> The Divine Comedy is based in
> premises most of us reject.
"when your longings center on things such that sharing them apportions less to each, then envy stirs the bellows of your sighs. But if the love within the Highest Sphere should turn your longings heavenward, the fear inhabiting your breast would disappear; for there, the more there are who would say 'ours,' so much the greater is the good possessed by each - so much more love burns in that cloister." "I am more hungry now for satisfaction" I said, "than if I'd held my tongue before; I host a deeper doubt within my mind. How can a good that's shared by more possessors enable each to be more rich in it than if that good had been possessed by few?" And he to me: "But if you still persist in letting your mind fix on earthly things, then even from the true light you gather darkness. That Good, ineffable and infinite, which is above, directs Itself toward love as light directs itself to polished bodies. Where ardor is, that Good gives of itself; and where more love is, there that Good confers a greater measure of eternal worth. And when there are more souls above who love, there's more to love well there, and they love more, and mirror-like, each soul reflects the other." Dante, The Divine Comedy [Mandelbaum translation], Purgatorio, Canto XV
Ted