What Loving a Woman can do to a Man

If all I've said about her until this
were comprehended in a single praise,
now it would be too little to suffice.

I saw her beauty passing all our ways
of understanding, and believe indeed
that He alone who fashioned her enjoys

Its fullness. From this pass I must concede
myself more overcome than ever was
tragedian or comic at the peak

Of difficulty: as the sun in eyes
that tremble weakly, so my memory
of her sweet smile now robs the intellect

And leaves me at a loss. From the first day
I saw her face until this vision now,
my road to song has not been cut away,

But here, as every artist, I must bow
to my last power, and cease to follow on
her loveliness by signs in poetry.

Such beauty I must leave to a clarion
more brilliant than my trumpet to unite
clear words and arduous truth...

(Canto 30.16-34)

"Lady in whom my hope is green anew,
who suffered for my healing, and who deigned
to leave your footprints in the lands below,

It was your power and excellence that sustained
my pilgrimage to see all I have seen;
to you I owe the grace and strength I've gained.

I was a slave; you brought me liberty,
through every road I walked, by every means
you had within your power to succor me.

Preserve in me your work's magnificence
so that my soul, which you have healed, one day
will please you when it slips the body's bands."

I prayed - and she, who was as far away
as she appeared, yet smiled and looked at me;
then turned again to the eternal Spring.

(Canto 31.79-93).

I tear up every time. ='P
The greatest monument ever created for any woman.
That last line is the most important...by the way.

Poi si torno a l'etterna fontana

Stuff I'm Watching and Listening To

A Transcription of a movement from Rachmaninoff's 2nd Symphony.

Then the Real Thing.

And if that wasn't enough Romanticism, I'm watching bits and pieces of Love Actually, courtesy of a recommendation by Mr. Leigh.

=3 Poor thing. ;)

This baby.

Here's a quote:

Where did you meet your love, young man?
Where did you meet your love?
'I met my love in a noisy room
With a carven roof above.'

What did you say to your love, young man,
With all your mother wit?
'"How hot it is!" or "How do you do?"
And there was an end of it!'

Who was beside you then, young man?
Who was beside you then?
'Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar,
And a crowd of shepard-men!'

What did you say to them, young man,
Silently, through the din?
'"Princes, when ye come in to her,
I pray you, lead me in."'

-"In the Land of Juda," from Poems of Conformity, 1917

I think Dante and Charles Williams and Sayers would have liked that scene. Especially with the Incarnational themes.

I like being named Gabriel.

I don't know whether to laugh...

or cry.

What does it say about us when we can only be fascinated by hell?

In Gratitude

"Through all this ordeal his root horror had been isolation, and there are no words to express the abyss between isolation and having one ally. It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy."

-G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

Wentworth is the diabolical counterpart of Dante. I shall have to read Descent into Hell again in light of this fact. Charles Williams makes so much more sense now.

After all of it, I do think that Dante got it right. "poi si torno a l'etterna fontana" She turned again to the eternal Spring.

"'Have I your permission?' said the Angel to the Ghost.
'I know it will kill me.'
'It won't. But supposing it did?'
'You're right. It would be better to be dead than to live with this creature.'
'Then I may?'
'Damn and blast you! Go on, can't you? Get it over. Do what you like,' bellowed the Ghost: but ended, whimpering, 'God help me. God help me.'" (The Great Divorce 110).

God is full of severe mercies.

Where did it all go?

Why is it that something begins and then when it ends it's so hard to re-apprehend the experience? For example, when I experience a beautiful piece of music it only stays with me for so long. The rightness, the goodness, that desire and ardor that is the stuff of rash vows --can it last? Perhaps this is what corresponds to "the death of Beatrice". In the Vita Nuova, Dante describes his experience and vision of Beatrice when he saw her for the first time. Fifteen years later, she died. And Dante goes on to write, "what has never been written in honor of a lady before". Romantic Theology...

Lewis is characteristically lucid:

"A romantic theologian does not mean one who is romantic about theology but one who is theological about romance, one who considers the theological implications of those experiences which are called romantic. The belief that the most serious and ecstatic experiences either of human love or of imaginative literature have such theological implications ,and that they can be healthy and fruitful only if the implications are diligently thought out and severly lived, is the root principle of all his [Charles William's] work" (Introduction to "Essays Presented to Charles Williams").

How do we stay true to the image of the beloved?

Whatever that image may be, nature (think Wordsworth), the city (Virgil), or a girl (Beatrice), or music (Bach? Rachmaninoff?) how do we affirm and love it in such a way that it is neither blasphemous nor destructive?

In short, how do we love rightly?

This is sort of the question I'm starting with for my paper. I'm pretty sure Dante can help me. =D But what he has to say isn't at all easy. At least for me, I don't think of this as just a paper, for me, what Dante is saying and how I interpret him has real and significant implications. Perhaps Dante is wrong and crazy, if not wickedly lustful...

I sure hope not.

"He who has ears let him hear, he who has eyes let him see."

"This is thou, this also is not thou."

"...lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil..."

Online Dante Resources

Below are some online resources I have found thus far.

Here's Dr. Esolen's lecture on freedom and autonomy in the Divine Comedy.

It made me cry. Listen.

Here's the Comedy read aloud in Italian.

Here's a huge library of commentaries.

Here are some lesser known works of Dante online.

Also, I highly recommend the essay in the post before this one.

Please add any other resources you find in the comment section =]