Monday, October 30, 2017

I Often Wondered What the 'End of Watch Call' Meant, However Today It Is Showing For Those Whom Cannot Counter The Depth To Each Foot Stride Of A Cop And Now May 'The Watch' Be Understood To Known!!



I dream of the face that would have known? Know that love surrounds my life it is the grace of a man on the Times, it is the love that surpasses any that I can say that gave with such a hug that reality to I is the shoulders of he in every dream that cascades this life to just right!! Love is not a calendar to date the day of a year in the pockets of money on a belt, it is the wheel well of just love knowing that in this I can smile a grand.  Just fact to I is a hello in silent evolution.

Mars must say to the Milky Way that Cosmos has a friend and it is not in a religion bell, it is the ream of books to chapter a tour.  So to those that have no wealth of strength life is more than a Niagara on the falls of Autumn, life is not what you make it for it made you, life gave you the desire to do more than a job.  Life is the smile that you miss while trails are not heads.  Rather is not a force to be tangled in strings of theory.  Clouds are not often, skies sometimes darken in paths of clause to signals.  Suns have an horizon as Events have moons to say friend.

Heavy are the shallow graves that fences tend.  Texas to the loan star, Marconi is not on a rinse or a once upon a time in the state of stature, he is the man that said to hold the tongue and not of language.  You as Police in this Country of the U.S. may not believe as well you should not without the evidence to support your self eyes with blinking to tax nothing but to know without a shadow of a doubt but yet is that just a job then?  Should the inevitable bite as you lay your head down to rest, should the day weigh heavily on your mind, should wake be of eyes certain than why is it just a job to be on the line?  Is it then the convenience of tax to mind the brain at what you don't complete?

Surely is not a word of use here for it is not the cave of man that made a Valley, nor is it the Mountain that said a bridge.  Grand Canyon to the river rushing at it's skirt is not a hemming to the lombard of it's desire to stretch to any ocean on it's way from the dust up to each clock of minute it took to absorb.  Even the cacti is in a needle of the desert on the sand of what is a flash flood in the dry beds of representation, tack complete at that being said.

For the from to the actual your boots to your vest of belts that hold the hand that may know of more than a verb to a noun at this adjective?  No, this is just a message for a note's return.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Stone Bruises




Riddle's to tack password tell Board,
up and cross diagonal keel War,
letter each asks cast,
language caves.

Oral breadth great is a Tone,
sole lure inch at pea an no,
gardens make.

More is the Treasure Diamond score,
gentle is an Element to Shard,
Mankind shakes.

Tree Spook Birch,
Redwood never Sway,
breeze wind.


Hey man, somebody should do a study on reincarnation, incarnation, you know the go around shit, as out here in Monterey/San Francisco back when it used to be totally cool to be a musician during the 1960s there were slogan's, "Peace, love and tiedye"!! Bam! Then there was Woodstock. Abortion illegal, birth control not available and yet we all know that everyone back East was doing the free love and tie die thing as the films did show in proof evidence. Maybe all those people now will know that it skipped a generation making the new opiate problem a junkie in reviewed to that happens when people have so many abortions and/or the entire event just gets swept under the carpet or totally shot down, dismissed and ignored as a West Coast thing.

Science could in theory see if the entire 'go 'round' thing is indeed real and/or if the drug habit of obviously at Woodstock too rounded the edge at jumping a generation.

There was the Vietnam War following the Korean War and men were scarce (I guess) so I could very well be a Cops kid from the City of San Francisco as the population of the United States was barreling due to World War II anyway and I've heard that that is why Cops don't marry, you know the 'just in case factory' to provide the Summer of Love thing with more than a reckoning but due to the out-of-control Timothy O'Leary things just went nuts, I had first hand experience on that one. Plus, I was raised to believe that babies came from the hospital and the guy on my birth certificate said that we actually came when the Stork delivered us, funny you may laugh however now V.P. Pence is screaming for everyone to have babies. Also since that time of the abortion in the U.S. being made legal all this country is done is fight even though the Supreme Court passed the law making abortion legal, Rowe vs. Wade. Case study brings the United Kingdom to term for the 1967 debacle and now you can study the aspect or the reach so that the opiate kids can possibly live and not die due to you just cutting them off at the pass so to speak because I know from Dr. Zacharias that you cannot cold-turkey opiates or you'll die of the flu.

San Francisco 'Summer of Love'
New York 'Woodstock'
U.K. bounced to James Blunt 1973??

Abortion Act 1967 - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_Act_1967
The Abortion Act 1967 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom legalising abortions by registered practitioners, and regulating the tax-paid provision of ...
Amended by‎: ‎The Human Fertilisation and Em... Citation‎: ‎1967 c. 87
Introduced by‎: ‎David Steel Royal assent‎: ‎27 October 1967
Abortion Act 1967 - Legislation.gov.uk
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/contents
Abortion Act 1967 is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 19 October 2017. There are changes that may be brought into force at a future ...
Top stories
Fifty years on, the Abortion Act should be celebrated – and updated | Wendy Savage
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More for abortion act 1967
Abortion Act 1967 - Legislation.gov.uk
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87
Abortion Act 1967 is up to date with all changes known to be in force on or before 22 October 2017. There are changes that may be brought into force at a future ...
[PDF]Britain's Abortion Law What it says, and why - Abortion Review
www.reproductivereview.org/images/uploads/Britains_abortion_law.pdf
being 'badly drafted', the 1967 Abortion Act was very carefully worded to ... Since the 1967 Abortion Act became law in April 1968, millions of women have had ...
The Abortion Act's paternalism belongs to the 1960s | Sally Sheldon ...
https://www.theguardian.com › Lifestyle › Abortion
Mar 22, 2012 - The Abortion Act 1967 was introduced in response to widespread evidence of unsafe illegal abortion and the maternal mortality and morbidity ...
[PDF]Abortion Act 1967 - SRHR
https://srhr.org/abortion.../01-UNITED-KINGDOM-ABORTION-ACT-1967.pdf
(See end of Document for details). Abortion Act 1967. 1967 CHAPTER 87. An Act to amend and clarify the law relating to termination of pregnancy by registered.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Just for a Cop on the Paradise Drive in a park and measuring the road of the why would that be empathy for a spring in the mid-summer of hot August Knights!!



I got my mind on a burn that I drove by with a wave in the counter of oh yea,
for I that is the memory of the funny knee of a Cheetah,
as the sex with a stream on that is the vista of humanity to dust a brain,
ousted are the stupid to the great foundation of the best of life to say hello.

Once upon a story Kathleen would be in the venture of an explain,
as that Rebecca would simply say oh know,
and Lauren would say it's not my fault in an excited version of cheetah cubs about!!

Johno of the venue is in the Watch,
owe in the pen to throw that morning with that's a man,
I know the clatter went to the burn and I said I guess that is what the crocodile said to hippo too.

From that drive just the other fling of a hand to that man on the mechanic of a streamed,
fun stun to this is that man does not remember a life with Africa as elephant in common ground,
the thunder and the feed.

Out to the field without him not to this family as progression did find exploration in evolutions sigh'd,
round to the rinse of the flower and the rein bare role,
cheese to that is the wheat on the sway of so much that the rhino is a laughing jingle today,
the wind is in a breeze to sing the songs of this verse as a wonderful melody,
for we are all on this side of the earth sounding the tones of whales and dolphins neigh't,
to grasp anything other than that same mistake I keep to the truth of navigated,
I floor that man to what he is as a badge is a badge to I the kid of Janis Joplin,
knowing the wing.

I don't partake however forever are the digs on the ground of coffee sparkling kind,
the needle in the haystack to the bale that marks the shirt,
slanted to the trousers that strip to a making,
fire in the bellow!!

First to the fern of read would grove a Forest for this tile of chortle,
stagger that man for the uniform is the honest Kathleen,
she must breathe a harness of a rest as she changed the birth order to obscure his bridle of reed,
it worked to the trust,
the womb of now one at a time makes that wild shirt to bones and faxed.

Heave this to never being shared with any of this World now as Plato missed the Fossil Stone,
in the common cold people feel it is the sniffles when it's just that blast of iced freeze,
the dirt goes to below and the temperature now is at a cooling he would scrub us to find,
in that to the mountain of his serious but wise he was as look at us we are in the Times,
Ages in the Clocks to Universe on Solar of Cosmos,
he would be proud and it is good to know goodbye's in this quiet nature of compass.

May the bright wealth marry another to his friendly nut of nature,
might the hand of Sun give a warmth of more than a bedroom of covered,
in the blankets of sheets might the staff of ready be of truth not of lie,
for from the too is the cause and that is just I saying thanks said, it's been a stream.

Birch Ice

This is Wraith

Wraith is the result of constant reinvention. The desire to push for more. To go beyond the expected. This is your chance to experience ultimate Grand Touring in a motor car born to the role. This is Wraith. This is Power. Style. Drama. https://www.rolls-roycemotorcars.com/en-GB/wraith.html

World full of people that tribe to Tribute,
the Cosmic round of what is your Tree may not be your Osiris,
you are not technology,
for before the automotive it was just the bowl of dust.

Shed not that to your understanding as you lie in denial of River in inch of Streamed,
you change no word you just make the language to your new stab of humanities rib,
with all the gods on no sky of your shallow shaved,
leg in thigh to the turkey of key.

Animals stride with clouds to Ancient Trails with exitement?,
you have killed the earth and the Planets screamed,
go to Mars while Pluto left,
people of Earth you have troubled nothing notable,
you use users used.

Shift on to gears that virus the computer why's the Brain,
in every station to identification the Solar System remained?,
Big Bang is what to the shadow of go black?,
is it the shade to you and your family?,
digs.

Grave hard's to Moons that have the carve of Melon's,
cantelope with dreams and which is real to your connection of sin naps?,
is it the dial of a soap,
does Myth challenge your Bible or your Oral tale of fittings?

Yippee!!

Once anxious now be Fried by the burning of the Eternal fires in libraries you can no-longer reach,
that is the score of the chapter review in what is The End of which Proverb of Psalms,
washing your hands in New York knew York,
Darwin danced while Da Vinci painted drew to Vase of Lean?

My the good Nest,
comfort for the third rock,
all while the three had told.

Deep in Inch to Mileage of your Footprint,
wild is the card that Poker gave 21 an ounce of that Cup of measured,
then even at odd the numbers divide,
to tacks the cork is Wine with the Water being duh Vine.

Grape of Rath or is it Wraith,
you change with Spelling,
at Times it is Ages.

Wall to build to Chisel a Nine is as the Math said a nut in an,
that crib,
kits and electric to Tesla first noun Nikola for the country of Strip,
the morn kneeing.

What Is Difference Between A Vending Machine And A Game Console??



I will not play the game of how is the for to example a card from the book of stature,
should the verse go to a soar than the proverb is to ship,
in never is the inch as the measure is the ink.

As lend is the file to word off the keen is the wild mirrored or the key note,
dip Well with a stuck to bucket owned,
bigger than shore is the land or that sand that river of sift?

Rise to a rib at the Riddle,
type skeet,
arm to elbow is a bend at the wrist,
did then pail more too?

Handle of a connection as the swing is it's pivot,
ground did more to mud as the floor,
tile is the crockery that plates Oil to drill's screw,
which is the path that bricks is it forge?

Heave rock to Salt,
gear that with a water called Ocean or bay,
vocal language echoes at what to a wave,
with clay.

Bubble dot is a pencil frame,
puzzle is a lane,
pieces are the usage,
yet what of the grave.

Sim aye coal lens Mark,
a capital changes with Len and yet plural is only glasses?,
place the knows?



What's black and white and read all over.

Sensorama

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Sensorama, from U.S. Patent #3050870

The Sensorama machine (scriptanime.wordpress.com)
The Sensorama was a machine that is one of the earliest known examples of immersive, multi-sensory (now known as multimodal) technology. Morton Heilig, who today would be thought of as a "multimedia" specialist, in the 1950s saw theater as an activity that could encompass all the senses in an effective manner, thus drawing the viewer into the onscreen activity. He dubbed it "Experience Theater", and detailed his vision of multi-sensory theater in his 1955 paper entitled "The Cinema of the Future" (Robinett 1994). In 1962 he built a prototype of his vision, dubbed the Sensorama, along with five short films for it to display. The Sensorama was a mechanical device, which still functions today.
Howard Rheingold (in his 1991 book Virtual Reality) spoke of his trial of the Sensorama using a short film piece that detailed a bicycle ride through Brooklyn, created in the 1950s, and still seemed quite impressed by what it could do more than 40 years later. The Sensorama was able to display stereoscopic 3-D images in a wide-angle view, provide body tilting, supply stereo sound, and also had tracks for wind and aromas to be triggered during the film. Oddly enough in hindsight, Heilig was simply unable to obtain financial backing for his visions and patents, and so the Sensorama work was halted.









Surely practicing law is not a pass from the State Bar of California to part what was my family.  This cannot be the true fast of what my mother said and yet here in black and white and read all over seems somehow complete and only applicable to the years that have been removed bringing envelope to nothing more than and nothing less than this notation for my two youngest to real eyes and say to only themselves.

For I it is not and this will not be an address to Steven L. Wessels of Sacramento, California in any manner other than this finally explains in plain newsprint the why Mr. Steven L. Wessels, attorney at-law in Sacramento, California was able to maintain only a post office box and not only brag about it but in process bring my court case to such a horror that today his client, the father of my two youngest children may be full to brim of pride.  May all the guilt be by conviction.


ABOUT ME


I was raised on a farm in East Central Illinois with six siblings, and enlisted in the Army for four years in late 1966 to avoid the draft. I was trained as a North Vietnamese Linguist, and spent a year in Viet Nam, with a year in Japan and a side-trip to Thailand for three months. After the service I worked for three years as a deputy sheriff in Northern California, which triggered my desire to become an attorney.

While I am no longer practicing law, I was involved in all aspects of family law litigation since early 1981, with the primary emphasis on custody cases, and I’ve helped a number of families with parental terminations / step-parent and private adoption issues. With the lack of legislative guidelines, I created on-demand drug testing standards for family law cases in 1986 and began suggesting them in several counties. I also hosted an hour-long weekly call-in talk show on a local Christian AM radio station from 1987 to 1994, and have occasionally testified in the legislature on varying issues. I’ve also hosted a number of parental rights seminars, and should have my first book on family law litigation in print by the end of 2015. It’s titled The Lighted Switch and should be available on my website shortly.

Professionally, I’ve been a member of the nationwide Christian Legal Society since 1976, and was the Sacramento area lead attorney in the 1994 statewide lawsuits against the California Department of Education to stop the wholesale invasion of parental and children’s rights with the California Learning Assessment Tests, known as the CLAS tests.
Personally, I’ve helped launch two children and three step-children, and began writing poetry in February of 1997. I learned the absolute necessity of surrendering my will to God in 1976 and currently attend a local Covenant church with my family. I’m currently working on four more books for strengthening marriages.

My second book to be titled Great Foundations should be in print before the end of 2016. My deepest desire is to show teens and young married couples the path to great marital relationships that thrive the way God intended for us to live.

 
Home  /   About Us  /  His Poetry  /  Family Law Q & A  /  Contact Us  /  Terms of Use  /  Buy Online
 Phone: (916) 359-0307  
Copyright © 2015 Steve Wessels. All rights Reserved.
Steve Wessels is no longer practicing law, and the general information contained within this website should not be relied on in any jurisdiction for legal advice. Every case turns on different facts and circumstances within the vastly different laws and procedures of each jurisdiction, and everyone who is seeking legal advice should consult an experienced attorney where they live.
 


Thursday, October 26, 2017

For Whom Is In Interest Off The Draw Of Motions Resistance To Current



Should the after life be living and the upside down aspect be respected than the 666 would indeed be 999 at the book of one before a thousand.  To evident of just our eyes as the study has provided that human beings see in an interesting avenue to reality of seeing the standing.  As Stephen Hawking ventured the theory of everything being the truth to navigated it should prove to seed that growth is the Being.  Inch a human education with that length upon the mile is it than only a dimension that describes the thresholds as the doors to aspect?

Every ankle to that is the shadow of a shade in the ghost of what is alive.  Stephen Hawking has brought to the World an explanation of the Black Hole.  To engage the perfection to my degree of school of thought it is the suns in round as the twist is scene in a galaxy at natural swirl.  Then the planet expectation of the actual rotation of the sun in our sky so to candor as the light of such is on the mileage in obvious, in touch to a more specific and better galaxy of just the sand in a communication of the wave.  Bringing the beach to shore would be a verb in noun for this as a sentence.

Numbers on dates to the global system would the repeat the procession act as a swing in a coil?  These electrical rip tides to more the shore in viable as the continents of this world have moved breaking free of one mass creating land masses and yet in the puzzle of seen can be fit back to the puzzle of knowing the whole.

The referral to searching for water albeit a pleasant thought to ground is it not the salt of the Sea that would bring greater breadth to plankton as that would deliver life not ice.  The chill of reserve beacon as light begets wright is it then only the suns that moon a reflection?  Dial to again the numbers of reach should the Space Exploration be as a thermal tile?

Scroll of thought to education would deed be as the Inca and Aztec knew of the grid by merely the Sun, respects to the Inca in league of map to Earth and let us not forge the Mayan to only a cave dwelling community.  Egypt therefrom forms a method of more than ramps as the structure to shape in sound still envelopes sonar.

Humpback whales feeding in Alaska
Photo by Scott Methvin

As The Dimension Said, The Knock On Would, Would Owe Pen??


Should the line between enter an Ages in Time,
does the ankle to the hip bone say today,
as it is a month in a year of a day on the number,
that would rather or quest chin to an?

Knickers and Rice,
a row knee!!

The Dante of in Fern know,
said to the cucumber of Fresh Heir,
what is the providence of a providential laugh,
it is the answer of that door made of door wringer.

Knock on would the answer to the math,
these are the bays of a howling Wolf,
in clothes the ghost will shade to a shadows main,
in frame it is merely a threshold.


Divine Comedy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dante shown holding a copy of the Divine Comedy, next to the entrance to Hell, the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory and the city of Florence, with the spheres of Heaven above, in Michelino's fresco
The Divine Comedy (ItalianDivina Commedia [diˈviːna komˈmɛːdja]) is a long narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the preeminent work in Italian literature,[1] and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature.[2] The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval world-view as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language.[3] It is divided into three parts: InfernoPurgatorio, and Paradiso.
The narrative describes Dante's travels through HellPurgatory, and Paradise or Heaven;[4], while allegoricallythe poem represents the soul's journey towards God.[5]. Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.[6] Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse".[7]
The work was originally simply titled Comedìa and the word Divina was added by Giovanni Boccaccio. The first printed edition to add the word divina to the title was that of the Venetian humanist Lodovico Dolce,[8] published in 1555 by Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari.

Structure and story[edit]

The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three canticas (Italian plural cantiche) – Inferno(Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise) – each consisting of 33 cantos (Italian plural canti). An initial canto, serving as an introduction to the poem and generally considered to be part of the first cantica, brings the total number of cantos to 100. It is generally accepted, however, that the first two cantos serve as a unitary prologue to the entire epic, and that the opening two cantos of each cantica serve as prologues to each of the three canticas.[9][10][11]
The number "three" is prominent in the work, represented in part by the number of canticas and their lengths. Additionally, the verse scheme used, terza rima, is hendecasyllabic (lines of eleven syllables), with the lines composing tercets according to the rhyme scheme aba, bcb, cdc, ded, ....
Written in the first person, the poem tells of Dante's journey through the three realms of the dead, lasting from the night before Good Friday to the Wednesday after Easter in the spring of 1300. The Roman poet Virgil guides him through Hell and Purgatory; Beatrice, Dante's ideal woman, guides him through Heaven. Beatrice was a Florentine woman whom he had met in childhood and admired from afar in the mode of the then-fashionable courtly love tradition, which is highlighted in Dante's earlier work La Vita Nuova.[citation needed]
The structure of the three realms follows a common numerical pattern of 9 plus 1, for a total of 10: 9 circles of the Inferno, followed by Lucifer contained at its bottom; 9 rings of Mount Purgatory, followed by the Garden of Eden crowning its summit; and the 9 celestial bodies of Paradiso, followed by the Empyrean containing the very essence of God. Within each group of 9, 7 elements correspond to a specific moral scheme, subdivided into three subcategories, while 2 others of greater particularity are added to total nine. For example, the seven deadly sins of the Catholic Church that are cleansed in Purgatory are joined by special realms for the Late repentant and the excommunicated by the church. The core seven sins within Purgatory correspond to a moral scheme of love perverted, subdivided into three groups corresponding to excessive love (LustGluttonyGreed), deficient love (Sloth), and malicious love (WrathEnvyPride).[citation needed]
In central Italy's political struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, Dante was part of the Guelphs, who in general favored the Papacy over the Holy Roman Emperor. Florence's Guelphs split into factions around 1300: the White Guelphs and the Black Guelphs. Dante was among the White Guelphs who were exiled in 1302 by the Lord-Mayor Cante de' Gabrielli di Gubbio, after troops under Charles of Valois entered the city, at the request of Pope Boniface VIII, who supported the Black Guelphs. This exile, which lasted the rest of Dante's life, shows its influence in many parts of the Comedy, from prophecies of Dante's exile to Dante's views of politics, to the eternal damnation of some of his opponents.[citation needed]
The last word in each of the three canticas is stelle ("stars").

Inferno[edit]

Gustave Doré's engravings illustrated the Divine Comedy (1861–1868); here Charon comes to ferry souls across the river Acheron to Hell.
The poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, "halfway along our life's path" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita). Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical lifespan of 70 (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate), lost in a dark wood(understood as sin),[12][13][14] assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf) he cannot evade, and unable to find the "straight way" (diritta via) – also translatable as "right way" – to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain). Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "low place" (basso loco) where the sun is silent ('l sol tace), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Infernois a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice; for example, in Canto XX, fortune-tellers and soothsayers must walk with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because that was what they had tried to do in life:
they had their faces twisted toward their haunches
and found it necessary to walk backward,
because they could not see ahead of them.
... and since he wanted so to see ahead,
he looks behind and walks a backward path.[15]
Allegorically, the Inferno represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really is, and the three beasts represent three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious.[16] These three types of sin also provide the three main divisions of Dante's Hell: Upper Hell, outside the city of Dis, for the four sins of indulgence (lustgluttonyavariceanger); Circle 7 for the sins of violence; and Circles 8 and 9 for the sins of malice (fraud and treachery). Added to these are two unlike categories that are specifically spiritual: Limbo, in Circle 1, contains the virtuous pagans who were not sinful but were ignorant of Christ, and Circle 6 contains the heretics who contradicted the doctrine and confused the spirit of Christ. The circles number 9, with the addition of Satan completing the structure of 9 + 1 = 10.[17]

Purgatorio[edit]

Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino, painted c. 1530
Having survived the depths of Hell, Dante and Virgil ascend out of the undergloom to the Mountain of Purgatory on the far side of the world. The Mountain is on an island, the only land in the Southern Hemisphere, created by the displacement of rock which resulted when Satan's fall created Hell[18] (which Dante portrays as existing underneath Jerusalem[19]). The mountain has seven terraces, corresponding to the seven deadly sins or "seven roots of sinfulness."[20] The classification of sin here is more psychological than that of the Inferno, being based on motives, rather than actions. It is also drawn primarily from Christian theology, rather than from classical sources.[21] However, Dante's illustrative examples of sin and virtue draw on classical sources as well as on the Bible and on contemporary events.
Love, a theme throughout the Divine Comedy, is particularly important for the framing of sin on the Mountain of Purgatory. While the love that flows from God is pure, it can become sinful as it flows through humanity. Humans can sin by using love towards improper or malicious ends (WrathEnvyPride), or using it to proper ends but with love that is either not strong enough (Sloth) or love that is too strong (LustGluttonyGreed). Below the seven purges of the soul is the Ante-Purgatory, containing the Excommunicated from the church and the Late repentant who died, often violently, before receiving rites. Thus the total comes to nine, with the addition of the Garden of Eden at the summit, equaling ten.[22]
Allegorically, the Purgatorio represents the Christian life. Christian souls arrive escorted by an angel, singing In exitu Israel de Aegypto. In his Letter to Cangrande, Dante explains that this reference to Israel leaving Egypt refers both to the redemption of Christ and to "the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace."[23] Appropriately, therefore, it is Easter Sunday when Dante and Virgil arrive.
The Purgatorio is notable for demonstrating the medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth. During the poem, Dante discusses the different stars visible in the southern hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. At this stage it is, Dante says, sunset at Jerusalem, midnight on the River Ganges, and sunrise in Purgatory.

Paradiso[edit]

Paradiso, Canto 3: Dante and Beatrice speak to Piccarda and Constance of Sicily, in a fresco by Philipp Veit.
After an initial ascension, Beatrice guides Dante through the nine celestial spheres of Heaven. These are concentric and spherical, as in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology. While the structures of the Inferno and Purgatorio were based on different classifications of sin, the structure of the Paradiso is based on the four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues.
The first seven spheres of Heaven deal solely with the cardinal virtues of PrudenceFortitudeJustice and Temperance. The first three describe a deficiency of one of the cardinal virtues – the Moon, containing the inconstant, whose vows to God waned as the moon and thus lack fortitude; Mercury, containing the ambitious, who were virtuous for glory and thus lacked justice; and Venus, containing the lovers, whose love was directed towards another than God and thus lacked Temperance. The final four incidentally are positive examples of the cardinal virtues, all led on by the Sun, containing the prudent, whose wisdom lighted the way for the other virtues, to which the others are bound (constituting a category on its own). Mars contains the men of fortitude who died in the cause of Christianity; Jupiter contains the kings of Justice; and Saturn contains the temperate, the monks who abided by the contemplative lifestyle. The seven subdivided into three are raised further by two more categories: the eighth sphere of the fixed stars that contain those who achieved the theological virtues of faithhope and love, and represent the Church Triumphant – the total perfection of humanity, cleansed of all the sins and carrying all the virtues of heaven; and the ninth circle, or Primum Mobile (corresponding to the Geocentricism of Medieval astronomy), which contains the angels, creatures never poisoned by original sin. Topping them all is the Empyrean, which contains the essence of God, completing the 9-fold division to 10.
Dante meets and converses with several great saints of the Church, including Thomas AquinasBonaventureSaint Peter, and St. John. The Paradiso is consequently more theological in nature than the Inferno and the Purgatorio. However, Dante admits that the vision of heaven he receives is merely the one his human eyes permit him to see, and thus the vision of heaven found in the Cantos is Dante's personal vision.
The Divine Comedy finishes with Dante seeing the Triune God. In a flash of understanding that he cannot express, Dante finally understands the mystery of Christ's divinity and humanity, and his soul becomes aligned with God's love:[24]
But already my desire and my will
were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
by the Love which moves the sun and the other stars.[25]

History[edit]

Manuscripts[edit]

According to the Italian Dante Society, no original manuscript written by Dante has survived, although there are many manuscript copies from the 14th and 15th centuries – more than 825 are listed on their site.[26]

Early printed editions[edit]

First printed edition, 11 April 1472
First edition to name the poem Divina Comedia, 1555
Illustration of Lucifer in the first fully illustrated print edition. Woodcut for Inferno, canto 33. Pietro di Piasi, Venice, 1491.
The first printed edition was published in Foligno, Italy, by Johann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da Trevi on 11 April1472.[27] Of the 300 copies printed, fourteen still survive. The original printing press is on display in the Oratorio della Nunziatella in Foligno.
Early printed editions
DateTitlePlacePublisherNotes
1472La commediaFolignoJohann Numeister and Evangelista Angelini da TreviFirst printed edition
1477La commediaVeniceWendelin of Speyer
1481Comento di Christophoro Landino fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Dante AlighieriFlorenceNicolaus LaurentiiWith Cristoforo Landino's commentary in Italian, and some engraved illustrations by Baccio Baldini after designs by Sandro Botticelli
1491Comento di Christophoro Landino fiorentino sopra la Comedia di Dante AlighieriVenicePietro di PiasiFirst fully illustrated edition
1506Commedia di Dante insieme con uno diagolo circa el sito forma et misure dello infernoFlorencePhilippo di Giunta
1555La Divina Comedia di DanteVeniceGabriel GiolitoFirst use of "Divine" in title

Thematic concerns[edit]

The Divine Comedy can be described simply as an allegory: each canto, and the episodes therein, can contain many alternative meanings. Dante's allegory, however, is more complex, and, in explaining how to read the poem – see the Letter to Cangrande[28] – he outlines other levels of meaning besides the allegory: the historical, the moral, the literal, and the anagogical.
The structure of the poem, likewise, is quite complex, with mathematical and numerological patterns arching throughout the work, particularly threes and nines, which are related to the Trinity. The poem is often lauded for its particularly human qualities: Dante's skillful delineation of the characters he encounters in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise; his bitter denunciations of Florentine and Italian politics; and his powerful poetic imagination. Dante's use of real characters, according to Dorothy Sayers in her introduction to her translation of the Inferno, allows Dante the freedom of not having to involve the reader in description, and allows him to "[make] room in his poem for the discussion of a great many subjects of the utmost importance, thus widening its range and increasing its variety."[29]
Dante called the poem "Comedy" (the adjective "Divine" was added later in the 16th century) because poems in the ancient world were classified as High ("Tragedy") or Low ("Comedy").[30] Low poems had happy endings and were written in everyday language, whereas High poems treated more serious matters and were written in an elevated style. Dante was one of the first in the Middle Ages to write of a serious subject, the Redemption of humanity, in the low and "vulgar" Italian language and not the Latin one might expect for such a serious topic. Boccaccio's account that an early version of the poem was begun by Dante in Latin is still controversial.[31][32]

Scientific themes[edit]

Albert Ritter sketched the Comedy's geography from Dante's Cantos: Hell's entrance is near Florence with the circles descending to Earth's centre; sketch 5 reflects Canto 34's inversion as Dante passes down, and thereby up to Mount Purgatory's shores in the southern hemisphere, where he passes to the first sphere of Heaven at the top.
Although the Divine Comedy is primarily a religious poem, discussing sin, virtue, and theology, Dante also discusses several elements of the science of his day (this mixture of science with poetry has received both praise and blame over the centuries[33]). The Purgatorio repeatedly refers to the implications of a spherical Earth, such as the different stars visible in the southern hemisphere, the altered position of the sun, and the various timezones of the Earth. For example, at sunset in Purgatory it is midnight at the Ebro, dawn in Jerusalem, and noon on the River Ganges:[34]
Just as, there where its Maker shed His blood,
the sun shed its first rays, and Ebro lay
beneath high Libra, and the ninth hour's rays

were scorching Ganges' waves; so here, the sun
stood at the point of day's departure when
God's angel—happy—showed himself to us.[35]
Dante travels through the centre of the Earth in the Inferno, and comments on the resulting change in the direction of gravity in Canto XXXIV (lines 76–120). A little earlier (XXXIII, 102–105), he queries the existence of wind in the frozen inner circle of hell, since it has no temperature differentials.[36]
Inevitably, given its setting, the Paradiso discusses astronomy extensively, but in the Ptolemaic sense. The Paradiso also discusses the importance of the experimental method in science, with a detailed example in lines 94–105 of Canto II:
Yet an experiment, were you to try it,
could free you from your cavil and the source
of your arts' course springs from experiment.

Taking three mirrors, place a pair of them
at equal distance from you; set the third
midway between those two, but farther back.

Then, turning toward them, at your back have placed
a light that kindles those three mirrors and
returns to you, reflected by them all.

Although the image in the farthest glass
will be of lesser size, there you will see
that it must match the brightness of the rest.[37]
A briefer example occurs in Canto XV of the Purgatorio (lines 16–21), where Dante points out that both theory and experiment confirm that the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection. Other references to science in the Paradiso include descriptions of clockwork in Canto XXIV (lines 13–18), and Thales' theorem about triangles in Canto XIII (lines 101–102).
Galileo Galilei is known to have lectured on the Inferno, and it has been suggested that the poem may have influenced some of Galileo's own ideas regarding mechanics.[38]

Theories of influence from Islamic philosophy[edit]

In 1919, Miguel Asín Palacios, a Spanish scholar and a Catholic priest, published La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia (Islamic Eschatology in the Divine Comedy), an account of parallels between early Islamic philosophy and the Divine Comedy. Palacios argued that Dante derived many features of and episodes about the hereafter from the spiritual writings of Ibn Arabi and from the Isra and Mi'raj or night journey of Muhammad to heaven. The latter is described in the Hadith and the Kitab al Miraj (translated into Latin in 1264 or shortly before[39] as Liber Scalae Machometi, "The Book of Muhammad's Ladder"), and has significant similarities to the Paradiso, such as a sevenfold division of Paradise,[40] although this is not unique to the Kitab al Miraj.[citation needed]
Some "superficial similarities"[41] of the Divine Comedy to the Resalat Al-Ghufran or Epistle of Forgiveness of Al-Ma'arri have also been mentioned in this debate. The Resalat Al-Ghufran describes the journey of the poet in the realms of the afterlife and includes dialogue with people in Heaven and Hell, although, unlike the Kitab al Miraj, there is little description of these locations,[42] and it is unlikely that Dante borrowed from this work.[43][44]
Dante did, however, live in a Europe of substantial literary and philosophical contact with the Muslim world, encouraged by such factors as Averroism ("Averrois, che'l gran comento feo" Commedia, Inferno, IV, 144, meaning "Averrois, who wrote the great comment") and the patronage of Alfonso X of Castile. Of the twelve wise men Dante meets in Canto X of the ParadisoThomas Aquinas and, even more so, Siger of Brabant were strongly influenced by Arabic commentators on Aristotle.[45]Medieval Christian mysticism also shared the Neoplatonic influence of Sufis such as Ibn Arabi. Philosopher Frederick Copleston argued in 1950 that Dante's respectful treatment of AverroesAvicenna, and Siger of Brabant indicates his acknowledgement of a "considerable debt" to Islamic philosophy.[45]
Although this philosophical influence is generally acknowledged, many scholars have not been satisfied that Dante was influenced by the Kitab al Miraj. The 20th century Orientalist Francesco Gabrieli expressed skepticism regarding the claimed similarities, and the lack of evidence of a vehicle through which it could have been transmitted to Dante. Even so, while dismissing the probability of some influences posited in Palacios' work,[46] Gabrieli conceded that it was "at least possible, if not probable, that Dante may have known the Liber scalae and have taken from it certain images and concepts of Muslim eschatology". Shortly before her death, the Italian philologist Maria Corti pointed out that, during his stay at the court of Alfonso X, Dante's mentor Brunetto Latini met Bonaventura de Siena, a Tuscan who had translated the Kitab al Miraj from Arabic into Latin. Corti speculates that Brunetto may have provided a copy of that work to Dante.[47] René Guénon, a Sufi convert and scholar of Ibn Arabi, rejected in The Esoterism of Dante the theory of his influence (direct or indirect) on Dante.[48]

Literary influence in the English-speaking world and beyond[edit]

A detail from one of Sandro Botticelli's illustrations for Inferno, Canto XVIII, 1480s. Silverpoint on parchment, completed in pen and ink.
The Divine Comedy was not always as well-regarded as it is today. Although recognized as a masterpiece in the centuries immediately following its publication,[49] the work was largely ignored during the Enlightenment, with some notable exceptions such as Vittorio AlfieriAntoine de Rivarol, who translated the Inferno into French; and Giambattista Vico, who in the Scienza nuova and in the Giudizio su Dante inaugurated what would later become the romantic reappraisal of Dante, juxtaposing him to Homer.[50] The Comedy was "rediscovered" in the English-speaking world by William Blake – who illustrated several passages of the epic – and the romantic writers of the 19th century. Later authors such as T. S. EliotEzra PoundSamuel BeckettC. S. Lewis and James Joyce have drawn on it for inspiration. The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was its first American translator,[51] and modern poets, including Seamus Heaney,[52] Robert PinskyJohn CiardiW. S. Merwin, and Stanley Lombardo, have also produced translations of all or parts of the book. In Russia, beyond Pushkin's translation of a few tercets,[53] Osip Mandelstam's late poetry has been said to bear the mark of a "tormented meditation" on the Comedy.[54]In 1934, Mandelstam gave a modern reading of the poem in his labyrinthine "Conversation on Dante".[55] In T. S. Eliot's estimation, "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them. There is no third."[56] For Jorge Luis Borges the Divine Comedy was "the best book literature has achieved".[57]

English translations[edit]

New English translations of the Divine Comedy continue to be published regularly. Notable English translations of the complete poem include the following.[58]
YearTranslatorNotes
1805–1814Henry Francis CaryAn older translation, widely available online.
1867Henry Wadsworth LongfellowThe first U.S. translation, raising American interest in the poem. It is still widely available, including online.
1891–1892Charles Eliot NortonTranslation used by Great Books of the Western World. Available online at Project Gutenberg.
1933–1943Laurence BinyonAn English version rendered in terza rima, with some advisory assistance from Ezra Pound
1949–1962Dorothy L. SayersTranslated for Penguin Classics, intended for a wider audience, and completed by Barbara Reynolds.
1969Thomas G. BerginCast in blank verse with illustrations by Leonard Baskin.[59]
1954–1970John CiardiHis Inferno was recorded and released by Folkways Records in 1954.
1970–1991Charles S. SingletonLiteral prose version with extensive commentary; 6 vols.
1981C. H. SissonAvailable in Oxford World's Classics.
1980–1984Allen MandelbaumAvailable online.
1967–2002Mark MusaAn alternative Penguin Classics version.
2000–2007Robert and Jean HollanderOnline as part of the Princeton Dante Project.
2002–2004Anthony M. EsolenModern Library Classics edition.
2006–2007Robin KirkpatrickA third Penguin Classics version, replacing Musa's.
2010Burton RaffelA Northwestern World Classics version.
2013Clive JamesA poetic version in quatrains.
A number of other translators, such as Robert Pinsky, have translated the Inferno only.

In the arts[edit]

Rodin's The Kissrepresents Paolo and Francesca from the Inferno.[60]
The Divine Comedy has been a source of inspiration for countless artists for almost seven centuries. There are many references to Dante's work in literature. In musicFranz Liszt was one of many composers to write works based on the Divine Comedy. In sculpture, the work of Auguste Rodin includes themes from Dante, and many visual artists have illustrated Dante's work, as shown by the examples above. There have also been many references to the Divine Comedy in cinema and computer games.

Gallery[edit]

Series of woodcuts illustrating Dante's Hell by Antonio Manetti (1423–1497):
From Dialogo di Antonio Manetti, cittadino fiorentino, circa al sito, forma, et misure dello inferno di Dante Alighieri poeta excellentissimo (Florence: F. Giunta, 1510?)
"Everything Reduced to One Plan", 1506 
"The Chamber of Hell", 1506 
"Overview of Hell", 1506 
"Circles Six and Seven", 1506 
"The Lair of Geryon", 1506 
"The Tomb of Lucifer", 1506 
La materia della Divina commedia di Dante Alighieri, dichiarata in VI tavole, by Michelangelo Caetani (1804–1882)
1855 title page 
Plate I: "Overview of the Divine Comedy" 
Plate III: "Map of Hell" 
Plate IV: "Cross Section of Hell" 
Plate V: "The Ordering of Purgatory" 
Plate VI: "The Ordering of Paradise"