Hell

Halfway through my life, I - Dante - got lost in a dense forest. Scary wild animals around - allegories of vices; nowhere to go. And here is a ghost, which turned out to be the shadow of my beloved ancient Roman poet Virgil. I ask him for help. He promises to lead me away from here on a journey through the afterlife so that I can see Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. I am ready to follow him.

Yes, but am I capable of such a trip? I froze and hesitated. Virgil rebuked me, saying that Beatrice herself (my late lover) descended to him from Paradise to Hell and asked me to be my guide on wandering through the grave. If so, then we must not hesitate, we need determination. Lead me, my teacher and mentor!

Above the entrance to Hell there is an inscription that takes away all hope from those who enter. We entered. Here, right behind the entrance, miserable souls moaning who did not create during life, neither good nor evil. Next is the Acheron River. Through her, the ferocious Charon carries the dead on a boat. We are with them. “But you are not dead!” Charon yells angrily at me. Virgil pacified him. Sailed. A roar is heard from afar, a wind blows, the flame flashed. I lost my feelings ...

The first circle of Hell is Limb. Here the souls of unbaptized babies and glorious pagans languish - warriors, sages, poets (including Virgil). They do not suffer, but only grieve that they, as non-Christians, have no place in Paradise. Virgil and I joined the great poets of antiquity, the first of which is Homer. Gradually walked and talked about unearthly.

At the descent into the second circle of the underworld, the demon Minos determines which sinner to which place Hell should be cast down. He reacted to me in the same way as Charon, and Virgil pacified him as well. We saw the souls of voluptuous carried away by a hellish whirlwind (Cleopatra, Elena the Beautiful, etc.). Among them is Francesca, and here is inseparable from her lover. Immeasurable mutual passion led them to a tragic death. Deeply compassion for them, I again lost my feelings.

In the third circle, the bestial dog Cerberus is rampant. It barked at us, but Virgil pacified him too. Here, souls sinning in gluttony, lying in the mud, under heavy rain, sinned. Among them is my countryman, Florentine Cacco. We talked about the fate of our hometown. Chacco asked me to remind him of living people when I returned to earth.

The demon guarding the fourth circle, where executors and scammers are executed (among the latter there are many clergy - popes, cardinals) - Plutos. Virgil also had to besiege him to get rid of. From the fourth they went down to the fifth circle, where angry and lazy, mired in the swamps of the Stygian lowland, are tormented. We approached a tower.

This is a whole fortress, there is a vast reservoir around it, in the canoe there is a rower, a demon Phlegius. After another hassle, we sat down to him, swimming. Some sinner tried to cling to the side, I scolded him, and Virgil shoved him off. Before us is the infernal city of Diet. Every dead evil prevents us from entering it. Virgil, leaving me (oh, scared one!), Went to find out what was the matter, returned anxious, but reassured.

And here also the infernal furies appeared before us, threatening. A heavenly messenger, who suddenly appeared, rescued their anger. We entered Diet. Everywhere the flame-filled tombs from which the moans of heretics are heard. On a narrow road we make our way between the tombs.

A mighty figure suddenly grew out of one tomb. This is Farinata, my ancestors were his political opponents. In me, hearing my conversation with Virgil, he guessed the dialect of his countryman. A proud man, he seemed to despise the whole abyss of Hell. We argued with him, and then another head stuck out of a neighboring tomb: yes this is the father of my friend Guido! He imagined that I was dead and that his son also died, and he fell down in despair. Farinata, calm him down; Guido is alive!

Near the descent from the sixth circle to the seventh, above the grave of heretic pope Anastasius, Virgil explained to me the arrangement of the remaining three circles of Hell, tapering downward (to the center of the earth), and what sins in which belt of which circle are punished.

The seventh circle is compressed by mountains and guarded by a demoba-demon Minotaur, who roared menacingly at us. Virgil yelled at him, and we hastened to move away. They saw a boiling stream, in which tyrants and robbers boil, and from the shore, centaurs shoot them from bows. The centaur Ness became our guide, talked about the executed rapists and helped cross the boiling river.

Around spiky thickets without greens. I broke some branch, and black blood grew out of it, and the trunk groaned. It turns out that these bushes are the souls of suicides (rapists over their own flesh). The hellish birds of the Harpies peck at them, the running dead trample past, inflicting unbearable pain on them. One trampled bush asked me to collect broken branches and return them to him. It turned out that the unfortunate is my fellow countryman. I fulfilled his request, and we went on. We see - the sand, flakes of fire fly from above, singeing sinners who shout and moan - all but one: he lies silently. Who is it? King Kapaney, a proud and gloomy atheist, battled by the gods for his obstinacy. He is still true to himself: either silent, or loudly curses the gods. “You are your own tormentor!” - shouted him Virgil ...

But to meet us, tormented by fire, the souls of new sinners are moving. Among them, I hardly recognized my highly respected teacher Brunetto Latini. He is among those who are guilty of a penchant for same-sex love. We got into a conversation. Brunetto predicted that glory awaits me in the living world, but there will be many hardships that must be resisted. Teacher bequeathed to me to cherish his main work in which he lives - “Treasure”.

And three more sinners (the same sin) are dancing in the fire. All Florentines, formerly respected citizens. I talked with them about the misfortunes of our hometown. They asked to convey to the living compatriots that I saw them. Then Virgil led me to a deep failure in the eighth circle. A hellish beast will bring us down there. He is already creeping into us from there.

This is the motley tailed Gerion. While he is preparing for the descent, there is still time to look at the last martyrs of the seventh circle - loan sharks, toiling in a whirlwind of burning dust. Multi-colored wallets with different emblems hang from their necks. I did not talk to them. Let's hit the road! We sit down with Virgil riding on Gerion and - oh, horror! - smoothly fly into failure, to new torments. Came down. Gerion flew away immediately.

The eighth circle is divided into ten moats, called the Cloaks. In the first moat, women procurers and seducers are executed; in the second, flatterers. Horned demons brutally scourge the fellow soldiers, flatterers sit in the liquid mass of stench feces - the stench is unbearable. By the way, one whore was punished here not because she was fornication, but because she flattered her lover, saying that she was good with him.

The next moat (third sinus) is lined with stone, mottled with round holes, from which stick out the burning legs of high-ranking clergymen who traded church posts. Their heads and torsos are clamped by the bores of a stone wall. Their successors, when they die, will also in their place flutter with flaming legs, completely pushing their predecessors into the stone. That's what Papa Orsini explained to me, at first mistaking me for his successor.

In the fourth bosom, soothsayers, stargazers, sorceresses are tormented. Their necks are twisted so that, sobbing, they do not irrigate their breasts with tears, but the butt. I myself sobbed when I saw such mockery of people, and Virgil shamed me; sin to pity sinners! But he sympathetically told me about his fellow countrywoman, the soothsayer Manto, whose name was named Mantova - the birthplace of my glorious mentor.

The fifth moat is poured with boiling resin, into which the devil Sinners, black, winged, throw bribes and make sure that they do not protrude, or else they will hook the sinner with hooks and finish them in the most cruel way. The devils have nicknames: Malicious, Winged, etc. Part of the further path we will have to go in their terrible company. They grimace, show tongues, their chef backwards made a deafening obscene sound. I have never heard that before! We walk along the ditch with them, the sinners dive into the pitch - they hide, and one hesitates, and they immediately pulled him out with hooks, about to torment, but they allowed us to talk to him before. The poor fellow lulled the Vigilance vigilance and ducked back - they didn’t manage to catch him. Annoyed devils fought among themselves, two fell into the pitch. In the confusion, we hastened to retire, but it wasn’t there! They are flying after us. Virgil, catching me, barely managed to run into the sixth bosom, where they are not masters. Here the hypocrites languish under the weight of lead gilded clothes. And here is the crucified (nailed to the ground with stakes) Jewish high priest who insisted on the execution of Christ. He is trampled underfoot by heavy hypocrites.

The transition was difficult: in a rocky way - into the seventh bosom. Thieves live here, bitten by monstrous poisonous snakes. From these bites, they crumble to dust, but immediately recover in their guise. Among them, Vanni Fucci, robbed the sacristy and blamed the other. The man is rude and blasphemous: He sent God away, lifting up two cookies. Immediately snakes attacked him (I love them for this). Then I watched as a certain snake merged together with one of the thieves, after which it took on its appearance and stood on its feet, and the thief crawled away, becoming a reptile reptile. Wonders! You will not find such metamorphoses in Ovid.

Cheer, Florence: these thieves are your offspring! It is a shame ... And in the eighth ditch insidious advisers live. Among them is Ulysses (Odysseus), his soul is imprisoned in a flame that can speak! So, we heard the story of Ulysses about his death: longing to learn the unknown, he sailed with a handful of daredevils to the other end of the world, was shipwrecked and, together with his friends, drowned away from the world inhabited by people.

Another talking flame, in which is hidden the soul of not calling himself a sly counselor, told me about his sin: this counselor helped the pope in one unrighteous deed - hoping that the pope would release him from his sin. He is more tolerant of the simple-minded sinner than those who hope to be saved by repentance. We crossed into the ninth moat, where the sowers of unrest were executed.

Here they are, instigators of bloody contention and religious unrest. The devil will mutilate them with a heavy sword, cuts off noses and ears, crushes skulls. Here is Mohammed, and Kourion, who encouraged Caesar to civil war, and the decapitated warrior-troubadour Bertrand de Born (he carries his head in his hand like a lantern, and she exclaims: “Woe!”).

Then I met my cousin, angry with me for the fact that his violent death remained unrevenged. Then we crossed into the tenth moat, where alchemists toil itching forever. One of them was burned for jokingly boasting that he could fly - he was the victim of a denunciation. But he didn’t go to Hell, but as an alchemist. Here, those who impersonate other people, counterfeiters and generally liars are executed. Two of them fought among themselves and then scolded for a long time (master Adam, who mixed copper in gold coins, and the ancient Greek Sinon, who deceived the Trojans). Virgil rebuked me for the curiosity with which I listened to them.

Our journey through the Cloaks is ending. We approached the well, leading from the eighth circle of Hell to the ninth. There are ancient giants, titans. Among them, Nemvrod, who viciously shouted something to us in an incomprehensible language, and Antei, who, at the request of Virgil, lowered us to the bottom of the well in his huge palm, and himself straightened.

So, we are at the bottom of the universe, near the center of the globe. Before us is an ice lake, betrayed by their relatives, frozen into it. I accidentally hit one on the head with one leg, he yelled, but refused to name himself. Then I grabbed his hair, and then someone called to him by name. Scoundrel, now I know who you are and will tell people about you! And he: "Lie, what you want, about me and about others!" But the ice pit, in it one dead man gnaws a skull to another. I ask: for what? Looking up from his victim, he answered me. He, Count Ugolino, takes revenge on his former like-minded archbishop Ruggieri, who starved him and his children by imprisoning them in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Their suffering was intolerable, the children died in front of his father, he died last. Shame on Pisa! We go further. And who is this before us? Alberigo? But he, as far as I know, did not die, so how did he end up in Hell? It also happens: the body of the villain still lives, and the soul is already in the underworld.

In the center of the earth, the ruler of Hell, Lucifer, frozen in ice, cast down from heaven and digging in the fall the abyss of the underworld, disfigured, three-faced. Judas sticks out of his first mouth, from Brutus the second, from Cassius the third, He chews them and torments them with claws. The worst traitor, Judas, is the worst. A well leads from Lucifer, leading to the surface of the opposite earth's hemisphere. We squeezed into it, climbed to the surface and saw the stars.

Purgatory

May the Muses help me sing the second kingdom! His guard Elder Caton met us unfriendly: who are they? How dare you come here? Virgil explained and, wanting to appease Cato, warmly spoke of his wife Marcia. What does Marcia have to do with it? Go to the seashore, you need to wash! We're going. Here it is, the sea distance. And in coastal herbs - plentiful dew. Her Virgil washed away from my face the soot of an abandoned Hell.

An angel-controlled shuttle floats towards us from the sea. It contains the souls of the departed, who were fortunate enough not to go to Hell. They landed, went ashore, and the angel swam away. Shadows of arrivals crowded around us, and in one I recognized my friend, singer Cosella. He wanted to hug him, but the shadow was ethereal - he hugged himself. Kozella, at my request, began to sing about love, everyone listened, but then Caton appeared, shouted at everyone (they didn’t do anything!), And we hurried to Purgatory Mountain.

Virgil was dissatisfied with himself: he gave reason to shout at himself ... Now we need to scout the upcoming road. Let's see where the shadows arrived. And they themselves just noticed that I was not a shadow: I did not let light through me. Surprised. Virgil explained everything to them. “Come with us,” they invited.

So, we hurry to the foot of the purgatory mountain. But is everyone in a hurry, is everyone really so anxious? A group of people in a hurry to climb up was located near a large stone: they say, they will have time; climb the one to whom it is bored. Among these sloths, I recognized my friend Belakva. It is good to see that he, and during his life the enemy of all haste, is true to himself.

In the foothills of Purgatory, I was able to communicate with the shadows of victims of violent death. Many of them were pretty sinners, but, saying goodbye to life, managed to sincerely repent and therefore did not end up in Hell. That's annoyance for the devil, who lost prey! However, he found how to recoup: not gaining power over the soul of the repentant dead sinner, he abused his dead body.

Not far from all this, we saw the regal-majestic shadow of Sordello. He and Virgil, recognizing each other as countryman poets (Mantuans), embraced fraternally. Here is an example for you, Italy, a dirty brothel, where the bonds of brotherhood are completely broken! Especially you, my Florence, are good, you will not say anything ... Wake up, look at yourself ...

Sordello agrees to be our guide to Purgatory. It is a great honor for him to help the esteemed Virgil. Talking sedately, we approached a flowering fragrant valley, where, preparing for the night, settled the shadows of senior persons - European sovereigns. We watched them from a distance, listening to their consonant singing.

The evening hour has come when desires draw those who have sailed back to their beloved, and you recall the bitter moment of farewell; when the sorrow is possessed by a pilgrim and he hears the distant chime crying sobbing about the irreversible day ... An insidious snake of temptation crawled into the valley of rest of earthly rulers, but the arriving angels expelled him.

I lay down on the grass, fell asleep and in a dream was transferred to the gates of Purgatory.The angel guarding them scribbled the same letter seven times on my forehead — the first in the word “sin” (seven deadly sins; these letters will be erased one after another from my forehead as we ascend to purgatory mountain). We entered the second kingdom of the grave, the gates closed behind us.

The ascent began. We are in the first circle of Purgatory, where the prideful atone for their sin. In shame of pride, sculptures have been erected here, embodying the idea of ​​high feat - humility. And here are the shadows of the cleansing pride: during life they are unbending, here they are bent as a punishment for their sin under the weight of stone blocks piled on them.

"Our Father ..." - this prayer was sung by bent prides. Among them is the miniature painter Oderiz, who during his lifetime boasted of his loud fame. Now, he says, he realized that there is nothing to boast of: everyone is equal in the face of death - both the decrepit old man and the babble babbled “yum-yum”, and the glory comes and goes. The sooner you understand this and find within yourself the strength to curb your pride, to reconcile, the better.

Under our feet we have bas-reliefs with captured scenes of punished pride: Lucifer and Briareus cast down from heaven, King Saul, Holofernes and others. Our stay in the first round is ending. The appeared angel erased one of seven letters from my forehead - as a sign that I have overcome the sin of pride. Virgil smiled at me.

We climbed into the second round. Here envious people, they are temporarily blinded, their former "envious" eyes do not see anything. Here is a woman who, out of envy, wished harm to her fellow countrymen and rejoiced at their failures ... In this circle, I will not be cleaned after death for long, because I rarely envied anyone. But in the passed circle of pride - probably for a long time.

Here they are, blinded sinners, whose blood once burned envy. In silence, the words of the first envious - Cain: “I will be killed by the one who meets!” Sounded thunderous. In fear, I clung to Virgil, and the wise leader told me bitter words that the highest eternal light is inaccessible to envious people, carried away by earthly decoys.

Passed the second round. An angel appeared to us again, and only five letters remained on my forehead, which we will have to get rid of in the future. We are in the third round. A cruel vision of human rage flashed before our eyes (the crowd stoned a meek young man with stones). In this circle, those possessed by anger are purified.

Even in the darkness of Hell there was no such black haze as in this circle, where the rage of angry humbles itself. One of them, the Lombard Marko, talked with me and suggested that it is impossible to understand everything that happens in the world as a result of the activity of higher heavenly forces: this would mean denying the freedom of human will and relieving a person of responsibility for what he had done.

Reader, have you ever wandered in the mountains on a foggy evening, when the sun is almost invisible? So here we are ... I felt the touch of an angel wing on my forehead - another letter was erased. We climbed into the fourth circle, illuminated by the last ray of sunset. Here the lazy are cleansed, whose love of good was slow.

The sloths here must run fast, not allowing any indulgence to their lifetime sin. Let them be inspired by the examples of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who, as you know, had to rush, or Caesar with his amazing quickness. They ran past us and disappeared. I want to sleep. I sleep and see a dream ...

I dreamed of a disgusting woman who, before my eyes, turned into a beauty, who was immediately put to shame and turned into an even worse ugly one (here it is, the imaginary attractiveness of vice!). Another letter disappeared from my forehead: I, therefore, defeated such a vice as laziness. We rise in the fifth circle - to the miserly and wasteful.

Avarice, greed, greed for gold are disgusting vices. Molten gold was once poured into the throat of one obsessed with greed: drink to your health! I am uncomfortable surrounded by the miserly, and then there was an earthquake. From what? I don’t know from my ignorance ...

It turned out that the shaking of the mountain was caused by glee over the fact that one of the souls had cleansed and was ready to climb: this is the Roman poet Stacius, a fan of Virgil, who was glad that he would now accompany us on the way to the purgatory peak.

Another letter erased from my forehead, denoting the sin of stinginess. By the way, did Stacius, languishing in the fifth round, be stingy? On the contrary, it is wasteful, but these two extremes are punished collectively. Now we are in the sixth circle, where gluttons are cleared. It would not be bad to remember that gluttony was not characteristic of Christian ascetics.

Former gluttonies are destined for hunger pangs: exhausted, skin and bones. Among them, I found my late friend and fellow countryman Forese. We talked about our things, scolded Florence, Forese spoke condemningly of the dissolute ladies of this city. I told my friend about Virgil and about my hopes to see my beloved Beatrice in the afterlife.

With one of the gluttonies, a former poet of the old school, I had a conversation about literature. He admitted that my like-minded supporters of the “new sweet style” achieved much more in love poetry than he and the masters close to him. Meanwhile, the penultimate letter was erased from my forehead, and the path to the highest, seventh circle of Purgatory was open to me.

And I still remember the thin, hungry gluttones: how did they so empty? After all, these are shadows, not bodies, they would not be hungry. Virgil explained: the shadows, though ethereal, exactly repeat the outlines of the implied bodies (which would have emanated without food). Here, in the seventh circle, voluptuous fire burned by fire is purified. They burn, sing and praise examples of abstinence and chastity.

The voluptuous in flames were divided into two groups: indulging in same-sex love and not knowing the measures in bisexual intercourse. Among the latter are the poets Guido Guinicelli and the Provencal Arnald, who exquisitely greeted us in his dialect.

And now we ourselves have to go through the wall of fire. I was scared, but my mentor said that this is the path to Beatrice (to Earth Paradise, located at the top of purgatory mountain). And so the three of us (Station with us) are walking, burning with a flame. Gone, we go on, it dawns, stopped to rest, I slept; and when he woke up, Virgil addressed me with the last word of parting words and approval, Everything, from now on he will shut up ...

We are on Earth Paradise, in a flowering grove read out by the twitter of birds. I saw a beautiful donna singing and picking flowers. She said that there was a golden age, innocence was torn, but then, among these flowers and fruits, the happiness of the first people was destroyed in sin. Hearing this, I looked at Virgil and Station, both smiling blissfully.

Oh Eve! It was so good, you ruined everything with your daring! Living lights float past us, righteous old men in snow-white robes crowned with roses and lilies march under them, wonderful beauties dance. I could not look at this amazing picture. And suddenly I saw her - the one I love. Shocked, I made an involuntary movement, as if trying to snuggle up against Virgil. But he disappeared, my father and savior! I sobbed. “Dante, Virgil will not return. But you will not have to cry for him. Look at me, it's me, Beatrice! How did you get here? ” She asked angrily. Then a certain voice asked her why she was so strict on me. She replied that I, seduced by the lure of pleasure, was unfaithful to her after her death. Do I admit my guilt? Oh yes, tears of shame and remorse choke me, I lowered my head. “Raise your beard!” She said sharply, not commanding her to look away from her. I lost my senses, and woke up immersed in Leta, a river that bestows oblivion of perfect sins. Beatrice, now look at the one who is so devoted to you and so longed for you. After a decade of separation, I looked into her eyes, and my vision faded for a while from their dazzling brilliance. Seeing, I saw a lot of beautiful things in the Paradise of the Earth, but suddenly all this came in the place of cruel visions: monsters, desecration of the shrine, profligacy.

Beatrice deeply grieved, realizing how much evil lies in these visions revealed to us, but expressed confidence that the forces of good will ultimately defeat evil. We approached the river Evnoe, having drunk from which you strengthen the memory of the good you have completed. Stacius and I washed in this river. A swallow of her sweetest water poured new strength into me. Now I am clean and worthy to climb the stars.

Paradise

Beatrice and I will fly from Heavenly Paradise to Heaven, to heights inaccessible to the understanding of mortals. I did not notice how they took off, looking at the sun. Am I, being alive, capable of this? However, Beatrice was not surprised at this: a purified person is spiritual, and a spirit not burdened with sins is lighter than ether.

Friends, let's break up here - do not read further: you will disappear into the vastness of the incomprehensible! But if you are insatiably hungering for spiritual food - then go ahead, follow me! We are in the first heaven of Paradise - in the sky of the Moon, which Beatrice called the first star; plunged into its bowels, although it is difficult to imagine a force capable of containing one closed body (which I am) in another closed body (in the moon).

In the bowels of the moon we met the souls of nuns abducted from monasteries and forcibly married off. Not through their own fault, but they did not keep the virginity given when they vowed to be cut, and therefore higher heavens are not available to them. Do you regret it? Oh no! To regret would mean to disagree with the highest righteous will.

But I still wonder: what are they to blame for submitting to violence? Why don't they rise above the sphere of the moon? Blame is not the victim, but the rapist! But Beatrice explained that the victim also bears a certain responsibility for the violence inflicted on her, if, resisting, she did not show heroic stamina.

Failure to fulfill a vow, Beatrice argues, is practically irreplaceable by good deeds (too much must be done to redeem guilt). We flew to the second heaven of Paradise - to Mercury. The souls of the ambitious righteous dwell here. This is no longer a shadow, unlike the previous inhabitants of the underworld, but lights: they shine and shine. One of them flared up especially brightly, enjoying communication with me. It turned out to be the Roman emperor, the legislator Justinian. He recognizes that staying in the sphere of Mercury (and not higher) is the limit for him, because ambitious people, doing good deeds for their own glory (that is, loving themselves first of all), missed the beam of true love for the deity.

The light of Justinian merged with a round dance of lights - other righteous souls. I began to think, and the course of my thoughts led me to the question: why did God the Father sacrifice his son? It was just possible, by a supreme will, to forgive people the sin of Adam! Beatrice explained: supreme justice demanded that humanity itself redeem itself. It is incapable of this, and it was necessary to impregnate the earthly woman, so that the son (Christ), combining the human with the divine, could do this.

We flew to the third sky - to Venus, where the souls of the loving ones bliss, shining in the fiery bowels of this star. One of these spirit spirits is the Hungarian king Karl Martell, who, speaking to me, suggested that a person can realize his abilities only by acting in an area that meets the needs of his nature: it is bad if a born warrior becomes a priest ...

The radiance of other loving souls is sweet. How much blissful light, heavenly laughter! And down below (in Hell), the shadows thickened gloomily and gloomily ... One of the lights spoke to me (Troubadour Folko) - he condemned church authorities, self-serving popes and cardinals. Florence is the city of the devil. But nothing, he believes, will soon get better.

The fourth star is the Sun, the abode of the sages. Here shines the spirit of the great theologian Thomas Aquinas. He joyfully greeted me, showed me other sages. Their consonant singing reminded me of church evangelism.

Thomas told me about Francis of Assisi - the second (after Christ) wife of Poverty. It is after his example that the monks, including his closest disciples, began to walk barefoot. He lived a holy life and died - a naked man on bare earth - in the bosom of Poverty.

Not only me, but the lights - the spirits of the sages - listened to Thomas's speech, having stopped singing and spinning in dance. Then the word was taken by the Franciscan Bonaventure. In response to the praise given to his teacher by the Dominican Thomas, he glorified the teacher Thomas - Dominic, the farmer and the servant of Christ. Who is now continuing his work? No worthy.

And again Thomas took the floor. He discusses the great merits of King Solomon: he asked God for his mind, wisdom - not to solve theological issues, but to reasonably rule the people, that is, royal wisdom, which was granted to him. People, do not judge each other hastily! This one is engaged in good deed, the one is evil, but suddenly the first will fall, and the second will rise?

What will happen to the inhabitants of the sun on the day of judgment, when the spirits gain flesh? They are so vibrant and spiritual that it is difficult to imagine them materialized. Our stay here is over, we flew to the fifth heaven - to Mars, where the sparkling warrior spirits for faith settled down in the shape of a cross and a sweet anthem sounds.

One of the lights that form this marvelous cross, without going beyond it, moved down, closer to me. This is the spirit of my valiant great-great-grandfather, the warrior of Kachchagvida. He greeted me and praised that glorious time in which he lived on earth and which - alas! - passed, giving way to a worse time.

I am proud of my ancestor, my origin (it turns out that not only on the vain land you can experience such a feeling, but also in Paradise!). Kachchagvida told me about himself and about his ancestors born in Florence, whose coat of arms - a white lily - is now stained with blood.

I want to learn from him, the clairvoyant, about my future fate. What awaits me ahead? He replied that I would be expelled from Florence, in joyless wanderings I recognize the bitterness of another's bread and the steepness of another's stairs. To my credit, I will not hobble with unclean political groups, but I will become a party to myself. In the end, my opponents will be put to shame, and a triumph awaits me.

Kachchagwida and Beatrice encouraged me. Finished stay on Mars. Now - from the fifth heaven to the sixth, from red Mars to white Jupiter, where the souls of the fair are hovering. Their lights are combined in letters, in letters - first in a call to justice, and then in the figure of an eagle, a symbol of the imperial justice, an unknown, sinful, suffering land, but established in heaven.

This magnificent eagle entered into conversation with me. He calls himself "I", and I hear "we" (fair power is collegial!). He understands that I myself can’t understand at all: why is Paradise open only to Christians? Why is a virtuous Hindu who does not know Christ at all? I don’t understand. And the truth, the eagle admits, is that a bad Christian is worse than a glorious Persian or Ethiopian.

The eagle embodies the idea of ​​justice, and it does not have claws and not the beak of the main thing, but an all-seeing eye, made up of the most worthy light-spirits. The pupil is the soul of the tsar and the psalmist David, the souls of pre-Christian righteous people shine in the eyelashes (and after all I just vainly talked about Paradise “only for Christians?” So to give free rein to doubts!).

We ascended to the seventh heaven - on Saturn. This is the abode of contemplators. Beatrice has become even more beautiful and brighter. She did not smile at me - otherwise she would have completely incinerated me and blinded me. The blessed spirits of the contemplators were silent, not singing - otherwise they would have deafened me. This was told to me by the sacred lamp - the theologian Pietro Damiano.

The spirit of Benedict, by whose name one of the monastic orders is named, angrily condemned modern self-serving monks. After listening to him, we rushed to the eighth heaven, to the constellation Gemini, under which I was born, first saw the sun and breathed in the air of Tuscany. From its height, I looked down, and my gaze, passing through the seven heavenly spheres we visited, fell on a ridiculously small earthly ball, this handful of dust with all its rivers and mountain streams.

Thousands of fires burn in the eighth heaven - these are the triumphant spirits of the great righteous. Drunk by them, my vision intensified, and now even Beatrice’s smile will not blind me.She wondrously smiled at me and again led me to turn my eyes to the luminous spirits, who sang the hymn to the Queen of Heaven - the Holy Virgin Mary.

Beatrice asked the apostles to speak with me. How far have I penetrated the sacraments of sacred truths? The apostle Peter asked me about the essence of faith. My answer: faith is an argument in favor of the invisible; mortals cannot see with their own eyes what is revealed here in Paradise - but let them believe in a miracle without any clear evidence of its truth. Peter was pleased with my answer.

Will I, the author of the sacred poem, see my homeland? Will I be crowned with laurels where I was baptized? The apostle James asked me a question about the essence of hope. My answer is: hope is the expectation of future glorious and God-given glory. The rejoiced Jacob lit up.

The next question is about love. It was asked by the apostle John. Answering, I did not forget to say that love turns us to God, to the word of truth. Everyone rejoiced. The exam (what is Faith, Hope, Love?) Successfully completed. I saw the radiant soul of our forefather Adam, who did not live long on Earth Paradise, was banished from there to earth; after the death of a long languishing in Limba; then moved here.

Four lights glow before me: three apostles and Adam. Suddenly Peter turned red and exclaimed: “My throne is seized on the earth, my throne, my throne!” Peter is hated by his successor - the pope. And it is time for us to part with the eighth heaven and ascend into the ninth, supreme and crystalline. With unearthly joy, laughing, Beatrice threw me into a rapidly rotating sphere and ascended herself.

The first thing I saw in the sphere of the ninth heaven was a dazzling dot, a symbol of the deity. Around her revolving lights - nine concentric angelic circles. Closest to the deity and therefore smaller are seraphim and cherubim, the most distant and vast are archangels and just angels. On earth, they are used to thinking that the great is greater than the small, but here, as you can see, the opposite is true.

Angels, Beatrice told me, peers of the universe. Their rapid rotation is the source of all that movement that occurs in the universe. Those who hastened to fall away from their host were cast out to Hell, and the remaining ones still circled gingerly in Paradise, and they did not need to think, want, remember: they are completely satisfied!

Ascension to Empireus - the highest region of the universe - the last. I again looked at the one whose beauty growing in Paradise lifted me from high to high. We are surrounded by pure light. Sparks and flowers everywhere are angels and blessed souls. They merge into a kind of radiant river, and then take the form of a huge paradise rose.

Contemplating a rose and comprehending the general plan of Paradise, I wanted to ask Beatrice about something, but I saw not her, but a clear-eyed old man in white. He pointed up. I’m looking - she shines in an unreachable height, and I called to her: “Oh donna, who left a mark in Hell, giving me help! In everything that I see, I am aware of your good. I followed you from slavery to freedom. "Keep me safe so that my spirit worthy of you will be freed from the flesh!" She looked at me with a smile and turned to the eternal shrine. All.

The old man in white is St. Bernard. From now on, he is my mentor. We continue to contemplate the rose of Empireius with him. The souls of immaculate babies also shine in it. This is understandable, but why in Hell were the souls of babies in some places - cannot they be vicious in contrast to these? God knows better what kind of potency - good or bad - in which infant soul are embedded. So Bernard explained and began to pray.

Bernard prayed to the Virgin Mary for me - to help me. Then he gave me a sign so that I looked up. Looking closely, I see the supreme and brightest light. At the same time, he did not go blind, but gained the highest truth. I contemplate the deity in its luminous trinity. And Love draws me to him, which moves the sun and stars.