The Aeneid and The Divine Comedy The labyrinth of initiation, the underworld, and the sacred grove

The Aeneid and The Divine Comedy The labyrinth of initiation, the underworld, and the sacred grove

Publius Vergilius Maro 70 – 21 BCE

Virgil was regarded by the Romans as their greatest poet.

His influence on Dante and Western literature, like that

of Ovid, is profound. The Aeneid is his most famous work

and became Rome’s national epic.

The son of a farmer in northern Italy, Virgil came to be

regarded as one of Rome’s greatest poets. Virgil devoted

his life life to poetry and to studies connected with it. He

never married, and the first half of his life was that of a

scholar and near recluse. But, as his poetry won him

fame, he gradually won the friendship of many important

men in the Roman world.

(adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica and poetry foundation.org)

Dante Alighieri 1265 – 1321 CE

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy to a notable family of modest

means. His mother died when he was seven years old, and his father

remarried, having two more children.

Dante was never married to his “Beatrice.” They met twice, at a nine

year interval (although it might be a symbolic time period). They were

both married to other people, and she died at 25. But he continued to

write about throughout his life. We consider his love for her to be a

type of “courtly love.” It is otherworldly and has a spiritual aspect.

His most famous work is the Divine Comedy. The story begins when he

finds himself lost in a woods in middle age. Virgil finds him and leads

him through hell and purgatory. Beatrice is his guide in Paradise.

(adapted from poets.)

Dante is very important to western literature. T. S. Eliot claimed: Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them, there is no third.

And Virgil is very important to Dante.

Dante, addressing Virgil in Canto 1 of the Divine Comedy: Thou art my master.

We will start with The Aeneid.

Who is Aeneas?

There are multiple myths about the founding of Rome. One very

important one is told in The Aeneas, the story of a Trojan prince who

brought together the survivors from Troy. They boarded ships and

sailed in search of a new home. The Aeneid tells their story, focused

of course on their leader.

As The Aeneid opens, Aeneas and the Trojans come to Carthage,

where he falls in love with the Queen Dido. His bliss is short lived, as

he is told by the gods that he must leave her. Our reading, Book 6,

comes half way through the story. Aeneas’s father has died along the

way, and Aeneas wants to see him. To do that, he must descend into

the underworld—and come back. Very few have ever made the round

trip journey. He is guided by the priestess of Apollo.

The Temple of Apollo built by Daedalus.

Book 6 of The Aeneid gives an elaborate description of how Daedalus had depicted the story of Theseus, the minotaur, Ariadne, and his escape from Crete on the doors.

Aeneas must go through these doors, get advice from the Sybil, enter the wood sacred to Persephone and Diana, find the Golden Bough and make it all the way to Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, give her the Golden Bough and get her permission to see his father.

And then he has to make it back to the upper world.

The Sybil— Prophetess and guide

“son of Trojan Anchises, easy is the descent to Avernus: night and day the door of gloomy Dis stands open; but to recall one’s steps and pass out to the upper air, this is the task, this the toil! ”

Diana (trivia) Persephone Hecate all three of these goddesses are mentioned in Book 6

All three of these goddesses are associated in Book 6 with a/the sacred wood:

Diana: “But Aeneas the True made his way to the fastness where Apollo rules

enthroned on high.and to the vast cavern beyond, which is the Sibyl’s own

secluded place; here the prophetic Delian god [Apollo] breathes into her the

spirits visionary might, revealing things to come. They were already drawing

near to Diana’s Wood and to the golden temple there.”

Hecate: Aeneas to the Sibyl,“. . . not without reason did Hecate appoint you to

be mistress over the forest of Avernus [where the Golden Bough is found].”

Persephone: “Hiding in a tree’s thick shade there is a bough, and it is golden,

with both leaves and pliant stem of gold. It is dedicated as sacred to Juno of

the Lower World [Persephone]. All the forest gives it protection, and it is

enclosed by shadows in a valley of little light.”

These two statues depict Diana as well in

her Diana of Ephesus version. We used to

think she just had an odd bosum to indicate

her significance as a fertility deity.

New theories (1979) are that she is

decorated with the body parts of sacrificed

bulls. Given the images of bulls (and bees)

on the statue this seems very plausible to

me, especially since bulls and bees were

also important in the myth of the minotaur

of the iconography (images and symbols) of

Crete.

So . . . Aeneas goes to Apollo’s temple, with its depiction of the story of the labyrinth, Minotaur, Theseus etc. The temple is located in Diana’s wood, which is also the forest of Avernus and the sacred grove of Persephone.

He must enter that wood and find the Golden Bough, pluck it, descend to the Underworld, and give the bough to Persephone. Then, hopefully he can see his father and return from the Underworld with new knowledge. In ancient mythology, a descent and return to the Underworld symbolized a type of initiation.

If you can make the round trip journey, you return wiser and triumphant. Threading through the labyrinth is in many ways a symbolically similar journey, and this is likely one of the reasons that the labyrinth story is depicted on Apollo’s temple and relayed by Virgil.

When Aeneas enters the wood, he sees two doves who lead him to the Golden Bough.

Doves are a symbol of Aphrodite (Venus) who is the mother of Aeneas. A dove was also released by Noah to see if there was dry land. It came back with an olive twig in its mouth. And, of course, the dove is also the symbol of the Holy Spirit who guides Christians.

Aeneas and the Sibyl go to the Underworld

Just before the entrance, even within the very jaws of Hell, Grief and avenging Cares have set their bed; there pale Diseases dwell, sad Age, and Fear, and Hunger, temptress to sin, and loathly Want, shapes terrible to view; and Death and Distress; next, Death’s own brother Sleep, and the soul’s Guilty Joys, and, on the threshold opposite, the death-dealing War, and the Furies’ iron cells, and maddening Strife, her snaky locks entwined with bloody ribbons.

In the midst an elm, shadowy and vast, spreads her boughs and aged arms, the home which, men say, false Dreams hold, clinging under every leaf. And many monstrous forms besides of various beasts are stalled at the doors, Centaurs and double-shaped Scyllas, and he hundredfold Briareus, and the beast of Lerna, hissing horribly, and the Chimaera armed with flame, Gorgons and Harpies, and the shape of the three-bodied shade [Geryon]. Here on a sudden, in trembling terror, Aeneas grasps his sword, and turns the naked edge against their coming; and did not his wise companion warn him that these were but faint, bodiless lives, flitting under a hollow semblance of form, he would rush upon them and vainly cleave shadows with steel.

From here a road leads to the waters of Tartarean Acheron. Here, thick with mire and of fathomless flood, a whirlpool seethes and belches into Cocytus all its sand.

On the left: One of Piranesci’s (1720–1778) imaginary prison etchings. Keep in mind that the Underworld is a prison, like the labyrinth on Crete which held first the Minotaur and then Daedalus.

Remember Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone?

These realms huge Cerberus makes ring with his triple-throated baying, his monstrous bulk crouching in a cavern opposite. To him, seeing the snakes now bristling on his necks, the seer flung a morsel drowsy with honey and drugged meal. He, opening his triple throat in ravenous hunger, catches it when thrown and, with monstrous frame relaxed, sinks to earth and stretches his bulk over all the den. The warder buried in sleep, Aeneas wins the entrance, and swiftly leaves the bank of that stream whence none return.

Aeneas meets his “Mal” in the Underworld

. . . the Mourning Fields; such is the name they bear. Here those whom stern Love has consumed with cruel wasting are hidden in walks withdrawn, embowered in a myrtle grove; even in death the pangs leave them not.

“Unhappy Dido! Was the tale true then that came to me, that you were dead and had sought your doom with the sword? Was I, alas! the cause of your death? By the stars I swear, by the world above, and whatever is sacred in the grave below, unwillingly, queen, I parted from your shores. . . . Stay your step and withdraw not from our view. Whom do you flee? This is the last word Fate suffers me to say to you.” . . .She, turning away, kept her looks fixed on the ground and no more changes her countenance as he essays to speak than if she were set in hard flint or Marpesian rock. At length she flung herself away and, still his foe, fled back to the shady grove, where Sychaeus, her lord of former days, responds to her sorrows and gives her love for love.

Minos, Judge of the Underworld.

Here is another connection between the labyrinth story and the underworld. Both Aeneas and Dante encounter Minos on their journeys through hell.

She ended, and, advancing side by side along the dusky way, they haste over the mid-space and draw near the doors. Aeneas wins the entrance, sprinkles his body with fresh water, and plants the bough full on the threshold.

This at length performed and the task of the goddess fulfilled, they came to a land of joy, the pleasant lawns and happy seats of the Blissful Groves. .

Aeneas has a long conversation with Anchises, who can now see the future and tells him about his descendants and the great civilization, Rome, that he will found.

A couple of interesting points at the end:

Reincarnation: All these that you see, when they have rolled time’s wheel through a thousand years, the god summons in vast throng to Lethe’s river, so that, their memories effaced, they may once more revisit the vault above and conceive the desire of return to the body.” Anchises also tells Aeneas that all of life is part of a universal intelligence,

And then the curious (and rather abrupt) end: Two gates of Sleep there are, whereof the one, they say, is horn and offers a ready exit to true shades, the other shining with the sheen of polished ivory, but delusive dreams issue upward through it from the world below. Thither Anchises, discoursing thus, escorts his son and with him the Sibyl, and sends them forth by the ivory gate: Aeneas speeds his way to the ships and rejoins his comrades; then straight along the shore he sails for Caieta’s haven.

The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy is divided into three main sections, the inferno, purgatory and paradise.

The final rhyme for each section is stelle, or the word star . . .

INFERNO I Introduction to the Divine Comedy; The Wood and the Mountain

How does Dante begin his story?

When half way through the journey of our life I found that I was in a gloomy wood, because the path which led aright was lost. And ah, how hard it is to say just what this wild and rough and stubborn woodland was, the very thought of which renews my fear! So bitter ’t is, that death is little worse; but of the good to treat which there I found, I ’ll speak of what I else discovered there. I cannot well say how I entered it, so full of slumber was I at the moment when I forsook the pathway of the truth;

This passage should also put you in mind of the verse in the gospel of Matthew “for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Dante isn’t just physically lost—he is spiritually lost.

The word that is translated as “narrow” here is translated as “straight” in the King James version—for us, straight means without bend or curve, but straight also used to mean narrow. Essentially the message is that the path to salvation or enlightenment is difficult and, like the path through a maze, it is hard to find.

In the middle of his life (midlife crisis, anyone?), he’s lost the “straight way” and found himself in a “gloomy forest.” He doesn’t remember how he got there—he was “full of slumber”—like Cobb, in a dream. This line also evokes the end of the Aeneid chapter 6.

It also recalls the wood of Avernus which occupy the “mid space” between the world and Hades’ realm in The Aeneid. Chapter 6 is the “mid-point” of the Aeneid.

He sees the sun on the mountain, and is comforted:

. . . after I had reached a mountain’s foot, where that vale ended which had pierced my heart with fear, I looked on high, and saw its shoulders mantled already with that planet’s rays which leadeth one aright o’er every path. Then quieted a little was the fear, which in the lake-depths of my heart had lasted throughout the night I passed so piteously.[[5]] And even as he who, from the deep emerged with sorely troubled breath upon the shore, turns round, and gazes at the dangerous water; even so my mind, which still was fleeing on, turned back to look again upon the pass which ne’er permitted any one to live.

Until he sees the beasts.

He is bewildered and terrified. He sees a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf. These ravenous beasts might remind you of the Minotaur—and, perhaps, the three headed dog of hell, Cerberus. They are also, arguably, a type of unholy trinity. They could be seen as lust or fraud (the spotted leopard), pride/ambition and violence (the lion) and avarice/greed (she-wolf), which correspond to areas or categories of the Inferno.

There is also a reference to the Bible: Jeremiah 5:6 reads, “Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: everyone that goeth out thence shall be torn into pieces: because their transgressions are many and their backslidings are increased.”

He tries to make his way to and up the mountain, but the leopard and the other beasts block his way:

. . . she so hindered my advance, that more than once I turned me to go back. Some time had now from early morn elapsed, and with those very stars the sun was rising that in his escort were, when Love Divine in the beginning moved those beauteous things; . . .

Here he references the creation of the world when the stars sang, and this reference ties the beginning of the Divine Comedy to the end.

The East is the direction of the rising sun, and has significance spiritually.

Dante sees Virgil, recognizes and praises him, and begs for his help. Virgil replies:

“A different course from this must thou pursue,” he answered, when he saw me shedding tears, “if from this wilderness thou wouldst escape; for this wild beast, on whose account thou criest, alloweth none to pass along her way, . . .

I therefore think and judge it best for thee to follow me; and I shall be thy guide, and lead thee hence through an eternal place, where thou shalt hear the shrieks of hopelessness of those tormented spirits of old times, each one of whom bewails the second death;

Virgil tells him that after he has lead him as far as he can, he will turn Dante over to a worthier guide.

INFERNO II Introduction to the Inferno | The Mission of Virgil

At first Dante says yes!, but then he vascillates:

First response: Let’s Go! . . . conduct me thither where thou saidst just now, that I may see Saint Peter’s Gate, and those whom thou describest as so whelmed with woe.

On second thought: Well, I’m not so sure . . . I ’m not Aeneas, nor yet Paul am I; me worthy of this, nor I nor others deem. If, therefore, I consent to come, I fear lest foolish be my coming; thou art wise, and canst much better judge than I can talk.” And such as he who unwills what he willed, and changes so his purpose through new thoughts, that what he had begun he wholly leaves; such on that gloomy slope did I become.

This vascillation is a literary reflection of the winding path of the psychological labyrinth of error and sin. It also references a verse in the book of James: “A double- minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

Virgil tells him he has been sent by Beatrice, St. Lucia and the Virgin Mary. Then he takes him on a tour of hell and purgatory.

“ . . . a friend of mine, but not a friend of Fortune,* is on his journey o’er the lonely slope obstructed so, that he hath turned through fear; and, from what I have heard of him in Heaven, I fear lest he may now have strayed so far, that I have risen too late to give him help. Bestir thee, then, and with thy finished speech, and with whatever his escape may need, assist him so that I may be consoled. I, who now have thee go, am Beatrice; thence come I, whither I would fain return; ’t was love that moved me, love that makes me speak.

This love is an idealized, spiritual love.

*by this she means that he is not lucky. But Fortune or Fortuna is also a Roman goddess, and this has a more nuanced meaning as well. Fortune and fate are two different things. Your fate is, essentially, the destination. Fortune turns like a wheel.

INFERNO III The Gate and Vestibule of Hell. Cowards and Neutrals. Acheron

Through me one goes into the town of woe, through me one goes into eternal pain, through me among the people that are lost. . . . all hope abandon, ye that enter here! These words of gloomy color I beheld inscribed upon the summit of a gate; whence I: “Their meaning, Teacher, troubles me.” . . . Then, after he had placed his hand in mine with cheerful face, whence I was comforted, he led me in among the hidden things.

At the left is one version (perhaps the first) of Rodin’s Gates of Hell—which was inspired by Dante. The famous thinker sits above the gate, paralyzed by indecision. Different figures represent persons and creatures that Dante meets in hell.

Botticelli’s illustration for the 9 circles of hell.

1. Limbo 2. Lust 3. Gluttony 4. Greed 5. Anger 6. Heresy 7. Violence 8. Fraud 9. Treachery

Crossing the Acheron

As with Aeneas, Charon is reluctant to convey the living Dante across the river of death. Virgil explains that this is because Dante, being essentially good, does not belong in hell:

“My son,” the courteous Teacher said to me, “all those that perish in the wrath of God from every country come together here; and eager are to pass across the stream, because Justice Divine so spurs them on, that what was fear is turned into desire. A good soul never goes across from hence; if Charon, therefore, findeth fault with thee, well canst thou now know what his words imply.”

They pass by the neutrals and the damned, ride with Charon, and on reaching the other side, Dante essentially faints:

“The tear-stained ground gave forth a wind, whence flashed vermilion light which in me overcame all consciousness; and down I fell like one whom sleep o’ertakes.”

INFERNO IV The First Circle. The Borderland Unbaptized Worthies. Illustrious Pagans

So dark it was, so deep and full of mist, that, howsoe’er I gazed into its depths, nothing at all did I discern therein. “Into this blind world let us now descend!

. . . Thus he set forth, and thus he had me enter the first of circles girding the abyss. Therein, as far as one could judge by list’ning, there was no lamentation, saving sighs which caused a trembling in the eternal air; and this came from the grief devoid of torture felt by the throngs, which many were and great, of infants and of women and of men.”

To me then my good Teacher: “Dost not ask what spirits these are whom thou seest here? Now I would have thee know, ere thou go further, that these sinned not; and though they merits have, ’t is not enough, for they did not have baptism, the gateway of the creed believed by thee; and if before Christianity they lived, they did not with due worship honor God; and one of such as these am I myself. For such defects, and for no other guilt, we ’re lost, and only hurt to this extent, that, in desire, we live deprived of hope.”

Where the illustrious pagans dwell in limbo:

We reached a noble Castle’s foot, seven times encircled by high walls, and all around defended by a lovely little stream. This last we crossed as if dry land it were; through seven gates with these sages I went in, and to a meadow of fresh grass we came.

The Harrowing of Hell

“Tell me, my Teacher, tell me, thou my Lord,” I then began, through wishing to be sure about the faith which conquers every error; “came any ever, by his own deserts, or by another’s, hence, who then was blest?”

Virgil tells him of Christ’s saving the patriarchs—Adam, Abel, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Rachel, King David and many others.

INFERNO V The Second Circle. Sexual Intemperance The Lascivious and Adulterers

Hell proper starts here. Minos, who is given a serpent’s tail by Dante, judges the damned:

thereupon that Connoisseur of sins perceives what place in Hell belongs to it, and girds him with his tail as many times, as are the grades he wishes it sent down. Before him there are always many standing; they go to judgment, each one in his turn; they speak and hear, and then are downward hurled.

The lustful are essentially caught up in a whirling tornado that is the “poetic justice” for their lack of self control. They are whirled around and dashed against rocks.

Here Dante speaks with Paolo and Francesco, lovers who were tempted to adultery by reading a romance—the story of Launcelot and Guinevere. Paolo was the brother of Francesca’s husband, who murdered them and will be found deeper in hell.

Dante also sees Dido, who killed herself for love of Aeneas:

“The next is she who killed herself through love, and to Sichaeus’ ashes broke her faith; . . . “

At the end of the fifth canto, Dante faints: out of sympathy I swooned away as though about to die, and fell as falls a body that is dead

INFERNO VI The Third Circle. Intemperance in Food Gluttons

In the third circle am I, that of rain eternal, cursèd, cold and burdensome; its measure and quality are never new. The Labyrinth of Initiation, the sacred grove and the Under/After World p. 42 Coarse hail, and snow, and dirty-colored water through the dark air are ever pouring down; and foully smells the ground receiving them.

A wild beast, Cerberus, uncouth and cruel, is barking with three throats, as would a dog, over the people that are there submerged. Red eyes he hath, a dark and greasy beard, a belly big, and talons on his hands; he claws the spirits, flays and quarters them.

My Leader then stretched out his opened palms, and took some earth, and with his fists well filled, he threw it down into the greedy throats. And like a dog that, barking, yearns for food, and, when he comes to bite it, is appeased, since only to devour it doth he strain and fight;

“These torments, Teacher, after the Final Sentence will they grow, or less become, or burn the same as now.” And he to me: “Return thou to thy science, which holdeth that the more a thing is perfect, so much the more it feels of weal or woe. Although this cursèd folk shall nevermore arrive at true perfection, it expects to be more perfect after, than before.” As in a circle, round that road we went, speaking at greater length than I repeat, and came unto a place where one descends; there found we Plutus, the great enemy.

Dante reflects:

Dis and the City of Dis are mentioned in The Aeneid and Dante’s Inferno. Essentially, this is the Father of the Underworld, and you can picture Pluto or Hades.

Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and, at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.

Dante emphasizes the city aspect of Dis by describing its architectural features: towers, gates, walls, ramparts, bridges, and moats. Dis is an antithesis to the heavenly city or Jerusalem.

Dante’s “City of Dis” is quite convoluted (literally).

INFERNO XII The Seventh Circle. The First Ring. Violence against one’s Fellow Man.

“. . . on the border of the broken bank was stretched at length the Infamy of Crete, who in the seeming heifer was conceived; and when he saw us there he bit himself, like one whom inward anger overcomes. In his direction then my Sage cried out: “Dost thou, perhaps, think Athens’ duke is here, who gave thee death when in the world above? Begone, thou beast! for this man cometh not taught by thy sister, but is going by, in order to behold your punishments.”

INFERNO XXXIV The Ninth Circle. Treachery. Cocytus Traitors to their Benefactors. Lucifer

. . . Raising mine eyes, I thought that I should still see Lucifer the same as when I left him; but I beheld him with his legs held up. And thereupon, if I became perplexed, let those dull people think, who do not see what kind of point that was which I had passed. “Stand up” my Teacher said, “upon thy feet! the way is long and difficult the road, and now to middle-tierce the sun returns.” It was no palace hallway where we were, but just a natural passage under ground, which had a wretched floor and lack of light.

Where is the ice? And how is this one fixed thus upside down? And in so short a time how hath the sun from evening crossed to morn?” Then he to me: “Thou thinkest thou art still beyond the center where I seized the hair of that bad Worm who perforates the world. While I was going down, thou wast beyond it; but when I turned, thou then didst pass the point to which all weights are drawn on every side; thou now art come beneath the hemisphere opposed to that the great dry land o’ercovers, and ’neath whose zenith was destroyed the Man, who without sinfulness was born and died; thy feet thou hast upon the little sphere, which forms the other surface of Judecca.

There is a place down there, as far removed from Beelzebub, as e’er his tomb extends, not known by sight, but by a brooklet’s sound, which flows down through a hole there in the rock, gnawed in it by the water’s spiral course, which slightly slopes. My Leader then, and I, in order to regain the world of light, entered upon that dark and hidden path; and, without caring for repose, went up, he going on ahead, and I behind, till through a rounded opening I beheld some of the lovely things the sky contains; thence we came out, and saw again the stars.

PARADISO XXXIII The Empyrean. GOD. St. Bernard’s Prayer to Mary The Vision of God. Ultimate Salvation

“O Virgin Mother, Daughter of thy Son, humbler and loftier than any creature, eternal counsel’s predetermined goal, thou art the one that such nobility didst lend to human nature, that its Maker scorned not to make Himself what He had made. Within thy womb rekindled was the Love, through whose warm influence in the eternal Peace this Flower hath blossomed thus.”

St. Bernard prays for Dante:

Now doth this man, who from the lowest drain of the Universe hath one by one beheld, as far as here, the forms of spirit-life, beseech thee, of thy grace, for so much strength that with his eyes he may uplift himself toward Ultimate Salvation higher still.

Dante does his best to remember his vision;

And such as he, who seeth in a dream, and after it, the imprinted feeling stays, while all the rest returns not to his mind; even such am I; for almost wholly fades my vision, yet the sweetness which was born of it is dripping still into my heart. Even thus the snow is in the sun dissolved; even thus the Sibyl’s oracles, inscribed on flying leaves, were lost adown the wind. O the abundant Grace, whereby I dared to pierce the Light Eternal with my gaze, until I had therein exhausted sight! I saw that far within its depths there lies, by Love together in one volume bound, that which in leaves lies scattered through the world; substance and accident, and modes thereof, fused, as it were, in such a way, that that, whereof I speak, is but One Simple Light.

Within the Lofty Light’s profound and clear subsistence there appeared to me three Rings, of threefold color and of one content; and one, as Rainbow is by Rainbow, seemed reflected by the other, while the third seemed like a Fire breathed equally from both. . . . O Light Eternal, that alone dost dwell within Thyself, alone dost understand Thyself, and love and smile upon Thyself, Self-understanding and Self-understood! That Circle which appeared to be conceived within Thyself as a Reflected Light,

when somewhat contemplated by mine eyes, within Itself, of Its own very color, to me seemed painted with our Human Form; whence wholly set upon It was my gaze. Like the geometer, who gives himself wholly to measuring the circle, nor, by thinking, finds the principle he needs; ev’n such was I at that new sight. I wished to see how to the Ring the Image there conformed Itself, and found therein a place; but mine own wings were not enough for this; had not my mind been smitten by a flash of light, wherein what it was willing came. Here power failed my high imagining; but, like a smoothly moving wheel, that Love was now revolving my desire and will, which moves the sun and all the other stars.

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.