Evening under Lamplight Podcast: Recent Episodes
Robert-Louis Abrahamson
Robert-Louis Abrahamson brings to life literary classics, and invites you to bring them into your life, helping you see the world, and yourself, in new ways.
I’m Robert-Louis Abrahamson, here to thank you for all your support over the past few years of Evening under Lamplight Podcasts. We have had over 14,000 attendances, which is a pretty good number. Today I want to let you know that the Evening under Lamplight Podcasts are migrating to Substack, an impressive platform that I’ve been following for many years, and now I’m joining it.
To continue to receive our podcasts, or to access older ones, you will need to sign in to the Substack URL https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1205469.rss. Just click the new URL, or paste it into the browser, and you can continue.
I have plans for podcasts on other writers, with the aim, as always, of helping to bring to life older literature. I hope you will come along and share these fine writers with me.
Here is a talk I gave at a Stevenson conference in Bordeaux, where I spoke about the Fables. I have recently published a collection of these fables, with my commentaries, available at http://thelamplightpress.com/aesop.
The story of Pygmalion is a story about artistic creation, and about true love, which in mythic terms means true devotion to the goddess Venus.
The terrible story of Myrrha, her sinful passion and her pitiable attempts to resist temptation.
A cruel punishment inflicted on an innocent (?) young man, with lots of levels to ponder.
One story enveloped in another, Echo in Narcissus's story. We take Narcissus far beyond the common use of his name to mean merely self-absorbed. Narcissus becomes an image of something far more wonderful.
The story of a chase, and the young woman's escape - through a death-experience into maturity? Anything's possible in these stories.
The terrible story of Callisto, vulnerable, abused by three deities, elevated to immortality - a troubling story in many ways, but that's all the more reason to attend to it.
Here's the cosmic story of Phaethon, the boy who had to prove his lineage, but went too far, dared too much, creating a global crisis.
The first great love story, with tender moments and an ending that is - well, let's not label it. It's followed by a parallel story, more brutal and painful, which pivots us into the next major story.
Jupiter wipes out all the people in this evil world - except two wonderful, loving people, who then perform the promised miracle.
We begin a journey through Ovid's great compilation of myths, with his version of the Creation story, and then the first of many evil characters who will be appearing, Lycaon, King of Arcadia - but not for long.
We conclude our discussion of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience", with Thoreau's reflections on his imprisonment and our own responses to the essay. And we end with some touching moments from Thoreau's last days.
How did Thoreau disconnect himself from a government that promoted unjust laws? He broke the law and went to prison - but not for very long. We hear his accounts of this experience, both inside the prison and afterwards, back in the community.
"Unjust laws exist," Thoreau says. How do we define an unjust law, and then what do we do about it?
We begin a discussion of Henry David Thoreau's seminal essay "Civil Disobedience" with an introduction to the man and the historical context he was living and writing in.
After an interval, we finish Series 3 with the twenty-second and final fable from the collection of Robert Louis Stevenson. "The Clockmaker" is the odd story of a civilisation of microbic creatures that parallels ours in many ways, and gives us a new, and comic perspective on our human limitations.
The third and concluding part of the talk to the Beshara Institute on Diversity in Unity in Dante's Divine Comedy.
An edited version of a talk given for the Beshara Institute, on the theme of Diversity in Unity in Dante's great poem. This is part 1 of 3.
Here, in the final canto of The Divine Comedy, Dante rises to his greatest height in a beatific vision of divinity itself, in a flash of insight, difficult to remember, difficult to put into words, but his poetry is up to it, and carries on to the end of this great poem.
Bernard points out to Dante various pre-eminent souls seated in that huge Celestial Rose, and discusses the situation of those infants who have also been saved, and the mystery of how even they are placed in a hierarchy. Then the final moments before, in the next, final canto, Dante will reach the goal of his journey.
More heavenly bliss, but Beatrice shifts away from Dante's side, up to her real place in the great community of heaven, with St Bernard now taking her place for the final steps of this journey.
Is it a geometry lesson as a point enlarges into a circle? Or a sparkling scene in nature? Or a theatre in the round? Or the Celestial Rose, now coming into view for Dante, as Beatrice finishes her explanations, with a fierce attack on the popes.
Angels, rebel angels, a question of time and eternity, wrong-headed lecturers and preachers, and back to the angels at the end of the canto - more instruction from Beatrice.
An inverted model of the universe and the nine orders of angels, Beatrice talking us through this ninth sphere.
The indescribably joyfulness of this highest heaven, but also the rage at the corruption on earth, with no spiritual or secular leadership.
Dante passes the third and final part of his exams, and then has an encounter with none other than Adam himself.
Part 2 of Dante's final exam, on Hope, and then the third examiner arrives, but Dante peers too deeply for something that's not there, and blinds himself before the third part of the exam can even begin.
Beatrice enrols Dante for his final exams, part one, examined by St Peter on the nature of Faith. Our challenge: how to make this question come alive for us today.
Dante adjusts his vision here on the eighth sphere, briefly seeing the Source of Divine Light, and Mary, and all the saved souls in heaven coming down to him. It's hard for him to describe to us, but we understand.
Dante meets St Benedict here on Saturn, the region dedicated to the contemplative life, and then rises even higher, up to his birthsign, Gemini. And from there, he looks back to contemplate just how small, compared to everything else, our Earth actually is.
Now on the sphere of Saturn, a place of auterity, and a love that rises above the personal, perhaps a place of preparation for things higher up, up that golden ladder that features in this place.
Who are these just rulers here on Jupiter, and how does justice connect with humility, and in what way do the "violent bear it away"? All this and more.
Will someone who has never had the chance to learn about salvation but nevertheless lives a completely righteous life - will this person be damned to Hell because there's been no official baptism or profession of faith? Is this justice? That's what this canto sets out to answer, or at least to discuss.
We have our final words and final dance on Mars and then ascend to Jupiter, the home of Justice, with a whole different kind of verbal dance put on for Dante.
More from Cacciaguida, Dante's great-great-grandfather here on the sphere of Mars: the climactic and poignant revelation of Dante's exile from Florence, and his commission not to compromise in retelling the truth of what he has seen on this long journey.
More from Cacciaguida, Dante's great-great-grandfather, here on the sphere of Mars, and more about pride, elevation above one's lower self, and a lot more about the state of Florence.
Dante meets his great-great-grandfather on the sphere of Mars, and hears about what an ideal place Florence used to be. It's a canto full of loving courtesy.
Our final encounter on the sphere of the Sun, as we find out what kind of splendour we'll experience after we have been reunited with our bodies after the world's end. And the ascent to the next sphere, Mars, and the experience there that Dante is unable to express to us.
An almost impossible exercise for our imagination, an account of creation, and a warning about making hasty conclusions - it all fits together for us.
A new group of souls appears, circling around the circle of lights circling around Dante and Beatrice. St Bonaventure speaks out from this new group, praising St Dominic, and criticising his own order of Franciscans, who have fallen away from the standard. The theme here seems to be harmony, which we consider in several different aspects.
Most of the canto is dedicated to celebrating probably the best-loved saint in the calendar: St Francis of Assisi, with the praise coming from a member of the rival order, the Dominicans.
We come to the sphere of the Sun, the place of divine light, where we are introduced to some great thinkers, though the only real back-and-forth here is between Dante and us, the readers.
Still on Venus, we meet some reformed promiscuous souls, and get a divine perspective on the violence and greed that overtakes the world we live in. There's also a lot about interpenetration, the gracious way these souls share their joy.
On the sphere of Venus, we learn the more heavenly way of loving, a reaching out to give joy to the other person, creating a unity in variety. Dante meets an old friend, and has a discussion about why things go wrong in our world.
Still on the planet Mercury, with its characteristic intellectual interplay, we hear about the way the Incarnation restored the relationship between divine and human, and try to explain this with some everyday examples.
A famous Roman Emperor takes up the whole canto to show us the sweep of history and our paradoxical place in it.
How do you make up for a broken promise or vow? We get the answer, and much more here, and then rise up to the next planet, where we get a brilliant greeting.
We have some questions answered, which helpfully shift our perspective on things so we see the world, and the poem, in a rich way.
Dante meets some of the souls in the sphere of the Moon, and learn their story, which is puzzling, if not shocking. There is a lot of turning around here, and we perhaps need our own sense of things turned around too.
Some advice to the readers, followed by a complicated explanation of the spots on the moon, setting out for us the whole arrangement of the heavens, filled with varied individual personalities.
We begin Series 6, as we move into the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy - the Paradiso. The canto opens with an odd kind of invocation, and then Dante takes off for his first stop in the heavens, but is filled with questions about how and why he's rising up so quickly. He's rather disoriented, but we try to help him out as we read.
We're at the final canto of the Purgatorio, with the final words of Beatrice before they ascend, and Dante's renewing dip in the waters of the Eunoë, but with no time left for him to describe what that experience was like.
The third and final part of the discussion, taking us through that inspiring essay "A Christmas Sermon" and its call to us to be "faithful failures".
Part 2 of the discussion of Stevenson's "Christmas Sermon", this episode focusing on a slightly earlier essay, "A Chapter on Dreams".
Here's a three-part podcast looking at "A Christmas Sermon", an unconventional Christmas essay that appeared in the December, 1888, issue of Scribner's Monthly Magazine. In part 1 we get some background.
Beatrice, no longer scolding, shows Dante a masque, or allegorical drama, featuring destructive monsters and the original Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - which provides some fruitful lessons for us.
Dante's formal confession, contrition, and absolution as he moves through Lethe Water, into new life, and glorious vision.
And finally, the long-awaited Beatrice makes her appearance, but not in the sweet, affectionate way we may have expected.
Here is a pageant put on in the Garden of Eden, at the top of the mountain, vivid with colours and meaning.
We're now in the Garden of Eden, and we have to adjust to the experience of primal innocence.
We come to the climax of the healing, that frightening wall of fire that must be entered, and then, we're out of Purgatory, into the next stage of the journey.
We engage with those suffering on the Terrace of Lust and learn a few things about where lust may lurk.
We learn how babies are made and how souls after death can project themselves onto aerial bodies, and we arrive at the Terrace of Lust, walking a narrow path, needing careful negotiating.
Friendship, poetry, love, gratitude - these are the themes here, helping us get a clearer view of the wider meaning of gluttony.
Dante meets an old pal, an old companion in gluttony, and we discuss all the unexpected examples of gluttony, some of which might not have occurred to you before.
We find out more about the opposite extreme of avarice, and about Statius's debt to Virgil, and arrive up at the terrace of Gluttony, where a talking tree forbids them from eating any of the tempting fruit.
Dante and Virgil meet someone who's just releasing himself from his Purgatorial suffering, who explains more about the process of healing, and finally gets the surprise of his (after)life.
More on the terrace of Avarice, with a condemnation of evil French kings, and examples of avarice and its opposite, which we're calling the virtue of letting go. And a mysterious earthquake at the end.
Dante's dream of the bewitching siren's glamour, then the rituals for leaving the terrace of Sloth. Next comes the terrace of Avarice - too much love for the tools our ego identifies with: power, prestige, possessions. You heal from this by embracing the earth, as Dante witnesses.
More about love, and free will, and then the rushing crowd of those who'd been slothful, coming past so fast that Dante can hardly catch what's being said.
We see the final rituals as Dante leaves the Terrace of Anger and then comes to a stop at the Terrace of Sloth, while Virgil gives us a lesson on the ways love goes wrong. [This is a re-posting after the previous posting contained an audio error.]
We see the final rituals as Dante leaves the Terrace of Anger and then comes to a stop at the Terrace of Sloth, while Virgil gives us a lesson on the ways love goes wrong.
We spend the canto in the dark, suffocating smoke of the terrace of Anger, and get an answer to the big question of why the world is so evil.
More on Envy, and sharing, and then the rise up to the level where Anger is cleansed, with an internal video about meekness (which is not what you thought meekness meant). And then a very dark ending to the canto.
The masterpiece of the Fables, an eerie, haunting fairy tale about a "king's daughter" and her discovery of "the thought for the morrow" and "the power upon the hour".
Four reformers discuss how to change the world. The conclusion is startling, but it makes good sense when we stop and think about it.
Long John Silver and Captain Smollett take a break between chapters of Treasure Island, and discuss the nature of life (or is it all just a fabrication by some "Author"?) and the morality of playing your part well.
We eavesdrop on a conversation, which turns into a blast against current-day Italian wickedness, with Dante getting a few words in here and there. Dante is coming to the end of his stay on the region where Envy is healed, and is ready to head to the next level.
Dante and Virgil arrive at the place where repentent souls cleanse themselves of the sin of envy, that sin that wants to see everyone else hurt so it can feel safe - safe, but still miserable. But the soul Dante meets proves herself well on the way to healing, graceful and self-aware.
To finish his healing of pride, Dante is shown a series of carvings on the ground depicting the self-destructive nature of pride. Then an angel approaches, wishing him well, showing him the staircase to the next level up, and officially wiping off the stain of pride - though Dante doesn't quite understand at first what's just been done to him.
An eerie fairy tale about a fisherman who is "bitter poor in goods and bitter ugly in countenance", who is met by the ghostly figure of his future son, seeks advice and a gift from his dead ancestors on the "little isle of sheep", and fishes for a wife in the marketplace with his "shoe of a horse, and it rusty".
Here's another three-part drama, involving a priest, a virtuous person, and a Viking rover. Whose faith is most loyal - the priest's faith, based on a book, the virtuous person's, based on a slogan, or the rover's, based not on words but on action?
Our first encounter with the suffering souls in Purgatory, with confessions of pride, and the admission that fame is so short-lived that it's hardly worth making a fuss about, and a wonderful story about how a cruel, proud man made one astounding act of humility that lifted his soul straight to this place.
Two short fables in one podcast this time, both addressing in typical sardonic fashion the problem of making too much of our guilty feelings.
We're at the first terrace of Purgatory, and before we really get to see much of the souls suffering for pride, we first move along a gallery of carvings in the rock face, illustrating famous, and perhaps challenging, examples of humility.
It's night; Dante has a dream. And he wakes up in a strange new place - just the place he wants to be, the Gate through which he'll begin his real journey up the mountain. But there's a ritual he must undergo before crossing the threshold.
The elder son of a king rides off to win a princess's hand by finding the stone that will reveal all truth. But do the others really want the truth?
We have a vivid Polynesian fable today, or fairy tale, or myth - but a myth that is disrupted in an odd way.
A distinguished visitor arrives on earth, and is given a tour by a "great philosopher". The Stranger innocently (naively?) treats everything like a person; the philosopher sees the world in abstract, scientific terms. It's all very polite, up to a point.
It's time for the big show just before the night closes in, but other people also appear to attract Dante's attention. And there is a meaningful change up in the starry sky.
Dante is sidelined for a while as Virgil and Sordello talk about merit, and discuss the way no one in this region has the will to progress when it's night. And since it's soon going to be night, Sordello proposes to show them a nice place they can spend the night in: the Valley of the Princes. They go there and Sordello points out several of the rulers sitting together in the valley.
We start with a game of dice, move on to more talk (perhaps evasive) about prayer, meet a new character, and get a bitter and sustained diatribe against the state of affairs in Dante's Italy.
Here's a bit more about "The House of Eld" - the poignant biographical details that lie behind this story.
A Gothic fairy tale, as the young lad goes on a quest to correct the cruel injustices of society, and succeeds - but at what cost?
A kind of fairy tale, though not like any fairy tale you've ever heard before, addressing the smug confidence of controlling religious leaders, though there's no direct reference to religion - that's what makes it a fairy tale, I suppose.
Here are those who died a violent death, turning away from their selfish deeds only at the very last minute. This gives us the chance to hear accounts of some vivid and moving moments after a battle - an aspect of warfare we very seldom pay attention to.
Dante exhausts himself after his first effort of climbing up the mountain, but meets an old friend, whose laziness contrasts with Dante's exertions.
A short beast fable set in Samoa, exposing snobbery that leads to ironic misconceptions.
Dante and Virgil meet up with a new group of souls, who seem to act like sheep in a flock as they let go of the impulse to act individually and get used to being part of a community.
A very short fable about provincial pride, inflated egos, and a fatal lack of tactfulness.
Dante and Virgil meet a shipload of new souls coming to the mountain, one of whom is an old friend of Dante's. There is singing, and beauty, and a rush to the mountain at the end.
A longer fable, addressing the controversy between science and morality, or head and heart - a bitter but comic tale in the manner of Jonathan Swift.
We begin Series 4 as we follow Dante and Virgil as they come up to and ascend Mount Purgatory, a story dramatising what we do when we cleanse ourselves of the stains within us. Come along: the scenery is beautiful, the encounters are striking, the wisdom resonates. And we can do it together as we read/listen. In Canto 1 we meet the mysterious figure of Cato, their first encounter, the Guardian of the Gate.
A short, timely fable, about devastating fires in California (back in 1879), and about how projecting our fears onto the future can keep us from any kind of action.
Here's another fable about thinking too much in a time of crisis, but it also expands into a consideration of just what makes each of us valuable and worthy of compassion. But watch out: there's another unexpected and perhaps disturbing ending here.
Here is a short drama, set aboard a ship at sea, the men on board facing certain death as the ship sinks. What do they do in such a crisis? The unexpected climax has absurd, Zen overtones.
We begin a series of podcasts featuring the Fables of Robert Louis Stevenson, odd, biting, little tales, or dramas. "The Reader" aims at narrow-minded readers who are ready to dismiss anyone whose views do not match theirs. (You can make the contemporary applications yourself.)
We come to the end of the journey through Hell, the final stage: no encounters, but a sight of the Devil himself, enormous and hideous, with no intelligence at all. And then the long climb back out to the fresh air, and the stars.
The two final encounters with damned souls, and two of the most gruesome and weird stories on the whole journey.
Here we are at the bottom of Hell, a frozen lake, only the heads of the traitors down here appearing up out of the ice. And nothing but malice, both towards themselves and towards everyone else. It's a bad way to live, but it can make for an interesting story line.
It's the transition from Fraud to Treachery, and Dante and Virgil have to pass through a ring of giants, requesting the least hostile of them to give them a lift down to the next level.
We come to the end of the Circle of Fraud, in a confused, insane, inhuman chaos of disease and rancour - deceit and malice just dumped down here.
Now we come to the final ditch of Fraud, featuring the falsifiers, and featuring diseases of various kinds. In this canto we see the alchemists who claim to be able to falsify material, turning it from one thing to another - a kind of genetic modification? The other three kinds of falsifiers will have to wait till the next canto.
The conclusion of the play, in which Prospero can be a model of gracious ageing, and we are given the power to bless and dismiss the whole show.
Further reconciliations, including Prospero and his dark side, an essential integrating healing.
The lovers are "discovered", lovingly playing a game of chess, of all things. Father and son are reconciled, and the engagement gets official blessings.
The big confrontation, with some resolution, some uncertainty, and a build-up of suspense.
More about forgiveness and freedom, as we rapidly head to the conclusion of this Revenge Comedy.
A very bloody ditch for those who encouraged others to shed blood. Come along with us if you dare.
Probably the most fascinating story within the Inferno. We hear Guido da Montefeltro's inside story about how he, who prided himself in his cleverness, tried to trick his way into heaven and was tricked out of heaven by the Pope himself. (This pope, Boniface VIII, is the real villain of the poem.)
Here's the famous episode where Dante hears from Ulysses, wrapped in a quivering flame, who describes his final "mad flight" into the unknown, and forbidden, world, and there meets his doom.
The farcical adventures of Caliban and his confederates, drunk, trifling, and deceived by Prospero's "trumpery".
Here's the big spectacle of the play: a Masque, formal and ornate, a mythic celebration of the marriage between Ferdinand and Miranda.
The lovers are formally engaged, and get ready for a spectacular performance to celebrate and bless their upcoming marriage.
The second part of the horror story of the ditch of thieves, the most spectacular canto in the Inferno.
We enter the horrible ditch of the thieves. If you get the creeps from snakes, you might want to be on your guard. But don't run away: there's a fascinating incident here.
A scene with magic spectacle and guilt, and triumph for Prospero. But his plans are not finished.
A drunken scene, an inept plot to overthrow Prospero, some other nasty business, and some etherial magic. On the surface, a simple, comic moment in the play, but a closer look shows a few deeper aspects here.
The beautiful love scene in the middle of the play, where the world beyond becomes irrelevant as they declare their love.
Dante and Virgil flee from the demons of corruption and slide down into the doleful ditch of the hypocrites, for the next round of surprises.
We're now in the middle of the public corruption episode, where you can't trust anyone, and the sin sticks to them all.
Canto 21 begins an extended episode about public corruption, a sin both horrible and, in an odd way, comic. And because we're in the region of fraud, there's a lot to say about whom to trust and whom to be suspicious of.
And now for some comic relief, a comic, or perhaps pathetic version of the insubordination theme.
We watch the King and his nobles to see how they are faring on the island, and there's conspiracy and insubordination here, very cleverly dramatised.
The final section of the second scene of the play, in which the two lovers meet for the first time, and are charmed in different ways, always overseen by Prospero, and his magic, who wants to stir things up and make sure things don't go too smoothly.
We are now introduced to Caliban, and our sympathies are challenged as we watch Prospero, Miranda, and Caliban together on the stage.
At the third ditch of the circle of fraud, we meet a former Pope, now positioned head-first into a hole in the ground, his feet and legs exposed, and kicking in pain because there are flames of fire playing back and forth on the soles of his feet. What has he done wrong? He used the sacred things of the Church to make money for himself. That's called simony, and he's called a simoniac.
We're now at the half-way point in the Inferno, and we'll spend the whole rest of the poem looking at the various forms of Fraud, the sin that destroys all social cohesion, a sin that we'll all recognise in our world, of course. First, then, we meet the pimps and seducers, and then the flatterers.
We're on the second part of Act I, Scene 2, and meet Ariel, the tricksy spirit who is Prospero's stage manager and technical crew. We learn more about the magic behind the tempest, and more about Prospero's relationship with his agent Ariel.
We move on to the opening part of Scene 2 of Act 1, shifting from the storm we'd just witnessed to a behind-the-scene account of what was behind the storm, setting things up for the revenge Prospero is planning for his enemies, watching the father-daughter interplay as he explains all this to Miranda, and her response. Many questions here, as we move more deeply into the plot of The Tempest.
We begin a new series of Evening under Lamplight Podcasts with a series on Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Here is the first episode, on the startling, action-filled, chaotic opening scene.
We've come to the end of Violence, at the spot where it begins to merge into Fraud, with the presence of the hybrid monster who will take Dante and Virgil down, down, into what will face them next.
Here at Canto 16 we become overwhelmed with the roar of a waterfall, while three august figures from the generation before Dante try to steer him in the wrong direction. We are almost out of the region of Violence - but the final, and worst region remains: Fraud.
We come next in The Inferno to Brunetto Latini, a writer and public servant whom Dante reverse, but who is here with those who were violent against Nature, specifically for his sexual sin, but really - as we explore - for something much deeper, much more problematic.
We're now at Canto 14, the first of three cantos describing those who are Violent against God, nature, and art - a place of flames of fire descending above, onto a vast plain of sand, which is catching fire from the flames coming down. We focus in on one huge man, stretched out on the ground, defying God, proclaiming that these flames aren't hurting him: "You can't make me cry!" What's going on here? Come along and explore this with us.
In Canto 13 we find ourselves in an eerie, dead forest, and meet those who have been violent to themselves, and to their property, who are suffering surreal and horrible fates.
Here is the psychological state of being violent towards other people - and this can range from mass murder and genocide all the way down to making fun of someone you don't like for having buttoned his shirt the wrong way today. Your blood boils, and you keep yourself in a violent state with all the backstories you tell yourself.
Canto 11, one of the shortest cantos in The Inferno, provides a rest from the action, as Virgil explains to Dante what they're about to face as they enter down into Lower Hell, the area of malice, the intentional desire to harm others.
Here, just inside the walls of the Inner City of Hell, Dante finds the souls of the heretics, boxed in with their own limited vision of reality, almost comic in the absurd way they mistake what's going on around them. Dante learns here more, perhaps, than he wanted to.
In Canto 9, we encounter the Furies, we just miss being turned to stone by Medusa, we are saved by a heavenly presence, and we move on into enemy territory - the Inner City of Hell. What do we find there first?
In Canto 8 we come face to face with anger, and then are stopped by over a thousand hostile demons blocking the entrance into the lower regions of Hell.
We come to Canto 7, where we encounter two groups of sinners: those who took money to an extreme, and those whom anger conquered. We also learn about Fortune, who controls the distribution of worldly goods.
Come with Dante to the First Circle of Hell, the region of Limbo, where we see the souls of the dead who have been good, but not good enough, and it's not really their fault. It's not an unpleasant place to be, but it's not Heaven.
We continue the discussion of Dante's first encounters in Hell: the puny souls blindly rushing behind a nameless flag, representing most of the people who have ever lived, who have done nothing with their lives; and the fearful souls waiting to be ferried across the river. And why does Dante faint at the end of the canto?
In Canto 3 we encounter the hard words written over the Gate of Hell, and then enter into the Infernal Regions. First Dante encounters those souls who never made any choices in life, just following what drew them along, and now we see them doing this in an exaggerated and gruesome way. And we come to the River Acheron, where the newly dead souls wait to be transported over the river where they will then fall down through the levels of Hell into their final place of torment. The discussion of this canto is continued in the second part of this episode.
Dante pulls back from the journey into Hell, thinking he's not qualified to survive such an enterprise, but Virgil tells him of the three saintly ladies whose concern for him provides all the qualifications he needs. And we examine the way we can shift from cowardice to courage.
The first episode in a series of talks bringing to life Dante's Inferno, that great journey through Hell and all he sees there. We begin with Dante lost in a dark wood, and explore what it means to be lost, to lose control, to be stuck in the middle of things, and we get introduced to Virgil, who will guide Dante (and us) down through the nine circles of Hell.