We conclude Virgil's the Iniad today and as we've discussed,
Virgil is very much the anti Homer and So what the Iniad is,
it's really a response to the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Remember Homer believes that love is the unifying force of
the universe. It is a centre is what gives you
life. It's what gives you purpose and
hope for a virtual what matters is the idea of piety or
obedience to the gods and to your father.
And as we discussed, Virgil sets up a very stark contrast between
love and piety, where they are competing forces.
You cannot love and be pious at the same time.
And piety is ultimately the the main centralizing force of the
universe. If you are pious, if you obey
the gods, then the world will be right, because the gods have a
divine plan for the world. And in the case of the ENIAC, it
is the founding of the empire of Rome, which is Ieneas's mission
and purpose. And so our role, our
responsibility, our duty in life is just to follow this path of
the gods and then the world will be perfect, OK, This will the
the ENIAC will create the Roman Empire, which will then become
the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church will
rule for over 1000 years, OK, the Millennium.
And during this thousand years, it is a time of conformity of
second nation. And it is because in this time,
what is often referred to as a dark ages, Virgil becomes the
God of the Catholic Church, the central organizing force.
Why? Because every children, sorry,
every child of the elite memorizes the in the act.
And so every child perceives a world for the lens of the Iniat.
And So what happened is to destroy this empire.
A man will emerge to liberate the human imagination.
And his name, of course, is Dante, right?
And Dante will destroy the Roman Empire and the Catholic Church
with his masterpiece, Divine Comedy.
We will spend the rest of the semester reading the Divine
Comedy. It's not something you can read
by yourself. There's actually no point.
You know, if I just give it to you and it's like, go read it,
it will make no sense to you. We have to go through line by
line, word by word for you to understand the Divine Comedy
because not only is it poetry, but it's philosophy.
And what poets will tell you is that a poem is this truth told
with as few beautiful words as possible.
So it could just be a few lines, but it could take you a lifetime
to fully understand the true meaning of these lines.
And that is what the Divine Comedy is.
It's a very, it's an epic poem, but each paragraph, each sent,
each each line is a truth, an eternal truth onto itself.
OK, so we'll read Divine Comedy line by line and we'll try to
really understand it. But again, the point of this
class is not to tell you what the book great books are.
The the entire point of the class is to get you excited
about ending a journey that is great books that will that will
take your entire lifetime. OK, it will take your entire
lifetime to appreciate the the genius of these great books and
this class is is meant to be a starting point.
OK, so do not think at the end of of this class.
Oh, I've read homework, I've read virtual, I've read Dante,
so I know the great books. No, OK, this is just the
beginning. All right, so where we are in
the story of the Iniad is that Inias gets gets shipwrecked and
he becomes a a guest of Ditto, the queen of Carthage, and the
two fall in love. Ditto falls in love with the
fact that Ineos is not just a great warrior and very handsome,
but also because he's a great storyteller.
He tells her the story of the fall of Troy and the two fall in
love, and Ditto has his burning passion for Ineos and the gods
and the gods. Basically, Juno wants to thwart
the possibility of the rise of the Roman Empire, and so she
conspires to have Ditto and Indians consummate their passion
for each other and then they get married.
But then Joel, the king of gods, finds out about this and says,
no, no, no, this is not part of the plan.
It is is not supposed to fall in love with Ditto, stay in
Carthage and build the Carthage Empire.
He's supposed to go to Rome. So he sends Mercury, the
messenger of the gods, down to Inez and tells him, hey, man,
what are you doing? This is not your duty.
Do your duty. OK, so this is where we are in
the story. OK, so let us read.
OK, Ivory could. You read.
Please. Mercury lashes out at once.
You So now you lay foundation stones for the soaring walls of
Carthage, building her gorgeous city doting on your wife, blind
to your own realm, oblivious to your fate.
The king of the gods, whose power sways earth and sky.
He is the one who sends me down from brilliant Olympus, bearing
commands for you through the racing winds.
What are you plotting now? Wasting time in Libya, would
hope, misleads you so if such a glorious destiny cannot fire
your spirit, if you will not shoulder the task for your own
fame, at least. Remember, Eskini is rising into
his prime. The hopes you lodge in Elias,
your only heir. OK, all right.
So Eskinias, of course, is Elias's father and Elias is the
son. OK, who will inherit the legacy?
You owe him Italy's realm, the land of Rome.
This order still on his lips, the God vanished from sight into
empty air. Then Aeneas was truly
overwhelmed by the vision. Stunned, his hackles bristle
with fear. His voice chokes in his throat.
He yearns to be gone, to desert this land he loves,
thunderstruck by the warnings. Jupiter's command.
But what can you do? What can you dare say now to the
Queen in all her fury and win her over?
Where to where to begin with opening thoughts racing here?
They're probing his options, turning to this plan, that plan
torn in two. Until as wits end, this answer
seems the best. OK so again Virgio is the anti
Homer and what I mean by that is that if Homer were writing this
then what Homer would emphasize is how emotional, emotionally
conflicted it is is because he loves.
Ditto. He does not want to go for
Homer. Love is above the gods, and what
a human is, is someone who aspires to love.
And when we divide comedy, what we will discover is this.
The reason why is because God is love, OK?
And there's an aspect of God in us, a candle that strives to
return to the light. And so we seek love.
And so for homework, doing a choice between going to Rome and
finding a great empire or staying in Carthage and being
with Ditto, obviously you choose Ditto because that is the path
to God, right? And that's what happened in the
Odyssey, where Odysseus had an opportunity to stay with Calypso
and have and live forever. But he chooses to return to
Penelope. And when he returns Penelope,
Penelope asked him, will you ever leave me again?
And he says never again. Why leave you?
Because this is my home. Love is where my heart is.
OK, so this is the so, but what the conflict is in India is is
OK, I will get the hell out of here.
I've reason with fear because what I fear most is the anger of
the gods. What I must do is be loyal to
the gods and heed their command. So screw love, I don't need
this. But there's a problem, which is
how do I actually tell Ditto, right?
That's a conflict. Not Should I leave?
Ditto. But like, how do I get out of
here without her bitching at me? All right.
And So what does he decide to do?
He decides I won't tell her. Yeah, that's it.
I'll pretend this didn't happen. And then at night, I will just
sneak away. And then, well, who cares what
happens afterwards? All right?
So this is. So the thing to notice is this
is not human, OK? There is nothing human about
Ineos. What he is is he's he's like a
walking phallus almost. He's like James Bond, man.
You know, he goes around, does his mission, sleeps with a lot
of girls and then runs off. All right, so let us continue.
I agree. He summons Nathius Surguestus,
staunch Cirrusus Gibbs mortars fit out the fleet, but not a
word much to the cruise on shore, all tackles set to sail.
But the cause for our new course.
You keep it secret. Yet he himself, since the O who
means the world to him, knows nothing, never dreaming.
Such a powerful love could be uprooted.
He will try to approach her, find a moment to break the news
gently, a way to soften the blow that he must leave.
All shipmates snap to commands, glad to do his orders.
True, but queen, who can delude a lover, soon caught wind of a
plot afoot, the first to sense the Trojans are on the move.
She fears everything now, even with all secure rumor, vicious
as ever, brings her word. Already distraught, The Trojans.
Sorry, sorry. You know what?
Sorry. Are rigging out their galleys,
gearing to set sail. She rages in, She rages in
helpless frenzy, blazing through the entire city, raving like
some may may not driven wild when the women shake the sacred
emblems, when the cyclic orgy shouts of Bacchus fire her on,
and Cithoron, Cithoron echoes round with Madden midnight
cries. OK, alright, so certain things
to notice. OK?
Bacchus is the God of creativity, of God of creativity
for the Greeks. So there are actually 2 gods of
creativity in the Greek world. There's Apollo and there's
Dionysus. Bacchus, OK, Apollo is the God
of logical creativity, where you sit down calmly and then you
write down your thoughts, OK, that's a polo.
And you have Backus, who's the God of emotional rapturous
creativity, where you get drunk, you have a lot of sex, and then
you express yourself, OK. And for the Greeks, these are
two aspects of creativity that you both need in order to fully
achieve your human potential. Yes, you need to be engaged in
meditation, in rational analysis, but you also need to
fully explore the possibilities of your emotions to just let go,
to be crazy, to be frenzy, OK? And what Virgil is saying is
that we must that the Backus aspect is actually the worst
type of emotion because it leads you into madness.
OK all right, so could kill anything.
I agree. I'll ask you, Sails Anus, before
he said a word. So, you traitor, you really
believed you'd keep this a secret?
This great outrage Seal away in silence from my shores.
Can nothing hold you back? Not our love, not the pledge
when sealed with our right hands, not even the thought of
Ditto doom to a cruel death. OK.
Stop. OK, All right, So this lie not
the pledge once sealed or right hands.
This is an illusion, of course, to right here, OK, This is an
illusion, of course, to the Odyssey where Odysseus and
Penelope meet again for the first time in 20 years.
And Penelope basically says, Odysseus, convince me that you
actually know my husband. And Odysseus says, well, because
of this ornament that Penelope gave to Odysseus, right?
And that ornament, of course, is the pledge sealed with the love
for each other. And this pledge, this memory,
this bond is what carries them for eternity so that even though
they are a great distance from each other, their hearts are
still conjoined together. And So what Diddle says is, does
this pledge mean nothing to you, Inez?
Inez, of course, is like, it's a word.
It's nothing, all right. What matters is you're oath to
the gods. What matters is your loyalty to
the gods. I I keep going.
Why labour to rigor fleet When the winters draw to risk the
deep wind, the north wind's closing in.
You crawl heartless, Even if you are not pursuing alien fields
and unknown homes, Even if ancient Troy were still standing
still. Who's sail for Troy across such
heaving seas? You're running away from me.
Oh, I pray you, by these tears, by the faith in your right hand.
What else have I left myself in all my pain?
By our wedding vows, the marriage we began.
If I deserve some decency from you now, if anything mine has
ever won your heart. Pity.
A great house about about to fall.
I pray you, if prayers have any place, reject this scheme of
yours. Thanks to you, the African
tribes, nobody and warlords hate me.
Even my own tyrants rise against me.
Thanks to you, my sense of honour is gone.
My one and only pathway to the stars, the renown I once held
dear. In whose hands, my guest, do you
leave me here to meet my death? OK, so two things to remember,
OK? The first thing is that in the
Odyssey, the journey where it ends, the destination is towards
home, to be with Penelope again, to be a family again, OK?
And that is the end of this epic journey.
But in the Iniat, it's the reverse, where you start off
with a relationship with love and then you have to abandon
love in order to go on this epic journey to to found the empire
of Rome. OK, so you see how it's it's
inverse now the Odyssey, the entire purpose of your life is
to return home and to be in love, to fall in love.
OK, but in the in the ad, love is what you have to abandon in
order to fully fulfil your destiny.
OK, that's number one. Number 2, is this what Dale is
saying is thanks to you, I've lost everything.
OK, so love, my love for you means I have to abandon my
pride, my reputation, my own people.
Well, love, Oh, sorry things of my love for you.
I've become nothing, OK? And this inverses the inversion
of what happened in the Odyssey, where because Odysseus sought
glory and fame in war, he became traumatized with PTSD.
He saw the horrors of war where innocent people, innocent
families were destroyed because of of war.
And I traumatized him. And what allowed him to
resurrect himself would allow him to escape his trauma.
And we build a sense of identity is going home and finding love
again. And this love is able to
resurrect his worldview and give him the courage and the power to
fight on. OK, so this is the opposite
message of the Odyssey. OK, All right, let's let's.
So now, OK, so Ditto is saying to and he is you're abandoning
me. You tricked me.
I fell in love with you, and now you're abandoning me.
And this is and it is response. And and the human thing to do
would be to show pity, right? And say to Ditto, Ditto, I'm
really sorry for what happened, but let's go together.
Or maybe Ditto. I'll come back for you.
OK. Instead, he says the worst thing
possible. All right, can you read it?
Guest, that's all that remains of husband now.
But why do I linger on until my brother Pragmali and batters
down my walls or Ibis drags me off his slave?
If only you'd left a baby in my arms, our child, before you
deserted me. Some little Aeneas playing about
our halls, whose features at least would bring you back to
me. In spite of all, I would not
feel so totally devastated, so destroyed.
The Queen stopped, but he warned by Jupiter now his gaze, health,
study, fought to master the torment in his heart.
At last, he ventured. In his heart is not sadness, but
anger. OK, keep ongoing.
At last, he ventured a few words.
I you could have done me so many kindnesses, and you could count
them all. I shall never deny what you
deserve, my Queen. Never regret my memories of
Ditto. Not while I can recall myself
and draw the breath of life. I'll state my case in a few
words. I never dreamed I'd keep my
flight a secret. Don't imagine that.
Nor did I once extend a bridegroom's torch or enter into
a marriage packed with you. OK.
So what he's saying is I we didn't, we did not have a
marriage path. OK, we're not married.
This is not true. They constipate their
relationship and everyone witnesses.
So they are married, but he's saying we're not really married.
Keep on going. If the Face had left me free to
live my life, to arrange my own affairs of my own free will,
Troy is the city. First of all, that I'd safeguard
Troy and all that's left of my people, whom I cherish.
The grand palace of Pryam would stand once more with my own
hands. I would fortify a second Troy to
house my Trojans in defeat. But but not now.
Grenian, Apollo's Oracle says that I must seize on Italy's
noble land. His listening lots say Italy.
There lies my love. There lies my homeland.
Now, if you, a Venetian, fix your eyes on Carthage, a Libyan
stronghold, tell me, why do you grudge the Trojans their new
homes on Italian soil? What is the crime if we seek far
off kingdoms, too? All right, so.
What you're saying is this Ditto.
It were up to me. I wouldn't say.
I wouldn't say it would be either.
OK? It were up to me.
I would be back in Troy, dying and fighting and dying for what
I truly love, which is a city of Troy.
Now that I've lost Troy, I must build an empire.
You have your own empire, Carthage.
Why stop me from being my own empire in Italy?
OK, So what matters is that love.
What matters is power. That's why we live.
That's why we exist. To seek more power.
Love gets in the way, and therefore love must be
discarded. You, Ditto.
I do love you, but you're in my way.
Therefore get out of my way. All right, All right.
So now Ditto is distraught. She fell in love with Imeus and
broke her vow to her former husband, Zicchius.
And now she knows her people don't respect her anymore, and
she knows that the neighboring warlords have contempt for her
and they might even attack her because previously she rebuffed
their advances, so they feel insulted.
But at the same time, she's still desperate, in love with
Ineos. And she knows he can't.
He can't. She cannot stop him from leaving
for Italy, and so she decides eventually that her only
solution is suicide. But she has a sister, Anna, who
will keep watch over her. OK, so she did also a very
elaborate ploy to kill herself, right?
Can you read Ivory? And now what shall I do?
Make a mockery of myself? Go back to my old suitors?
Tempt them to try again? Beg the Numidians?
Grovel. Plead for a husband, though time
and again I score into what they're like, would then trail
the Trojan ships bend to the Trojans every last demand.
So pleased are they with all the help, the relief I lend them
once and memory of my service past stands firm and grateful
minds. And even if I were willing,
would the Trojans allow me to bore their proud ships?
A woman they hate. Poor loss.
Full. Can't you sense it?
Grasp it yet The treachery of Lamedens breed.
What now? Do I take flight alone,
consorting with crews of Trojan horsemen in their triumph, or
follow them out with all my troops of tyrants throwing the
decks? Yes.
Hard as it was to uproot them once from Tyre, how can I force
them back to sea once more, Command them to spread their
sails to the winds? No, no, die.
You deserve it, and your pain with the sword.
You, my sister, you were the first one over by my tears to
pile these swords on my shoulders, mad as I was to throw
me into my enemy's arms. If only I'd been free to live my
life untested in marriage, free of guilt as some wild beasts
untouched by pangs like these. I broke the faith.
I soar to the ashes of Sagius. Wait, so again, the idea here is
for Homer, love is what gives you strength.
Love is what allows you to resurrect yourself.
OK, so the metaphor is love is the the bowl of Odysseus, right?
Where this bowl Odysseus has not touched for 20 years.
But the moment he touches it, it gives him renewed strength, and
he's able to assemble it very quickly and then shoot the
target. OK, that's the power of love.
But here in the INIAC, love is the opposite, where by falling
in love, you disintegrate as a person.
So when we first meet Ditto, she's a proud queen.
And now she is a complete mess. She is emotionally falling
apart. She's been driven into madness.
She's like, should I go and beg the Trojans to let me on their
ship and be a slave girl? OK, so it is the complete fall
of a queen, OK, from a queen to essentially to a slave girl.
She's seriously considering being a slave girl?
I mean, it just means being near Ineos.
And ultimately, she decides, no, my only option is to die.
OK. All right.
So she is contemplating killing herself.
And the gods know this. And So what they do is they tell
Ineos in a dream, get out of here, because we don't want you
seeing. Ditto.
Kill yourself. OK.
Can you read? Such terrible grief kept
breaking from her heart as Zinnias slept in peace on his
ship's high stern. OK so inner slept in peace,
meaning he doesn't care. You understand he was never in
love with her, she was just a plaything.
Keep on going. Bent on departing now all
tackles set to sail. And now in his dreams, it came
again. The God, his phantom.
The same features shine and clear like mercury head to foot.
The voice, the glow, the golden hair, the bloom of youth on his
limbs and his voice rang out with warnings once again.
Son of the goddess, how can you sleep so soundly in such a
crisis? Can't you see the dangers
closing around you now, madman? Can't you hear the West wind
ruffling to speed you on? That woman plot spawns her plots
mulling over some desperate outrage in her heart, lashing
her surging range. She's bent on death.
Why not flee headlong? Flee headlong while you can.
You'll soon see the waves and chaos of ships, lethal torches
flaring, the whole coast ablaze. If now a new dawn breaks and
finds you still malingering on these shores, up with you now.
Enough delay. Woman's a thing that's always
changing, shifting like the wind.
With that, he vanished into the Black Knight.
All right, so Amias is running away, OK?
And Diddle has resolved to kill herself.
And this is her speech right before she kills herself.
OK, Can you read that for me? You, son, whose fire scan all
works of the earth, and you, Juno the witness, midwife to my
agonies, he could greeted by nightly shrieks at city
crossroads. And you, you avenging furies and
gods of dying, Ditto. Hear me turn your power my way,
attend my sorrows. I deserve your mercy, Hear my
prayers. If that curse of the earth much
reach his haven, labor on to landfall.
If Joe's in the Faith's command and the boundary stone is fixed
still, let him be plagued in war by a nation proud in arms, torn
from his warders, wrenched from Elias's embrace.
Let him grovel for help and watch his people die a shameful
death. And then, once he's bowed down
to an unjust peace, may he never enjoy his realm and the light he
yearns for. Never let him die before his
day, unburied on some desolate beach.
That is my prayer, my final cry. I pour it out with my own
lifeblood and you, my Tyrians, Harry with hatred, all his line,
his race to come. Make that offering to my ashes.
Send it down below. No love between our peoples
ever. No packs of peace come rising up
for my bones. You Avengers still unknown to
stalk those Trojan settlers. Hunt with fire and iron now or
in time to come, whenever the power is yours.
Shore clash with shore, Sea against sea and sword, sword
against sword. This is my curse.
War between all our peoples, all their children.
Endless war. Endless war.
OK, All right, So the Emiyad is first and foremost political
propaganda, All right. And so Rome's epic war is with
Carthage. Rome and Carthage fought for
about 100 years, the control of the Mediterranean.
Ultimately, Rome will triumph over Carthage and they will
destroy Carthage as a civilization.
They will burn Carthage down. And today we have no memory of
Carthage being so complete was the destruction.
And Virgil is trying to explain to us why this had to happen.
And it had to happen because Ditto put a curse on Rome and
force her people to go to war with Rome.
So it's not that Rome was vicious and savage in destroying
Carthage. It was like the Carthaginians
had a curse. They had a mission to avenge
Ditto. OK, so let me explain to you how
this publicaner works in Carthage.
Understanding of Ditto. She's the founder.
She's the queen of Carthage. What happened was that, you
know, she, her husband was killed in Phoenicia.
So she and some refugees sought refuge in northern Africa.
So we found a city of Carthage and they worked really hard to
build a city. And she was very attractive.
So she won the attention of some local warlords and they demanded
her hand in marriage. And her response was to kill
herself. And by killing herself that her
sacrifice embolden her people to build a great city.
But also it won the respect of the local warlords as well.
And from then on everyone understood the Carthaginians as
a free and proud people who would rather die for the liberty
than than become a slave. OK, so that's the Carthaginian
understanding of Ditto. Here in the iniad, it is almost
the reverse, where Ditto Ditto's love for Ineos becomes a poison.
It poisons her soul, and it leads her to poison her people
as well. And rather than give them
freedom, she enslaves them into a mission to avenge her.
OK, so it's basically inversion, right?
So that's what the Indian is doing.
It's inverting Homer, but it's also inverting history to serve
the blog purposes of Rome. All right, all right, so we come
to the ending of the ENIAC. So with the, with the sort of
Ditto what what what Virgil is doing is inverting the story of
the Odyssey. Now we come to the ending of the
Iliad and here Virgil is going to invert the story of the
Iliad. OK, remember we call what
happened the Iliad where Achilles tricks Patroclus into
sacrificing himself and this allows Achilles an excuse to
enter the battlefield against Hector.
He kills Hector and he believes that this is the height, the
apex of his glory, but instead it causes him in to fall into a
deep depression. It's really Prion promisingly
willingness to forgive him because of his love for Hector
that frees Achilles from his guilt and the two Achilles and
Prion cry together and they become friends because of this.
OK, so the Iliad is fundamentally a story of the
curse of power, the evil power and the ability of love to both
redeem and to save. What Virgil's going to do is
take the story of the Iliac and invert it.
OK, so it so it ends actually with with an analogy to the
battle between Achilles and Hector.
OK, so in the Iliac it's between Achilles and Hector, but here
it's going to be between Ilias and Turnus.
OK, So what happened is that Ineus lands in Italy and the
Latin tribes see Ineus as his great hero and the king there
Latinus marries his daughter to Ineus.
But the wife, for whatever reason, like the woman in the in
the Indian, all all the villains OK, the the wife, the queen has
already promised her daughter to turn US, who is another warlord.
And so it starts off a war between the Trojans and Chernus.
OK. And ultimately this leads to a
final conflict of great battle between Indians and Chernus.
OK. So this this is the very ending
of the Indian OK OK. Can you read?
I read. As he hangs back, the fatal
spear of Amia streaks on, spotting a lucky opening.
He had flown from a distance, all his might and mane rocks
heaved by a catapult pounding city ramparts.
Never stormed so loudly, never such a shattering bolt of
Thunder crashing forth like a black whirlwind.
Turning on, that spear flies on with his weight of iron death to
Pierce of the round shield with his seven plys, and right at the
thick of turning to his thigh it whizzes through.
It strikes home, and the blow drops great Turnus, and the blow
drops great Turnus down to the ground, batter down on his bent
knees. The Rotilians spring up with a
groan, and the hillsides round grow back, groan back, and the
tall Groves far and wide resound with the long drawn moan.
Turnus lowered his eyes and reached with like with his with
his right hand and begged a suppliant.
I deserve it all. No mercy, please, Turns his
pleaded. Seize your moment now, or if
some care for a parent's grief can touch you still, I pray you,
you had such a father in old antrises.
Pity Adonis in his old age and send me back to my own people,
or if you would prefer, send them my dead body stripped of
life here, the Victorian vanquished.
I stretch my hands to you, so the men in lithium have seen me
in defeat. Lavinia is your bride.
Go no further down the road of hatred.
OK, all right, all right. OK, So again, this is rewriting
of the battle between Hector and Achilles.
But in this battle, it is Hector who wins, and Achilles is
basically begging for mercy. And what's really interesting is
that to beg for mercy, Chernis basically uses the words of
Priam from the Iliad, right? Remember what Prime says to
Achilles is I've kissed your hand.
Have mercy for me. Look at my face.
Remember of your father, Achilles.
Remember your father Pelias, OK, Same exact words, right?
Care for a parent's grieve, OK? And I stretch my hands to you,
right? So, so, so basically virtuous
plagiarizing homework, but he's plagiarizing a way as to invert
and subvert Homer. OK, so at this point, Inez is
drawn to pity, right? Because his great enemy Churnus
has submitted himself before him.
So in his heart, he's like, you know what?
I've defeated him. He's been destroyed, he's lost
space, he's lost great ability. I didn't let him go.
I've won, OK. And that's what he wants to do.
He just wants to let him go. But this is the very ending, OK?
This is the very ending of the iniad.
And the ending is surprising because from for many scholars,
they read this, they're like, this is not an end.
This is too abrupt. And they think like Virgil was
not able to finish the ENIAC. But what I'll show you is that
no, you're reading the the ENIAC improperly, incorrectly.
We do not believe this is the full ending.
OK? This is exactly the ending.
OK, Can you read? I read.
Aeneas, ferocious in armor, stood there still, shifting his
gaze and held his sword arm back, holding himself back to as
Turnus's words began to sway him more and more when old ones he
caught sight of the faithful sword belt of palace swept over
Turnus's shoulder, gleaming with shining studs in his new by
heart. Wait, sorry.
Palace. Palace is the version of
Patroclus. Remember how Patroclus died and
that enraged Achilles? Well, Palace.
Is a friend of Ineus who fell in battle to Turnus and Turnus to
celebrate his victory over Palace, stole the sword belt of
Palace. OK, so and Ineus recognizes
this. Keep on going, young Palace,
whom Turnus had overpowered, taken down with a wound, and now
his shoulder flaunted his enemy's battle emblem like a
trophy Ineus. Soon his eyes drink in that
plunder keepsake of his savage, of his own savage grief, flaring
up in fury, terrible in his rage, he cries, decked in the
spoils who strips when 1 I loved escaped my clutches.
Never Palace strikes this blow. Palace sacrifices you now, makes
you pay, makes you pay the price with your own guilty blood.
In the same breath, blazing with wrath, he plants his iron sword
held deep into Zenemies heart, Turnus his limbs when slimp and
the chill of death. His light breath fled with a
groan of outrage, down to the shades below.
And that's it. This is the ending of the INIAC.
And again, scholars are confused by this.
Like how? How could the epic end like
this? It's a very long epic, 24 books
and it ends with the death of Turnus and nothing more.
And it's confusing because scholars and literal critics are
taught to believe that a good book has an epiphany and a
catharsis. OK, epiphany, catharsis and a
resolution. Basically, a character
recognizes himself and changes for the better.
It's almost like a death and letting go of the pass.
And so scholars read this and like they're completely
confused. Where is the epiphany?
Where's the catharsis? Where's the resolution?
And the answer is because you're misreading the iniad.
First and foremost, it is a work of political propaganda.
So how has Inias changed as a person?
Well, the change is this. Previously, whenever Ieneas has
a doubt, OK, OK, Like, for example, he is changing his
emotions. Each time this happened
previously, the gods had to intervene, right?
So remember how Ieneas is back in Troy and he's witnessed the
killing of his king Priam, and he's really angry.
And then he sees Helen and he wants to kill Helen because he
understands that Helen is the cause of all the death and
destruction in Troy. And he wants to, like, just kill
her. And then what happens?
His mother, Venus intervenes and says, no, Ienus, you must stop.
There's a mission for you. Go complete your mission.
And then Ienus is like, fine, mother, I'll I'll go home.
And then when he goes home and he sees her, his son Elias, he
wants to return and fight the Greeks because he doesn't.
He wants to protect the city. And then Elias, there's aside
from the gods, Elias. His here is on fire.
OK, It's an image. And this tells Elias, no, your
son is destined for great things.
You must fulfil the mission again.
When Inez is with Ditto, he would just want to stay, stay
with Ditto and build up Carthage.
And so Jupiter has to send a messenger, Mercury, to tell him
no Inez, no go to Italy. OK, so each time that Inez went
off mission or he has his own ideas, the guys have to
intervene. What makes this an epiphany, A
catharsis revolution, is the fact that here, when Inez wants
so mercy, when in his heart he's like he This is a pitiful man.
It gives me no pleasure to kill him.
It gives me no glory and honor to kill this pathetic man he
recognizes. No, I must kill him because it
is a duty. This is the IT is the will of
the gods. Now he has become fully pious
and that is the epiphany. OK, I must abandoned all pity, I
must abandoned all emotions, I must abandoned my own soul if I
am to serve the gods. He is now the perfect soldier.
And that's why Virgil wrote the iniad, because it is a piece of
propaganda. It's a piece of brainwashing,
indoctrination, where you read it and you go on the same
journey as Inias and step by step you let go of everything
that makes you weak. Your humanity, your willingness,
your desire to love someone, throw it out.
Your pity, your sense of decency.
Get rid of it, OK? And what you do, once you pledge
yourself of all human emotions, then you can serve the gods
completely. You are now fully pious, and as
such, you can now complete your mission.
All right, so that's the power of the INIAC.
You didn't know what's happening, but as you memorize
it, because back then, the way to educate yourself was just
memorized. Memorized the poetry.
You became Inias himself, OK. You transformed yourself from
someone who was a human to someone who is now basically a
robot. OK Does that make sense?
Any questions? Yeah.
Yeah, I think it's true that
like Aeneas, he didn't fail embassy towards Turnus because
he killed him him later. But I I I mean, I think that is
still because like he loved palace, his friend who was
killed by Turnus. So that's also kind of feeling,
right. That's an emotion that and
that's contributes to Turnus death.
So isn't that different from what you said about maybe Ienius
being a robot and fulfilling his fate?
OK, yeah, All right. That's that's a good point.
OK, so your point is, well, Ienius loves his friend Palace,
and as a result, it's this love for Palace that drives Ienius to
kill Chenius, right? That's fine, that makes sense.
But go back to the Iliad, right? Where Achilles is saddened and
anger by the death of Metropolis and he kills Hector, right?
But then what happens? He falls into deep depression
because in his heart he recognizes that you don't avenge
someone you love by killing someone.
That's not how the universe works.
You, if you truly love someone, you do not turn the memory of
that person into hatred and violence.
You celebrate the person's life by being open and generous with
others. OK, And this is something that
Dante will will explain. This is a really hard idea to
understand. OK, but if you truly love
someone, love means that you cannot do something evil.
Love is pure good. If you're using evil, it needs
you actually. Don't love that person, OK?
Doesn't make sense to you. If you truly love palace as a
person, you will not use him as an excuse to kill someone, all
right. Same thing with with with the
Iliad, where Achilles thought he loved the chocolates, but he's
actually using chocolates as an excuse to kill Hephor.
And in his heart he knows that. All right, this is really
confusing to understand, but when when we define comedy, it
will make sense to you. All right.
OK All right. Any more questions, guys?
OK, Yeah, so that's a great question.
And it shows you how basically in this world, this is a world
of anti love because you've been you've received an education in
utility, right, obedience, compliance, but what you have
not received is an education in love.
What is love? How do we know we're in love?
What draws us to love? OK.
And that's what the great books are about.
The great books you read Homer and Dante, they really think
deeply about what love is because in love is where God is
all right. OK, so so again, by by asking
this question what what what you're really doing is revealing
the sort of education you've you've received when you're
mine. You think that what is right is
one of utility and where when when when 1 of compliance.
If palace my best friend died, then I need to seek vengeance
against the person who killed him.
OK, but I know it's hard to understand.
But that is. But you've been brainwashed to
think that that's not actually true.
If your best friend were to be killed, someone else to
demonstrate love to your best friend, you would actually
forgive that person. OK.
And I I I know this is a hard idea to understand, but when we
read the Divine Comedy, it'll become more obvious.
OK. OK, any, any more questions,
guys? All right, so let me explain the
plans for the Divine Comedy, which we will end the semester
with, OK? So there'll be 4 lectures on the
Divine Comedy, so I'll be doing a lecture every two weeks, all
right? And then for the other classes,
we'll just be reading the Divine Comedy line by line.
By line, right? OK All right, So what?
We start the Divine Comedy on Friday.
All right. Very good.
Do you understand? OK, It's very hard.
I didn't understand. OK, but it's hard.
It's hard. I didn't understand just because
I had to say this. But but but but, you've been
brainwashed.