THE ABRIDGED PARADISO (ALIGHIERI NOTES)
". . . there man's intellect delves so deeply that
memory cannot altogether follow the experience."
--- Gelernt, Jules, "Dante's Divine Comedy" (1964: Monarch Press,
NYC), p. 107
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CANTO I
To be an exemplary Christian, then say a prayer to a pagan sun god
(APOLLO), and revere earth, landscape: nature worship. A mountain
(approx. 2,458m./ 8,060ft., north of the Gulf of Corinth) with two
peaks, one named CYRRHA---
and implore sun god to emulate a flute-player skinned alive, because
you're a loser at a music entertainment contest (MARSYAS).
(PENEIAN BOUGH) To crown oneself with a branch's leaves, --- not a hat
made of leaves, but like a plastic headband used to keep a woman's
hair out of her eyes, only from temples to the back of the head---
The mountain peak (CYRRHA) might emit sounds like human voices
(like stray cats in alleys, which can sound like babies crying)
Three things, four things: circles, crosses, respectively (celestial
equator, zodiac, colure) (sun's path?) (horizon?) {left one out!
Lowers grade! Test anxiety}
They all intersect one day, late March. In principio Creation
reenacted annually, a fine time to see
A girl spirit.
She's transfixed watching wheels go round and round. Speechless to
convey what it feels like to outdistance all humans, to surpass the
two-legged,--- a little fable:
(GLAUCUS) Fisherman observes his catch come back to life, restored by
an herb. So eats herb, its taste, like cilantrol, jumps overboard ---
a sea god!
The girl: "You're dulled of your own doing. Blurry vision from an
untruthful imagination.
"At the speed of light, welcome home near the universe's epicenter."
The man, surprised to be rising toe to head (not only penis) in a
straight bee-line ascent upward above cloud cover, birds like ants---
His astonishment ("Wha'?!"). Woman pities man. She begins lecturing
on thermodynamics (pull of gravity, a rubber band snap-back effect?).
She sighs (long deep intake of air; exhales audibly; expressive of
weariness), her facial expression, a mother's, at her child's
incoherent (febrile?) speech:
"Flames are vertical. Only briefly angled at seasick diagonals,
wind-ruffled. Here's why. Flames originate in outer space. They're
lunar. --- Look at a flame's spectrum closely, concentrating, studying
fire empirically: blue, green, --- moon-white! Don't act like a heavy
lightning bolt and strike the ground. A whitened ribbon, often seen
in postcards, from mountain top to stream below: a waterfall. No
surprise there for you."
Her face, the sky: two layers.
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