Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Great Books #8: The Poetry Of Empire

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

Great Books #8/ The Poetry Of Empire

We conclude Virgil's the Inniad today. And as we discussed, Virgil is very much the anti-Homer. And so what the Inniad is, is really a response to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Remember, Homer believes that love is the unifying form. the unifying force of the universe. It is a center. It's what gives you life. It's what gives you purpose and hope. For Virgil, what matters is the idea of piety or obedience to the gods and to your father. And as we discuss, Virgil sets up a very stark contrast between love and piety. where they are competing forces. You cannot love and be pious at the same time.

And piety is ultimately the main centralizing force of the universe. If you are pious, if you obey the gods, then the world will be right. Because the gods have a divine plan for the world. And in the case of the Uniad, it is the founding. the founding of the Empire of Rome, which is Innius' mission and purpose. And so our role, our responsibility, our duty in life is just to follow this path of the gods, and then the world will be perfect. Okay? Now, this will, the Inniad will create the Roman Empire, which will then become the Catholic Church.

And the Catholic Church will rule for over a thousand years, okay, the millennium. And during this thousand years, it is a time of conformity, of secnation. And it is because in this time, what is often referred to, as a dark ages, Virgil becomes the god of the Catholic Church, the central organizing force. Why? Because every child of the elite memorizes the Iniak. And so every child perceives the world through the lens of the Iniac. And so what happened is to destroy this empire, a man would emerge to liberate the human imagination. And this name of course is Donta.

And Dante will destroy the Roman Empire and Catholic Church with his masterpiece, the Divine Comedy. We will spend the rest of the semester reading the Divine Comedy. It's not something you can read by yourself. There's actually no point. If I just give it to you and say, go read it. It will make no sense to you. We have to go through line by line, word by word, for you to understand the Divine Comedy.

Because not only is it poetry, but philosophy. And what poets will tell you is that a poem is this truth told with as few beautiful words as possible. So it could just be a few lines, but it could take your lifetime to fully understand the true meaning of these lines. And that is what the divine comedy is. It's an epic poem, but each paragraph, each sentence, each sentence, each, each, um, each, um, each line is a truth, an eternal truth, onto itself. Okay? So we'll read the Divine Comedy line by line, and we'll try to really understand it. But again, the point of this class is not to tell you what the great books are.

The entire point of the class is to get you excited about entering a journey that is great books. that will take your entire lifetime, okay? It will take your entire lifetime to appreciate the genius of these great books. And this class is meant to be a starting point. So do not think at the end of this class, oh, I've read Homer, I've read Virgil, I've read Dante, so I know the great books. No, okay? This is just the beginning.

All right, so where we are in the story of the Ineal, is that Ineus gets shipwrecked and he becomes a guest of Ditto, the Queen of Carthage. And then to fall in love. Diddle falls in love with the fact that Ineus is not just a great warrior and very handsome, but also because he's a great storyteller. He tells her the story of the fall of Troy. and the two fall in love, and Ditto has this burning passion for Innius. And the gods, basically Juno, wants to thwart the possibility of the rise of the Roman Empire,

and so she conspires to have Ditto and Ineus consummate their passion for each other, and then they get married. But then Jove, the king of the gods, finds up, about this and says no no no this is not part of the plan it is not supposed to fall in love with ditto stay in Carthage and build the Carthaginian Empire he's supposed to go to Rome so he sends Mercury the messenger of the gods down to Ineus and tells him hey man what are you doing this is not your duty do your duty Okay, so this is where we are in the story.

Okay, so let us read, okay? Ivory, can you read, please? Mercury lashes out at once. You, so now you lay foundation stones for destroying walls of Carthage, building her gorgeous city, doting on your wife, blind to your own realm, oblivious to your fate, the king of the gods whose power sways

earth and sky. He is the one who sends me down from brilliant Olympus, bearing commands for you through the racing winds. What are you plotting now? Wasting time in Libya, what hope misleads you so? If such a glorious destiny cannot fire your spirit, if you will not shoulder the task for your own fame, at least remember Askinius rising into his prime. The hopes you lodge in Ilius, your only heir. Okay, all right, so let's kidding is, Innes' father and Ilius is the son, okay, who will inherit the legacy. You owe him Italy's realm, the land of Rome. There's order still on his lips, the god vanished from sight and to empty air. Then Aeneas was truly overwhelmed by the vision, stunned, his hackles bristle with fear, his voice chokes in his throat.

He yearns to be gone, to desert this land he loved. thunderstruck by the warnings Jupiter's command. But what can he do? What can he dare say now to the queen in all her fury and win her over? Where to begin? What opening? Thoughts racing, here, there, probing his options, turning to this plan, that plan, torn in two until at his wit's end, this answer seems the best. Okay.

So again, Virgil is the anti-Homer. And what I mean by that is that if Homer were writing this, then what Homer would emphasize is how emotionally conflicted in his is because he loves Ditto. He does not want to go. For Homer, love is above the gods. And what a human is is someone who aspires to love. And when we divide calmly, what we will discover is, the reason why is because God is love. Okay? And there's an aspect of God in us, a candle that strives to return to the light.

And so we seek love. And so for Homer, during a choice between going to Rome and finding a great empire or staying in Carthage and being with Ditto, obviously you choose ditto because that is the path to God right and that's what happened in the Odyssey where Odysseus had an opportunity to stay with Calypso and have and live forever but he chooses to return to Penelope and when he returns Penelope and when he would ever leave me again and she and he says never again why I leave you because this is my home love is where my heart is okay So this is the, but what the conflict is in Innius is, okay, I look at the hell out of here.

I've risen with fear because what I fear most is the anger of the gods. What I must do is be loyal to the gods and heed their command. So screw love, I don't need this, but there's a problem which is, how do I actually tell Ditto? That's a conflict. Not should I leave Diddle, but like, how do I get out of here without her bitching at me? All right? And so what does he decide to do? He decides, I won't tell her.

Yeah, that's it. I'll pretend this isn't happened. And then at night, I will just sneak away. And then, well, who cares what happens afterwards? All right? So the thing to notice is this is not human. Okay? There's nothing human about Innius.

What he is, is he's like a walking phallus almost. He's like James Bond, man, you know? He goes around, does his mission, sleeps with a lot of girls, and then runs off. So let us continue. Ivory? He summons Nethius, Sir Gestis, staunch Sirristus, gives mortars. Fit out the fleet, but not a word. Much to the cruise on shore, all tackles set to sail, but the cause for our new course,

you keep it secret. Yet he himself, since the O who means the world to him, knows nothing, never dreaming such a powerful love could be uprooted. He will try to approach her, find a moment to break the news gently, a way to soften the blow that he must leave. All shipmates snap to command, glad to do his orders. True, but queen. Who can delude a lover?

Soon caught wind of a plot of foot. The first descends the Trojans are on the move. She fears everything now, even with all secure. Rumor, vicious as ever, brings her word already distraught, that Trojans... Sorry, sorry, you know what? Sorry. Are you all right? Are rigging out their galleys, gearing to set sail.

She rages in helpless frenzy, blazing through the entire city, raving like some may-man-driven wild when the women shake the sacred emblems, when the cyclic orgy shouts of Bacchus fire her on and... Scythoron. Sitheron echoes round with Madden Midnight cries. Okay, all right, so certain things to notice, okay. Bacchus is the god of creativity of God of creativity for the Greeks.

So there are actually two gods of creativity in the Greek world. There's Apollo and there's Dionysus, Bacchus, okay? Apollo is the god of logical creativity where you sit down calmly and then you write down your thoughts, okay? That's Apollo. Then you have Bacchus, who's the god of...

emotional rapturous creativity where you get drunk you have a lot of sex and then you express yourself okay and for the greeks these are two aspects of creativity that you both need in order to fully achieve your human potential yes uh you need to be engaged in meditation in rational analysis but you also need to fully explore the possibilities of your emotions to just let go Oh, to be crazy, be frenzy. Okay? And what virtual is saying is that we must, the backer's aspect is actually the worst type of emotion,

because it leads you into madness, okay? All right. So, um, can, kill reading, I agree? I laughed she assails Aeneas before he said a word. So, you traitor, you really, believed you'd keep this a secret, this great outrage. Seal away in silence from my shores. Can nothing hold you back?

Not our love. Not the pledge when sealed with our right hands. Not even the thought of ditto doomed to a cruel death. Okay, stop. Okay. All right. So this line, not the pledge once sealed, right hands. This is an illusion, of course, to...

Right here. Okay. This is an illusion, of course, to the Odyssey. where Odysseus and Penelope meet again for the first time in 20 years. And Penelope basically says to Odysseus. Convince me that you actually know my husband. And Odysseus says, well, because of this ornament that Penelope gave to Odysseus, right?

And that ornament, of course, is the pledge sealed with the love for each other. And this pledge, this memory, this bond is what carries them for a eternity. So that even though they are a great distance on each other, their hearts are still conjoint together. And so what Dill says is, does this pledge mean nothing to you? Ineus? And it is, of course, is like, it's a word.

It's nothing. All right? What matters is your oath to the gods. What matters is your loyalty to the gods. I keep going. When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion.

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Why labor to rigor fleet, wind winters raw, to risk the deep wind, north winds closing in? You crawl, heartless. Even if you were not pursuing alien fields and unknown homes, even if ancient Troy were still standing, still, who'd stale for Troy across such heaving seas? You're running away from me? Oh, I pray you by these tears, by the faith in your right hand. What else have I left myself in all my pain? By our wedding vows, the marriage we began, if I deserve some decency from you now,

if anything mine has ever won your heart, pity a great house about to fall, I pray you if prayers have any place. Reject this scheme of yours. Thanks to you, the African tribes, Nevidian warlords hate me, even my own tyrants rise against me. Thanks to you, my sense of honor is gone, my one and only pathway to the stars, the renown I once held dear. hands my guest do you leave me here to meet my death all right okay so two things

to remember okay the first thing is that in the Odyssey the journey where it ends the destination is towards home to be with pen out be again to be a family again okay and that is the end of this epic journey but in the India it's the reverse where you start off with a relationship with love And then you have to abandon love in order to go on this epic journey to found the empire of Rome. Okay? So you see how it's inverse now. In the Odyssey, the entire purpose of your life is to return home and to be in love, to fall in love, okay?

But in the Imead, love is what you have to abandon in order to fully fulfill your destiny. Okay, that's number one. Number two is this. What Ditto is saying is, thanks to you, I've lost everything, okay? So love, my love for you, means I have to abandon my pride, my reputation, my own people.

Without love, sorry, because my love for you, I've become nothing. Okay, and this inverses, the inversion of what happened in the Odyssey, where because Odysseus sought glory and fame in war, he became traumatized with PTSD. He saw the horrors of war where innocent people, innocent families were destroyed because of war, and that traumatized him. And what allowed him to resurrect himself, what would allow him to escape his trauma and we build his sense of identity

is going home and finding love again. And this love is able to resurrect his worldview and give him the courage and the power to fight on. Okay. So this is the opposite message of the Odyssey. Okay, all right. Let's let's, so now, okay, so Ditto is saying to Ineus, You're abandoned me. You tricked me, I fell in love with you, and now you're abandoning me. And this is, an in his response.

And the human thing to do would be to show pity, right? And say to, Ditto, I'm really sorry for what happened, but let's go together. Or maybe, Ditto, I'll come back for you, okay? Instead, he says, the worst, thing possible, all right? Can you read? Guest, that's all that remains of husband now. But why do I linger on? Until my brother

Pagmalion batters down my walls, or Ayurba strikes me off his slave. If only you'd left a baby in my arms, our child, before you deserted me. Some little Aeneas playing about our halls, whose features, at least, would bring you back to me in spite of all, I would not feel so totally devastated, so destroyed. The queen stopped, but he, worn by Jupiter now, his gaze held steady, fought to master the torment in his heart. At last he ventured... To a torment in his heart is not sadness, but anger, okay? Do you want going?

At last he ventured a few words. I... You could have done me so many kindnesses, and you could count them all. I shall never deny what you deserve of my queen, never regret my memories of ditto, not while I can recall myself and draw the breath of life. Okay, too I'm going. I'll state my case in a few words. I never dreamed I'd keep my flight a secret. Don't imagine that.

Nor did I once extend a bridegroom's torch or enter into a marriage pact with you. Okay, so what he's saying is, we did not have a marriage path, okay? We're not married. This is not true. They consummate the relationship and everyone witnesses. So they are married. But he's saying, we're not really married. Keep on going.

If DeFacehood let me free to live my life, to arrange my own affairs of my own free will, Troy is the city, first of all, that I'd safeguard, Troy and all that's left of my people whom I cherish. The Grand Palace of Priam would stand once more. With my own hands, I would fortify a second Troy to house my Trojans in defeat. But not now. Grinian Apollo's oracle says that I must seize on Italy's noble land. His listening lots say, Italy.

There lies my love, there lies my homeland now. If you, a Phoenician, fix your eyes on Carthage, a Libyan stronghold, tell me, why do you grudge the Trojans their new homes on Italian soil? What is the crime if we seek far-off kingdoms too? All right, so what you're saying is this. Dido, if it worked to me, I would say with you either, okay? It worked to me, I would be back in Troy, dying, and fighting and dying for what I truly love,

which is a city of Troy. Now that I've lost Troy, I must build an empire. You have your own empire, Carthage. Why stop me from building my own empire in Italy? So what matters is that love, what matters is power. That's why we live. That's why we exist, to seek more power. Love gets in the way, and therefore love must be discarded.

You, Ditto, I do love you, but you're in my way. Therefore, get on my way. So now Ditto is distraught. She fell in love with Innius and broke her vow to her former husband, Sikyas. And now she knows her people don't respect her anymore. and she knows that the neighboring warlords have contempt for her and they might even attack her because previously she rebuffed their advances so they feel insulted but at the same time she's still desperate in love with Imius and she knows he can't she cannot stop him from

leaving for Italy and so she decides eventually that her only solution is suicide but But she has a sister, Anna, who will keep watch over her. So she develops a very elaborate ploy to kill herself, right? Can you read, ivory? And now, what shall I do? Make a mockery of myself, go back to my old suitors, tempt them to try again. Beg the Numidians, grovel, plead for a husband. Though time and again, I score into what they're like.

Would then, trail the Trojan ships, bend to the Trojans' every last demand. So pleased are they, with all the help, the relief I lend them once. And memory of my service, past stands firm and grateful minds. And even if I were willing, would the Trojans allow me to bore their proudships, a woman they hate? Poor, lossful, can't you sense it, grasp it yet?

The treachery of Lomedon's breath. What now? Do I take flight alone, consorting with crews of Trojan Orsmen in their triumph? Or follow them out with all my troops of tyrants throwing the decks. Yes, hard as it was to uproved them once from Tyre. How can I force them back to sea once more, command them to spread their sails to the winds? No, no, die. You deserve it. End your pain with the sword. You, my sister, you were the first, went over by my tears,

to pile these sorrows on my shoulders, mad as I was, to throw me into my enemy's arms. If only I'd been free to live my life, untested in marriage, free of guilt, as some wild beasts untouched by panes like these. I broke the faith I soar to the ashes of Sakeas. Okay, so again, the idea here is for Homer, love is what gives you strength. Love is what allows you to resurrect yourself, okay? So the metaphor is love is the pole of Odysseus, right? where this bowl, or this has not touched for 20 years. But the moment he touches it,

it gives him renewed strength, and he's able to assemble it very quickly and then shoot the target, okay? That's the power of love. But here in the Inniak, love is simply opposite, where by falling in love, you disintegrate as a person. So when we first meet Ditto, she's a proud of it.

proud queen and now she is a complete mess she is emotionally falling apart she's being driven into madness she's like should I go and beg the Trojans to let me on their ship and be a slave girl okay so it is a complete fall of a queen okay from a queen to essentially to a slave girl she's seriously considering being a slave girl which just means being near Innius And ultimately she decides, no, my only option is to die. Okay? All right.

So she is contemplating killing herself. And the gods know this. And so what they do is they tell Ineus in a dream, get out of here, because we don't want you seeing Diddle kill herself. Can you read? Agree? Such terrible grief kept breaking from her heart as Inia slipped in peace on his ship's high stern. Okay, so Innius slept in peace meaning he doesn't care, you understand?

He was never in love of her. She was just a play thing. Keep my going. Bent on departing now, all tackle set to sail. And now in his dreams became again, the god, his phantom, the same features shining clear. Like Mercury head to foot, the voice, the glow, the golden hair. The bloom of youth on his limbs and his voice rang out with warnings once again. Son of the goddess, how can you sleep so soundly in such a crisis?

Can't you see the dangers closing around you now? Madman. Can't you hear the west wind ruffling to speed you on? That woman spawns her plots, mulling over some desperate outrage in her heart, lashing her surging range, she's bent on death. Why not flee headlong? Flee headlong while you can. You'll soon see the waves at chaos. Even see the waves a chaos of ships, lethal torches flaring, the whole coast ablaze, if now a new dawn breaks and finds you still malingering on these shores.

Up with you now. Another way. Women's a thing that's always changing, shifting like the wind. With that, he vanished into the black night. Great. All right. So Amy is, it's running away, okay? And Diddle has resolved to cure herself.

And this is her speech. Right before she kills herself, okay? Can you read agony? You, son, whose fires scan all works of the earth. And you, Juno, the witness, midwife to my agonies, he could greeted by nightly shrieks at city crossroads. And you, you avenging furies and gods of dying ditto. Hear me, turn your power my way, attend my sorrows.

I deserve your mercy. Hear my prayers. If that curse of the earth much reached his haven, labor on to landfall, if Joe's in the face's command and the boundary stone is fixed, still, let him be plagued in war by a nation proud in arms, torn from his borders, wrenched from Ilius' embrace, let him grovel for help and watch his people die a shameful death. And then, once he has bowed down to an unjust peace,

may he never enjoy his realm and the light he yearns for. Never. Let him die before his day, unburied on some desolate beach. That is my prayer, my final cry. I pour it out with my own lifeblood. And you, my tyrians, Harry with hatred all his line, his race to come, make that offering to my ashes, send it down below. No love between our peoples, ever, no packs a piece.

Come rising up from my bones, you avenger still unknown, to stalk those Trojan settlers, hunt with fire and iron. Now we're in time to come, whenever. the power is yours. Shore clash with shore, sea against sea, and sword against sword. This is my curse. War between all our peoples, all their children, endless war. Endless war. All right. So the Iniad is first and foremost political propaganda. All right. And so, Rome's epic war is with Carthage. Rome and Carfitz fought for about 100 years the control of the Mediterranean.

Ultimately, Rome will triumph over Carthage and they will destroy Carthage as a civilization. They will burn Carthage down. And today we have no memory of Carthage because it's so complete was the destruction. Virgil is trying to explain to us why this had to happen. It had to happen because Ditto put a curse

on Rome and force our people to go to war with Rome. So it's not that Rome was vicious and savage in destroying Carthage. It was like the Carthaginians had a curse. They had a mission to

avenge Diddle. So let me explain to you how this public agenda works. In Carthage understanding of Diddle, she's the founder. She's the queen of Carthage. What happened was that, you know, she, her husband was killed in Phoenicia, so she and some refugees sought refuge in northern Africa. So they found a city of Carpidge. And they worked really hard to build

the city, and she was very attractive, so she won the attention of some local warlords, and they demanded her hand in marriage. And her response was to kill herself. And by killing herself that her sacrifice emboldered her people to build a great city but also it won the respect of the local warlords as well and from then on everyone understood the Caucasus unions as a free and proud people who would rather die for the liberty than then become a slave okay so that's the Confucian understanding of Ditto here in the Enid it is almost the reverse where Dino's love for Innius becomes a poison. It poisons her soul and it leads her to poison her people as well.

And rather than give them freedom, she enslaves them into a mission to avenge her. Okay? So it's basically inversion. Right. So that's what the Indian is doing. It's inverting homework, but it's also inverting history. to serve the political purposes of Rome. All right, so we come to the ending of the Iliad. So with the story of Ditto, what Virgil is doing is inverting the story of the Odyssey. Now we come to the ending of the Iliad,

and here Virgil is going to invert the story of the Iliad. Remember, we call it what happened in the Iliad, where Achilles tricks Protropolis into sacrificing himself, and this allows Achilles an excuse to enter the battlefield against Hector. He kills Hector. And he believes that this is the height, the apex of his glory. But instead, it causes him to fall into a deep depression. It's really priam,

promise willing to forgive him because of his love for Hector, that frees Achilles from his guilt. And the two Achilles and Priam cry together and they become friends because of this. So the Iliad is fundamentally a story of the curse of power, the evil power, and the ability of love to both redeem and to save. What Virgil is going to do is take the story

story of the Iliad, it inverted, okay? So it ends actually with an analogy to the battle between Achilles and Hector, okay? So in the Iliad, it's between Achilles and Hector. But here, it's going to be between Ineus and Ternus. Okay, so what happened is that Ineus lands in Italy and the Latin tribe. see Ineus as his great hero and the king there Latinus marries his daughter to Ineus but the wife for whatever reason like the woman in the in the in the all the villains okay though the wife the queen has already promised her

daughter to Ternus who is another warlord and the so it starts off a war between the Trojans and Charnas, okay? And ultimately, this leads to a final conflict, a great battle between Innius and Churnins, okay? So this is the very ending of the India. Okay, can you read? I agree. As he hangs back, the fatal spear of Ineathe streaks on,

spotting a lucky opening he had flown from a distance, all his might and main. Rocks heaved by a catapult, Pounding city ramparts never storm so loudly, never such a shadowing bolt of thunder crashing forth. Like a black whirlwind churning on, that spear flies on with his weight of iron death to pierce the round shield, with its seven plies and right at the thick of ternus's thigh it whizzes through, it strikes home, and the blow drops great turnus down to the ground, battered down on his bent knees. The retulians spring up with a groan, and the hillside,

round grown back and the tall groves far and wide resound with the long-drawn moan. Turn his lord his eyes and reached with his right hand and begged, a suppliant. I deserve it all. No mercy, please. Turn displeaded. Seiz your moment now. Or if some care for a parent's grief can touch you still, I pray you. You had such a father in old antresses. Pity Donus in his old age and send me back to my own people. or if you would prefer, send them my dead body stripped of life. Here, the victor are enfranchished. I stretched my hands to you, so the men in Laitium have seen me in defeat.

Lavinia is your bride. Go no further down the road of hatred. Okay, all right. All right, okay. So again, this is rewriting of the battle between Hector and Achilles. But in this battle, it is Hector who wins. And Achilles is basically begging for mercy. And what's really interesting is that to beg for mercy, Churness, basically uses the words of Priam from the Eliot, right?

Remember what Priam says to Achilles is, I've kissed your hand. Have mercy for me. Look at my face. Remember of your father, Achilles. Remember your father, Pileas, okay? Same exact words, right? Care for our parents grieve, okay? and I stretch my hands to you.

So basically, Virch was plagiarizing Homer, but he's plagiarizing a way as to invert and subvert Homer. Okay? So at this point, Innius is drawn to pity, right? Because his great enemy, Churnas, has submitted himself before him. So in his heart he's like, you know what, I've defeated him, he's been destroyed, he's lost space, he's lost credibility. I can let him go. I've won, okay?

And that's what he wants to do. He just wants to let him go. But this is the very ending, okay? This is the very ending of the Inniad. And the ending is surprising because for many scholars, they read this, they're like, this is not an ending, this is too abrupt. And they think that Virgil was not able to finish the Inniac. But what I'll show you is that, no, you're reading the Ineat improperly, incorrectly,

if you do not believe this is the full ending. This is the fact of the ending. Can you read? I read. Okay. Aeneas, ferocious in armor, stood there still, shifting his gaze and held his sword arm back, holding himself back to, as Ternus' words, began to sway him more and more,

when all at once he caught sight of the faithful sword belt of Pallas, swept over Ternus's shoulder, gleaming with shining studs, Ine, knew by heart. We're sorry, Palace. Palace is the version of Pertoclus. Remember how Patroclus died and that had been raged Achilles. Well, Pallas is a friend of Ineus who fell in battle to Ternus, and Churnas, to celebrate his victory over him. over palace stole the sword belt of palace okay so and ines recognizes this from going

young palace whom turnus had overpowered taken down with the wound and now his shoulder flaunted his enemy's battle emblem like a trothy aeneas soon has the eyes drank in that plunder keepsake of his savage of his own savage grief flaring up in fury terrible in his rage he cries decked into spoils who stripped from one i loved Escape my clutches. Never. Palace strikes this blow. Palace sacrifices you now. Makes you pay the price with your own guilty blood.

In the same breath, blazing with wrath, he plants his iron sword held deep into his enemy's heart. Turned as his limbs, wince glimps, and the chill of death. His light breath fled with a groan of outrage, down to the shades below. And that's it. This is the ending of the Indian Act. And again, scholars are confused by this.

Like how could the epic end like this? It's a very long epic, 24 books, and it ends with the death of turnus and nothing more. And it's confusing because scholars and literary critics are taught to believe that a good book has an epithony and a catharsis. and a resolution. Basically, a character recognizes himself and changes for the better. It's almost like a death

and they're letting go with a pass. And so scholars read this and they're completely confused. Where is the epithony? Where's the carthyrgyz? Where's the resolution? And the answer is, because you're misreading

the Iniab, first and foremost, It is a work of political propaganda. So how has Ineus changed as a person? Well, the change is this. Previously, whenever Innius has a doubt, okay? Okay? Like, for example, he is changing his emotions.

Each time this happened previously, the gods had to intervene, right? So remember how Innius is back in Troy, and he's witnessed the killing of his king, Pryor. And he's really angry. And then he sees Helen. And he wants to kill Helen because he understand that Helen is the cause of all the death and destruction in Troy.

And he wants to just kill her. And then what happens? His mother, Venus, intervened and says, no. Ineus, you must stop. There's a mission for you. Go complete your mission. And then Inaneus is like, fine, mother, I'll go home. And then when he goes home and he sees her, his son, Ilius, he wants to return and fight the Greeks.

Because he wants to protect the city. And then Ilius, there's a sign from the gods. Ilius, his here is on fire, okay? It's an image. And this tells Ineus, No, your son is destined for great things. You must fulfill the mission. Again, when Inis is with Ditto,

he just wants to stay with Ditto and build up Carthage. And so Jupiter has to send a messenger, Mercury, to tell him, no, INEAS, no. Go to Italy. So each time that Ineus went off mission, or he has his own ideas, the gods have to intervene. What makes this,

an epithony, a Carthorosis, evolution is the fact that here when Innius once so mercy, when in his heart he's like, he, this is a pitiful man. It gives me no pleasure to kill him. It gives me no glory and honor to kill this pathetic man. He recognizes, no, I must kill him because it is a duty. It's the, it is the will of the gods. Now he has become fully pious. And that is the epitone. Okay? I must abandon all pity. I must abandon all emotions. I must abandon my own soul if I am to serve the gods. He is now the perfect soldier. And that's why Virgil wrote the

Inniad because it is a piece of propaganda. It's a piece of brainwashing, indoctrination where you read it and you go on the same journey

as Ineus and step by step you let go of everything that makes you weak. Your humanity, your willingness, your desire to love someone

throw it out. Your pity, your sense of decency, get rid of it. And what you do, when you plant yourself of all human emotions, then you can serve the gods completely. You are now fully pious.

And as such, you can now complete your mission. All right? So that's the power of the Inniak. You didn't know what's happening, but as you memorize it, because back then, the way to educate yourself was just memorized

memorized the poetry, you became Inius himself. You transform yourself from someone who was a human to someone who is now basically a robot. Okay, does that make sense? Any questions? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, I think it's true that Aeneas,

he didn't fail empathy towards Ternis, because he killed him later. But I mean, I think that is still because, like, he loved Palace, his friend who was killed by Turner's. So that's also kind of feeling, right? It's an emotion that, and that contributes to Turner's death. So isn't that different from what you said about maybe Aeneas being a robot and fulfilling his fate? Okay, yeah. All right.

That's a good point, okay? So your point is, well, Inius loves his friend, Pallus. And as a result, it's this love for Pallus that drives Ineus to kill Churnius, right? That's fine. That makes sense, but go back to the Iliad, right? where Achilles is sadden and anger by the death of Patroclus. And he kills Hector, right?

But then what happens? He falls into a deep depression. Because in his heart, he recognizes that you don't avenge someone you love by killing someone. That's not how the universe works. If you truly love someone, you do not turn the memory of it. of that person into hatred and violence. You celebrate the person's life by being open and generous with others.

Okay, this is something that Dante will explain. This is a very hard idea to understand, okay? But if you truly love someone, love means that you cannot do something evil. Love is pure good. If you do something evil, it means you actually don't love that person, okay? Doesn't make sense to you.

If you truly love palace as a person, you would not use him as an excuse to kill someone. All right? So I think with the Iliad where Achilles thought he loved Patroclus, but he's actually using Petrolus as an excuse to kill Hector. And his heart, he knows that. This is really confusing to understand,

but when we define properly, it will make sense to you. All right, okay? All right, any more questions, guys? Okay, yeah. Yeah, so that's a great question, and it shows you how, basically, in this world, this is a world of anti-love. Because you've received an education in utility, right? Obedience, compliance. But what you have not received is an education in love.

What is love? How do we know we're in love? What draws us to love? And that's what the great books are about. The great books in Homer and Dante, they really think deeply about what love is. Because in love is where God is. So again, by asking this question,

what you're really doing is revealing the sort of education you've received. When you're mine, you think that what is right is one of utility and one of compliance. If Pallas, my best friend, died, then I need to seek vengeance against a person who killed him. Okay? But I know it's hard to understand, but that is, but you've been brainwashed to think that. That's not actually true. If your best friend were to be killed someone else, to demonstrate love to your best friend,

you would actually forgive that person. Okay? And I know this is a hard idea to understand, but when we're, we're going to understand, but when we're but we read the Divine Comedy, it'll become more obvious, okay? Okay, any more questions, guys? All right, so let me explain the plan for the Divine Comedy, which we will end the semester with, okay? So there'll be four lectures on the Divine Comedy.

So I'll be doing a lecture every two weeks. All right? And then for the other classes, we'll just be reading the Divine Comedy line by line by line. all right okay all right so uh well we start with my comedy on Friday all right great good do you understand it's very hard it's very hard it's very hard I do understand okay but it's hard it's hard I do I don't understand just because I just say this but but but you've been brainwashed and