bernie
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- Joined: 11/22/2007
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The Beatific Vision; La Vita Nuova..
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7/26/2009 10:00 PM
( #1 )
In chapter XXIV (“Vita Nuova”), "I Felt My Heart Awaken" ("Io mi senti' svegliar dentro a lo core", also translated as "I Felt a Loving Spirit Suddenly"), Dante accounts a meeting with Love, who asks the poet do his best to honor him.
Io mi senti' svegliar dentro a lo core
Un spirito amoroso che dormia:
E poi vidi venir da lungi Amore
Allegro sì, che appena il conoscia,
Dicendo: "Or pensa pur di farmi onore";
E 'n ciascuna parola sua ridia.
E poco stando meco il mio segnore,
Guardando in quella parte onde venia,
Io vidi monna Vanna e monna Bice
Venire inver lo loco là 'v'io era,
L'una appresso de l'altra maraviglia;
E sì come la mente mi ridice,
Amor mi disse: "Quell'è Primavera,
E quell'ha nome Amor, sì mi somiglia." I felt a loving spirit suddenly,
past a long slumber, in my heart arise;
from far away then Love I seemed to see,
so glad, I could his face ill recognize.
He told me "Do your best to honor me",
and laughter in each word I did surmise.
With my lord there, I was still eagerly
watching his steps, when I, to my surprise,
saw lady Vanna and lady Beatrice
coming towards me, where I still was standing -
one bliss pursuing still another bliss.
And - here is what I am reminded of -
Love said "The first is Springtime, but the second
resembles me so much, her name is Love."
(La Vita Nuova (English: The New Life) is a medieval text written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse. Besides its content, it is notable for being written in Italian, rather than Latin; with Dante's other works, it helped to establish the Tuscan dialect in which it is written as the Italian standard.)
“The desire for God leads a man from self to Cosmic Consciousness, and that revolution, when effected, is eternal… His new self – Beatrice – had his eyes fixed on this, the Cosmic unfolding. Gazing thereupon the Cosmic vision and the Cosmic rapture transhumanized him (Dante) into a god. It is this vision of the universal order coming instantaneously, lighting the world as lightning illumines the landscape, but, unlike lightning, remaining, that has led the present writer (Dr. Bucke) to adopt the name ‘Cosmic Consciousness’ – a Consciousness of the Cosmos.
After illumination Dante wrote the ‘Divine Comedy.’ In it (as a whole) must be sought the expression, such as Dante could give, of the Cosmic vision.. It is, therefore, a parallel statement with the Qur’an, the Upanishads, Suttas, the Pauline Epistles, the words of Jesus, the ‘Comedie Humaine,’ the ‘Leaves of Grass,’
the ‘Shakespeare’ drama and ‘Sonnets,’ the works of Behmen, and ‘Towards Democracy.’”
(Richard Maurice Bucke, MD, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, “Dante, in Instances of Cosmic Consciousness”)
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