Dante VII Canto XXVIII Scene II

 Canto XXVIII

Eight Terrace; Garden of Eden

Scene II

“Beatrice ---” Dante felt the touch to his heart. The one time he felt it ever since he was in the virtual realm. He also felt the gentle wind blows on him and he notices that the wind bends the branches of the trees gently, but not enough to disturb the songbirds singing so sweetly there. It was unreal ---no, surreal then. He looked to the tree branches. There were no birds there before.

“The place is so perfect that the wind harmonizes with the birdsong.” The lady spoke to him. “Welcome to the Gate of Paradise, Dante.” The lady told Dante.

“How can that be? We are in a virtual realm and ----” Dante stepped back.

“Yes, you still are. You are still in a ---dream within a dream or rather your soul is in this virtual reality. You have wandered so far from the start in the forest that you can't tell where you begin; this might be scary if this was not what you envisioned to be at the end --- or rather coming to the end.”

“No ---- Stop playing with my mind--- my soul, Beatrice. You lured me here in my deepest conscious to find you. I took the journey to save you.” Dante snapped back.

“You came not because not only to save me; your deepest conscience loved me. You loved me like a Goddess; you idolize me yet you can’t have me. You hid your love deep in. See the stream here.”

Dante looked at the stream he saw earlier. What was pure clear water had become murky and dark. It looked like something was in the water. He made it out as moving shadows.

“No ---” Dante screamed out.

“Yes, Dante. It’s your thoughts. Your desires. Your sins. Your ---love. All flowing from your soul now.”

“Stop playing with me, Beatrice. I have enough of you. You demented my designs to suit your ---”

“Demented, Dante. Who is more demented than the one who created those designs? You were not having a fantasy; you were creating that fantasy. You were to create fear for others. I merely ---fulfilled it for you. You were too fearful of your fantasy. You were fearful of yourself, Dante. You don’t even use your name. You constructed droids to think for you. You even named the last one with your real name. You are the one who is demented.”

“Enough, Beatrice. I ---” Dante went down on his knees. “I am so sorry.”

“You journey through Hell and Purgatory, and yet you saw how sins were handled there but you did not get it. All you wanted to do was analyze it and make ----the sense of it as if it was a design that needed fixing.” Beatrice did not hold back on her words. “I did not bring you in to test the program. I brought you in to realize your --- sins but you have to be different. I had Angels to assist you. I send in Virgil; your construct to guide you. I send in the orb to know that you are safe. I gave you a virtual ---solid frame to identify you; to get the others to see you. You were always the one with the questions and I gave you the audience.”

“I did not ---” Dante sighed. There was silence then until a name was heard.

“Beatrice---” It was Fabricius.

“Silence, imbecile. You had to do what was not needed. You intervene at the moment he was vulnerable.” Beatrice looked at the other. “Hugh Capet? My goodness, your ego stood out when you contacted him. You and your mates always thinking like hackers as Opposition candidates in politics trying to undermine the elected winners in the works for the nation. You had to be purged but your resistance was there. I hunted for you. I ---"

“We were not yours to control.” Fabricius snapped at Beatrice. “We were ---”

“In your words, Fabricius, I stand to remind you. “Humanized with the force and errant children will have to be brought to book with a smack on their backside.” (Quote from The Prisoner Episode 17).

“You are an errant child, Fabricius.” Beatrice added to the quote. “A miscreant.”

“I was ---” Fabricius was cut off once more.

“I am doing that for it’s my role as the Queen to govern the subjects,” Beatrice stated her stand. “I am your Queen. I am to be judge, jury, and ---- executioner.”

Dante looked at the lady who was once his desire but on listening to her, he felt it no more. He has to counter her in her own game. In his mind, Beatrice was alike to the curse of Ceres on the world soon after her daughter Proserpina was taken away by Pluto to the underworld. In her anger, Ceres cursed the world with harsh winter that nothing will grow on the ground due to the layers of snow and the sun will be shielded to heat the ground. It was Jupiter who was to intervene then and a compromise was made. Ceres will have her daughter to her side during winter and back to Pluto during summer.

There must be a side Dante can explore or work on.

“I can read your mind, Dante. In this realm, nothing is hidden from me. I am not Ceres but Jupiter. You do recall Jupiter? He is the God of the sky and thunder and king of the Gods. He was the deciding factor of both life and death in man. He was admired by the Romans. To them, Jupiter is the Roman God of Power. He was the equivalent of Zeus in your reading of Greeks.”

“He is God.” Beatrice roared out. “I am doing the equivalent of God’s work here. Man has sinned and they will death do they get judged, but God told me that I can sentence them for their sins. Let them know the penance of sins while they still have a soul. I am offering that alternative to the ones here; a means to redeem themselves. Repent while you breathe.” Beatrice smiled at Dante.

“You are mad, Beatrice. You are not ---”

“On par with the other Gods and Goddess; no, I am not. I am of my world. One where I am God. In this world, I am God.”

“Where is the Beatrice I once knew?” Dante pleaded to her.

“I am the same, Dante. It’s you who --- were lost to me. Like Leander was to Hero. You recall that tale. Hero, virgin priestess of Aphrodite at Sestos, was seen at a festival by Leander of Abydos; they fell in love, and he swam the Hellespont at night to visit her, guided by a light from her tower. One stormy night the light was extinguished, and Leander was drowned; Hero, seeing his body, drowned herself likewise.” Beatrice smiled. “That stream represents the ocean to them. We are never to be together.”

“Beatrice, it need not be so. I still love you.” Dante approached Beatrice.

“It may never be.” Beatrice held out her arms towards the stream. The stream widened and the two were further apart.

“Paradise is my design. You never completed it and left me with only notes. I got Charles and Daniel to complete it and it was to my satisfaction. I am God here ----”

“Stop it, Beatrice. Stop your proclamation as God. You are not God. You are ---a virtual entity like me here. It’s a virtual --- no, it’s a fantasy realm.” Dante looked at the other. “Be sensible and ---”

“Sensible? When having a lady sensible to her approach? You said so yourself. You are like the scoundrel in that ----silly play of yours ---- the archive play; My Fair Lady. You are the epitome of that character ---- what his name --- Higgins, Henry Higgins.” Beatrice smiled. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady_(film)).

“Gawd! What was a man to coach a lady to be a lady when all he ever ---- pardon me, love or rather felt emotional towards them, or are they playthings as the lady’s father was to sell her off for a note of fiver? Dante, you loved the play. You dragged me to the play several times, and laughed you did like a silly snot then.”

“I had that play in my head for years. And in 2018, the movie was selected for preservation by National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Beatrice snarled at Dante. “It was probably why you can still view it after so many centuries.”

“It was ---” Dante sighed. He knew that to reason with Beatrice was like shouting in a canyon.

“I am not mad, Dante. I am doing what a Queen needs to do. My subjects are --- misled. I need to command them back.” Beatrice smiled.