"The Dante's Inferno test" [electronic astral review]
Assiduous, habitual, and perhaps even some other readers of this space may recall my recent, idle indulgence in what I dubbed an "electronic fortune cookie" — viz., idly amusing myself by glancing at an online facility that (amiably enough) purported to divine & offer a "past-life diagnosis." Likely proving my real area of error (sin) to involve excess www-dilly-dallying, just now I stumbled on (and again fell into the virtual pit of) a kindred (in a way) internet thingie. Except: rather than being tantamount to a fortune cookie (roll-of-die via an algorithm's hat-pick, based on the numerals of one's birthdate), this one, instead, asks a lot of private &/or insidious (& insinuating) questions. So: I submitted to the humiliating exercise. At least it didn't quite purport to damn me to hell. Hey presto! my results:
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Very High |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | Very High |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Very Low |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Moderate |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Very Low |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very Low |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Low |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Low |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Very Low |
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
hmm -- I guess that's the top of the miserable heap? They don't list Paradise on the chart. That's another chart? Ah well. Your mileage may vary (but.... I wouldn't suggest betting my life on the postmortal predictive capabilities [or other special virtues] of this professedly Dante Alighieri-germane True/False quizlet).[to left: Pergatorio per Salvador Dali]
ps: I notice the hell-testers tie in a bit of convenient literary commerce (offering some Dante translations via their linked elucidations).
As for translations from The Divine Comedy, in terms of the Purgatorio, here's recommending poet W.S. Merwin's fine recent version (though many folks are more interested in Book 1 of Dante's trilogy: the Inferno, which Merwin hasn't translated). I notice the Merwin link just given includes links to a couple section from that Purgatorio translation, and also one to Pinsky reading (so: audio) from the Dante of Merwin. Pinsky's own recent English version of the Inferno has also been well spoken of.
posted by david raphael israel at 11:50 AM
8 Comments:
I posted mine not on my main site, but a sub-blog, greymattermeltingpot.blogspot.com
I'm "gooder" than I thought, I guess.
Thank god, I don't believe in Hell. This is where I'm going!!!!
"Seventh Level of Hell
Guarded by the Minotaur, who snarls in fury, and encircled within the river Phlegethon, filled with boiling blood, is the Seventh Level of Hell. The violent, the assasins, the tyrants, and the war-mongers lament their pitiless mischiefs in the river, while centaurs armed with bows and arrows shoot those who try to escape their punishment. The stench here is overpowering. This level is also home to the wood of the suicides- stunted and gnarled trees with twisting branches and poisoned fruit. At the time of final judgement, their bodies will hang from their branches. In those branches the Harpies, foul birdlike creatures with human faces, make their nests. Beyond the wood is scorching sand where those who committed violence against God and nature are showered with flakes of fire that rain down against their naked bodies. Blasphemers and sodomites writhe in pain, their tongues more loosed to lamentation, and out of their eyes gushes forth their woe. Usurers, who followed neither nature nor art, also share company in the Seventh Level."
Pray for me, y'all! I'm badder than I thought, I guess.
River--
maybe it was a bad idea of me to blog this! The fact is, it's safe to bet [if betting won't already get one in too much hot water] that they take off a lot of ponts for Atheism. Perhaps for this manner of quiz, one has to pretend [for sake of argument as it were] one is hereby being post-mortally interrogated -- ergo the question of life-after-death being at least settled affirmatively, the possibility of diety could be nudged out of nescience into, well, possibility. I'll bet that in itself would let these neo-Danteans give you a pass up some rungs. They're a bit close-minded on a couple of things...; inflexibilities & thought-rigidities of such a system are uncovered by your note.
Hey s a cheer-up point: I'm sure you'd get much higher points on a Buddhist version! (There, like as not, one might go way downward for believing in a diety!) So there.
Prayers offered not out of fear for yer damnation, but in thanks for your (in various ways) keeping us all a bit in line.
cheers, d.i.
twisted,
maybe ond diff. between the infernal & the purgatorial, is in he latter one can still blog? ;-)
But let's keep blogging from earth a while
this is the place to blog in style!
those who claim the afterworld
has blogging -- do they blog with guile?
[in this verse's conceit, the notion is that the proposed claim would be one made (where else?) by bloggers]
cheers,
d.i.
I went to level 7. I'am a bad girl.
Cheers, enemy!
I always knew we were sisters!
Fun conceit there, d.i.
oh ! reading about dante was beautiful ! i absolutely love him! his idea of 'facing and overcoming fears' has long haunted me. I am eventually starting to come in terms with it ... fortunately. amazing read! :)
r r,
thanks for the blogo-visit. Was this reading about Dante via links to my item? Else, I'm afraid I paid the good poet short shrift [other than some nice paintings] in my somewhat trivial (for-fun) blog item there. I besides the Divine Comedy trilogy (which really I've only read snippets of now & then over the years), I've also liked Dante's earlier, shorter book (a mix of poems and prose) called La Vita Nuova (The New Life); -- it's a poem-sequence with the poet's own commentary, a series of sonnets that arose from his idealized love for the woman Beatrice.
I've much enjoyed spending a bit of time in Firenze -- the city where Dante lived during a portion of his life. Merwin tells an amazing tale (maybe somewhere in his itroduction to this translation) about the recovery of a portion of the Purgatorio text, which had been hidden away in the wall of his house in Firenze (Dante having meanwhile been exiled from the city). In a dream, it was shown to him where he had put the pages of the manuscript (he'd apparently forgotten where he'd put that part of the book!) -- he told someone in his family, who looked and presto! there they were.
cheers,
d.i.
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