Dante Book IV Canto I Scene 1

 Book II

Canto I

Escape from Hell

Scene I

Dante recited his knowledge of poems than for he thought that he was to die. It was an ironic feel in him to say that when he had just journeyed through Hell, or rather his version of it. He met those sinners whom some he knew personally, and some, well a figment of memories from the materials he had read before. All of it was an inducement by a mad man with evil intents on the realm of the living.

“Doctor Bormant”, the name muttered through his dry lips, cracked by the cold environment then.

Dante knew Doctor Bormant then when they met at the talks, with the latter’s oratorial presentation that intrigued Dante’s mind. Their first meet was a misfire to expunge the other words on life, and regretfully, Dante had to redeem himself with more arguments hence the Doctor may have marked him for the mad experiment.

The Doctor’s experiment was a virtual walk-through Hell.

“It may be a poem to you and many others but over the generations, no one knew why he wrote it. Why the layers of descriptions? Dante wrote it while in political exile from Florence and he used it to express his views then. He had given bad endings for his enemies. The literary mode of assassination. It was Dante’s literary works to express his discontent.”

“I will have my own one day.” The Doctor did it in his vile methodology to remove his enemies or perceived ones by assassinating them through the mind. It was a brilliant move but even the perfect design needed to be tested.

What better than the one who was an ardent reader of it. Dante’s poems were the subject matter for the Doctor also knew Dante’s works very well. The Doctor had the present Dante brought there by devious means, and placed in him the one desire of his unfulfilled which was elusive Beatrice. What the Doctor did not imagine then was Dante’s self-defense mechanism to invoke in Virgil

A virtual companion that was supposed to have traversed Hell and back.

How did Dante do it?

Dante was beginning to doubt it then. He was also doubting whether he was even a volunteer to fight for the cause. He felt frayed in my mind. Which was real and not? He was a poet; one with a fiery soul but to hold a weapon and remove another’s life was beyond his deepest sins.

Maybe that part was imagined too for him.

If that was so, how far back had Doctor Bormant been in his mind. Perhaps far too long for the Doctor knew of Beatrice.

Beatrice was always on Dante’s mind. She was his desire and yet she was given to someone else. More powerful than him; it did not matter whether she loved him or the emperor, she was powerless to decide then. So was himself, and was powerless to deny her love was for him maybe once then. For years, Dante had the desire and even fantasized over her; lustful thoughts that he should not have for it was a sin by his faith but he did have them.

“While you are in your fantasy with her, she may be doing it willingly with the emperor himself in the flesh.” Dante smoothed his fantasy to demonize it but he can’t help it. It was as if the Devil was prodding him to do those vile acts. He recalled reading the tale of the Lord Pendragon who seduced the Queen by magically disguising himself as the King in Arthur’s tale.

“I am not that evil.” Dante kept himself unblemished for her; the moronic oath as if him having his chastity pure was like preserving the other’s virginity encased behind a veil of the membrane. It was not then. Due to his unrequited love, Dante spent his time on the work of poems and readings of more texts, if not preaching his voice hoarse to be heard at the forums or un-attentive audience. He had his adversaries; men and women but they were all on scholar matters.

“I am a fool,” Dante muttered then while his body was raked by the coldness. His thoughts were shaken off by the coldness, and he then looked to the one item that was my link to sanity.

“Virgil, wake up. I need you.” The orb remained on the icy surface with a faint light at the narrow slit on the shell. Virgil had been my constant companion, not so much in that metallic shell but a physical from he was not. They were in Hell imagined by a mad man. So, you can say translucent or made by his imagination, and Virgil shielded him from the harm of the experiment. Virgil his companion was there to pull him of any predicament as if he was the antithesis of his findings in the works of the real Dante’s.

Dante closed his eyes and thought of Virgil the translucent one and broke out into laughter.

“Madness---” Dante called out and that hurt his throat then. “He is dead. Dead like the others.”

Dante recalled then that Virgil was at Limbo, the transit between the world of the living and the death. The one place his soul can remain in ---stasis, perhaps.

“Dante, you fool. The place you called Hell then was an imaginary place. It was all in your mind.” Dante snapped at his thoughts. I looked then around him. Maybe, all of that was his imagination. He grabbed the snow that was on the surface. It felt real. He took it to his lips and tasted it.

He spat it out. It was harsh to his taste; more like the taste of bitterness. He had tasted snow; fell once too many times on it while skiing, and that was one activity I disliked.

“Maybe---” It was not bitter but his mind made him spit it out, he was beginning to doubt even himself then. He looked to the skies above. There were the stars; there were four bright ones. It was seldom seen together for he read it was only seen in the Southern Region at the tip. They called it the South Pole and still was seen over the generations.

Dante recalled from his readings, the closer you are to either of Earth’s poles, the more circumpolar stars you see. Circumpolar stars neither rise nor set, but stay up at all hours of the day, every day of the year. Even when you can’t see them – when the sun is out and it is daytime – these stars are up there, circling endlessly around the sky’s north or south celestial pole. (https://earthsky.org/tonight/circumpolar-stars-dont-rise-or-set/).

“Southern Cross---” His mind went into the depths of his readings. “Sigma Octantis---- Yes, that is the name. It’s the Southern Star against the Northern Star; Polaris.”

“No-No---” He shook his head. “Not stars but virtues--- Cardinal virtues.”

I looked at the stars again. There were four bright lights up there.

“Cardinal virtues ----- the four virtues of mind and character --------” Dante shook his head. He had to think. His mind is the temple of his solace and ---- sanity. “Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance. They form a virtue theory of ethics. The term cardinal comes from the Latin cardo (hinge).”

“Yes, the virtues are so-called because they are regarded as the basic virtues required for a virtuous life. These principles derive initially from Plato. They were also recognized by the Stoics. Cicero expanded on them, and Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, and Thomas Aquinas adapted them while expanding on the theological virtues.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues)

“It was mine too.” Dante had taken the test of the faith with those virtues. “I was the advocate in a realm of sinners. I might as well be a hermit or bounded by the walls to right the wrongs of the mass.”

Beatrice once told him; “Dante, you can’t see the realm from your view. You must view yourself as if the mirror is before you. See yourself how you speak, and then believe if you think it’s right but don’t expect the others who saw your reflection may agree to with your view. It’s like our love, or rather your love towards me. You said you loved me, but do I? I may be --- not to you.”

It was our first disagreement then, and soon she was to be wedded off to the emperor.

“Bastard he was and I was a fool after all.” Dante sighed at himself for the path he had taken led him to be abducted and tortured on his virtues.

“Were you, Dante? Or was it your soul searching for the direction?” Dante heard the voice and looked towards it.

He was still alone.

The voice may be imaginary like a mirage.

He sighed to himself.

“How can there be anyone here?” He put on a weak smile. “I am all alone. Virgil is ---un-activated.”

“One must ignore the thoughts of hope.” The voice was back then. Dante looked around and saw no one.

“I guess a fool sometimes does not see the path ahead of its feet to the vision of the horizon.” The voice was bleak out. It was then he saw the voice come from the orb.

“Virgil, you are back.” Dante was elated to be with his metallic companion.

“Apparently. I am still recharging my cells.” The orb replied. “My last sonar blast required a lot of energy and I had to shut down to recharge. You looked ---rather lost.”

“I am. I am lost in this so-named realm. Where are we?”

“We are in --- shall I say out of Hell.” The orb replied. “I need time to recharge and if you are going to ask me more questions, I will probably deplete and remain inactive.”

“I am sorry, Virgil. I shall remain quiet for now.” Dante then carried the orb and placed it inside his tunic.

“Hey, can you don’t do that? It’s not like I disliked you or sensed your heartbeats are induced by your need for the blood to circulate and the throbs of it maybe for Beatrice but I needed the star lights to charge.” Dante replaced the orb on the surface. It was still a menacing sarcastic metallic equipment that its creator had programmed to be rude and pesky.

“However, I had found an interface to the place you named Hell, and it may be faster to re-charge from there. More to it ---” He was elated to hear the orb was going to be functioning and cut off on its explanation.

“I am ---"

“Hush, Dante.” The Orb stopped him. Darn orb was nastier than before. “While I am resting, you will converse with the server here.”

A holographic image appeared then.