| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) by Dante Alighieri: anagogical. I offer you St. Thomas of Aquinas' definition of these last
three as they relate to Sacred Scripture:
. . .this spiritual sense has a threefold division. . .so far as
the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law,
there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in
Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are types
of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as
they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the
anagogical sense. (Summa Theologica I, 1, 10)
Within the Danteum the Poet's meanings lurk in solid form. An example: the
Danteum design does have spaces literally associated with the Comedy--the
The Divine Comedy (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: The woman wedded and fruitful, inured to the pangs of birth,
And the maid that knew not of kisses, blindly sprawled on the earth.
From the hall Hiopa the king and his chiefs came stealthily forth.
Already the sun hung low and enlightened the peaks of the north;
But the wind was stubborn to die and blew as it blows at morn,
Showering the nuts in the dusk, and e'en as a banner is torn,
High on the peaks of the island, shattered the mountain cloud.
And now at once, at a signal, a silent, emulous crowd
Set hands to the work of death, hurrying to and fro,
Like ants, to furnish the fagots, building them broad and low,
And piling them high and higher around the walls of the hall.
Ballads |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: became absorbed in its contents, Dolly's eyes, by one of those
strange accidents for which there is no accounting, wandered to the
glass again. She could not help wondering whether the coach-maker
suffered very much, and quite pitied the poor man.
It was a long letter--a very long letter, written close on all four
sides of the sheet of paper, and crossed afterwards; but it was not
a consolatory letter, for as Emma read it she stopped from time to
time to put her handkerchief to her eyes. To be sure Dolly
marvelled greatly to see her in so much distress, for to her
thinking a love affair ought to be one of the best jokes, and the
slyest, merriest kind of thing in life. But she set it down in her
Barnaby Rudge |
