April’s poem

Here is Thriftbooks.com’s list of the most popular books in each state in 2021.

A few good books, a lot of “meh” ones, and some stinkers.

I am a little surprised that so many people are reading about birds, plants, and rocks. (See: Maine, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin.)

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This month’s poetry is from the Purgatorio, canto XI. It modifies the Paternoster. The proud recite it while doing their penance.

They circle around, bearing burdens that make them stoop; and they look at sculptures of the humble.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Our Father in Heaven, not by Heaven bounded

but there indwelling for the greater love

Thou bears’t Thy first works in the realm first-founded,

hallowed be Thy name, hallowed Thy Power

by every creature as its nature grants it

to praise Thy quickening breath in its brief hour.

Let come to us the sweet peace of Thy reign,

for if it come not we cannot ourselves

attain to it however much we strain.

And as Thine Angels kneeling at the throne

offer their wills to Thee, singing Hosannah,

so teach all men to offer up their own.

Give us this day Thy manna, Lord we pray,

for if he have it not, though man most strive

through these harsh wastes, his speed is his delay.

As we forgive our trespassers the ill

we have endured, do Thou forgive, not weighing

our merits, but the mercy of Thy will.

Our strength is as a reed bent to the ground:

do not Thou test us with the Adversary,

but deliver us from him who sets us round.

This last petition, Lord, with grateful mind,

we pray not for ourselves who have no need,

but for the souls of those we left behind.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(Translator: John Ciardi)

Ecuador 1, Argentina 1

In Guayaquil, Argentina had us under control; and then, at the 89th minute, the VAR awarded us a penalty kick. It was blocked, but the taker, Enner Valencia, put in the rebound. I think we are not very good, compared to Argentina.

I looked at Qatar on Google Maps. No two World Cup stadia are separated by more than an hour’s drive, or a thirteen-hour walk.

Example 1.

Example 2.

Here is a stadium built of shipping containers.

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I am so behind on my reading, I’ll have to finish nine books next month to meet my quota. (I begin counting titles each May and conclude the following April.)

I’ve again taken up the Commedia. The end of Purgatory is near. Some passages – e.g., the one with the Siren – are stunningly good; others are tedious; some are kinda weird; and some, like these lines from canto XXI, are shocking:

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

In the days when good Titus, with the aid

of the Almighty King, avenged the wounds

that poured the blood Iscariot betrayed …

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(Translator: John Ciardi)

Um, which “good” Titus is this? Surely not …

Roman Emperor, A.D. 79–81. In A.D. 70 in the reign of his father Vespasian, Titus besieged and took Jerusalem. Thus, with God’s help, Rome avenged the death (the wounds) of Christ. So Dante, within his inevitable parochialism, chose to take that passage of history. The Jews, one may be sure, found less cause for rejoicing in the goodness of Titus.
[Translator’s note]

Within my own “inevitable parochialism,” I am a little horrified.

Dante is a master, and I’m just a guy. But … my goodness. On the one hand, he’s very careful about the position of the sun over Mt. Purgatory. On the other, he seems very casual with his name-dropping. Sometimes, he saddles a penitent soul with the sins of two historical people with the same name.

My favorite character is the first-century poet Statius, who has a celebrity-crush on Virgil. As Dante tells it, Statius clandestinely converted to Christianity. There is no evidence that he really did so; his role in the poem is to personify Christianity’s appropriation of the best aspects of pagan Rome. Dante is so proud of Rome, he reminds me of a “God and Founding Fathers” evangelical.

I’m woefully ignorant of the history of sola scriptura. I wonder, were the Reformers (non-Italians) driven to it because they were fed up with this sort of thing?