Where are the Virgil's of this life?
Well as I too come to what maybe the middle of my life, 34 yrs of age. I find myself asking questions regarding myself and my thoughts of how others see and treat me. Little things lately have made me sad. The way someone speaks down to me, a look, a tone, hell everything seems to be getting to me. Belittling me or others, I find myself in a cold darker place. Looking inwards or myself looking outwards I'm honestly unsure! scratching away to see a point I seem to be missing!
I think and know myself of good heart and yet, surrounded and submerged into a bleak darkness of others perceptions of myself, I too seem lost and in need of understanding the dark that they seem to wallow in (if only to pass through and back to the light and good of my own true self)
Sounds crazy I know and even more so when I seem to have an uncanny unsettling connection or understanding into the age old poem of Dante's The divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is a long narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, on the surface it describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. On a deeper level, it represents, allegorically, the soul's journey towards God. For myself I find solace in it but not in a sense of religion or theologies, but in a less serious small picture way. an individual journey perhaps.Was Dante just a frightened sinner with mental health issues after the loss of his muse and the end of the pride and being he had seen himself as.
While on a walk with the dog, I text a message of my thoughts and feelings
low, like the dark grey fog has desended around me,
the skies seem to have darken overhead and as my eyes well up
sadness pours down my cheeks.
Why I ask myself, well truthfully I'm tired of people taken me for granted, (boohoo you maybe thinking well to you I say f**K u this is stressing me out and in a mental health sense I cant just snap out of these thoughts and feelings. Self pity maybe, or maybe I'm condemning myself by way of mental health to the world of the punished because of my own sins or lacking of knowledge of the ways of this world. many things don't make sense) However, for now the judgement of others casting down on me and wrongly seeing something in me that has never existed is giving me agony. In they own minds alone, they have judged me with no right or truth but with that only of they own doing and imagery.
Why do people only see or want to see the bad and never care about the good, imagine to see no evil and hear no evil then one day to be awakened into the place we call life - home- earth whatever!. A lifeless place where nothing is what it seems and people are out to get you or everything isn't as obvious as it seems. One good deed does not deserve another it seems and your worse enemy is your best friend. It makes me tired and somewhat sombre. Dantes world ...... For me I've only looked into a tiny amount of the works and even less of the poem. It will be something to look into the next few months ahead. At a time I needed solace and escapism for myself, I came arcross this and I'm so glad I did... a wonderful distraction.
Dante explores hell and follows a dark path to come through and at the end ultimately save himself. Entering the world of sinners and all that is condemned (welcome to 2017)
Dante and Virgil in hell
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| Gustave Dore |
Virgil displays all of the noble virtues attributed to the perfect man. He represents reason and wisdom, making him the perfect guide for Dante. As the journey progresses, his treatment of Dante changes, depending on the situation. Often and most importantly, Virgil is very protective of Dante. Good vs Bad perhaps (are they the same person I ask) I sometimes feel like the wee folk on my own shoulders do exist, tormented by each other.
The Gates of Hell
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| The Gates of Hell, by Auguste Rodin, 1880-1917 |
The bodies of the damned, yeahing and suffering. Around 180 figures go into making this sculpture.
Map of Hell
This is Botticelli's chart of Hell as described by Dante in his 14th century epic poem Inferno. (gives weight and brings to life the hell of Dante for the first time) Dante saw Hell as an abyss, a giant cave leading to the center of Earth. The cave was created when God cast Lucifer (devil) out of Heaven. Lucifer is stuck in the center, caught in ice.
Cheron - taken the damned to hell
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| A detail of Michelangelo's Last Judgment, showing the underworld. Charon chases the damned from his boat into Hell |
The first five rings are for people who could not control their desires: lust, gluttony, greed, anger and revenge. Also, unbaptized souls and decent heathens dwell here.
the lovers dwell here, this is a strong emotions for me. Being passionate about true love I find the story of the lovers intriguing. As the story goes Francesca was the sister-in-law of Paolo Malatesta, and both were married, but they fell in love.
Here is a good example of the story of Paolo and Francesca, a watercolour by English artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1855.
The left-hand panel shows the adulterous kiss that condemns the lovers: staying faithful to Dante's poem, Rossetti depicts them reading about the Arthurian knight Sir Lancelot who also suffered for his forbidden love (his figure can be seen on the book's open page, dressed, like Paolo, in red and blue).
Sounds very romantic and in the writing you do get a powerful sense of the lust the couple may have had....before being murdered by her husband who was his brother also.
One day we read, to pass the time away,
of Lancelot, of how he fell in love; alone we were, and no suspicion near us ... then he, who never from me shall separate,
at once my lips all trembling kissed.
— Divine Comedy, Canto V, vv.127–136 (
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| Paolo and Francesca da Rimini is a watercolour by English artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1855 |
Rings six and seven are for heresy and violence: murderers, suicides, blasphemers, and sodomites.
Here is another beautiful image of how them that commit suicide are given an appropriate punishment for the sins committed.. The bodies they once disposed of are imprisoned in trees and bushes because they held the body of no worth in life. Marvellous!!
Rings eight and nine are for fraud and treachery. Here dwell witches, thieves, astrologers, seducers, corrupt politicians, alchemists and sowers of discord. and so on and so on... the end I believe Dante comes to face Lucifer.
As it continues I'm left captivated at the story that is unfolding before me. It so modern and tormented its brilliant. Something everyone can relate to I'm sure. Psychology has never interested me until now and I'm left questioning my own now feeble dramas and wanting to enter into the poem centuries old. I can't help but think this guy had a path to the future and I want to see more of the works inspired by this.
Before learning of this I had drawn a little picture of me hung up by thorns of the blackberry bush while draped over a toilet. (toilet representing a pile of shit I think and my distaste of others opinions- been picking blackberries lately too) the image of Christ with the thorn crown came to mind..
I would like to do photography with images like this.... the dark colour of the berries against the white stained flesh againist the green leaves hung up and embedded... I dont know it was a moment
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