Dante’s Oblio, Fourth Book of the Divine Comedy
Oblivion is an eternal state of lack of awareness thought by some to occur after death. This idea contradicts beliefs that there is an afterlife, such as a Heaven or Hell, after death. Limbo, in Catholic theology, was believed to be neither, for those souls who died without Baptism. Although not condemned to punishment, they were by dogna deprived of eternal happiness with God in Paradise
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Everyone took their turns banning Dante’s Divine Comedy. The Christians for some clergy Dante placed in Hell; the Muslims for the atrocities Mohammed suffered there; the Jews for the antisemitic mythos perpetuated overtly and between the lines.
Yet, few know that it wasn’t a trilogy. It was a tetralogy.
The fourth and final book, which I herein announce to the world, was Dante’s foray into a gossamer world of almost-souls. Where the beings languished there in between the separated spectra of white lights—the shadow worlds between red and orange; between orange and yellow; between yellow and green; between green and blue; between blue and indigo, and between indigo and violet. Those for whom hues of the rainbow held no sanctuary. And for those who stumbled well beyond those, long preceding ultraviolet and far beyond infrared.
BOOK IV
Translation by Medico Semicolini
BOOK IV, CANTO I
Beatrice and I passed through the threshold
Whereupon we happened onto a bush
That burned but within she reached and retrieved.
From its smoldering branches an infant
Whom she offered me and directed me
“I cannot go with you any farther.”
“But take this infant,” she said and then left.
I called to her toward the wooded path
“Is it yours?” I asked, and she heard me thus.
“It is everyone’s,” she called out to me.
I held out my arms and received it so,
A child like none other, a special child.
Cherubic yet a fully formed infant
Who replaced Beatrice as rightful guide
And meant to take me through this eclipsed realm.
With a gift for speech. He wore around him
Pristine leaves around his pelvic girdle,
By which he/she remained not boy or girl.
“I will lead you,” he/she said, “for your tour,”
Which startled me upon first hearing it.
Yet it sounded so naturally true.
“And what is the place, child?” I asked, amazed.
“I’ve been to the Empyrean, indeed
So my apotheosis is complete.”
“No. You must see here, as well—dwell with us.”
He held out his plump forearms to presage
And sweeped the vista to the horizon.
“This,” he answered, “is our lot’s shadowed world.
(For which “he” is to mean he/she, him/her,
His/hers), to encompass androgyny.
“Behold! The shadow world of Oblio—
“Oblivion but to us permanent.
“It is, but is not, was, but was not, still.
“This inconclusive land be Limbo?”
I asked, but I knew too well the answer.
“Yes, the Limbo—Oblivion, no more.
“Where we, the Unaware, the Unbaptized,
“The Incomplete. The not-damned, the not-saved,
“The also-are, and-were, also will be.”
“This Oblio? You are not baptized, child?”
“No,” he answered, this homuncular child.
“Is it,” asked I, “your absolute placement?”
“My final placement, is it?” he rejoined.
“Would not, I know, not till finality?
“For now that remains unbeknownst, secret.”
“I am unborn yet again—unaware,
“All forgotten, with the woe-begotten,
“The misconceptions, and the ill-conceived.
“We are amiss, dismissed, in the abyss
“We have been taken, yet well-forsaken,
“The wretched, the weathered, and untethered.
“I beg you: take me to finality
“Take us all, we are helpless and inert
“How we suffer, for oblivion hurts!”
BOOK IV, CANTO II
He held out his cold, diminutive hand
And grasped my first finger, in sweet embrace.
He could walk, yet no more formed than newborn.
He could speak, he could smile, and he could laugh.
He laughed. He laughed. And he laughed yet again.
But I saw nothing amusing or queer.
“Why do you laugh? What do you laugh about?”
“About this place,” he said. “You stand out here
“As a beacon, omnidirectional.
“Oh! you illuminate the restless shades
“Who undulate beyond that false brightness
“On the irregular terrain we walk.”
“And why is that funny, child?” I ask.
“Is this amusement, this dark tragedy?”
“Because — the joke is on us,” he replied.
“And it is funny. My tears are laughter
“And I do not even know how funny
“Which is another joke upon a joke.”
He paused his footing. “Why do you not laugh?”
“Because of the sadness," I answered him.
“The sorrow, the waste that perseveres here.
“Without hope, without purpose, without worth.”
"Is," he asked, "weeping not Satan's laughter?
“If not, show me different, traveler!" he said sternly.
“I am the stranger here,” I replied back.
“You are my guide. But I am whole. I’m saved.
“I can see both sides, can see with both eyes.
“I have sinned Originally, early.
“Ate from the Tree of Knowledge, Good, Evil.
“Leading me to this place’s grim meaning.
“Thus, I can use my wholeness of knowledge —
“To help you. But, alas, I cannot forge
"A path to Redemption, to Admittence.”
"That is a path hewn and gorged through bedrock.
Then the child began to weep. "More laughter?"
“Help,” he explained. “A deciet, the one word —
“An idea. A promise, that makes me cry.
“For there is no help here in this void!”
Whereupon a large stone rolled away.
BOOK IV, CANTO III
Entrance, unblocked, beyond which we saw light
And a tall man, silhouetted through it.
“Come hither, Dante,” he instructed me.
“And bring the babe, for I have wondrous news!”
“Who are you?” I asked him, the babe’s jaw slack.
His eyes squinted, unaccostomed to light.
“Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger,
“The sixteenth Benedict in succession.
"And I come to you on my own accord."
The light brightened, and other souls followed.
For beyond the open threshold was one word:
Help. The one word. An idea, a promise.
And Benedict walked us all through that gate.
Beyond lay the Empyrean, t’was true.
Blinding in its honesty and joy.
And my tears fell as newborn cries for us
And for all those finally collected.
To fill the holes in the Empyrean —
Righting the wrongs of condemning those souls
The misconceptions and the ill-conceived
Redeemed from the wrath of superstition.
I addressed the late Pope as I passed through
"What have you wrought? What Testament is this?"
"A Newer One without magic or tricks,
"Where the fallible can no longer cite
"Fallibility — for the miracles,
"And the magic, and fearful coercion."
"High praise to you, sir," I said as I passed.
"A crown of achievement, encyclical."
"Thus far, one of thorns. There's much more to do."