![]() ![]() Then they usually began to pretend that the cow wasn't there, and they preferred for Molly to go along with the pretense. But after a while they had exhausted their suggestions. They related anecdotes of friends who had removed their own cows in one way or another. ![]() They suggested strategies for getting the animal out of Molly's parlor: remedies and doctors and procedures, some mainstream and some New Age. When other people first became aware of the cow, they expressed concern and anxiety. It just sat there, taking up space in her life and making everything more difficult, mooing loudly from time to time and making cow pies, and all she could do really was edge around it and put up with it. That was exactly what Molly's arthritis was like: as if some big old cow had got into her house and wouldn't go away. Her grandmother back in Michigan used to tell about the day one of their cows got loose and wandered into the parlor, and the awful time they had getting her out. Where it was gathered up by sickening worms.“Having a chronic illness, Molly thought, was like being invaded. Which, mingled with their tears, fell at their feet, The insects streaked their faces with their blood, ![]() These wretched ones, who never were alive,īy horseflies and by wasps that circled them. Who made, through cowardice, the great refusal. That death could have unmade so many souls. That, as it wheeled about, raced on - so quickīehind that banner trailed so long a file Let us not talk of them, but look and pass."Īnd I, looking more closely, saw a banner The world will let no fame of theirs endure īoth justice and compassion must disdain them Those who are here can place no hope in death,Īnd their blind life is so abject that they He answered: "I shall tell you in few words. These souls, compelling them to wail so loud?" Have cast them out, nor will deep Hell receive them -Īnd I: "What is it, master, that oppresses The heavens, that their beauty not be lessened, Nor faithful to their God, but stood apart. They now commingle with the coward angels, Who lived without disgrace and without praise. "Master, what is it that I hear? Who are Like sand that eddies when a whirlwind swirls.Īnd I - my head oppressed by horror - said: Strange utterances, horrible pronouncements,Īnd voice shrill and faints, and beating hands -Īll went to make a tumult that will whirlįorever through that turbid, timeless air, Here sighs and lamentations and loud cries This scene occurs in the third canto of the Inferno (the following is a translation from the original written in the Italian vernacular): They are therefore worse than the greatest sinners in Hell because they are repugnant to both God and Satan alike, and have been left to mourn their fate as insignificant beings neither hailed nor cursed in life or death, endlessly travailing below Heaven but outside of Hell. Virgil explains to Dante that these souls cannot enter either Heaven or Hell because they did not choose one side or another. These individuals, when alive, remained neutral at a time of great moral decision. In the Inferno, Dante and his guide Virgil, on their way to Hell, pass by a group of dead souls outside the entrance to Hell. As Robert Kennedy explained in 1964, "President Kennedy's favorite quote was really from Dante, 'The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.'" This supposed quotation is not actually in Dante's work, but is based upon a similar one. Throughout the novel, Rodrigues battles with what he perceives as God’s silence in the face of human suffering. the feeling that while men raise their voice in anguish God remains with folded arms, silent. One of President Kennedy's favorite quotations was based upon an interpretation of Dante's Inferno. Behind the depressing silence of this sea, the silence of God. ![]()
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