It seems we could spend the
rest of our lives decoding Dante, but will have to be content to contemplate a
few isolated fragments. The study of brahmavidya, the Science of the Absolute,
provides a key to understanding, and it is very likely that much of what has
survived the ages has persisted due to its profundity. If we approach these
stories with respect and avoid the modernist disdain for the past, they may
yield up their meanings. In reading about hell, it is helpful to translate the term to
apara prakriti. The experience of hell only SEEMS eternal. When we're caught in
misery, time slows to almost a stop. But "eternal damnation" is
nonetheless a temporary condition, correctable by patience and insight.
The story of Francesca and
Paolo, culled from the website danteworlds:
“Francesca da Rimini and
Paolo Malatesta are punished together in hell for their adultery: Francesca was
married to Paolo's brother, Gianciotto ("Crippled John"). Francesca's
shade tells Dante that her husband is destined for punishment in Caina--the
infernal realm of familial betrayal named after Cain, who killed his brother
Abel (Genesis 4:8)--for murdering her and Paolo. Francesca was the aunt of
Guido Novello da Polenta, Dante's host in Ravenna during the last years of the
poet's life (1318-21). She was married (c. 1275) for political reasons to
Gianciotto of the powerful Malatesta family, rulers of Rimini. Dante may have
actually met Paolo in Florence (where Paolo was capitano del popolo--a
political role assigned to citizens of other cities--in 1282), not long before
he and Francesca were killed by Gianciotto.
“Although no version of
Francesca's story is known to exist before Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio--a
generation or two after Dante--provides a "historical" account of the
events behind Francesca's presentation that would not be out of place among the
sensational novellas of his prose masterpiece, The Decameron. Even if there is
more fiction than fact in Boccaccio's account, it certainly helps explain
Dante-character's emotional response to Francesca's story by presenting her in
a sympathetic light. Francesca,according to Boccaccio, was blatantly tricked
into marrying Gianciotto, who was disfigured and uncouth, when the handsome and
elegant Paolo was sent in his brother's place to settle the nuptial contract.
Angered at finding herself wed the following day to Gianciotto, Francesca made
no attempt to restrain her affections for Paolo and the two in fact soon became
lovers. Informed of this liaison, Gianciotto one day caught them together in
Francesca's bedroom (unaware
that Paolo got stuck in his attempt to escape down a ladder, she let Gianciotto
in the room); when Gianciotto lunged at Paolo with a sword, Francesca stepped
between the two men and was killed instead, much to the dismay of her husband,
who then promptly finished off Paolo as well. Francesca and Paolo, Boccaccio
concludes, were buried--accompanied by many tears--in a single tomb.
“Francesca's eloquent
description of the power of love (Inf. 5.100-7),
emphasized through the use of
anaphora, bears much the same meaning and style as the love poetry once admired
by Dante and of which he himself produced many fine examples.”
The lines in question are:
Love, that can quickly seize
the gentle heart,
took hold of him because of
the fair body
taken from me—how that was
done still wounds me.
Love, that releases no
beloved from loving,
took hold of me so strongly
through his beauty
that, as you see, it has not
left me yet.
Love led the two of us unto
one death.
Caina waits for him who took
our life.
So, lo and behold, this
passage begins to make sense. I think we are all—as is often the case
journeying through the Inferno—sympathetic to these souls consigned to hell. It
seems so unfair! Francesca was tricked, and because of her love consigned to
eternal damnation with no chance of parole?! But the symbolic interpretation
yields gold.
The subject here is interpersonal love, which is different
from Absolute love in being ego-based rather than selfless. When we fall in
love we have in our minds an idealized image of what we wish the other person
to be like. We are all tricked just as Francesca was, by loving the image, the
handsome “brother” of the actual partner. Our mate with all flaws resembles the
twisted and shrunken, “disfigured and uncouth” fellow. It is often the case
that we refuse to EVER allow ourselves to be held in the arms of this
disgusting actuality, and maintain our relationship to the idealized image
through thick and thin. We are “blatantly tricked” not so much by the other
person as by the selectivity of our egotistical desires. We are all princes and
princesses in the worst sense of the words.
When the other person’s ugly ego confronts this “adultery,”
this disconnect between fantasy and reality, we may hide our “true love” image
out the back window on the ladder, but
since it is our own creation it gets stuck
trying to escape. We can’t
let it get away, because we are so in love with it. If our partner tries to do
away with this image and bring us down to earth, we may step in front of the
sword and be killed instead, such is our identification with this beautiful
image and our desire to defend it. With the blast of rage from thwarted
actuality, both the ego and the image die. They never had any real validity to
begin with, and so become one of the examples of the lost in hell.
If you look closely at the lines above, Francesca fell in
love based on appearance, the enchantment of beauty of her idealized image. Her
love held fast to fantasy rather than facing crude and deformed actuality. This
kind of love “releases no beloved from loving”—it clings, holds on tight. It is
certain to end tragically. Unfortunately no 18-year-old lovers are going to
understand this mystical tale until it’s too late….
Crippled Gianciotto is also destined for hell because he
didn’t understand that this is a universal problem and should be handled
delicately. We can’t rip our lover out of their dream world; they must be wooed
gently. Instead, furious, he attacked head on, and the situation blew up into a
disaster. Some intelligent contemplation might have shown a more successful
strategy. When we act out of hurt feelings we generally aren’t going to improve
things. On the contrary, actions based on selfish desires and inner wounds lead
us into a living hell of pain.
Curiously, this tale
does have a precedent, one that I missed at first by not being much of a Bible
reader. The story of Rachel and Leah in Genesis 29 and 30 is a
sexually-reversed version of the same idea. Jacob falls for his beautiful niece
Rachel, and works for seven years for his brother, her father Laban, in
exchange for her. On the wedding night there is a big feast, and presumably
lots of drinking. The next morning, lo and behold! Rachel’s ugly sister Leah is
in the bed instead. Dad cons another seven years hard labor out of Jacob for
the pretty sister, who turns out to be barren, while the ugly one cranks out
boys like clockwork. A couple of maids are knocked up on the side to produce
more boys. Traditional marriage at its best!
The tale goes on and
on, with karmic paybacks and everything, but doesn’t appear to overlap further
with the one related by Dante.
