Awhile back a woman whose kids play Special Olympics softball with mine told me she was wanting to read Dante's The Divine Comedy. Which surprised me, because it came out of the blue. It also stuck in my mind like a fly in Vaseline, as I hadn't read Dante in 50 years, and knew it was time to go back (Jack).
Then a few days later I found
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| 123 pages |
in the Little Library at Baptist Health, where my daughter and I volunteer to push a beverage cart around. So once again, the Universe was jabbing a fork into my ass. I started reading it, but only as a Car Book. Anytime I was in the car and waiting, I'd read a little bit. It wasn't exactly good, but it was an interesting concept--framing poems with prose commentary.
And then I spotted this
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| 180 pages |
at Half-Price Books, so I picked it up, thinking it'd make for a nice precursor to The Divine Comedy. And since I just finished Volume IV of Huxley's essays today, that seems like a most excellent thing to make my next DDR project...and a nice lead-in to TDC.
And oh, I also found an ad in my Facebook feed for a free online course on The Divine Comedy (Fork, ass)
courtesy of Hillsboro College (https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/promo/dantes-divine-comedy?fbclid=IwY2xjawFBiT9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHcCSWpftfpJgFfU98Lc7FWB-RG4uD_W4ytiDfqxlBvHvpobmelB7dVLRwA_aem_re73qOTyAYywNDl4eUaZfQ) which I'm going to try to do.
So that's the plan.
Day 1 (DDRD 2,497) September 1, 2024
Read to page 30.
Joe Lee refers to La Vita Nuova in this way: "La Vita Nuova, or The New Life, [is] an autobiography. Dante took the sonnets and canzones he had written thus far [about Beatrice] and framed them with prose explanations of their origins." (23)
So a very young Dante managed to combine poetry, literary analysis, and autobiography in this little book. Pretty impressive concept, eh?
BTW, the Universe is still not letting up on me:
Day 2 (DDRD 2,498) September 2, 2024
Read to page 71...and I'll probably read a bit more late GW&tCDR. Had to stop here, though, because the book quoted the only line I still remembered from my first (50 years ago) reading: "And he did make a trumpet of his ass." Although Mr. Lee writes it as "he made a trumpet of his ass," so I'll have to ✔️ that against the text when I get π‘.
This book gives a 1 (sometimes mire) page summary of each of the cantos, so it's kind if an illustrated CliffsNotes Thang. I think it's a good way to get me ready for the Real Deal.
I just found out that St. Lucy had an important part to play in The Divine Comedy.
"Dante, in the Divine Comedy, gives special literary significance to Saint Lucy. He especially highlights the believed chain of mediation of graces that begin with Christ, through, Mary, and then through particular saints.
"The Inferno is, of course, a story of Dante beging guided by Virgil through Hell. We learn that Virgil was summoned as Dante’s tour guide by his beloved Beatrice, who was summoned by St Lucy, who was summoned by the Blessed Virgin Mary (2, 94-96):
"Hence, Saint Lucy is a special patron and advocate for Dante. Why is this? Saint Lucy is the patron of light and sight. It would seem that a poet would need such light to be rightly inspired. Moreover, the pathway through Hell would require a special patroness of light.
"At the end of the Divine Comedy, in Paradiso 32, Saint Lucy is placed opposite of Adam within the Mystic Rose of Heaven. It would seem, then, that Saint Lucy was greatly esteemed by Dante. Perhaps her association with Adam reveals here as one who did not abuse her eyesight for the sake of evil."
https://taylormarshall.com/2012/12/saint-lucy-in-dantes-inferno-and.ham
Oh, and I read just a little bit more...to page 73.
Day 3 (DDRD 2,499) September 3, 2024
Read to page 108. More St. Lucy.
P.S. I was just weeding out my old emails and had one from Hillsboro College re: The Divine Comedy course. It included this line: "The Divine Comedy is for people who find themselves in the middle of something, where they’re facing great trouble and adversity...."
✓
Day 4 (DDRD 2,500) September 4, 2024
Read to page 150.
Day 5 (DDRD 2,501) September 5, 2024
Read to page 180, The End.
The return of St. Lucy: the illustration showing the positions of The Heavenly Host includes a pretty sweet spot for the Little Blind Saint (as Jacqueline sometimes calls her):
Clearly, Jacqueline isn't the only one who ❤s Lucy.
On the final text page there's a quote from Paradiso which is in Italian:
"Nel gallo de la rosa sempiterna, che si dilata, digrade e redole odor di lode al Sol che sempre verna...."
I entered the words into a translation website and it came up with this:
"In the cock of the everlasting rose that expands, the smell of praise to the ever-vernating sun...."
Which wasn't all that helpful, so I Googled and found this:
"Into the yellow of the Rose Eternal
That spreads, and multiplies, and breathes an odour
Of praise unto the ever-vernal Sun...."
https://www.logoslibrary.org/dante/comedy/paradiso30.html
I guess that's as good a final "word" as any.
On to The Divine Comedy.
Read to page xix.
In the introduction, "How to Read Dante,"someone (presumably, John Ciardi, but it's not signed) asks the question, "What sin did Dante commit to get himself into this position in the first place? "Ciardi answers, "Acedia." π€·
Wikipedia?
"Acedia (/ΙΛsiΛdiΙ/; also accidie or accedie /ΛΓ¦ksΙͺdi/, from Latin acΔdia, and this from Greek αΌΞΊΞ·Ξ΄Ξ―Ξ±, "negligence", αΌ- "lack of" -κηδία "care") has been variously defined as a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one's position or condition in the world. In ancient Greece akidΓa literally meant an inert state without pain or care. Early Christian monks used the term to define a spiritual state of listlessness and from there the term developed a markedly Christian moral tone. In modern times it has been taken up by literary figures and connected to depression."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia
Interesting. I have a "friend" (coughit'smecough) who suffers from that same disposition.
Oh, and speaking of St. Lucy, in the course of my Googling around, I happened upon this:
A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day
By John Donne
'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;
The world's whole sap is sunk;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar'd with me, who am their epitaph.
Study me then, you who shall lovers be
At the next world, that is, at the next spring;
For I am every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness;
He ruin'd me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death: things which are not.
All others, from all things, draw all that's good,
Life, soul, form, spirit, whence they being have;
I, by Love's limbec, am the grave
Of all that's nothing. Oft a flood
Have we two wept, and so
Drown'd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow
To be two chaoses, when we did show
Care to aught else; and often absences
Withdrew our souls, and made us carcasses.
But I am by her death (which word wrongs her)
Of the first nothing the elixir grown;
Were I a man, that I were one
I needs must know; I should prefer,
If I were any beast,
Some ends, some means; yea plants, yea stones detest,
And love; all, all some properties invest;
If I an ordinary nothing were,
As shadow, a light and body must be here.
But I am none; nor will my sun renew.
You lovers, for whose sake the lesser sun
At this time to the Goat is run
To fetch new lust, and give it you,
Enjoy your summer all;
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44122/a-nocturnal-upon-st-lucys-day
And since I had a spare moment, I stopped at Goodwill to see if they had any books worth buying in their now dinky books section. I didn't see anything, so I decided to have a look through the vinyl lp bin. Which I usually don't bother with, because it is invariably filled with albums which were old when my parents were young. As I looked through the bin, I saw that someone had slipped what looked like a children's book in amongst the lps. I pulled it out to have a look:
And since I had a spare moment, I stopped at Goodwill to see if they had any books worth buying in their now dinky books section. I didn't see anything, so I decided to have a look through the vinyl lp bin. Which I usually don't bother with, because it is invariably filled with albums which were old when my parents were young. As I looked through the bin, I saw that someone had slipped what looked like a children's book in amongst the lps. I pulled it out to have a look:
For fuck's sake! I'm READing it!!
Sheesh.
xxv + 895 = 920 pages total, btw.
Day 6 (DDRD 2,502) September 6, 2024
Read to page 30. And met St. Lucy in Canto II.
Day 7 (DDRD 2,503) September 7, 2024
Read to page 60.
Canto IV points out one if the most fucked up aspects of this schema: we're in the abode of the Virtuous Pagans, good people who made the very bad decision to be born before Christ. Because of that, they are doomed to this place without any hope of future salvation. Say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
Kind of humorous is that Dante and Virgil here meet up with Ovid, Homer, Horace, and Lucan, the Great Poets, and Dante immediately hangs out as if he's one of them. But hey, you can't be a writer unless you have some ego, right? Why else would you imagine that anyone else gives a fuck about what you have to say?
Oh...it gets worse. Unbaptized children are also here. What the fucking fuckity fuck is up with that?
Day 8 (DDRD 2,504) September 8, 2024
Read to page 90. Tomorrow I go into the hospital for lung surgery, so I'm hoping I can keep up with my Dante. If you've got any prayers to spare, send them my way around 10:00 a.m.
Day 9 (DDRD 2,505) September 9, 2024
Only read to page 105...not bad considering that I spent from 7:00 am on in the hospital and had a chunk of cancer removed from my lung.
Day 10 (DDRD 2,506) September 10, 2024
Read to page 135. Thought that today would be a "catch-up day" for the 15 pages not read yesterday, but too much pain for that. Maybe maΓ±ana.
In the introductory summary to Canto XIV Art is referred to as "the Grandchild of God." That's pretty beautiful, isn't it?
Day 11 (DDRD 2,507) September 11, 2024
Read to page 165.
Day 12 (DDRD 2,508) September 12, 2024
I think this would be a good title for a novel:
Read to page 195. Tough read today...lack of sleep and lots of visitors and, you know, the whole cancer surgery thing. But I made it.
Day 13 (DDRD 2,509) September 13, 2024
Read to page 225.
I think this would be a good title for a novel:
The Sea Closed Over Us and the Light Was Gone. (208)
II Kings 2: 23-25
23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 25 And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.
So THERE'S justice for you. You don't fuck around with the Old Testament God's prophets. π»π»π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦π¦
Meanwhile, my own semicircle of Hell:
I'm only 45 pages from the end of Inferno, and I'll be checking out of the hospital tomorrow, so I'm thinking I'll read an extra 15 pages today so that my exit from the hospital will correspond to finishing the first book of The Comedy of Dante Aligheri.
Read to page 240. ✔
Day 14 (DDRD 2,510) September 14, 2024
Read to page 270. The End.
Just in time (5:57 am) to climb out of this hospital. And next...Mount Purgatory.
Day 15 (DDRD 2,511) September 15, 2024
Read to page 301.
An Interesting Thing: in the Introduction preceding Purgatorio, Archibald T. MacAllister notes that Virgil's role shifts from Guide to Companion as we shift from the Inferno to Purgatory, indicating that the role of Reason becomes less prominent as we shift from the realm of the body to the realm of the spirit world. (Where the traffic is thin.) And then, of course, he has no role in paradise...just as Reason has no role to play there. Thus delimitating the boundaries of Reason. (Right?)
ADDENDUM: A few of weeks ago I was in Barnes & Noble and decided to have a look at their poetry section. It was very small...and there was not a single copy of The Divine Comedy. Meanwhile...
Day 16 (DDRD 2,512) September 16, 2024
Read to page 331. This was my 11th day in The Divine Comedy...12th if you count the Introduction. And I'd guess I have (895 - 331 = 564 / 30 = 18.8) 19 days to go, so...looks like one month will get you through the whole thing with pretty minimal strain. (In fact, in sure I could double my per diem in this one if I wanted to. Maybe ill take a day and try that out just to see.)
In this morning's reading: "...all the agony / that still burned in my lungs and raced my pulse." (315) Yep, I feel you, D-Dog. This Purgatory Climb does π₯.
Finally got back to a little of the Hillsboro College Dante course--though I'm only on Lesson 2: At the Gates of Hell: The Journey Begins--and when the professor was discussing the kind of puzzling entrance of Virgil (a pagan philosopher) to guide DA, the professor says, "Heaven sends someone to whom Dante will listen." Which is pretty fuckin' groovy, isn't it? I need to spend some more time with these lectures.
Day 17 (DDRD 2,513) September 17, 2024
Read to page 360.
So...on page 332 (Canto VI, line 109) there's this: "Come see the Montagues and Capulets...." Hmmm. This thing was published in 1321. Shakespeare's play came along a couple of hundred years later. Can't find a date for his source material. So maybe nothing to see hete, but my Spider senses are tingling.
And then this:
"...are the eyes of your clear justice turned aside?
"Or is this the unfolding of a plan
shaped in your fathomless councils towards some good
beyond all reckoning of mortal man?
"For the land is a tyrant's roost, and any clod
who comes along playing the partisan
passes for a Marcellus with the crowd."
Well THERE'S a good fucking question.
And I feel that note 121 is worth quoting in its entirety:
"The usage must seem strange to modern ears, but there can be no doubt that Dante is referring here to God. In Dante's view the pagan names Zeus and Jove refer always to the Christian God as (dimly) perceived by the ancients who lacked Christ's clarifying word." (336)
To me, that's essentially the explanation for all of the brutality and lack of kindness in the Old Testament. You can't appeal to a violent people with a meek shepherd God. You have to speak the language of the people you're reaching out to.
John Ciardi has an interesting sense of humor. At one point, he refers to Dante as being on the fifty yard line. At other times he is more sly, such as here:
"Wenceslaus preferred piety to warfare, habitually, hearing several masses daily. With his spirits thus restored, he seems to have found the strength for scouting various bedrooms, for he had begotten numerous illegitimate children by the time he was twenty-five." (345)
St. Lucy shows up in Canto IX!
I started watching the PBS two-part Dante documentary and was struck by this line:
"...working on a poem he would wrench from himself...."
Wrench. That's some powerful shit.
Day 18 (DDRD 2,514) September 18, 2024
Read to page 390.
On fame:
"...will you have
in, say, a thousand years, more reputation
than if you went from child's play to the grave?" (377)
Day 19 (DDRD 2,515) September 19, 2024
Read to page 420. Day 15, btw.
Two things.
(1) Several times there have been references made to the idea that if people pray for those in purgatory that the Purgatorians' time will be lessened. Why would this be? It doesn't seem very far from that idea to the idea of indulgences: For every coin that in the coffer rings another soul from purgatory springs. That particular concept was in some ways the downfall of the Catholic church--or at least one of the downfalls.
(2) Another idea that has been repeated is that suffering in hell or suffering in purgatory are essentially what the soul wants; it is not imposed by God but by the self. That makes some sense to me in terms of purgatory, but seems incredibly perverse when applied to the sufferings in hell which are eternal.
Oh...two more things.
(3) The mingling if Christian with Greek mythology is interesting, but confusing...since the Greeks were pagans. Wait...it might be Roman mythology actually... or both? Ill have to pay more attention. Either way, the point still stands.
(4) I think "Tartini" by Chester His are I is most excellent accompaniment for this reading.
Re 3: There's Mercury (Roman), but also Force (Greek). So there kept is.
Day 20 (DDRD 2,516) September 20, 2024
Read to page 450. Day 16.
An interesting error: in footnote 22 on page 450, Ciardi says, "Ulysses escapes the sirens' blandishments by stuffing his ears with wax and having himself lashed to the mast of his ship."
Well...that's not what hapened.
"Meanwhile I look a large wheel of wax and cut it up small with my sword. Then I kneaded the wax in my strong hands till it became soft, which it soon did between the kneading and the rays of the sun-god son of Hyperion. Then I stopped the ears of all my men, and they bound me hands and feet to the mast as I stood upright on the cross piece; but they went on rowing themselves."
No wax in Ulysses' ears.
Day 21 (DDRD 2,517) September 21, 2024
Read to page 480. Day 17. Passed the halfway point.
Yesterday I read the story of the encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. This morning I read about that story in Purgatorio. And a few minutes ago I heard the story referred to in a movie Jacqueline is watching.
Rule of Three.
"...the vexed shores of...life...." That might be the title of my autobiography. Or is that just the hole in my thorax talking?
Day 22 (DDRD 2,518) September 22, 2024
Read to page 509. Day 18.
Here's something you don't hear every day:
"...the shameless jades that Florentines call ladies,
who go about with breasts bare to the tit." (lines 101 to 102, page 484)
Day 23 (DDRD 2,519) September 23, 2024
Read to page 540. Day 19. Looks like ill finish Purgatorio tomorrow, and then maybe 12 days to go. Hmmm. What's next? I'm thinking Paradise List might be a good chaser.
Canto XXVII: Virgil announces that he's going to be leaving Dante now with the words, "here, now, is the limit of my duscernment." (Line 129, page 523)
Isn't that a beautiful thing? Reason can take you quite a ways, but only so far. There are limits to what reason can accomplish, and then you have to rely upon faith. Which is why you can never reason your way to faith, or justify faith by way of Reason.
Day 24 (DDRD 2,520) September 24, 2024
Read to page 570. Day 20.
11 pages left of Purgatorio. So I might go back...but maybe not.
Day 25 (DDRD 2,521) September 25, 2024
Read to page 600. Day 21.
So...320 pages to go. At 30 od, that's a little more than 10 days, which would mean I'd finish next Sunday. Hmmm.
"...life is no more than a race toward death." (Line 54, page 574) Aka "They give birth astride of a grave...." (Beckett)
Shit. Just popped into my head that Clare and I had talked about naming our child Beckett. I haven't thought about that for a long time. Wish I hadn't thought of it now. It's stupid to miss...to long for...someone who literally despises you. Sigh. Thanks, Memory. You are a motherfucker.
3:54 am: finished Purgatorio. Onward and upward. Pun intended.
In the Introduction to Paradiso, John Freccero, Professor Emeritus of Italian and Comparative Literature at New York University...remembered as one of the greatest Dante scholars of his or any generation and a brilliant, inspiring teacher" (https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/872086), says that the language of The Divine Comedy shifts from one book to the next: immediacy in the Inferno, dreamlike meditation in Purgatorio, and the attempt to create a nonrepresentational poetic world in Paradiso. He also refers to the language of Paradiso as "pure poetry." (585)
So there's that.
Freccero also notes that the shifts in the poetic language correspond to (and reflect) "Dante's" ( not to be confused with Dante's) stare if mind, moving from sensual to subjectivity to non-representational...which I take to mean abstract. Hence, " The technical problem involved in finding a stylistic correspondence to this transformation reaches insoluble proportions by the poem's ending, for it demands straining the reprepreentational value of poetry to the ultimate, approaching silence as its limit. Insofar as the Paradiso exists, therefore, it is an accommodation, a compromise short of silence...." (586) Well, shit...if that ain't Beckettian, I don't know what is.
I would really like to write a novel entitled A Pearl Upon a Milk White Brow. Freccero refers to this line as "irreducibly literary" (588), and that is most certainly what I would like to aim for. I don't know if I have it in me at age 67 with a bad heart, bad kidneys, and 1 1/2 lungs, but I have to admit that the desire to write has been writhing in my bowels more than occasionally. I've no longer any dreams of success or even of an audience, so this would solely be for myself...and I don't know if that's enough. I haven't thought much of myself since divorce #2. I look back and all I see is failure and isolation and fear and an almost complete lack of confidence. Who can write from that perspective? Obviously not me.
Another illuminating comment on the language of Paradiso courtesy of Freccero: "There is no ultimate reality signified beyond the text itself. [It is] non-representational that is its own reality." (589) You know, like a pearl upon a milk white brow...white merging into white, its absence the only reality.
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Day 26 (DDRD 2,522) September 26, 2024
Read to page 642. Day 22.
It's disappointing to find out that there's is a caste system in heaven. In the Heaven of the Moon, there's a place fir people who have not kept their vows...even if they were forced to break them. Beatrice supports this perspective when she tells D-dogg that if they'd REALLY wanted to keep their vows, they would have. So the nun who was forced to marry to forget a political alliance? A collaborator in the business of vow breaking.
Fucking harsh, man.
And thus these "vow breakers" are assigned to the lowest Heaven, and not only will they never move up from there, they'll enjoy their place, gosh darn it.
That doesn't correspond to my idea of heaven.
Day 27 (DDRD 2,523) September 27, 2024
Read to page 676. Day 23.
Really wanted to read mire today but lack of sleep + Helene + feeling shitty = barely finishing my daily goal.
Maybe maΓ±ana.
Day 28 (DDRD 2,524) September 28, 2024
Read to page 700. Day 24.
Met St. Thomas Aquinas. Y'know, I've never read Suma Theologica....
Day 29 (DDRD 2,525) September 29, 2024
Read to page 741. Day 25.
And probably going to read some more, as I'm in church and still 40 minutes away from start time.
There have been so many references to The Aeneid that I'm starting to think I should read it soon. Of course, to do it justice I'd need to read The Iliad and The Odyssey first. π€
Read to page 750. 170 pages to go. That's 5 2/3 days to go, = Saturday afternoon. Was hoping to finish before 9 am Tuesday...since that's when i see Dr. Mokos, the man who cut half of my left lung out of me.
Day 30 (DDRD 2,526) September 30, 2024
Read to page 783. Day 26.
"...'A man is born in sight
of Indus's water and there is none there
to speak of Christ, and none to read or write.
And all he wills and does we must concede,
as far as human reason sees, is good;
and he does not sin either in word or deed.
He dies unbaptized and cannot receive
the saving faith. What justice is it damns him?
Is it his fault that he does not believe?'" (762 - 763, lines 70 to 78)
Well, that's a damned good question, isn't it? Alas, the only answer we get is "You can't see the bottom of the ocean, puny human."
Day 31 (DDRD 2,527) October 1, 2024
Read to page 812. Day 27.
Today I go to get my stitches out. Wish I could have made it to the end of Paradiso for the occasion, but 137 pages to go. π
Day 32 (DDRD 2,528) October 2, 2024
Read to page 841. Day 28. 54 πΊ on the wall....
Got this
ADDENDUM: Read some more. To page
And here's a Things I thought was worth thinking about:
"Hence, one may see that the most blessed condition
is based on the act of seeing, not of love,
love being the act that follows recognition."
(Page 846, lines 109 to 111.)
Well, what the fuck do you think of that? Recognition is a tricky word here. Recognition of what? The only implication that I can see is that there is an intuitive process which connects with what we see and recognizes, for instance, a like spirit or a like mind. Of course, if there is any truth to that idea, then the whole love at first sight thing loses its ridiculousness.
And...read to page 862. Thirty-three pages to go. Which I'll read on Day 33, aka October 3. Woot!
Day 33 (DDRD 2,529) October 3, 2024
Read to page 895...The End. Day 29.
Speaking of Veronica's Veil in a footnote, Smartass Ciardi says, "She gave it to Jesus to wipe the blood from his face on the road to Calvary, and what was believed to be the true likeness of Jesus was believed to have appeared on what was believed to be the cloth in what was believed to be his own blood." (Footnote, 104 page 876)
Ya gotta ❤️ the guy.
Y'know, reading this...especially the final book...has given me a hankering to re-read Alan Moore's Jerusalem. I'm not going to do that anytime soon, but MAYbe in a bit.
Process of Revelation: Dante has three guides...Virgil, Beatrice, and St. Bernard. Each one represents a different minset: Reason, Love (I think), and Contemplation. Also, we're told that Beatrice's beauty--and everything else in Heaven, including God--is revealed in stages, as his ability to apprehend that beauty increases. Interesting thought. What Dante initially perceives as Beatrice's beauty is only a dim version of her real beauty, but if she showed him her True Beauty at the get-go he wouldn't have been able to handle it. Hmmmm.
The illustration of The Mystic Rose (aka Heaven...I think)
Okay, that's it. Onward!
