the divine comedy
the denizens
the poet
the shades
the guide
the journey
the circles
the canti

AIM: rosa sine spinis
Y!M: roseofrohan
Email: roseofrohan@yahoo.com

Call me Kate. Call me Lissa, too, if you like. Twentysomething. Master of Arts. Georgetown University. Medievalist. Piers Plowman. Latin, satire, and social commentary. Law school-bound. Greenwich, Connecticut. Washington, DC. Not a snob. (Not really, anyway.) Filipino-American. Eurasian mutt. Petite. Conservative. Roman Catholic. Pro-life. Elitist. Revolutionary. Mow the Yard. Number Two. Fifths forever. Freedom forever. V for Vendetta. Elegant. Classicist. Virgil. Horace. Terence. The Vulgate. Plato, maybe. Herodotus. It's Greek to me. Student of the Renaissance. Hates the term 'early modern'. Shakespeare. Dante. Donne. Classy. Honest. Loves attention. Works the crowd. Life of the party. Needs to be on top. Ambitious. Overachiever. Perfectionist. Only the best. Laid-back. Everyone's friend. Nobody's girl. Strong. Feminist. National Woman’s Party. Brave to the point of recklessness. Carpe diem. Cunning. Feisty. Intelligent. Oxford-cultivated misanthropy. Realist. Musician. Perfect pitch. Pianist. Award winner. Carnegie Hall. Flautist. First chair. Singer. Church choirmistress. Concert choir soloist. Phantom phan. Christine Daaé. International law. Leader. Essayist. Woman of letters. English literature. Writer in the midst of society. City girl. Lover of languages. Harry Potter. Ravenclaw House poster child. The Black family. Slytherinesque. The Lord of the Rings. Éowyn. Jet-setter. Traveler. Creative. Imaginative. Scholarly. Proud. Patrician. Anything else?

currently feeling:
currently reading: Matthew Pearl, The Poe Shadow
currently listening to: The ProducersOST (film)

And if I then became disquieted,
Let stolid people think who do not see
What the point is beyond which I had passed

Thus I beheld assemble the fair school
Of that lord of the song pre-eminent,
Who o'er the others like an eagle soars

Then they broke up the wheel, and in their flight
It seemed as if their agile legs were wings

After not so many pages shalt thou find,
That this your art is as far as possible
Follows, as the disciple doth the master;
So that your art is, as it were, God's grandchild

Thou 'lt mark, when they shall be
Nearer to us; and then do thou implore them
By love which leadeth them, and they will come

If thou thy star do follow,
Thou canst not fail thee of a glorious port,
If well I judged in the life beautiful

Then I uprose, showing myself provided
Better with breath than I did feel myself,
And said: 'Go on, for I am strong and bold'

Therefore I think and judge it for thy best
Thou follow me, and I will be thy guide,
And lead thee hence through the eternal place

Return unto thy science,
Which wills, that as the thing the more perfect is,
The more it feels of pleasure and of pain

O Sun, that healest all distempered vision
Thou dost content me so, when thou resolvest

And now the moon is underneath our feet;
Henceforth the time allotted us is brief,
And more is to be seen than what thou seest

Then of the antique flame the greater horn,
Murmuring, began to wave itself about
Even as a flame doth which the wind fatigues

Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving,
Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly,
That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me

Sitteth the city, wherein I was born,
Upon the seashore where the Po descends
To rest in peace with all his retinue

Her permutations have not any truce;
Necessity makes her precipitate,
So often cometh who his turn obtains

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
Lost are we and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire

But here await me, and thy weary spirit
Comfort and nourish with a better hope;
For in this nether world I will not leave thee

The honourable name,
That sounds of them above there in thy life,
Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them

'Rise up,' the Master said, 'upon thy feet;
The way is long, and difficult the road,
And now the sun to middle-tierce returns'

O blind cupidity, O wrath insane,
That spurs us onward so in our short life,
And in the eternal then so badly steeps us!

But she is blissful, and she hears it not;
Among the other primal creatures gladsome
She turns her sphere, and blissful she rejoices

'Living I am, and dear to thee it may be,'
Was my response, 'if thou demandest fame,
That 'mid the other notes thy name I place'

So came they from the band where Dido is,
Approaching us athwart the air malign,
So strong was the affectionate appeal

'Now it behoves thee thus to put off sloth,'
My Master said; 'for sitting upon down,
Or under quilt, one cometh not to fame'

Upon this marble bust that is not I
Lay the round, formal wreath that is not fame;
But in the forum of my silenced cry
Root ye the living tree whose sap is flame.
I, that was proud and valiant, am no more; --
Save as a dream that wanders wide and late,
Save as a wind that rattles the stout door,
Troubling the ashes in the sheltered grate.
The stone will perish; I shall be twice dust.
Only my standard on a taken hill
Can cheat the mildew and the red-brown rust
And make immortal my adventurous will.
Even now the silk is tugging at the staff:
Take up the song; forget the epitaph.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Layout v1.1, March 2005. Upgraded from v1.0, June 2003. In honour of this class and inspired by this book. Dante quotations from the Sinclair and Longfellow translations of Inferno. Best viewed with Mozilla Firefox, or Netscape 7.x or higher.