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Ascend - The Great Books Podcast
Dante's Inferno Ep. 4: Cantos 12-17 with Fr. Thomas Esposito, O. Cist.
01:42:51
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- [00:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Today on Ascend to the Great Books.
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Father Thomas Esposito
Podcast, we continue our journey through Dante's Inferno by diving into deep hell. This lower section of hell is characterized by sins of malice and is presented in two parts, sins of violence and then sins of fraud. Today we'll be discussing the seventh circle of Hell, which punishes violent sins like murder and suicide, but also some sins we may not think of as violent, like blasphemy, sodomy and usury. To guide us through these violent sins, we welcome to the podcast Father Thomas Esposito, a Cistercian priest who teaches at the University of Dallas. We'll have a few preliminaries with Father about what is a Cistercian priest and how he came to love Dante's Inferno, and then we'll move through the text and discover what lessons Dante the Master has for our souls. As an aside, Ascend is normally a family friendly podcast. We know a lot of you listen as families and even use a sin in your homeschooling, but know that today has some more mature subject matter given the sins Dante presents in his Inferno. With that caveat, join us for a fascinating conversation as we explore what sins Dante the poet considers to constitute violence against man, God and nature.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Foreign the Great Books Podcast My name is Deacon Harrison Garlick. I'm a husband, father of five and serve as the Chancellor and General Counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. We are recording on a cold and cloudy afternoon here in Oklahoma. If you're new to Ascend, we are a weekly podcast that helps guide you through the great books. You can check us out on Twitter or X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. We appreciate all of our supporters. You can also visit thegreatbookspodcast.com where we have written guides to help you read the great books, including a reader's guide to Dante's Inferno that is incredibly helpful for you or your small group. Today we are having our fourth episode on Dante's Inferno covering the seventh circle in Hell, the Violent. To help us guide us through the seventh circle, we are joined by Father Thomas Esposito, a Cistercian priest who teaches at the University of Dallas. He holds a doctorate in Biblical Theology from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, and his interests include the early church fathers, New Testament exegesis, and of course, Dante's Divine Comedy. Father, welcome to the podcast.
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Father Thomas Esposito
Thank you very much Deacon Harrison. It's a joy to be here.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, we really appreciate you being here. So first and foremost, maybe just tell us, like what's a. What's a Cistercian.
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Father Thomas Esposito
So a Cistercian is a. I was initially going to say breed. That's not right. It's a religious order within the Catholic Church. We are a branch of the Benedictine monastic family tree. The first distortions reformed the Benedictines starting in the year 1098 in Dijon, France. And the most famous disturbian, though not the founder, is Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. He's our big doctor of the church. And traditionally, Cistercians are contemplative monks, manual laborers, farmers, things like that. My particular community in Dallas derives from the Hungarian branch of the Cistercian tree. And roughly around the Enlightenment era, In the late 18th century, the Austro Hungarian Emperor required, requested, demanded that they start teaching as a way to be useful to the state in various ways. And so that model of monk, priest and teacher became operative for the Hungarian Cistercians. And then in the early 1950s, under Soviet communist rule, the Hungarian Cistercians had their monastery suppressed. And a handful of them succeeded in crossing the Iron Curtain and came to the US looking for a place to land and restart their Cistercian life. And they settled in Irving, Texas of all places, because they caught wind of a bishop and a group of nuns who were trying to start a Catholic university but were in need of faculty. And so at the founding of University of Dallas, half of the faculty were Cistercians from Hungary. And then our monastery formally got going a year or two after that. And we also run a prep school now for boys. So that's a basic run through of the Cistercian identity. And these cool black and white threads that I wear.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, you look very cool. Have you guys got into making beer yet or anything like that?
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Father Thomas Esposito
One of our seven novices who just joined us in August has previously made Mead. And Father Raphael, one of our priests, cultivates bees. He's our apiarius. It's a beautiful combination. So I think we're just on the cusp of something big with regard to the making of Mead, but we don't currently have any vats of beer in the mix.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
That's good. I look forward to Cistercian mead. That sounds wonderful. Last week we had on Dr. Jason Baxter to kind of guide us through. He has his own translation of the Inferno. Do you know Dr. Baxter?
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Father Thomas Esposito
I know him all too well. We met when we were freshmen in college at the University of Dallas, and I roomed with him for two and a half years in college. And he remains a dear friend. I credit him in many ways with an intellectual conversion of sorts for me. He is a convert to Catholicism, and as a freshman and sophomore and perhaps junior, he described himself as a confused Calvinist. And I distinctly remember one evening in the university's cappuccino bar, he was poring over the Greek text of Matthew 16, with Jesus giving Peter the keys. And I stopped by the table, said, hey, Jason, what are you reading? And he said, I just can't figure out where you papists get this authority thing. It was your classic apologetics moment. And I wasn't content with my answer. And so that created in me a resolution, a desire to learn more about my faith and to take the intellectual life more seriously.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's beautiful.
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Father Thomas Esposito
He's a wonderful fellow. I just saw him a couple weeks ago when he was passing through Dallas, and I'm thrilled to see him flourishing with all of the books that he's written and the teaching that he gets to do now at Benedictine College.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, he, he did a good job kind of illuminating the text for us. I appreciated our conversation that we had with him. I don't think he'd mind us sharing this, but like, before the, before we started the podcast, you know, he was like, how long does this last? And I was like, I don't know, maybe two hours. And he's like, what, about 45 minutes? And I was like, okay, maybe we'll, we'll see if we can hit that. So, of course, then we talk for two hours, and it's a great conversation. I really appreciate it. And at the end he goes, well, how was that? And I was like, it was great. It's great. He's like, okay, good, because I have a broken rib and I have pneumonia. And I was like, what? I was like, you. You have pneumonia? And he's like, yeah. And I was like, well, you did great. I was like, so he's really, he was like, really trying to get into, like, the Inferno spirit of just, like, suffering the entire time. So, no, I, I deeply appreciated, you know, his time and attention.
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Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah, it was, it was a vicarious read for him.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, exactly.
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Father Thomas Esposito
He's far more the, the Dantista than, than I am. I, I've never. I guess this is a preface or a warning before we start. I, I've never actually taught the Commedia or the Inferno. I've been to Florence plenty of times. I visited Dante's tomb in Ravenna, and I love to, to read it, but I'm certainly no expert in, at the level that Jason is.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Well, we probably have a lot of first time readers that are following along with us. So maybe just like with the first time readers in mind, like, what led you to Dante and what did you see in him that really just kind of captured your imagination?
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Father Thomas Esposito
I didn't read Dante until my freshman year at the University of Dallas. So the Commedia. All three books are part of the core English literature curriculum at ud, and we read them in what we call literary traditions too. So that'd be your spring semester of freshman year. That was where I met Dante and I, I remember simply being fascinated by his imagination, his ability to weave together innumerable references to classical mythology, biblical texts, Christian theology. It's gripping, right. And ultimately the simplicity of the story is what drew me. It is the tale of one man on a journey, right. So there's a hero's quest component to it. And even though there are plenty of references to 13th and 14th century Florentine politics, that, that escape me. It's the, the psychological drama of Dante, the pilgrim. Dante, the poet leading the reader on the. The descent and then the ascent to, To God.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. I fell in love with him too, for similar reasons. One, I just, I just find him to be a master of the soul. He's, he's a teacher on the human condition, explaining vice and virtue and, and why man chooses evil things. Why. Why is it that we, you know, what good do we see there that often leads us astray? And I read him, I think, for the first time not too long after becoming Catholic or even before I converted. And yeah, he's like reading a whole library. And so one of the things that immediately showed me was like, man, my formation is lacking. I don't get all these references. I mean, let's set aside, you know, Florentine politics that we only know now today because of Dante, but just like, yeah, the larger tradition of, like his biblical illusions, you know, Greco Roman mythology. It's like how he weaves all these together. His use of Aristotle, his use of St. Thomas Aquinas. It really kind of shows you in a certain way, he's like the zenith of that kind of medieval mind. And it's so well formed. And it's something that really invited me to know more about my own Catholic faith and to read the great books.
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Father Thomas Esposito
And from the Cistercian perspective. I really appreciate the, just the literary quality of Dante's theology. Right. It's not dry, Thomistic Q and A problem solution. It's, it's vivid, it's. It's incredibly vibrant as a method for meditation and prayer. Plus, at the end of the commedia, the very last human character who speaks is our Cistercian, Bernard of Clairvaux.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
That is true.
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Father Thomas Esposito
He gets the praise of the Virgin Mary. So I automatically have to love Dante for that.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, that's a good plug. Yeah. So maybe before we jump into the text proper for this week, maybe I'm just going to try to give a little sketch of, like, where are we in the Inferno? Where are we kind of in our journey? So, like, the first group of souls that we saw was this kind of like antechamber or like vestibule of hell. We saw kind of the lukewarm, the milk toast, the ones that are like marching behind a banner, Right. Who never lived for anything. And then we kind of get this. We're still exploring it, but we get this, like upper hell. This was what we saw in Kanto 1, I believe, the she wolf. Right. These sins of incontinence, this kind of like disproportionate love. So we saw limbo that was really interesting for us to kind of see limbo. Dr. Frey called it a not that bad garden party. Right. That they're having, which was a. Interesting way of describing it. Right. But the contrapasso there, we've been tracking the contrapassos. The contrapasso is, you know, that man is made for God and they're denied God, they're denied their end. Right. Both kind of naturally and supernaturally. They don't have the beatific vision either. So while it's kind of without torment, there's some kind of like existential, just like incompleteness that they suffer in limbo. And then we moved on to lust. We saw the souls. Their contrapassa was being blown around by the winds. So as they treated their soul in life, allowing the passions to blow their soul around, so too are they treated now for the rest of eternity. We saw the gluttonous that had Cerberus the dog, the three headed dog from mythology. We saw them kind of miring. It's like a very poor scene. Scene. Right. They're just kind of sitting there mired in filth and muck, being rained on, wallowing. Right. I think the pictures there of how they treated their own body and their own soul is pretty vivid, to use your word, from earlier. Then we kind of saw this theme getting into the fourth circle of two sins that are related together. So we saw the prodigal and the miserly, the hoarders and the spin thrifts. We talked about how they kind of form a Circle, and they're smashing against each other. And Dante uses the circle as an illusion and kind of a segue into a conversation on Our lady of Fortune and talking about Lady Fortune and her wheel and how he kind of moved from talking. You know, tradition saw Fortune as something almost like fickle and capricious. And Dante speaks about her as an angel, right? As a. As a agent of Providence that kind of moves the wealth of nations around. And so then we got into wrath in Acadia there in the. In the fifth circle. We saw the. The souls kind of fighting each other in the river. We saw the slothful kind of bubbling underneath the surface. We got into heresy in the sixth. And so we saw these. These tombs, these heretics, right? They were in these. These burning tombs. But now we're kind of in the. That was the city of Dis, which is kind of like an intermediate stage, that kind of like midway point between the Lower Hell and Upper Hell. So now we're kind of, if I understand correctly, you know, we're entering into Lower Hell proper. And if we. If we look at Kanto 1 and we thought the she wolf was the sins of incontinence, then here we have the lion sins of violence. I think another distinction, too, that we tracked with Dr. Baxter is that the sins in relationship to malice. Lower Hell is malicious. We're dealing with violence and fraud. Man is intentionally causing harm against his fellow man, as opposed to Upper Hell with the sins of incontinence, lust, gluttony, these tend to be like disproportionate loves. The Lower Hell is an intentional malicious act, and it's kind of broken in two large groups. Violence in the seventh circle and then fraud in the eighth and ninth. So that's like a quick maybe mapping snapshot of Hell. Anything you would add to that, I.
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Father Thomas Esposito
Think that was very fair. I think the word malevolence is a good way of complimenting malice as the. The motive for the architecture that Dante has in separating out the incontinent, which are basically driven by their feelings to, as you said, that disproportionate attention to one particular lover or food or laziness, whatever it might be. Malevolencia would be the evil willing. There's this sustained malice directed against someone, whether that's the self or the neighbor or God. And that's the dividing line. That's where you go through this, and it's from there that you just gradually descend down to the worst and worst parts.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, correct. So let's look at the worst and worst parts. So we have. Let's look at Canto 12, the seventh circle. So when we're getting into, like I said, violence, and the seventh circle is interesting because it's broken into various rounds or areas. So there's a seventh circle which is this violence kind of per se, and then we're going to have different categories of violence and then sometimes even different categories within. Inside that particular round. Right. So Dante, if anything, is a very kind of systematic thinker, even though, like you said, it's not presented as summa, but presented kind of with this beautiful poetic veneer. So who do we. Who do we find in the seventh circle?
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Father Thomas Esposito
You meet the Minotaur right off the bat. So obviously a monster of mythology. They get down there by a rock slide. So just the landscape of hell deserves a podcast all its own. But as the descent comes down, I think there's. There's an emphasis with the Minotaur as. As the guardian traditionally of the labyrinth with. With Theseus ultimately conquering him. And if you. You take the labyrinth, you think of the. The medieval image for the journey of life, that the complicated finding of your way through the. The maze through. Through the mystery at your own peril, because the Minotaur is there to prevent you from. From reaching your goal. And I think there's. There's an interesting word that, that comes up at line 33 when Virgil explains to. To Dante about the rock slide guarded by that bestial rage that I quelled just now by basically, again, Virgil telling the Minotaur that this guy isn't actually Theseus. He's got a purpose in mind, a divinely ordained mission. The bestial rage is, I think, an introduction to the circles that will follow of malevolence. Not just the violent, but then further down, I think Dr. Baxter would certainly point out Boethius as one source for the idea that human malice renders us less than human, indeed, like beasts. And we meet how many dozens of different animals in the Inferno. That's sort of the opening salvo of the descent down once they pass the Minotaur.
- [19:24]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I really like that. And what you said about the bestial side, that's one thing I think the track is that he's using these mythological characters, but he's very intentional in the ones that he selects. So the Minotaur is very easy because the Minotaur is this creature of rage. And so it makes sense, right, that the Minotaur is guarding the violent, just like Pluto was guarding the wealth, and also Cerberus was guarding the Gluttonous, right? They tend to be kind of symbolic of whatever the. The sin is there. But another thing to track too, that I think is interesting is that a lot of the creatures in this section are half beast, half human. There's like, there's like something bestial about violence, and that's, that's something that, you know, with. Because one of the things we're going to make a distinction on is like, why is violence above fraud? Because that's going to lend us some really interesting comparison. So, like, we're going to get in this, you know, seventh circle, we get like, Attila the Hun, we get some really significant tyrants. And then you're going to tell me that later down in the Inferno, then we get people who engage in flattery, really, like, that's how this is structured. So I think that, you know, one of the things here that we have to think about is that, you know, violence does make man bestial, right? Does he does. It's a, it's a baser, you know, appetite that he ends up satiating, right, to engage in this, in this type of violence, but somehow, just to kind of maybe give a foretaste of this. And in the structure of hell, it's somehow, for Dante, not as bad as us corrupting our intellect, right? So fraud, intellect is the highest thing that we have, our highest capacity. We're the rational animal is something unique to man, and fraud seems to be something unique to us because it's a corruption of our greatest good. So the corruption of the highest is always the lowest or proportionate to one another. And so it can kind of lead to an interesting structure of how these sins are framed, because you have violence being not as bad as certain types of fraud. And as moderns, it might be hard for us to track that at times, as well said.
- [21:33]
Father Thomas Esposito
And for that reason, I think the Minotaur and the centaurs, who we still need to talk about in Canto 12, are the bridge between the incontinent and the malice that we'll see. Because those who are ruled by lust or gluttony are following their base instincts, perhaps not with malice initially, but they are in a way, animal like in their pursuit, instinctively, of what they want. Immediately, as you move further down into the spiral of hell to the bottom, the distinctly human sins, fraud, betrayal at the very bottom, are exclusive to our race. And I think the, the half man, half horse combo of the centaurs finds us at that transition point where we're moving from the. The more innocent, if you will sins just outside of this. Now to the characteristically human sense of violence, moving into, to usury, to fraud, to betrayal.
- [22:53]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I like, I really like what you said there about the centaurs, because when I think of centaurs. So maybe let's, let's paint the picture. So basically the seventh circle, this first area there is this giant boiling river of blood. And this is where we find the souls kind of thrashing in this. And we'll kind of see the contrapasso is more tailored. We get that towards the end of this Kanto. But I really like what you said there, that the centaurs are somewhat of a bridge between the sins of incontinence and the sins of violence. Because in Greek mythology, the centaurs are basically always associated with lust. Right. They're always. They can't handle their passions. And so, like, I can't remember, you know, obviously Hercules, his own wife gets carried off by a centaur at one point. You also have centaurs that are invited to a wedding and like, halfway through they just can't take it anymore and so they, they run off with all the bridesmaids. So I really, I like that because, you know what's happening here, There's a river of blood, it's boiling the souls that have engaged in this level of violence towards others. So we're going to have to start making some distinctions. So seven circles, violence. Now we're getting violence towards others. So we're getting ready to get tyrants, murderers, these types of people. And the centaurs are basically, you know, going around and if these souls are trying to climb out of this river of blood or go into an area that they're not supposed to be in, the centaurs shoot them with arrows. And that's kind of made sense to me because, like, obviously those souls that engaged in violence towards others are now suffering violence, both, you know, obviously boiling in blood. The contrapassa there is somewhat clear, but then also they're suffering violence. But I do really like what you said there about the, the centaurs being a bridge, because in Greek mythology, they're really known for both. They're known for their violence, but they're also known for their lust. And so that, that does make them a good bridge between the incontinent and the violent.
- [24:44]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah. And to that end, centaurs are essentially hunters, whether it's out of lust or out of rage. And so they, they are effective at picking off the, the sinners who are trying to emerge from the, from the Bloody river.
- [25:03]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. So let's, let's look at the end of this Kanto around line 73 or so, I think is where we start to get these things kind of described to us. And also at line 100 as well, I'm reading that. What translation are you using, Father?
- [25:22]
Father Thomas Esposito
I have Hollander.
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Deacon Harrison Garlick
Okay. Yeah, we're using the. Using the Esalen, but. Ryan. Hundred. Yeah. Along the bubbling of the blood red stream. So again, we have this stream, it's blood, it's boiling. The centaurs are shooting the souls. And then what we get towards the end of the kanto, as we come to understand, is that people are submerged in the river to different depths proportionate to the nature of their sin, the gravity of the violence that they committed. So you have, you know, these tyrants, et cetera, that are all the way up to their forehead, right? Their brow, like they're kind of bubbling underneath the surface. And then you get some other people that are just up to their torso. And then we kind of get this picture that it gradates all the way down to people who are just kind of like, I guess, standing and hopping up and down inside this river. Right? They're kind. They were, they were kind of violent, and so they, Their feet are kind of burning in this river. Right?
- [26:19]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah, the psychology of violence comes up in this regard. Yeah, the contrapasso, as you, as you said, is fairly easy to explain. You could think of bloodletting as the level of wrath that they have immersed themselves in during their lifetime. But I think that the preface to the explanation of the sinners in the blood I find fascinating. In lines 49 through 51, the Italian words are cupidigia Iraq. And Hollander translates it as, O blind covetousness, insensate wrath, which in this brief life goad us on, and then in the eternal steep us in such misery. I think the, the covetousness and wrath that leads to the, the. The terrible violence of these, of these tyrants means that their comeuppance in hell is the, the boiling blood that stirred them in life to unleash such torrents of blood in others from all of the campaigns and violence and whatnot.
- [27:39]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And that kind of brings up a good question too, about what is the difference then between these souls and the wrathful? Because we've already seen souls, right, fighting in a river, you know, suffering, trying to climb in the boat, biting each other, you know, that's when Dante, like, delighted in watching that guy get dragged back down into the. The river. So how do we make what's like a good working distinction between the wrathful and the violent that we see here?
- [28:05]
Father Thomas Esposito
It's a good question. If we follow the incontinent malice distinction, the people that Dante saw biting each other and being wrestled and torn to pieces would perhaps be purely fueled by, by their, their passion for, for rage. I mean, if you're thinking of tyrants, you might think of the careful plotting of a campaign to, to unleash chaos. Interestingly, kaoso is a word that Virgil uses in this, this canto to describe the, the harrowing of hell. That comes a little earlier. But, but it may be that in this circle, when we're just being introduced to malice, the emphasis is on the calculation of the violence, but we don't really have conversations with those in the blood. So it's just not the focus that Dante has right here.
- [29:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, that's an interesting observation. I'm not sure if I gave that enough weight that we actually don't get. He doesn't talk to any of the souls here, does he?
- [29:21]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah, he's chatting with Virgil for the most part. And I think that's in Chiron or. Yeah, Chiron speaks to Nessus and then. Yeah, the centaur. So it's Nessus who's explaining the names of the tyrants.
- [29:38]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. It seems that to add on to what you said, the distinction between the wrathful and the violent part of that too, I think, is when that passion hits, what did you do with it? So I think as moderns, we're pretty sensitive to violence. Right? We don't like cruelty. We actually, and we probably use that word too much. Right. We don't like things that are cruel mainly because we like self expression and freedom and these types of things. And so we really find cruelty unpalatable. So I think the wrathful in a lot of ways, to me are even a greater critique because these are those who didn't act out in violence towards others, but internally allowed their soul to be beaten by that passion and to take anger and turn that anger into wrath. And I like what you said too, is that, you know, theoretically the ones that you have in the violent circle don't necessarily have to be wrathful to a certain degree. Right. They could be very cold and calculating. Right. Think about someone, you know, sieging a city or doing something or just commanding all the prisoners to be slaughtered or whatever. Right. It's just, it's calculative as opposed to wrathful. But I think one of the distinctions too is. Yeah, how did you act out on It. And we're much more sensitive to, oh, yeah, being violent is bad. I think it's more of a critique. At least I see it more of a critique of the wrathful. Because a lot of times, right, we think, oh, no, if I controlled my anger or I just kept it internally, I'm fine. That doesn't seem to accord well. Right. With the New Testament. That moves from the external acts of the Old Testament. Don't murder. To the internal acts of the New Testament. You know, don't hate. Don't be angry with your brother.
- [31:19]
Father Thomas Esposito
I agree. I agree fully with that. And that gets back to the. The malevolencia of these. These circles that we're now in. Yeah, the. The calculation to maximize torment is, you know, characteristic of a tyrant. Perhaps that's the. The. The sense that Dante's trying to get us to recognize.
- [31:42]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. No, very good. All right, let's sally forth. Let's look at Canto 13, which might be one of the most or more famous of the Cantos, just because of the souls here in the contrapasso. So we're still in the seventh circle. And so we're gonna see it has three main areas. So the first one is violence towards others, like the tyrants, the murderers, things of this nature. And now we move into the souls that were violent towards themselves. So we get the suicides, except there's this other little group in here that we're gonna have to discuss, which I think kind of catches us by surprise here at the end. But the main group that we're looking here are the suicides. And they have one of the most interesting contrapassos in the entire Inferno. So let me. Let me see if I can sketch this out correctly. So Dante, we get this kind of really interesting picture where Dante comes in and he makes this big deal, Dante, the pilgrim, that he doesn't see anybody. He can't find anybody in this circle. He hears them, like, the moaning, the groaning, the wails, but he can't. He can't see anyone. And so Virgil gives us, like, interesting advice of, oh, just. Just break off a branch and you'll find out. And we find out is, like, the trees, the forest. Right there in this dark forest, the. The trees are the souls. The souls have been transformed into these kind of gnarled, grotesque trees. And Dante gives this image here, which I think is amazing just in its descriptive powers, which is that the soul speaking through this, like, wound in it, this broken branch, is like when you throw a green wood into the fire and you just see this kind of like burgling SAP coming out the end. That's what this is. It's a very grotesque scene. And so, as I understand it here with the contrapasso, is that the suicides here, as Dante presents them, they mistreated their bodies, and so they're now denied their bodies for all eternity. And he even gives a few details here that I think are really fascinating. Like, one notice that when he says that King Minos throws them into this circle, he's the judge at the beginning, right? So he winds his tail around them, he chunks them down into whatever circle they're supposed to go into. They land haphazardly. It's not ordered. And so you kind of get this vibe of, like, how they treated their bodies. So they're. They fall wherever they may. They become this kind of gnarled bush, plant, tree, etc. The harpies are like, munching on them, which is causing them pain. And then probably, probably the most horrifying of the entire contrapasso is, to my recollection, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the souls of the suicide here in this kind of dark forest are the only souls that will be denied the bodily resurrection. And so at the general resurrection, the final judgment of all the nations, at the bodily resurrection, everyone goes back to where they were. So the souls will go back into hell, or the souls will go up into heaven. And we've talked about this previously on the podcast, that then the pains will be perfected because man, who's a composite creature, will be more naturally who he is now. But except for these souls, their bodies will be hung on their branches and they're denied being part of. I guess the thing there is. There's like an existential punishment there that then they're never fully themselves ever again for all of eternity, because man's naturally a composite creature, body and soul, and so they're denied this. I mean, this is an incredibly vivid section of the Inferno that was well summarized.
- [35:18]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah, there's certainly strong aeneid connections and overtones that the Dante brings in, specifically with the. The breaking of a branch and the gurgling of blood that then begins a conversation. I think, for me, you know, from the pastoral perspective, there are a multitude of. Of questions that arise with regard to the treatment of suicide here. I find it intriguing that Dante uses the same word in line 24 of this Canto that he uses at the beginning of the entire commedia. Hollander translates it as confused here. Smart. It's the sense of being Being lost, scared, confused, all at once. And there could be some potential hint as to the nature of the dark wood that Dante found himself in at the beginning of the poem. There's a linguistic connection back to the very beginning of the poem with that word smart in terms of the person that he meets as the tree. So Pierre della Vigna. The dialogue between them is really fascinating because Pierre gives this apology basically for his own suicide. He explains his life, his status as the main guy next to Frederick ii. And he blames what I think is envy, the sin of envy, calling it a slut that was so used by the courtiers around him that he was ultimately discredited in the eyes of the king and was forced, according to his understanding, to this drastic action. He swears that he never broke faith with his lord in line 75. And I think there's an ambiguity there regarding the identity of the Lord that he's serving. I think Pierre is talking about the human king, Frederick. And that might be exactly the issue that Dante the poet is trying to highlight, because Pierre swears that he never broke faith with this earthly king. The question is, what has he done regarding his loyalty to God and the gift of the body that was entrusted to him? And the line in Hollander's translation in 70 to 72, my mind in scornful temper, hoping by dying to escape from scorn, made me, though just against myself, unjust. That's just a gorgeous, gorgeous line. But I think what Dante the poet is doing here in arousing such pieta in Dante the pilgrim, such pity, is requiring a careful look at the nature of Pierre's explanation for himself. I think Hollander is right when he talks about Pierre almost as a Judas figure. Obviously we're going to meet Judas later in the Inferno. But just like Judas, Pierre asserts his devotion to a lord, blames others as he betrays the capital l Lord, and then kills himself. And then there's the connection to a tree as well. So I think Pierre ultimately is so desirous to serve an earthly lord that he loses all sight of the service to God that he's created for. And that leads him to end his loss of earthly credibility by ending his immortal connection to God. So that character of Pierre Delavina is. Is mostly fascinating.
- [39:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Oh, yeah, no, very good. Well said. Yeah. One thing too, I would point out here is, you know, sometimes the Catholic teaching on suicide is. Is somewhat a topic of debate. You know, obviously, you know, we'd say, like murder, suicide is a. Is a mortal sin. It's one that actually cuts you off from God's grace in your life. You think of John 15, the vine and the branches. We remove ourselves from that. Obviously the problem with suicide is, is that then you're not there to go to confession. You're not there to ask for forgiveness. You're not there to do these things. And obviously, like, there's, there's pushback here, which is well founded, that the modern church has articulated as far as, like, well, to have a mortal sin, right, you actually have to have knowledge of what you're doing. You have to have. You'd be able to be culpable of it. You have to be able to form the will and have the intellect to actually commit this. And obviously we know that there's a lot of states now in which the human intellect can get into, in which its capacity to make decisions is greatly diminished. And then that goes into questions of culpability. What's interesting here that I just want to flag, because it's easy just to be like, oh, Dante's a medieval. He doesn't know any of these nuances like X, Y and Z. I just want to point out that when we get to Purgatory, one of the very first people we meet in purgatory is a suicide. And all the Purgatory, everyone in purgatory goes to heaven. So I think one of the things that we've been tracking here is Dante's soteriology is not, is not flat. A lot of people think like, oh, he's a medieval, like all, you know, all these people are going to go to limbo or they're going to. All the suicides go to hell and all this stuff. And all of a sudden, like, you know, we've got suicides in Purgatory, we've got pagans in heaven, we had Muslims in limbo, like his soteriology, right? The south, like, who is saved? I think it's much more complicated than maybe we want to give Dante credit for.
- [41:24]
Father Thomas Esposito
I agree. And you know, one could certainly quibble with people like Trajan and Cato getting, getting, getting there. But I think, and obviously Dante is not the magisterium by any means, but he highlights the fact that no one can truly know the state of another person's soul. Now, obviously Dante has his opinions about Boniface VIII and his, his destination and all that, but God is by definition impossible to circumscribe or understand. And therefore I like the fact that so many surprises make their way into maybe not Inferno, but Purgatory and Paradiso. For that reason.
- [42:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, there's the. Oh, go ahead.
- [42:16]
Father Thomas Esposito
I was just going to say, on the subject of the modern Church's understanding of suicide, I think you are absolutely right to point out that the issue of culpability, I think the legitimate insights of modern psychology have led to a fair correcting on the part of the Catholic Church with regard to, for example, the possibility of burial in a Christian cemetery that had been denied for many centuries to suicides. There can be excess in so far as people might try to use psychology to explain away sin at its worst. That's obviously a distortion, but properly understood, there is a mystery to the psychological status of someone who feels as though suicide is the only answer.
- [43:09]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. You see, the Church, I think, walking a fine line that she has to walk so, like, this action is a sin. We can't use psychology or whatever it is to say, no, this is not a sin anymore, X, Y and Z. And you see, I think the brutal reality of the sin as presented in the contrapasso with Dante, but at the same time, all of our lives have been touched by suicide in some way, shape or form. And those of us who are clerics have probably served in funerals for those who have died by suicide. Is that. Then also we, you know, there's a great understanding of, like, yeah, our. What will was there? What level of intellectual was there? And ultimately understanding that we need to commend this soul to God. And who is a better judge of the soul than the maker of it? He who is love itself, justice itself. And so, no, I think there has to be a certain humility, you know, because we. We like to canonize people, right. No matter if they're a suicide or not. At funerals, we like to canonize people, Right. Oh, they're in heaven and they're looking down on us. And everyone, I mean, everyone gets canonized now, like everyone does, like, all the time.
- [44:09]
Father Thomas Esposito
Everyone becomes an angel, even. Yeah. With this wretched theology.
- [44:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, right. It's like now you become a different being at your funeral. So, no, I think there has to be a humility and under God and under his judgment of that the soul is commended to him and that. And that we have been given a certain economy of salvation, that we have to act accordingly. And so, yeah, I think Dante here in its contrapasso is probably one of the most unsettling, but probably one of the most serious here of getting us to understand the gravity of this particular sin.
- [44:38]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah.
- [44:39]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
What about those people at the. Oh, go ahead.
- [44:42]
Father Thomas Esposito
Well, Inferno is. Is nothing if not an exhortation to see the. The drastic prospect that could, in theory, could well await you should you persist in activity or behavior of this sort.
- [44:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, yeah. No, very good. What about these. These souls at the end? So we have this, like, forest that is actually these. It's actual, you know, souls. They're denied their body, they're being eaten by harpies, these kind of things. And all of a sudden, like, two of these souls just come crashing through the forest. Which, again, is a negative because now everyone, you know, the people are the plants, so everyone's crying and weeping as they're kind of broken apart. And these souls are chased, you know, by these black dogs. And one of them is kind of, like, torn apart. I mean, one thing about Dante is. Is that he really incorporates everything. So there's this. We just got layers of violence upon violence upon violence. I mean, even going back to the fact that, like, Dante has to do an act of violence so that suicide can even speak. There's just. Everything is. Is related back to this theme. But who are these. Who are these souls that have their bodies?
- [45:45]
Father Thomas Esposito
Or.
- [45:46]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Excuse me, they're not. They don't have their bodies yet, but they're. They're not turned into trees. Right? They're shades, like everyone else that are crashing through the forest. Like, who are these souls?
- [45:54]
Father Thomas Esposito
They're Florentines. Hollander speaks of them as spendthrifts in the introduction to Canto 13. Honestly, I didn't really pay much attention to them in my reading and preparation for this. There's a reference to Florence at work near the end, and I think this is kind of an apostrophe for Dante to note that his beloved city has become the servant of those who are corrupting it. Those citizens who afterwards rebuilt it upon the ashes that Attila left behind would have done their work in vain. I made my house into my gallows. So I just took it almost as a personalized look at Florence as, you know, the. The. The suicide of a city that Dante is. Is decrying here, whereby what started once, as, you know, a city dedicated to Mars had been consecrated to John the Baptist, but is now killing itself through all of the strife that Dante himself is experiencing. That's the best I got for. For those.
- [47:16]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, that's good. No, I really like. I really like the idea of situating Florence as committing an act of suicide.
- [47:23]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah.
- [47:23]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
These souls are the profligates. So this is really interesting because it's kind of a similar distinction that we saw. There's the wrathful, but now there's the violent. So we've already had, you know, we've already had our spin thrifts. We've already had those that had like a disproportionate relationship to money. And so this is interesting because this is like a. We don't really think about this much. I think this is a violence towards, like, material possessions, like a violence towards goods. And if I recall correctly, you know, one of the souls here or one of the examples he gives is like a guy who burnt down his man. He's like a rich man and he just, you know, burns down his house for the sake of the experience of it. So it's like, it's not just that you're wasteful, you are literally like violent in your waste of material goods. And think about, you know, Lady Fortune being this agent of Providence, that Providence has given you this material wealth, and not only do you squander it, not only are you a spin thrift, but you're literally violent in your misuse of it. I mean, it's an interesting concept that I don't think we, we. We contemplate much anymore. But there's, it's, it is kind of like an asterisk for Dante. They come in right here at the end, these dogs. It's an interesting contrapasso. There's, there's theories about what the dogs, these black dogs, would kind of like represent. But again, these violent souls are suffering a violence, right, on a broad level.
- [48:54]
Father Thomas Esposito
And they're, they're prompting others to suffer from that violence. So, you know, it's, it's as if Gatsby burned down his house during one of his raging parties or something, that Nero burning Rome. You know, it's just the wanton destruction of even your own things. And in that sense, it might, that might explain why they're here in the realm of the suicides. They burn their own stuff and therefore they've utterly wasted what had been entrusted to them.
- [49:27]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, that's very good. I like that. All right, let's push Forward into canto 14. So this is the seventh circle violence, the third round, if you will. And this is the violence against God. And we're going to have then. Now, in this one, kind of like how in the last one we had the trees and the people being chased by the dogs. In this one we have three different types of sinners that are all kind of. In this third round of the seventh circle together. So at the beginning, he sees, he sees three different souls. He sees souls that are laying down in this like burning sand. So we get this picture of because we moved from a forest, this dark forest. And I really like what you said earlier about linking that dark forest to the beginning of the text. That's something I'd like to think about more. That's a really good connection. But now we're in a desert, so we've gone from river, forest, desert and there's this interesting imagery of. It's basically snowing fire, right? They're giant kind of snowflakes of fire. These giant flames of fire are kind of slowly coming down and raining on burning, scarring the souls that are there. And there's three types, right? So we have the ones that are laying down, we have ones that are running around and then we have those that are kind of squatting on the sands, right? So who are the souls that are laying down?
- [50:52]
Father Thomas Esposito
The immediate one that gets the attention is Capaneus. And he is a pagan. He's one of the kings who make up the seven against Thebes in, in Greek mythology. And he had been zapped by a lightning bolt from Jove or Zeus while, while storming the, the city walls of Thebes. And yeah, I think Dante highlights him as the epitome of a violent soul destroyed by violence and always consumed by it, even in eternity. So you have the combination of wrath and violence against God where Capaneus is constantly raging against the, against the God who smote him with the lightning bolt. And I think the combination of burning sand and the fiery snowflakes scarring and constantly torching the souls is simply brilliant because it highlights the all consuming nature of violence, especially when it's motivated by that calculated wrath of that's intent on destroying everything and everyone in its path.
- [52:19]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I like that, I like that a lot. I, I think for first time readers, when I was a first time reader, this really surprised me that his example for blasphemy is against Zeus. Like really that's it, like of all that. Like, I mean obviously you have lots of examples that you could pick from Christianity about blasphemy and you know, things about Jesus and all that. I mean there's all kinds of examples you could have picked. And it's just fascinating to me that he picks a pagan, he picks a guy that's climbing over the wall and is like, look Zeus, we don't even need you. So to use your word, because I thought was great, he gets zapped, right? Zeus just blasts him and he's dead. So I just, you know, I've wrestled with this, like why would Dante use A pagan. And sometimes as moderns, it's difficult for us to understand how Dante uses paganism and even the mythology and these kind of things throughout the Inferno because we, you know, we tend to think of this as something very distinct from Christianity. But I think here, if I had to take a stab at it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, is he's showing here, I think that you can be blasphemous even by nature. So if you think about how reality is structured, reality is structured according to nature and grace. Nature and grace are distinct. And so there's things that we have by nature. We're naturally a rational animal. We have the four natural virtues. There's things that, family, marriage, as man and woman. These things are natural to us. You don't have to be a Christian or accept Jesus Christ to have these things. However, grace then perfects our nature. And so we have a sacrament of marriage. We have the theological virtues we have. Our intellect is perfected by faith, right? It picks us up. Grace always perfects nature, it doesn't destroy it. And so the best I've come up with here is what Dante's showing is that it's not just by grace that we owe something to God, it's also by nature that we are creatures made by a creator, even without knowledge of Jesus Christ. And I think of Thomas Aquinas who puts natural virtue, or excuse me, he puts religion as a natural virtue and he puts it under justice that religion is a natural virtue, that man naturally has a duty to give God what is due. He has a natural inclination that God exists and that he owes something to God. And this is basically the natural genesis of basically all of paganism. Is man trying to naturally understand and satiate this inclination that he has that he's supposed to be serving a higher power. And so here we have then Dante, I think is showing us that you can be blasphemous even at a natural level. Like the fact it's against Zeus, I think is accidental. Zeus here, I think is a, is an analog for our natural understanding of God, right? That God exists and that we should be obedient to him. So that's, I don't know, that's the best I have for why we would use a pagan as an example of blasphemy. But I think I remember as a first time reader, I just really had to put it down and be like, wait, what? Why would we do this?
- [55:21]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah, I think that's a darn good answer to the question that could indeed be Problematic for some. I would just complement that insight of yours by suspecting that Dante is just highlighting the common human nature that binds pagans and Christians. There is no distinct Christian soul in the sense that pagans as well as Christians have the ability to live out the virtues and to render to God what is just, because that is placed within the human heart, naturally. And so the blasphemy of Kapaneus indeed is not particular to the pagans or the Christians. It is a universal temptation to distort justice and pervert it by thinking of oneself as the self sufficient worker who can indeed dare to challenge God or presume that he doesn't need God.
- [56:28]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, very good. You know, the other thing I like about this passage is we've seen a few souls who I think a misread would be that they have somehow conquered hell, that somehow they're not, they're not giving in to hell. We saw Francesca in, in the circle of the lust, right? There's a way to misread that. That look, her love for Paulo has, has conquered hell. There's also, amongst the heretics, I don't recall his name, but remember, he stands like very erect. He asked Dante immediately, like, who are your ancestors? He seems, his mind, yeah, his mind seems to be completely still caught up in Florentine politics. It's not even aware that he's there, that he's burning in like, you know, a tomb. Like, he doesn't seem, he doesn't make any comments about it. And here too, I think there's a way that this soul, right, that's, that's being punished now for blasphemy still seems to be very tied up in pushing out against God. Like he's not sitting here saying he's sorry for it. He's completely imploded in his own arrogance. And I really, the reason I mentioned this is because I again, I think there's a misread that's particularly there for moderns, right, because we're the people who read Paradise Lost and think Satan is the hero, right? So we have to kind of push back against our own presuppositions. And there's this line that Virgil gives, which is interesting that Virgil can comment on this, that he says he's talking about the pride of the soul. This is at line 64 or so he says. And in that you are punished all the more. No other torture than your own mad rage would bring you your fury, its most fitting pain. And I love that because what Virgil's commenting on is that the Soul still kind of wallowing in its own sin is almost a worse punishment than what it's currently suffering. Right. Or at least at minimum, the sin is its own punishment. The fact. So it's not that you're actually kicking out and recalcitrant against hell itself, but rather like your own interior disposition is a hell. This. This disposition of sin that you've adopted only makes your punishment worse. And I just. I think that has to be stressed because I think it's something that we could. We could misread.
- [58:45]
Father Thomas Esposito
Absolutely. Absolutely. UD colleague of mine, just yesterday who teaches the Inferno to freshmen, raised the question to me whether the damned souls in Dante desire to be where they are. And I think someone like Farinata, that heretic or kapaneo here probably are, in the sense that they are getting exactly what they want in rebelling from. From God, Kapaneu especially. But that, to your point, means that their own sense of self is precisely what will guarantee their. Their endless torment. They might. They will never come to that realization. Right. That's the whole point of the. The permanence of. Of hell. This makes me think of a. The scholar who commented on this. This canto in Baylor University's Hundred Days of Dante series. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
- [59:51]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, I watched your video.
- [59:53]
Father Thomas Esposito
Oh my. You didn't give me the Kanto 25 for this podcast. You're saying something about me by giving me the violent. But Rachel Tobner, who did the video for this one, had this beautiful line that the greatest punishment in hell is being stuck with oneself. It's completely the reverse of St. Benedict, as Gregory the Great describes him in his life. The great virtue that Benedict had, according to Gregory the Great, was that he could dwell with himself. Habitare secum. That signifies sanctity. That signifies that everything is in alignment with God within the soul. And precisely the opposite is at work here. Capaneo's rage, his. His fury is consuming him. Burn. The burning, I think, is the perfectly appropriate contrapasso here. And he's getting exactly what he wants at the same time.
- [61:01]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it reminds me of C.S. lewis's great divorce. Sure, if you're familiar with that. So this, like, fictitious tale in which the souls from hell can go up and take a bus to heaven, and basically why they all decide to go back to hell. And so it reminds me of that here, that the souls in hell, particularly because God's grace has been removed from them, and so all they have is their own capacities to rely on according to the Soul that they formed in life. They just can't. It's not obvious to them. They can't. You think about the beginning of the Inferno. One of the very first things Dante tells us is that he sees all these souls cursing the day they were born, cursing their parents, cursing their nation, cursing their family, cursing God, cursing everyone, you know who they're not mad at. Themselves. Yeah, they're not mad at themselves. Right. And so I think this is a good insight that even those who seem to have, quote, unquote, conquered hell or aren't giving in or whatever, are really actually trapped in their own punishment.
- [62:00]
Father Thomas Esposito
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [62:02]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Any.
- [62:04]
Father Thomas Esposito
Concept that Rene Girard has made so famous in this, this day and age, you see it perfectly on display in the characters in the Inferno. Everyone else is the problem. Everything else has conspired against me and I shake my fist. Van Ni Fucci, in a couple cantos after this that we're talking about, is going to basically give God and Dante the middle finger Italian style. And so it's fascinating to note that Dante understands the psychology of sin. It's creating a hell within which one lives and being content with that. I mean, it's terrifying. But you see the consequences of it in these figures.
- [62:52]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, very good. Any thoughts on this Old man of Crete? I mean, it's probably one of the most unique passages in the Inferno. I mean, anyone who I think is familiar with the Old Testament, it really strikes as parallel to the vision that Daniel has. Right. Of the. Of the kingdoms and the clay feet and all these things going up. I mean, any kind of high level insights onto the Old man of Crete?
- [63:19]
Father Thomas Esposito
Not really. I think just practically it gives an explanation for where the water's going all the way down. But I do think the Daniel 2 reference is instructive on the subject of sovereignty because the dream, as Daniel interprets it, of the many materialed man is meant to highlight that in spite of the apparent powers of a pagan nature conspiring against God and Israel, the Lord God of Israel ultimately is the sovereign over all of history and over all political kingdoms. And therefore the rock, not hewn by hand, does conquer all of those things. And perhaps Dante is just offering a subtle reminder that even in hell there are reminders of the sovereignty of God, that he has established this place and ultimately governs it, at least allows it to be governed in this way.
- [64:37]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it's a cryptic passage from Daniel's vision. It deals with kingdoms, it deals with the temporal power. You know, Musa and some other commentators will try and say, you Know, maybe Dante here's doing the same thing, but for the Church. The church is going to have, like, you know, these. These stages, etc. I mean, there's just always a lot of ink spilt on trying to decipher what Dante had in mind here, if that makes sense on a broad level. Yes, it's the source of the rivers of hell. Right. Like, that's. That's what it is. Yeah, it's a. It's a fascinating passage.
- [65:12]
Father Thomas Esposito
And it. The Inferno and the Commedia as a whole is a lot like the book of Revelation in that people who need tenure can. Can write about whatever they want in terms of. Of clever theories. I don't know if we'll ever know the mind of Dante in. In many of these. These aspects, but I think it would be a little excessive to put, you know, church stages or ages here. Although Dr. Baxter would probably bring in Joaoquino e Fiore here and his stages of history as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But I tend to just think of this as a reminder that the Lord is the sovereign over absolutely all of human existence, including the Inferno.
- [66:09]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Very good. Okay. Yeah, let's push forward to the next kanto. So, canto 15, the seventh circle violence, the third round, the second area, if that makes sense. So we're in the seventh circle, third round, and then the second area. And here we've moved from the suicide, violence against self. And then we had the blasphemers, which is kind of a violence against God. And now we have sodomites, which, again, something I think that we don't like. Why are they here? I think is like one of the original questions, particularly like, how. How does Dante's ordering of sin put sodomy here? Like, how does he actually structure that? So just looking at this area as a whole here in Canto, what are we in 15? Yep. So these are the souls at the beginning, we said there's three different souls here. The blasphemers are the ones laying down, being burnt in the sands. The sodomites here are the ones that are running, Right. So they're running in these. These groups and, you know, being burned by the. The fire, snowflakes and things of this nature. You know, one thing I think that's fascinating here is the similarity of their contrapasso to the contrapasso on lust. So. On lust, right? We had. They're getting blown around. There's, like this constant movement because of how they allowed their souls to be moved by passions. And so there's all Kinds of questions that come up here too, like, why is this. Why is this sin distinct from lust? Why is it in a deeper section of hell? Why is it separated out? Is a question that has to be answered. And then two, you know, that it has a certain similarity. So there is an aspect of that lust here. There's an aspect of passion. But then I think what gets lost on us because also the third, the third sinners that we'll find here too, is something that we don't think about often either, is how this kind of translates to violence. Right? Where is the violence here? And so with the blasphemers, you know, there's a violence against God himself. With the la. The next two souls, what we get is a violence against nature, right. That I guess one way to put is that the act was so contrary to the natural order of things that it's considered to be a violent act against God as the creator of nature. But one thing I find so fascinating about this passage is, and please push back, is it seems to be the one that Dante the pilgrim is the most empathetic and that Virgil is the most empathetic. Because what we get here, it's in this Kanto, in the next one, right? So this canto, this. This story actually takes up two kantos, is one Dante will run into a teacher of his. And the relationship and the language between them, you know, Dante, I think, expresses a real reverence and respect, you know, for his teacher. And then in the second canto, we get the three young men and, you know, and Virgil say something like, you know, if they weren't here in hell, by the way, you should be running to them, not them to you, because these are men of, like, honor and glory and things like this. It's really fascinating, I think, when. When Virgil gets Virgil and Dante the pilgrim get to this section about how they present these souls and the certain, like, reverence that they. They have for him. I mean, any. Any thoughts on what's going on in this. This section?
- [69:47]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah, they are very, very fascinating chapters, in part because the detail about the sin is basically absent with the discussion with Brunetto Latini. And then the three in canto 16, you never get really an explanation as to why those souls are here. Right. And I think there is some guesswork about what specifically the sin is. I do think it's clearly sodomy as understood, perhaps a little more broadly as actions that lead to fruitlessness. So I think Jason makes a point in his book that the sodomy understood in medieval times was a sin against fruitfulness. And so that could entail a number of sexual acts which would be indeed against nature insofar as they don't lead to the natural end for which the acts, the proper sexual acts, was created. But there's clearly immense sympathy for Dante with Brunetto Latini. It's a young pupil seeing his dear teacher after the passage of years. And so I think there's a natural sympathy. But I do think there's also a good reflecting point here on the characterization of Dante the pilgrim and his gradual maturing in the understanding of his approach to the these sinners. You remember he swoons after hearing Francesca's love laden story. And he still has pity Pieta for a lot of these sinners. There might be a sense here in which he's still learning to realize that they are in hell. And he might not fully grasp that yet, because I find it curious at the end of Inferno 15 that as he sees Brunetto Latini running off, Dante has this simile of a foot race that's held annually in Verona. So the very last lines of the canto, after he turned back, he seemed like one who races for the green cloth on the plain beyond Verona. And he looked more the winner than the one who trails the field. He's portrayed by Dante as the one who wins runs, who has to win. Perhaps an echo of Paul there, but he's in last place because he's behind the group that he's chasing and he's in hell. And so I think there's a sympathy that ultimately Dante will come to regard as misguided for his hero who taught Dante how man makes himself immortal in verse 85, whatever that means.
- [73:00]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I like that take. I like that take a lot. Yeah. Because one thing to keep in mind that could be confusing to us is that the words of the Dante, the pilgrim, always going to have a little asterisk on them. Right. Because he's, he's constantly undergoing his own formation. Yes. The journey through hell. And then he has to go up through Purgatory and obviously up through paradise as well. So that's a good, that's a good distinction that the kind of almost reverence that he shows the souls here is something that has to be kind of taken in stride. Right. Because he can, he really. Is he fully grasping the contrapasso, the nature of the sin, et cetera, or is there some reason here that he's not quite understanding the depravity of what has happened? I think two. One thing just on its on its face that's, that's fascinating is that sometimes there's a, a shallow read of the Inferno of like, this is Dante the politician just putting all of his enemies in hell and just showing like, look, oh, look, here's the guy that opposed me. Oh, look, he has this terrible sin. Right. There's like this really flat read of it. And I think that I would just say if you take the reverence and I think sympathy that Dante the pilgrim shows in this for who were actually people in, in his real life, that he is putting his friends in hell, he is putting people that he loves in hell. Because Dante the poet is mature enough to understand that, yes, I did love that person, I respected that person, but I. They still sinned. And I understand, because you with, make a distinction here. This is what's so hard of Dante. Right, because he's a master Dante the poet understands exactly what's going on here. And the pilgrim is the analog for us. And I, I think it's so fascinating that, that Dante the pilgrim, as an analog for us, struggles to understand the depravity of this sin. He struggles to understand why this is actually a violence against God. And we get this kind of like language that you, that you mentioned is, is, I think, difficult at first to try and parse out.
- [74:59]
Father Thomas Esposito
Agreed. Yeah. I wouldn't have anything to add to that. It's such a complicated poem in that regard because you do have to distinguish between Dante the poet and Dante the pilgrim. But I think at this point in the Inferno, we're getting towards the halfway point. He is learning much about the proper disposition towards the souls in hell. But he's so human, the pilgrim.
- [75:32]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right.
- [75:32]
Father Thomas Esposito
Of course he's going to have his, his heartstrings plucked by the, the mentor, the one who, who taught him poetry, who was so influential on him. Right. That's. It's an entirely natural affection to have. And that can lead to distortions to the extent that he describes Brunetto as the winner in a race that he's already lost.
- [75:57]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I like that. I think too, one thing here too, that's really fascinating and it's a, it's a theme that's been going through the Inferno. I'm not sure if we've, we've pulled it out clearly, is that the damned are very, are very interested in their reputation on Earth.
- [76:13]
Father Thomas Esposito
Oh yeah.
- [76:13]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And we see this in this dialogue constantly. We see this in this canto as well. They, they want to know, you know, what's going on on earth. And particularly like what is my reputation? It's really reminiscent of, for those of us, you know, who, who read Homer together, it's really reminiscent of when Odysseus also goes down to Hades, right? Agamemnon, Achilles, you know, they want to know, particularly want to know, like, oh, what are my sons doing, right? There's like this need for them to understand. And that the soul I mentioned earlier in the Heretics, right, that immediately is so tied into Florentine politics of wanting to know. Like, his whole mind, his whole intellect, everything about him is absorbed in the temporal, in what is actually happening. And so it's interesting, as we kind of go through the Inferno, that we see then the damn souls, how much they care about their reputation on Earth. And I wonder too, in an earlier discussion with Dr. Wilson and Dr. Frey, one of the things that we, we discussed was when Beatrice comes and talks to Virgil and says, virgil, you know, you need to help Dante and do these things, X, Y and Z. One of the things that, that Beatrice says to him is, you know, I will talk and praise you to God. And we kind of talked about, what does that matter? Like what? Like what? What is it? Like Virgil can't go anywhere, right? God isn't going to change Virgil's eternal destination. So why does that matter? It seems, I guess, to be too harsh. It seems a bit sterile. As I read the Inferno again, I'm really wanting to couple that statement with all the damned souls caring about their reputation on Earth, that Virgil does maybe show himself to be a different quality, a soul in limbo, that he would actually care, right? That he would even care about what God thinks of him or that someone has praised him to God, as opposed to the damn souls that care about being praised on Earth. And so there's a distinction between the eternal and the temporal. Obviously your heart somewhat breaks for Virgil that it doesn't seem to be efficacious to him insofar as his eternal destiny, but he does seem to set himself apart from the rest of the damned who are kind of wrapped up in the. In the present, in the temporal. Does that. How's that ring to you?
- [78:36]
Father Thomas Esposito
I think that that rings true to the pagan understanding of immortality. One of the earliest Latin poems that we have contains the line, volo vivus per ora virum, I want to live alive on the lips of men. That's immortality for the soldiers fighting in the Iliad, right? It's glory. And the only kind of glory that they will have once they die is the memory of their actions in the minds of those who are still alive. Brunetto Latini asked Dante to remember his book, the Treasure, the Tesoro. And I think in that vein, Brunetto and so many other characters in the Inferno are simply playing out that pagan ideal of immortality as packed into my book, my verses, my actions, and nothing beyond that. So even as Brunetto asks Dante to remember his treasure, which is his poetry, we, I think, with the Christian perspective and the prospect of purgatory and paradise still to come, realize how little the tesoro is, how weak and how lame even the desire to be remembered is when you compare it to the glories that Dante will be seeing shortly in Paradise.
- [80:24]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I like that a lot. I like the allusions back to Homer and the Iliad, right? Because that's also Achilles decision, right? He seeks a certain immortality through glory. You think too of Plato's. Symposium is very good on this, right? Plato shows that each part of the soul, we all have this eros, this erotic desire to satiate in the infinite, in this infinite beauty. And it translates as we kind of. We try and cheat death by finding some type of immortality, right? So the. We can live through our children, right? There's a certain immortality that goes through the children. There's a certain immortality in the spirited part of the soul of living on in glory. You know, there's a certain infinite immortality that, that goes in the intellect as well, seeking after wisdom. And then it's, you know, it's pagan. So he doesn't have the, the full revelation. And so he's. He's trying to show this ladder of love that. No, at the top of the love, there's divine beauty itself, self, right? There's this, there's this mystery to a certain extent. And so here, I think, to piggyback on what you said, I think you're seeing these souls that are in hell crave a different type of immortality, right? They're craving reputation, glory. And you kind of. That plays in actually really well with the men that we see in this, in this circle that tend to be successful statesmen. They're wise, they're warriors, right? There's a certain spiritedness about them that would translate immortality, like Achilles into some type of glory. And I love what you said, that, that that's going to pale in comparison when you see the true glories prepared for man. St. Paul has a line about this, about the true glory is prepared for man in heaven. So, yeah, I just wanted to take a moment and talk about that because it's a constant Theme throughout here of the damned asking about the reputation and trying to keep their immortality on earth alive, because obviously the immortality they're truly suffering is in torment. Yeah.
- [82:21]
Father Thomas Esposito
And in some basic sense, their desire to be remembered is noble and natural, but it also acts as a sort of reinforcement as to why they are in hell. Because they become what they desire. And if they have only desired money or lust or power or rage, they get that. And whether they're content with that in hell or not is a legitimate question. But you do become what you pursue. I think that is amply borne out in the inferno.
- [83:02]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, no, that's. That point's well taken. That the spiritedness to seek glory is a natural good. Right. So here you see a certain disproportionality to it, or that it was pursued without greater goods. Right. Because the higher always governs the lower. So when you only do something intermediate and don't do the higher, then it becomes disproportionate. So I like that a lot. Kind of pushing into the next Kanto. Kanto 16, correct.
- [83:31]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yep. Yeah.
- [83:31]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
The seventh. Yeah. So we're still in violence. The third round. Second area, we have a second canto here on sodomy. But I like what you said too, about making this more broad, because I think this plays into the next souls. We'll see that there's a certain sterility. There's a theme of sterility here, of being sterile. You get that a little bit in the forest. Right. Of. Of the leaves and things like this. But you get it a lot in this one, particularly with the sand. Right. It's. It's sand, it's fire. Yeah. Nothing grows. There's no fruit. There's no fecundity here. And so all three of these sins are somewhat sterile. It's interesting to. To attach the blasphemy, the sterility of blasphemy about, like, what man should like, man should have praise. That should be something that's fecund in man, that has good fruits, that man pray, the creature praises his creator. So there's a kind of a brilliant tethering there that's probably not immediately on the surface. Obviously, these broadly construed sins of sodomy all end in sterility. Right. They're not fecund. And then we'll get the third part too, because I think that maybe helps unlock that third sin, because I think that's. It's a bit of a surprise for modern readers, actually. It's a sin that we forget is even a sin as moderns. So in this, in this Kanto 16, you know, we've kind of talked about the three young men or the three men that he meets. We've kind of. I'm happy to hear anything more that you have there. But he does this interesting act where he throws his belt into the abyss. Right? He takes off his belt.
- [85:11]
Father Thomas Esposito
Virgil throws it.
- [85:12]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, yeah, It's Dante's belt, right. So he takes it off and then Virgil like chunks it into the abyss. And this is one thing I would note there, is that there's a reference. This is line 108 or so, there's a reference to the leopard. And so if, remember, if we're keeping the structure of hell, so the incontinent is the she wolf, the violent is the lion. And so kind of now we're starting to prepare and have foreshadowing to fraud. The leopard.
- [85:39]
Father Thomas Esposito
Right.
- [85:39]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
If we think about the three beasts at the beginning, any thoughts on why he tosses his belt into the abyss?
- [85:48]
Father Thomas Esposito
That's a good question. I read somewhere in Hollander that scholars have attempted to identify Dante as a third order Franciscan simply by means of the reference to the cincture. I have no idea whether that's valid or not. Mean, it's certainly suspenseful from a poetic standpoint. I mean, you toss something down, who's going to come up, who's going to respond to that? I don't really have any particular genius insights about the meaning of the signature other than the, the typical ones, I guess, of the sanctuary binding and therefore being an example of something that's. That's contained or restrained properly. But, yeah, I don't know. What do you, what do you suspect?
- [86:52]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No, I mean, what you've mentioned I think is the best. It's one of those passages too, kind of like the Old man of Crete on which a lot of ink has been spilt. In trying to understand exactly what the sign means, I think the, the best that I've heard is the one that you've articulated is that basically this is, you know, the cincture. So let's maybe parse out what that means, because I think that's the symbolism of it is that, you know, obviously when we're preparing for mass, right, as a deacon or a priest, right, people will see there's that rope that the cleric will wear around their waist. And so it's. There's a lot of insight here that that's the type of. When we say belt, that's the type of belt that he's taking off in throwing in. And so, as you know, but maybe a lot of people don't know is that when the priest or the deacon is preparing for mass investing, there are prayers that actually go along with each part that he wears, right? So the alb, the amus, the signature, obviously the chasuble or the Dalmatic, etc. And so the signature for a long time has. Has been connected to purity, right? It goes around the waist, right? It's the lower part of the body. And so the prayer there, right, is really for purity. It's a, it's a cooling of the passions, etc, so for that to be taken off and kind of thrown down, right? It's, it's. It's kind of a symbol of, of the impurity, I guess, if you will, of where we're going, right? This, in this creature that comes up that we'll see in the next canto, that. That really is kind of treachery incarnate, right? This kind of like very interesting analog to being a traitor. So now that's, I mean, again, it's, it's a scene that I think a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to decipher. But connecting it to the signature similar to what would be worn in mass, similar to saying, you know, Dante might have worn one as a third order Franciscan or something like that, I think is probably the best connection because, like, why this guy just takes his belt off and chunks it into abyss? Could be a difficult passage, right? Like, what is.
- [88:46]
Father Thomas Esposito
Would you do that at the time?
- [88:48]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
I mean, who amongst us has not done this, right?
- [88:50]
Father Thomas Esposito
I mean, so when you're at a waterfall of blood, toss it, right?
- [88:55]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Anything else on? Oh, yeah, one thing in the Kanto 16 is that he actually names his comedy, right? 129, which is really interesting. He actually names, he names his work, he names the Comedy. Any other thoughts on Canto 16?
- [89:12]
Father Thomas Esposito
Not really. I mean, there's a reflection on how Florence has been corrupted since those three shades entered hell. It's kind of a nouveau riche. Everyone who's come into the city has corrupted it. That's just part of the sustained lament over Florence that you find throughout the entire Comedy. It's important to note that as proud as Dante the poet is of his ability, he himself does not give the word divine to his. His Comedy. I think that is given by. By a later. A later commentator after Dante died. It's just la commedia, which means that it has a happy ending. And you already know that in some sense from the start, because Beatrice has come down and has told Virgil where to. Where to take Dante. But the commedia here, I think, is positioned at an interesting part of the. The journey because, you know, in a sense, it's a reminder when all other lights go out that the descent is necessary to lead to an ascent. Right. The tragedy is what has already unfolded and is unfolding. But that's not the end. When they get down to the bottom, there will be an ascent.
- [90:44]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. Beautiful. No, I appreciate that. Yeah. So let's look at Kanto 17, the seventh circle. The violent. This is. We're in the third round. And now the third and final area. And we get usury. What is going on? We get usury here. I mean, you want to talk about things that confuse me first time readers? So we've got Attila the Hun. Okay, got it. Check.
- [91:05]
Father Thomas Esposito
I got it.
- [91:06]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
He's violent. We got tyrants. Okay. We have suicides. Okay. I can see that as violent. Blasphemers, maybe. Sodomy. What's happening? And now usury. We're completely lost. Right.
- [91:17]
Father Thomas Esposito
Random.
- [91:18]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You know, maybe. I think you want to talk about something that is a debate. I think this one's a debate. And so obviously when we deal with usury, I mean, the pro. The first problem off the bat is that we. We barely think of this as a sin anymore. If we do think about it as a sin, it's. It's typically like predatory loans. Our entire. Like our entire economy is basically based off of usury.
- [91:40]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yes, Right. Banking as an institution is.
- [91:44]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Let's say it's kind of like asking the fish, like, do you know what water is? It's like, well, no. What's water? Right. Like, we just. We just live and breathe in this. And so maybe, you know, it's. I'm not an expert, but, you know, I appreciate our friends over at New Polity, if you're familiar with that institute, they've done a lot of work on trying to understand usury. There's been. A few years ago, there were a lot of conversations on trying to resurrect church teaching on this and what does this mean for a Catholic and etc. Right. But usury I think is. It's interesting here because it's connected to sterility. And so this is a very Aristotelian understanding of money that somehow lending money out. So I guess in a certain way money making more money is somehow unnatural. Right. Money itself is not fecund. It shouldn't do this. And so what we're happening is that we're using money for an improper purpose. Right. Because usury very famously was outlawed in most of Christendom. And so it's interesting because it's a misuse of. Of money. And it, it's. It brings a certain sterility to it. It's interesting because they'll make. It is why I liked your comment about sterility on the last area, because they'll compare usury with contraception. That there's a. There's an impediment of the natural reason that we have money. And the natural reason that we have money is because in the bartering system, it's very hard to understand, like, how many of my chicken eggs equal, you know, one hour of me reviewing a contract. I don't even know how. Like, how do I even start to understand how these two things were. Aristotle talks about this. And so we have to have money as this intermediary to try and understand how we can translate these two things. And so there's this exchange of goods, and so then money kind of quote, unquote, making more money that I lend it out and then you have to pay me back, but with interest. That there's the, the church saw that as. There's something unnatural to that.
- [93:53]
Father Thomas Esposito
Right.
- [93:54]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
That it's actually analogous to contraception. It's a, It's a misuse of the natural purpose of money. And so that's what these souls are. So again, we have the, the blasphemers laying down. You have the sodomites that are running around kind of very similar to the circle on lust. And now we have the users that are squat. And what's interesting about the, the usury is that he can't tell their faces.
- [94:22]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah.
- [94:23]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And he only can identify they're wearing like, the little pouches, like the money bags. And it has their house insignia on it. And so he can start to kind of see them there. I mean, any. This is an interesting pass. And it's very quick, right? He basically, like, this creature's coming up that we have to talk about. And so Virgil's like, hey, by the way, just go over there real fast and look at those sinners, then come back. And so, like, you know, Dante, like the pilgrim runs over, he looks at them and then he runs back. It's a very quick passage. I mean, any, Any thoughts on this?
- [94:50]
Father Thomas Esposito
No. I very much liked how you connected the usury question back to the, the sterility of the, of the burning sand where these, these cooked figures are squatting. I think at bottom, the, the restless hands that Dante talks about them, them having and feasting their eyes only on the purse has so dehumanized them as to render them faceless and anonymous in a real sense. So on the topic of usury, the perversion of the end that money was created for would be the all consuming desire to accumulate money with the use of money. And that would be, I guess, the definition of usury. I find it interesting that the blending of animalistic characteristics comes in not simply with Geryon, but also with the Scrovegni fellow, the one who speaks to Dante. He twists his mouth and contorts it and then sticks his tongue out like a bull licking itself, licking its, its face. And so you have again the reduction of the human to the, the animalistic thanks to this absolutely rabid desire for money in a totally disproportionate way.
- [96:23]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
You know, one thing I, I don't think I recognized until this read through is that the other souls that he could not tell their faces were back up with greed was another money based sin. He says in that canto too, that he can't tell their faces.
- [96:40]
Father Thomas Esposito
Nice.
- [96:40]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
And I thought about that when we were reading it.
- [96:43]
Father Thomas Esposito
That's a good, great connection.
- [96:45]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, it's something I'd like to think about more that he says it of those souls that are suffering from a disproportionate use of money. And now here again with usury, he can't tell their face. It's like they're, I think Musa in his commentary talks about that they are so consumed in material goods that they've lost their own identity. Like they're not really like a human anymore, they've just become something else. Something very. Well, I guess to tie it to this, to this circle, very unnatural, right? The, the rational animal has become something deeply unrational. You know, the, the beast that comes up, you know, he's, yeah, he's really interesting. What's, what's going on here? As you mentioned, you know, he's got, he's got this nice face. Yeah, he's got a nice face.
- [97:30]
Father Thomas Esposito
Yeah.
- [97:30]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Right. He's got a righteous man, but then he's got this kind of like grotesque serpentine slash furry body. And then obviously like the, the analog is very clear because he's got the nice face, but then he has a scorpion tail. And so this is a, a perfect picture of going into fraud. This is the beast that they're going to kind of ride down into the 9th or the 8th and 9th circle dealing with fraud. Right. The sins of the leopard it's interesting to me, though, because I. I did not have a good understanding of Greek mythology when I read this the first time. And what I find really fascinating here is that this character is pulled from Greek mythology and in no way, shape or form looks anything like this.
- [98:11]
Father Thomas Esposito
I noted that in commentary.
- [98:15]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah, he's the. If you know the 12 labors of Hercules, he's guarding the cattle. Now, he's an interesting character because he's one creature that basically has three bodies. Like, it's like three bodies that are connected to one another. So it's an interesting. But Dante completely kind of transliterates this mythological creature into something that is really tailored to his own poetic need right here. Because if you look up this creature in Greek mythology, this is not how he looks.
- [98:45]
Father Thomas Esposito
I immediately thought of Revelation 9 with the scorpion's tail, the servants of Satan who are stinging and combating. So he's doing as he typically does, this blending of the mythological and the Christian for his own purposes, as you said.
- [99:06]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Yeah. So, okay, so we've got the seventh circle. We started off with a river boiling in blood. We had tyrants. And then kind of proportionally, the souls are sunk in this river according to the degree that they engaged in violence towards others. Then we got violence towards self and kind of this kind of horrifying passage about the trees. And then we had the ones that almost have a violence towards goods and maybe their own goods. Right. That were crashing through the forest. Then we get the sands in which we have this violence against God. We have the blasphemers, we have the sodomites, we have the usurers, and this kind of suffering, a certain violence against God, but really a sterility of nature. Right. What is supposed to be natural in man, something has happened to it. It's been corrupted. It's become very sterile, you know, and that also might be, now that it occurs to me, it might be why Dante, the poet particularly used a pagan example of blasphemy, because then it aligns, because the other two sins in this area are both dealing with nature, not grace. And so he had to. He tied blasphemy into the natural not to grace, because then it aligns with the other two sins. So maybe. Maybe he's made it cleaner. Right, so any. Any kind of final thoughts, though, on the. On the seventh circle?
- [100:21]
Father Thomas Esposito
Don't do it. That's the. The basic exhortation for all these. These Kanti. It's. It's Dante at his psychological best, I think, with regard to the. The motives and The. The resultant fruit. The. The. The. The futility, the fruitlessness of the sins. I don't really have anything else beyond that.
- [100:51]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
No. That's very good. Well, Father, I really appreciate you coming on and guiding us through the seventh circle. I appreciate your comments and insights. Where can people find out, like, more about you and your work?
- [101:02]
Father Thomas Esposito
Well, our monastery website would be worth. Worth looking at. It's www.cistercian.org. we have a lovely church. It's a riveting story about our Hungarian founders here that you can read on our website. I have a couple books that are on Amazon. There are two volumes of letters that I've written to literary characters and biblical people and historical figures about topics of faith and culture. Those would be the main things, I guess. I write a monthly column for the Texas Catholic, our diocesan newspaper here in Dallas.
- [101:47]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
Wonderful. Well, Father, thank you again. We really appreciate it.
- [101:50]
Father Thomas Esposito
You're quite welcome, Deacon Harrison. This is a treat for me. It had been honestly a couple years since I had looked at Dante, so this was wonderful to renew my admiration for.
- [102:02]
Deacon Harrison Garlick
We appreciate you joining us. All right, everyone. Next week we are discussing Kantos 18 through 25, introducing the eighth circle of hell. And we'll be joined by a couple of my friends from clt, the classic learning test. In the meantime, Visit our website, thegreatbookspodcast.com where we have a guide to the Inferno. There's a lot of things you're like, well, why didn't you guys mention this? Why did you guys not mention that? There's a lot. There's a lot in the Inferno. It's another great book. And if it's a great book, that means you can come back to it time and time again. But we have more kind of a detailed look. If you want to go check out our guide on our website, check us out also on X and YouTube. And we will see you guys next week. Thank you.