your anecdotes to tell now.

[00:49:01]I guess it's just so foreign to my own way of being in the world, relating to other people.

[00:49:08]Remember that line about Pia being unmade by the air in Mora, how the air was unhealthy. Maybe that's how I was feeling in there.

[00:49:15]And there's something Simone Bay writes about the basis of the air we breathe or something like that. It was just a suffocating room or suffocating people or something.

[00:49:26]Sorry, I don't know why you're waiting on my Lever's poetry.

[00:49:30]>> Sorry.

[00:49:31]>> Uh Denise Leverto, >> what do you mean?

[00:49:36]>> I'm reading it. I'm not planning to write about it or anything. It's just something to read at night.

[00:49:42]Though I did find an interesting article comparing her way of writing to some ideas in Vay. Maybe there's something there.

[00:49:53]What I need to do now is find a subject, something very specific to focus on and follow through with.

[00:50:01]I'm too all over the place right now.

[00:50:06]The other night, I couldn't sleep at all. And in the afternoon, I went to see a play my friend is in. She's in a fringe troop and they're doing a stage version of this Buster Katon movie, The Navigator, but with anarchists like Emma Goldman, who were deported to Russia by boat around the same time. But I couldn't concentrate at all. My mind kept wandering.

[00:50:25]I need to clear my head somehow.

[00:50:29]We should meet more often, the group with Sam and Chris. I find it useful talking to other people about those things.

[00:50:36]But we're meeting less and less. And Chris tells me he's going away soon.

[00:50:40]Chris is going away.

[00:50:42]>> Yeah, I don't know for how long.

[00:50:46]I finished purgatory this morning. The last three kas are when beatas finally arrives and he's going up to paradise.

[00:50:55]I don't know how to describe it.

[00:50:58]They're amazing though. You should let me know when you get to it.

[00:51:01]>> Sure.

[00:51:03]>> I might go get something to eat. Are you hungry?

[00:51:28]only 11.

[00:51:42]It's a 15th century uh spiritual manual.

[00:51:45]Uh you know the knowledge of Christ surpasses all worldly wisdom. Withdraw unto yourself, hate the world, think frequently about death and judgment. Uh very influential over the centuries.

[00:51:56]When you read the uh spiritual classics of later centuries like Ignatius of Loyola or Francis Dales, part of their advice is go read the imitation of Christ.

[00:52:05]So what else have you been up to Cal?

[00:52:08]>> Just the usual, you know, reading, writing.

[00:52:22]>> [music] [snorts] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

[00:53:10][music] [snorts] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Heat. Heat.

[00:53:57]Yeah.

[00:54:04]Heat.

[00:54:25]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey, [music] hey, [music] hey.

[00:55:30]>> [music] >> So, Cal, in the piece we were playing earlier, uh, it begins with an introduction, an introduction in C minor, a rushing arpeggio, doubleforte, the loudest possible dynamic that uh foreshadows Beethoven as the transitional composer who takes us from the classical to the romantic period.

[00:55:58][music] Uh following that, Beethoven goes into his actual theme for the movement which is a seven note theme or or [music] Beethoven uh even at this early stage in his career, he's only 23 and he wrote this was um able to take this theme and do interesting things with it. uh such as here.

[00:56:33]Following this, he takes those seven notes and breaks it down. He has a the first four notes and then the last three notes. And they're switching between the different instruments in the different hands of the piano. For instance, the first four notes followed by the last three notes. [music] And if that was not enough, while the piano plays the last three notes, the violin plays the first four notes. But instead of doing it normally, the violin inverts it.

[00:57:04]So when played together, it sounds like this.

[00:57:11][music] piano trios before this uh in the classical period the cello part was really uh much less significant than the violin and piano parts. It would just serve as a sort of accompaniment. But here the cello actually picks up the theme at times [music] and while it does that the piano has its own theme going on.

[00:57:45]Uh Beethoven also uh has beautiful classical themes. Um for instance, this theme in E flat major, the relative key of C minor [music] and then the violin picks it up with a flowing piano accompaniment.

[00:58:09]>> [music] [music] >> And even without the violin here playing, you can still sort of hear that theme just because Beethoven sets up the accompaniment so effectively uh with it.

[00:59:03]I'm on a strict schedule now. waking up very early to read in the morning.

[00:59:07]Partly to avoid the heat, but also I'm more productive this way.

[00:59:13]I forgot I meant to bring you a book I just finished reading. It has a chapter about Ko's role in purgatory.

[00:59:18]>> Oh, Ko.

[00:59:20]>> How in spite of his suicide, his life as a statesman prefigured his role as a guardian of the gates of purgatory.

[00:59:27]So the the earthly Ko is the concrete and historical figure and then the Ko in purgatory is the revealed or fulfilled figure.

[00:59:37]In purgatory he's guarding Christian freedom and he proved his ability to do this by choosing to die voluntarily rather than live a life of political servitude.

[00:59:49]I just reread this uh 18th century play about Kato by Joseph Addison. You which dramatizes uh his death as you know the struggle between liberty and tyranny.

[00:59:59]But you know it inspired a lot of people at the time. George Washington had it staged for the troops at Valley Forge.

[01:00:04]But you I don't like this uh glamorization of Kato suicide as you the ultimate assertion of individual autonomy against tyranny. Kato as a stoic accepted suicide. you know, only when it was no longer possible to live virtuously. And he thought as a senator, he would have to be complicit in the tyranny if he continued to live. He told everyone around him, you know, withdraw from public affairs and don't follow my example.

[01:00:31]And, you know, when it's interpreted as, you know, this uh refusal to live under attorney, what's the message? You know, if you're a slave or if you live under an absolute monarchy, you should also kill yourself.

[01:00:45]So, do you disagree with Dante's choice to put Ko in purgatory or do you disagree with the interpretation?

[01:00:55]I don't know. Dante must have had some reasoning to excuse the suicide. But I think the real main reason that Ko is there is Virgil had described the afterlife in the inade and he says that Ko is there as the lawgiver to the happy souls of Alisium.

[01:01:13]Now that I finished purgatory, I've been leafing through some of the endnotes.

[01:01:17]Some of the stuff that he references I'd like to read, like some verses from the laws of candy. I was curious about this book and looked it up.

[01:01:26]Evidently, its chief interest of scholars is the disputed authorship between John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, the author of the Renegado, which I still haven't read.

[01:01:36]>> So, Long Fellow probably read it, too.