#DIVINE COMMEDY

[virgil69sblog]

Virgil if he found out he's shipped with a random ahh man from the Middle Ages:

"Virgil sure cried too when he left Dante" bro running back home for his dear non-life as soon as he left Dante:

[northemoonduringthenight]

“Therefore, thus saith the Lord God: Because thy heart is lifted up as the heart of God: Therefore behold, I will bring upon thee strangers the strongest of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy beauty. They shall kill thee, and bring thee down: and thou shalt die the death of them that are slain in the heart of the sea”.

Prophecy of Ezechiel (Ezekiel) 28:6-8 Douay-Rheims Bible.

Artwork: Henry John Stock (English, 1853-1930)Dante and Virgil encounter Lucifer in Hell (1923).

[virgil69sblog]

⚠️READ⚠️ (if you want)

Since everyone always talk about Virgil's REAL appearance, I'll say the one that seems the most ACCURATE since we'll never know what he really looked like physically. Regardless of the Comedy, he's ALWAYS represented with a face that is neither too masculine nor too delicate, hair not too long, up to the shoulders, with dirty blonde curls. High height, with a body neither too robust nor very thin, just right, since in the past he lived in the fields, so it's likely that he devoted himself to rural activities. I think he would have had a slightly curved posture, I don't mean excessively but we all know why LMFAO. Something that is very talked about is his skin and his hair. He could have had a white, olive or black skin, with automatically darker hair. Regarding his behavior, he was a humble, wise, insecure, anxious and shy man. He didn't care about relationships, since he was always busy with his work. He probably had some crushes in his youth? Most likely he had social anxiety, as he HATED public and crowded situations, completely running away when he was recognized in Rome. Although he glorified Rome, he preferred Naples, in its simplicity and quietness. He was very fussy and anxious, due to his insecurity about his works not being perfect and good enough. Most likely because of the expectations of others? (like Augustus'), EVEN wanting to burn his WORK. The fact that he was very solitary probably did not make him a patient type in social contexts, still, he was very humble and very open-minded for his time. For example, Augustus wanted to give him the goods of an exiled type, he refused.

💓if you have read this far, thank you very much and forgive me if there are grammatical errors💓

The difference in how people draw Vergil depending on whether they know him from the Divine Comedy or from his poetry will never fail to amuse me

[ratmare]

I’m a Presbyterian so please forgive me for any and all misuse of the saints. Im gonna try my best, but from the outside looking in all I know is you pray to saint Anthony when you lose something and Saint Sebastian is the hot one

[stoopidassjamesfranco]

The fact I never saw any Divine Commedy Hetalia AU kills me every time

[sarenhale]

I miss my pre internet creation days.

I wasn't allowed to use the internet before I was 16 or so, so when I was writing my stories and creating my ocs, i didn't have any website to rely on, instead i would note down words and names i liked from my art history classes in high school, or from italian literature 😭 i so badly still want to use a couple of names from the Divine Commedy into a story one day.

And how could I forget me going through my mom's huge encyclopedia to read about Indian induism because I was making an Indian character.

Somehow the struggle of having to actually LOOK and scout for information made me much more creative, and it's something I miss a lot, I miss how clueless and free I felt those days. I didn't have any preconceptions about writing or characters or anything, i was just vibing and enjoying myself. That's the kind of philosophy I want to maintain when writing and creating my stories today too (and maybe go back at using books and more articulate ways of procuring information....)

[virgil69sblog]

- Virgil is the chill relaxed cat that rubs against your leg and comes to sleep on your lap, who loves scratches on the belly and on the head and who purrs loudly, but when he sees something that scares him he hisses and tries to attack the enemy, then stares at it for the rest of the day with angry eyes. And he loves playing with wool balls and threads.

- Dante is the cuddly silly goofy cat who does these goofy expressions and poses. He loves chasing mices and he loves fishes. He's scared of dogs. He's VERY clingy and cuddly, he licks your hand for the rest of the hour and loves head scratches. He loves to lay on his back on the bed with you. He loves to play biting your finger and makes a lot of quiet purrs. When he is scared he meows a lot and only gives a paw, then runs away to hide.

the divine comeowdy is back

thanks to @divineguro

[lovelacebarbee]

A bit of an early Christmas present from me, i guess. Featuring our medic and a cameo talking about Life. And a bit of lore i guess. This has taken so long to finish, so please enjoy.

As always, thank you to @upontherisers @leftenantjopson and @corrosivesaints , i love talking about our boy.

---------------------------------------------------------

Do not be afraid; our fate

Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.

-Dante, the Divine commedy

Waking up had been the hardest part.

Each time it happened he felt like a piece of himself was lost. To what, he didn't know. Maybe it went to Heaven, and thats how he would get in, piece by piece. Maybe It was lost to Hell, being cast out. A piece of his soul to pay his unholy gift.

War was his purgatory. Everytime he fell asleep he kept seeing the ghosts of his comrades, old and new, but oh so young. Stuck in time just like was.

But at least they had the release of death, a finality to their existance. He had no such thing. Just endless suffering, as unending as those woods that they were stuck at.

A voice calling to him stopped his thinking. A womans voice. For a second, he thought of his mom, how she always called out to him. He thought of his sister, she would be older now. Probably married, maybe she had some kids of her own. Could he face her again, after all that he had seen? All those deaths, for what? So that in a couple of years, she would send her sons to war?

The last time should have been the last, but here he was again. All those lost for nothing. Anthony had died for nothing. Just another death for the pride of someone else. Pawns in a stupid game.

The voice kept coming near, and now he could see to who it belonged to. It was that woman, the one who followed Renee like a shadow.

"Êtes-vous ok?"

She asked him. Speech came slowly, but he willed his mouth into the shapes.

"Oui, but i cant remember whats happened"

"Une bombe. You were in that church and it went down"

He remembered now. He had come by winter's orders after Harry was hit. He thought that the woods were hell but he found out how wrong he was

Everything had been on fire. They had made it to the church and he had jumped out the Jeep to help the wounded. He stood un the entryway were not long ago he had been talking to Renee. She was helping some poor soldiers get out when a beam fell. The fire and the smoke did the rest.

God, Renee. If there was a good in this world, It was her. He had tried to help her. He had died trying. And now she was dead. He hoped that at least hers was fast. Another death by his hands.

"Devrait être mort"

"Mais tu ne l'es pas"

Did she know? Had she seen him come back?

The questions must have shown on his face, because the woman smiled kindly and spoke.

"Come with me. I can explain everything"

They walked along all the rubble. The fire had been put out, leaving only the scorched remains of Bastogne.

Somehow, a house stood. It was old, a bit beat up, but nevertheless there it was. The woman, Anna, his mind supplied, opened the door. It must have been her house then.

"Tea? And please, leave your things where you can. Feel yourself at home"

A sense of warmth filled him, and not because he was under a roof for the first time in days.

"Je suis desolé, mais, why am i here?"

"Sit down, and i will explain everything"

I followed her hand, to a couple of old sofas. I was intrigued by what this woman would say to me, so i sat down where she told me

"Whats your name, boy?"

"Eugene, madame. Eugene roe."

"Tell me, have you always been like this?"

"Like what, madame?"

"Undead. And please stop with the madame stuff, you can just call me Anna"

"Very well. Well for what i can remember, yes, i've always been like this."

"And how old are you?"

"Technically I'm around 50"

"You are young yet"

"What does that mean?"

"When you've been like us for as long as we've have you learn a couple of things. Like how not to get crushed by a burning beam."

"Us? Whos the other one?"

I watched her flinch for just a second. Like if a mask had broken. But as fast as it had been broken, it came on again. The other person must have been someone close to her. Recently dead then, if the flash of pain was anything to go by. And there was only one person i had seen Anna with

"Was it Renee?"

Those simple words, spoken aloud. It was one thing to go to a strangers house, another entirely to accuse someone of being effectibly inmortal.

The silence was deafening. She must have thought i was crazy. But at least she spoke

"Renee is, was, like that, she always gives all of herself until she is no more"

"I dont understand"

"Have you heard the story of Saint renee?"

"Can't say i have"

She stood up and walked to a side table. She took an used cigarrette case, and took out one. She didn't light It just yet.

"Its an old fable. They say once, when France was ravaged by the plague, a young girl escaped her home and went to help the poor souls consumed by it. They say she took their pain and inflicted It onto herself. Even when her pain was too great she still kept walking, going to all the villages, to all the hospices and she kept saving them. Until the disease was no more.

They say the girl died, but that years later, the same woman appeared again, at their time of need. She was there when the british atacked, she was there during the terror, and she was here in the last war.

Always the same, a young woman with a blue scarf. Like the saying says 'Quand la terre est en feu, voici la fille bleue' "

"That was her, right?"

"Oui"

"Were you there?"

"Come on, im not that old! Do they teach you no manners, american?"

"Je suis desolé"

"Dont be, i'm still older than you"

She took her cigarrette to her mouth. As if i was her puppet, I took out my lighter and lit her cigarrette.

She took a long drag, and the silence filled the room once again, as if to leave us space to stop and think about the story she had just told me.

"Aren't you tired?"

"Of what?"

"Doing this. Waking up each day, acting like we are normal. Is that everything there is to it? We keep living and they keep dying?"

"For us yes, we live so that they can too. We try to live life to its fullest.

Me and Renee, we trust each other. I never know when she will be back, or how, or why. But i still have hope that i will see her.

When you've seen the worst of hummanity, and believe me petit, this is as bad as any other war, you start to enjoy the little things, human things. The music, the art..... Their laugh."

She stopped there, lost in thought. I did the same. True, it was a miserable time, I was cold, the show was terrible and i hadn't slept in a week because of the shellings.

But then i remembered my time in Easy. Luz's jokes. Winter's determination. Stories shared in foxholes. Complaining about Sobel.

And above all , a man. Babe.

His smile, his hair that contrasted against the white snow.

I made a move to tell her to continue.

"So instead of trying to die, try to live. For them. Find a tether, and if im right, i would say you already have one."

"I think i have"

I stayed a bit more with her, and we swapped stories. Of our families, of our adventures. Turns out neither were called what I thought of originally and were living under aliases. Anna was really augusta and renee was .And we were more alike than I thought, both preffering each otger over men. I liked her. She reminded me of my own sister and i felt more safe in that little house than I had felt in months, probably since England.

But sadly, i had to leave. I still had people to fight for. People i had to protect. I said farewell and promised to visit as soon as i could.

Sometime later, i found lipton by a Jeep. Theyhad come to pick the few men that were ok and take them back. I got in It and we left the ruined city, and with It all that had been in It.

We had been sitting quietly, but before we entered the forest Lip asked me.

"So-Lipton started- what were you doing there?'

" Catching up with a friend"

"Sure. Are you better? Im sure being there wasn't doing you any good"

"Dont worry, im okay"

"Right, boy"

And i knew, in that moment, that i really was. And as soon as we made It back to the frontlines, i had someone to look for.

[pazodetrasalba]

House of Unmirth

Dear Caroline:

These days we live in a house of sadness, and feed upon ashes and wormwood, which taste bitter in the mouth.

The House is as a grim fortress of despair, where light dares not linger, and the sun shows not his face. Its walls, high and unyielding, are built not of stone but of the weight of forgotten hopes. Within, time loses its meaning, each hour stretching into an eternity of regret. No laughter ever echoes in these halls, only the soft rustle of resigned footsteps and the hollow silence of souls abandoned by joy. The air is thick with the oppressive weight of isolation, and even the sky above seems to turn its face away, leaving the inhabitants trapped beneath a perpetual twilight of sorrow. Here, dreams are withered things, curled and brittle like autumn leaves caught in a cold wind, and the only escape lies not in the world outside, but in the hollowing of one’s own heart.

And yet...

There is a garden in the house. It is small, untidy, unkempt. It is overgrown with rank weeds, with gorse, and thistle, and bracken, and knotweed, choking the better plants. And yet amidst the verdure grows one lonely, one lovely, one solitary rose.

A rose regained. A rose redeemed.

It seems that ins your words before the judge, one of the things you said that during your time at Alameda, you lost your moral compass. You are way more knowledgeable about yourself that I can ever hope to be, but I feel the wording is a bit misplaced. A virtuous person like yourself can never lose their moral compass, but they can become entangled in wrong and misbegotten paths, like the one that starts Dante's Divine Commedy:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura / ché la diritta via era smarrita

And that you did. And it feels all the more tragic, and unfair, because of your fundamentally good nature. I suspect a non-trivial element of your fall stems from it, from what I would call the Hermione, or 'Good Girl' paradox. I feel you have always strived, since childhood, to optimize towards being the perfect person, the most dutiful, the most self-sacrificing, the most obedient and pleasing to the Authorities you recognize, the most agreeable. This, along with a certain naiveté and the weaknesses that love imposes upon us, was weaponized against you, and employed to turn you into a tool of unwholesome ends. It is the stuff of Greek tragedy that people, including good people, can be turned by the whims of fate into suffering unexpected and underserved evil. Such is the fate of mortals, it seems, whether it be in a god-full or in a godless world.

I've been racking my brains trying to find words, any words, that could give you support, consolation and solace, but I fear will never be up to the task, so I've also been thinking on what I could recommend you read in this regard. Stoic philosophy is something I find congenial: the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius is a slim little book I have never tired of going to when I need some rational comfort. Another that is exceedingly good is Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae. I don't know if you are acquainted with the latter (this migh sound preposterous, given your wisdom, wide readings and talents, but then again, this is a very humanistic book to read). In a way, Boethius was the last Roman, and he wrote the little booklet while in prison, falsely accused, and soon to be executed. The book is the foundation-stone of much Medieval philosophy, and Ignatius Reilly's nerdy fascination with it gets much jeering in J. Kennedy O'Toole's A Conspiracy of Dunces, but believe me, it is a great book, and one that I am sure will do you good and to read and ponder about.

In a few, short, months, you will have to begin a new, unhappy stage in your path of penance which I really hoped you would never have to walk. But you will not walk it alone, dear Caroline. Your friends and family will be there for you at every step of this via dolorosa, of this earthly Purgatory. Purgatory brings to mind Dante again. Many years ago, I made a little trip to the north of the country, taking advantage of the fact that some close university friends were using an Erasmus grant for a yearly stay in Bologna. One of the things I did was buy myself a profusely annotated Italian version of the Commedia, of which I have so far only finished the Inferno.

In the time to come, I really wish I could be of help to you, and write you letters of support to the House of Unmirth. Then again, I do not know if they would be wanted. Whatever the case may be, I have landed on an at least symbolic way in which I will be able to express my support for you and the desire to carry your burdens. Back again to Dante, I will devote the time of your incarceration as a constraining bound for a reading of the Purgatorio. And following an old Christian custom for Lent, I'll voluntarily deprive myself for as long as your captivity shall last of some important source of happiness and pleasure - which one, I have yet to think about and determine. These may feel like childish gestures, but one takes whatever one can get.

[blue-eyed-giant]

"by no means this is a concept album that references it [the divine commedy] too much" he says, as he proceeds to release 16 songs whose structure only makes sense if you know the divine commedy well enough to catch minimal details

[anglerflsh]

Greetings,I have two questions.

1)Any Russian classical literature you enjoy?

2)Is there any Italian classical literature that you could recommend?

I quite liked reading "The Brothers Karamazov" and "War and Peace" as far as russian literature goes - though on that front I'll say I absolutely hated Gogol's "Dead Souls" and that alone almost made me want to give up on russian lit in general lol

I would say italian lit is hard to recommend without knowing what someone's tastes are... especially since a lot of the things I've read are poetry collections (on that front: Montale and D'Annunzio are my favourite recent-er authors, but the true classics such as Petrarca and Leopardi are never forgotten + for theatre plays I loved reading Goldoni's plots). I did really like both "Uno Nessuno Centomila" and "I Malavoglia", and when I was in elementary school I loved both Calvino and Salgari's works - "Le ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis" too, and the "Decameron", and I still have yet to read "Il nome della rosa" but I can safely recommend that as well.

^ these are from very different genres and centuries, so, I'd suggest looking them up individually and seeing which ones best resonate with your tastes. The only mandatory thing I suggest is the Divine Commedy because I'm predictable and it is that good.

[virgil69sblog]

"Virgil would hug and spin me around if he met me! He's so lovely!"

Virgil THE MOMENT a human being tried to approach him:

[laurenshield]

Maybe it's because I'm Italian, but I would have honestly thought that every lesson about the Divine Commedy in other countries would have been esplicit about the fact that it's... you know. A poem.

At least, now I know never to take things for granted XD

IF YOURE AN ENGLISH SPEAKER HERES SOMETHING YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW:

IN THE ORIGINAL ITALIAN, DANTE'S INFERNO RHYMES. THE ENTIRE THING.

[zoyalannister]

A curiosity about Endless Sunlight:

In my head, the last line of the Interlude I posted last week,

After seven hundred and seventy-five days, more than two years, Christopher could see the stars again. 

is a tribute to Dante's Divine Commedy. In the last Canto of Inferno, when Dante and Virgil leave Hell, the last line is

E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle. (Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.)

(English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).

I liked the quote, and I also think it was fitting for the situation: Christopher leaving the cell he was held captive for more than two years is his correspondent of leaving Hell.

[direklaus]

“Mantle”

[romanceyourdemons]

post canceled i just wrote “the divine commedy”

i just spelled dante’s last name correct on the first try!! i’m going to let you remember what his last name is out of your own heads because i don’t trust myself to be able to do it a second time