jew ID: a8d866 to mordor! Jan. 15, 2020, 1:01 p.m. No.7823049   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3057 >>3083

The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides is a pencil, ink and watercolour on paper artwork by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827). The work was completed between 1824 and 1827 and illustrates a passage from the Inferno of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1265–1321).[1] The work is part of a series which was to be the last set of watercolours Blake worked on before his death in August 1827. It is held in the Tate Gallery, London.

 

Blake was commissioned in 1824 by his friend, the painter John Linnell (1792–1882), to create a series of illustrations based on Dante's poem. Blake was then in his late sixties, yet by legend drafted 100 watercolours on the subject "during a fortnight's illness in bed".[2] Few of them were actually coloured, and only seven gilded.[3] He sets this work in a scene from one of the circles of Hell depicted in the Inferno (Circle VII, Ring II, Canto XIII), in which Dante and the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BCE) travel through a forest haunted by harpies—mythological winged and malign fat-bellied death-spirits who bear features of human heads and female breasts.

 

The harpies in Dante's version feed from the leaves of oak trees which entomb suicides. At the time Canto XIII (or The Wood of Suicides) was written, suicide was considered by the Catholic Church as at least equivalent to murder, and a contravention of the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill", and many theologians believed it to be an even deeper sin than murder, as it constituted a rejection of God's gift of life. Dante alludes to this by placing suicides in the seventh circle of Hell, where the violent are punished, alongside murderers, tyrants, blasphemers, sodomites and usurers.[4]

 

Dante describes a tortured forest infested with harpies, where the act of suicide is punished by encasing the offender in a tree, thus denying eternal life and damning the soul to an eternity as a member of the restless living dead, and prey to the harpies. Furthermore, the soul can only speak and grieve when its tree is broken or damaged as punishment for choosing suicide to express grief. Lastly, in another act of symbolic retribution, when each of the blessed and damned returns with his or her body from the Last Judgment, those damned for suicide will not re-inhibit their bodies but instead hang them on their branches, both because they denied them in their final act of life and as a reminder of what they denied themselves.[5] Blake's painting shows Dante and Virgil walking through a haunted forest at a moment when Dante has torn a twig from a bleeding tree, and then dropped it in shock on hearing the disembodied words, "Wherefore tear'st me thus? Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast?".[1]

 

In Dante's poem, the tree contains the soul of Pietro della Vigna (1190–1249), an Italian jurist and diplomat, and chancellor and secretary to the Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250). Pietro was a learned man who rose to become a close advisor to the emperor. However, his success was envied by other members of Frederick II's court, and charges that he was wealthier than the emperor and was an agent of the pope were brought against him. Frederick threw Pietro in prison, and had his eyes ripped out. In retaliation, Pietro killed himself by beating his head against the dungeon wall. He is one of four named suicides mentioned in Canto XIII,[6] and represents the notion of a "heroic" suicide.[7]

 

Describing the scene, Dante wrote:

 

Here the repellent harpies make their nests,

Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades

With dire announcements of the coming woe.

They have broad wings, a human neck and face,

Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw

Their lamentations in the eerie trees.[5]

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:02 p.m. No.7823057   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3078

>>7823049

Although Pietro does not reveal his identity to the travellers in Dante's episode, he does moralise on the act of suicide, asking (as paraphrased by the historian Wallace Fowlie) if it is better to submit to chastisement and misfortune or take one's own life.[6] In Canto XIII, Pietro says, "I am he that held both keys of Frederick's heart / To lock and to unlock / and well I knew / To turn them with so exquisite an art.[8]

 

Dante Alighieri and Virgil enter the wood, William Blake. From Inferno Canto II 139–141'.

Blake shows a number of contorted human figures embedded in the oak trees in the foreground. To the right, a male figure is seated and wears a crown. A female form is hung upside-down and transformed into a tree on Dante and Virgil's left. This figure may have been inspired by Dante's reference to La Meretrice, or Envy, to whom Pietro attributed his fall.[1] Examining Blake's use of camouflage in the work, the art historian Kathleen Lundeen observes, "The trees appear to be superimposed over the figures as if the two images in the previous illustration has been pulled together into a single focus. Through the art of camouflage, Blake gives us an image in flux, one which is in a perpetual state of transmutation. Now we see trees, now we see people."[9]

 

Three large harpies perch on branches spanning the pair of travellers, and these creatures are depicted by Blake as monstrous bird–human hybrids, in the words of the art historian Kevin Hutchings, "functioning as iconographic indictments of the act of suicide and its violent negation of the divine human form".[10]

 

The harpies' faces are human-like except for their pointed beaks, while their bodies are owl-shaped and equipped with claws, sharp wings and female breasts. Blake renders them in a manner faithful to Dante's description in 13:14–16: "Broad are their pennons, of the human form / Their neck and countenance, armed with talons keen / These sit and wail on the dreary mystic wood."[11]

 

In March 1918, The Wood of the Self-Murderers was sold by Linnell's estate, through Christie's, for £7,665 to the British National Art Collections Fund. The Art Collections Fund presented the painting to the Tate in 1919.[12]

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:04 p.m. No.7823073   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3078 >>3089

"Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi"

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GREEK

 

Homer, The Odyssey - Greek Epic C8th B.C.

Aeschylus, Agamemnon - Greek Tragedy C5th B.C.

Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes - Greek Tragedy C5th B.C.

Plato, Phaedo - Greek Philosophy C4th B.C.

Plato, Republic - Greek Philosophy C4th B.C.

Lycophron, Alexandra - Greek Poetry C3rd B.C.

Pausanias, Description of Greece - Greek Travelogue C2nd A.D.

Oppian, Halieutica - Greek Poetry C3rd A.D.

Nonnus, Dionysiaca - Greek Epic C5th A.D.

ROMAN

 

Virgil, Aeneid - Latin Epic C1st B.C.

Virgil, Georgics - Latin Bucolic C1st B.C.

Cicero, De Natura Deorum - Latin Rhetoric C1st B.C.

Seneca, Hercules Furens - Latin Tragedy C1st A.D.

Statius, Thebaid - Latin Epic C1st A.D.

Apuleius, The Golden Ass - Latin Novel C2nd A.D.

BYZANTINE

 

Suidas, The Suda - Byzantine Greek Lexicon C10th A.D.

>>7802036

>>7802027

>demand gay jew whine at your shiva

>>7801992

>>>>>>was teh dick in teh butt a polland jew ?

>>>>>was is teh negro polland jew cock that caused all this berliner saurkrauter homo ?

>>>>did $cientologoy help you deal with teh butt joos?

>>>did teh fudgefactory pack your augustus gloop in a system of tubes?

>>did bilbo therapy teach you to build a wall for your homo?

>did the gayestshotgunwedding have cheeseburgers ? #EVER

but was it gay jew whine?

>>7800944

>>7800932

>>7800913

>>7800843 (You)

 

BEER DIED

 

<BEER left behind a hell of a lot of stuff to daughter and sons who have no idea what to do with it.

 

It was the school of hard knocks and yes we were told many times how BEER had to walk for miles in a blizzard to get to school, so suck it up.

 

These words of encouragement, wisdom, and sometimes comfort, kept us in line, taught us the “school of hard knocks” and gave us something to pass down to our children.

 

BEER was a comic book aficionado, a pop-culture encyclopedia and always the most fun person at any party.

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:04 p.m. No.7823078   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3084

>>7823073

>>7823057

The line is a shout by Plutus. Plutus (also identified with Pluto and Hades) was originally the Roman god of wealth and the underground, but in the Inferno, Dante has made Plutus into a repulsive demon who guards the fourth circle, where souls who have abused their wealth through greed or improvidence are punished.[3] The full strophe, plus the following four, which describes Dante's and Virgil's entire meeting and confrontation with Plutus reads:

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:05 p.m. No.7823084   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>7823078

 

"Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe!",

cominciò Pluto con la voce chioccia;

e quel savio gentil, che tutto seppe,

 

disse per confortarmi: "Non ti noccia

la tua paura; ché, poder ch'elli abbia,

non ci torrà lo scender questa roccia."

 

Poi si rivolse a quella 'nfiata labbia,

e disse: "Taci, maladetto lupo!

consuma dentro te con la tua rabbia.

 

Non è sanza cagion l'andare al cupo:

vuolsi ne l'alto, là dove Michele

fé la vendetta del superbo strupo."

 

Quali dal vento le gonfiate vele

caggiono avvolte, poi che l'alber fiacca,

tal cadde a terra la fiera crudele.[4]

 

"Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!"

Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;

And that benignant Sage, who all things knew,

 

Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear

Harm thee; for any power that he may have

Shall not prevent thy going down this crag."

 

Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,

And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf;

Consume within thyself with thine own rage.

 

Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;

Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought

Vengeance upon the proud adultery."

 

Even as the sails inflated by the wind

Involved together fall when snaps the mast,

So fell the cruel monster to the earth.

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:06 p.m. No.7823089   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3090 >>3124 >>3154

>>7823073

>"Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi"

"Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi" is a verse from Dante's Inferno, XXXI.67. The verse is shouted out by Nimrod, one of the giants who guard the Ninth Circle of Hell. The line, whose literal meaning is uncertain (it is usually left untranslated as well), is usually interpreted as a sign of the confusion of the languages caused by the fall of the Tower of Babel.

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:06 p.m. No.7823090   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3093 >>3154

>>7823089

The biblical character Nimrod is portrayed as a giant in the Inferno, congruent with medieval traditions of giants.[1] That he is the biblical character also is indicated by the hunter's horn which hangs across his chest: Nimrod is "a mighty hunter before God" (Genesis 10:9). With other mythological giants, Nimrod forms a ring surrounding the central pit of Hell, a ring that Dante from a distance mistakes as a series of towers which he compares to those of Monteriggioni (40–45). When Nimrod speaks this, his only line in the poem, Virgil explains that "every language is to him the same / as his to others—no one knows his tongue" (80–81).

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:06 p.m. No.7823093   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3095 >>3154

>>7823090

Early commentators of Dante generally agreed already that there was no possible translation.[2] Critics have noted, though, that there are possible comparisons with magic formulae, "with their mixtures of Hebrew-, Greek-, and Latin-looking words, and suggestions of angelic and demoniac names." Such formulae were often interspersed with psalms—Nimrod's line ends with almi, and its rhyme word in line 69 is salmi, "psalms".[3]

 

Later critics typically read the "senseless"[4] verse as a sign of incomprehensibility, of the tendency of poetic language to "displace language from the register of its ordinary operation".[5] The line is compared to "Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe", another untranslatable verse from the Inferno (VII.1) spoken by an angry demon[3] (Plutus), both of which are, according to one critic, "intended primarily to represent the mental confusion brought about by the sin of pride."[6]

 

Denis Donoghue warns, however, that Virgil may be too quick with his criticism: "Virgil is not a patient critic, though his morality is impressive; he should have attended to the fury in Nimrod's words, if it is fury, and not to the words." Rather than "gibberish", Donoghue suggests it is "probably another version of King Lear's 'matter and impertinency mixed, reason in madness.'"[7][8] Eric Rabkin reads the line as an example of metalinguistic discourse (which treats "language as subject, material, [and] context"):

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:07 p.m. No.7823095   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3133 >>3154

>>7823093

In saying "'He hath himself accused,'" Virgil is making Nimrod's language the subject of his own language; in creating this nonsense utterance, the poet Dante is using language as material to be shaped into his poem; and in having the incomprehensible statement made meaningful to Dante by his mentor-poet Virgil, the text elliptically comments on its own context, on its existence as poetry that has the effect of creating order and palpable reality even where such reality may to ordinary or unblessed mortals be unapparent.[9]

 

Literary historian László Szörényi considers Nimrod speaks Old Hungarian, which, after philological examinations, can be interpreted to the line "Rabhel maj, amék szabi állni" (modern: "Rabhely majd, amelyek szabja állni"), roughly in English "It's a jail that forces you to stay here!". It is not clear whether Nimrod speaks this sentence to threaten Virgil and Dante or to express his own miserable fate. Szörényi points out that Nimrod appears as the forefather of the Hungarians in Simon of Kéza's Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum. Dante was a friend of Charles Martel of Anjou, pretender to the Hungarian throne, who was surrounded by Hungarian courtiers and clergymen. There Dante perhaps became familiar with the Hungarian chronicle tradition.[10]

jew ID: a8d866 know your cocytus Jan. 15, 2020, 1:09 p.m. No.7823102   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3115 >>3154

Caina, after the Biblical Cain; traitors to blood relatives.

Antenora, after Antenor from the Iliad; traitors to country.

Ptolomea, after Ptolemy, governor of Jericho, who murdered his guests (1 Maccabees); traitors to guests. Here it is said that sometimes the soul of a traitor falls to Hell before Atropos cuts the thread, and their body is taken over by a fiend.

Judecca, after Judas Iscariot; traitors to masters and benefactors.

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:12 p.m. No.7823124   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3129 >>3154

>>7823089

The scant information that can be gleaned from the text is this:

 

Virgil understands the meaning ("And that benignant Sage, who all things knew…"), and is replying.

That the line is just the beginning of something else ("Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began…).

It is an expression of anger ("And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf / Consume within thyself with thine own rage.").

That it has the effect of a threat to Dante (And that benignant Sage, who all things knew, / Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear / Harm thee; for any power that he may have / Shall not prevent thy going down this crag.").[citation needed]

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:13 p.m. No.7823129   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3132 >>3143 >>3154

>>7823124

The only word with fairly obvious meaning is "Satàn", namely Satan; which comes from the Hebrew word הַשָׂטָן (ha-Satan), which translated literally means "the adversary".

 

The earliest interpretations[edit]

Some interpretations from the earliest commentators on the Divine Comedy include:

 

The word "pape" might be a rendering of Latin papae, or from Greek παπαί (papaí). Both words are interjections of anger or surprise, attested in ancient authors (comparable to the English "damn!", or just "oh!").[5][6]

The word "aleppe" could be an Italian version of the word for "alef", the Hebrew letter א (a) (compare Phoenician alep and Greek alpha). The consonant shift here is comparable to that in Giuseppe, the Italian version of the name Joseph. In Hebrew, alef also means "number one" or "the origin that contains everything". It may also be interpreted as a metaphor for the "head", "the first and foremost". This was an attribute for God in late medieval expressions, meaning "the majesty" (of God). "Alef" was also a medieval interjection (like "Oh God!").[5][6]

With these interpretations, the verse would mean "Oh, Satan, o Satan, god, king!".[6]

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:14 p.m. No.7823132   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>3154

>>7823129

>With these interpretations, the verse would mean "Oh, Satan, o Satan, god, king!"

With these interpretations, the verse would mean "Oh, Satan, o Satan, god, king!".[6]

 

The prayer theory[edit]

The word "pape" might come from Latin Pape, an old Roman term for "emperor", or "father". The double mention of "pape" together with "Satan" (here interpreted as the fallen angel Satan) and the break (the comma) in the hendecasyllable, gives it a tone of a prayer or an invocation to Satan, although there is no apparent verb. It might be also an invocation of the evil within the intruders.

 

Domenico Guerri's theory[edit]

Domenico Guerri researched medieval glossaries thoroughly in 1908, and interpreted it as "Oh Satan, oh Satan, God", which he wrote was meant as an invocation against travellers.[7]

 

Abboud Rashid's theory[edit]

Abboud Abu Rashid, the first translator of the Divine Comedy into Arabic (1930–1933), interpreted this verse as a phonetic translation of the spoken Arabic, "Bab Al-Shaytan, Bab Al-Shaytan, Ahlibu!", meaning "The door of Satan, the door of Satan, proceed downward!". According to some scholars, although Dante did not speak Arabic, he could have drawn some inspiration from Islamic sources.[8] Doubts arise, however, because the meaning of this interpretation does not really match the reaction of Dante and Virgil (anger and fear), nor Virgil's answer.

 

The Hebrew theory[edit]

Some commentators[9] claim that the sentence is phonetic Hebrew, "Bab-e-sciatan, bab-e-sciatan, alep!". This would be the opposite of the sentence that Jesus spoke in the Gospel according to St Matthew 16:18, "…and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it". The meaning of this utterance would be that Hell (Satan) has conquered.[6]

 

The French theories[edit]

There are also two suggestions of translations from French. The first reads: "Pas paix Satan, pas paix Satan, à l'épée" ("No peace Satan, no peace Satan, to the sword"). The second is: "Paix, paix, Satan, paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix!" ("Peace, peace, Satan, peace, peace, Satan, let's go, peace!"). The latter phrase can be interpreted as "Satan, make peace!".[6] Benvenuto Cellini, in his autobiography, reports hearing the phrase in Paris, transliterating it as "Phe phe, Satan, phe phe, Satan, alè, phe" and interpreting it as "Be quiet! Be quiet Satan, get out of here and be quiet."[10]

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:15 p.m. No.7823143   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>7823129

Sources[edit]

This article is partially translated from the Italian Wikipedia.

^ Dorothy L. Sayers, Hell: notes on Canto VII, Penguin, 1949, ISBN 0-14-044006-2.

^ Mark Musa, Inferno: notes on Canto VII, Penguin, 2002, ISBN 0-14-243722-0.

^ Björkesson, Ingvar (2006). Den gudomliga komedin (Divine Comedy), comments by Ingvar Björkesson. Levande Litteratur (in Swedish). Natur & Kultur. p. 425. ISBN 978-91-27-11468-5.

^ Italian text from Princeton Dante Project.

^ Jump up to: a b Vittorio Sermonti, Inferno, Rizzoli 2001, p. 134.

^ Jump up to: a b c d e Berthe M. Marti, "A Crux in Dante's Inferno," Speculum, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan 1952), pp. 67–70.

^ Domenico Guerri, Di alcuni versi dotti nella "Divina Commedia", Città di Castello, 1908

^ Philip K. Hitti, "Recent Publications in Arabic or Dealing with the Arabic World," Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Dec 1934), pp. 435–438.

^ Ernesto Manara, in Il Propugnatore, 1888.

^ Benvenuto Cellini (tr. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter E. Bondanella), My Life, Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-19-282849-5, p. 262 and note on p. 438.

jew ID: a8d866 Jan. 15, 2020, 1:17 p.m. No.7823154   🗄️.is 🔗kun

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>>7823129

>>7823132

References[edit]

^ Alighieri, Dante; Björkesson, Ingvar (2006). Den gudomliga komedin (Divine Comedy), comments by Ingvar Björkesson. www.nok.se. Levande Litteratur (in Swedish). Natur & Kultur. p. 425. ISBN 978-91-27-11468-5.

^ Mandelbaum, Allen (2004). The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Bantam. pp. 387–88. ISBN 978-0-553-21339-3.

^ Jump up to: a b Austin, H.D. (1940). "Notes to the Divine Comedy (A Supplement to Existing Commentaries)". PMLA. 55 (33): 660–713. doi:10.2307/458732. JSTOR 458732.

^ Kleiner, John (1998). "Mismapping the Underworld". Dante Studies. 107: 1–31. JSTOR 40166378.

^ Heller-Roazen, Daniel (1998). "The Matter of Language: Guilhem de Peitieus and the Platonic Tradition". Modern Language Notes. 113 (4): 851–80. doi:10.1353/mln.1998.0056. JSTOR 3251406.

^ Kleinhenz, Christopher (1974). "Dante's Towering Giants: Inferno xxxi". Romance Philology. 27: 269–85.

^ Kleinhenz, Christopher (1980). "Plutus, Fortune, and Michael: The Eternal Triangle". Dante Studies. 98: 35–52. JSTOR 40166286.

^ Donoghue, Denis (1977). "On the Limits of a Language". The Sewanee Review. 85 (3): 371–91. JSTOR 27543259.

^ Rabkin, Eric S. (1979). "Metalinguistics and Science Fiction". Critical Inquiry. 6 (1). JSTOR 1343087.

^ Szörényi, László (2009). "Nimród zsoltára - Ősmagyar Dante Poklában?". Irodalmi Jelen. 9 (3).