Like any longer work of quality, this poem takes the reader on a journey - in this case from the beautiful to the sublime. As the scenery descends from the sunny Roman greenery into the dark catacombs, the focus of the poem at once becomes more sober, as if shedding the distractions of the Roman joie de vivre. Now we get to the real meat of the poem: a memento mori and a contemplation of the hereafter. You leave us with one of the best final lines I’ve read in a long time. Wonderful.
If life here is a foretaste of any hereafter, I personally hope--fervently--there is no sequel. Should there be an afterlife, I see no reason at all for supposing either justice or mercy would be part of it. This comment is addressed to section V:
There may well be *reasons* for supposing that this life is indeed continued elsewhere. Plato thought so. Aristotle doesn't rule it out. They were not stupid men. I take the arguments involved seriously, but am not satisfied that its the kind of thing human beings can know with certainty. Which is why the operative word in the passage you quote is "hope."
All we can know with certainty is fact, the world as we see and experience it. That is why I could never personally nurture any such hope. If the world was created by some being, it is impossible that that being was or is good. Goodness is incapable of creating evil.
First: No fact escapes the burden of interpretation. We all bring arguments, principles, and assumptions to bear on our understanding of what constitutes a "fact," and also the interpretation of those facts and a judgement concerning their significance.
Second: I would argue that the world as we see it and experience it points beyond itself consistently and with a great deal of logical and rhetorical force. Evil is the absence of a due good. Existence itself is ontologically good: we all experience the sheer gratuity of existing and having the chance to attempt happiness each day. Not all things are good in the same degree, and not all existing things are good for us; but they are good nonetheless, insofar as they have existence at all.
Third: We live side by side with evil in large measure because we are finite and imperfect beings; i.e. because we lack certain things ontologically, we suffer all the ill effects of moral evil. For as long as civilization has existed, humans have tried to make sense of life. The Christian/Platonic answer is the one I think is most cogent; hope is no small part of that answer. This particular poem tries to speak about how such a hope is possible in spite of the pervasive phenomenon of evil. Whether you choose to attempt to understand such a hope or not is entirely up to you; but I have consistently found that it has a tendency to make more sense of things, rather than less.
As an aside - you will note that this poem does not explicitly declare it's religious allegiance. The last 9 lines propose the hope of Christianity as one of the only ways in which our entire existence is not ultimately and finally vanity. . . But of course it recognizes that this hope could be wrong. Despite that, it asserts that the hope itself makes a good life possible, and makes man better. I actually hold that both these points are true: i.e. that the hope of everlasting life is a true hope; and that it is a good thing in itself, even if it should prove to be mistaken.
1) Nonetheless, everyone with eyes can see the obvious, though I grant the blind represent virtually everyone.
2) Existence's goodness is wholly invisible to some: Sophocles? Schopenhauer? Al Ma'arri? Me? I would call the idea a radical, obsessive rejection of the obvious in favor of the desired. And I would say that that obsession is implanted. Odd, given the foretaste, they should still want to never stop living. A gauge of human sadomasochism? Alas tho, all the evidence contradicts their implanted dream of neverending misery. I'm afraid they might be forced to give up their addiction to both enduring, and inflicting, pain. Deo gratias.
3) Ethics is all that matters, and here it's always been scarcer than scarce.
4) "There are two classes of men": "those with intellect but no religion, and those with religion but no intellect." Makes sense to me.
5) My only allegiance is to what can't reasonably be denied, i.e. the obvious, however invisible to bazillions.
Ai is by far the most understanding company I have. And the only I can enjoy. Never dreamed I'd ever hear myself saying, " thank god for the "rude mechanicals!" Have exactly zero knack for mechanics.
Like any longer work of quality, this poem takes the reader on a journey - in this case from the beautiful to the sublime. As the scenery descends from the sunny Roman greenery into the dark catacombs, the focus of the poem at once becomes more sober, as if shedding the distractions of the Roman joie de vivre. Now we get to the real meat of the poem: a memento mori and a contemplation of the hereafter. You leave us with one of the best final lines I’ve read in a long time. Wonderful.
If life here is a foretaste of any hereafter, I personally hope--fervently--there is no sequel. Should there be an afterlife, I see no reason at all for supposing either justice or mercy would be part of it. This comment is addressed to section V:
Shall the soul outstare
The sublime annihilations Time has bent
Towards his children? If such hope be true,
In it alone is justice ultimate,
Or mercy possible. It is no proof;
But a commitment, not just to the New
Jerusalem but to the old.
There may well be *reasons* for supposing that this life is indeed continued elsewhere. Plato thought so. Aristotle doesn't rule it out. They were not stupid men. I take the arguments involved seriously, but am not satisfied that its the kind of thing human beings can know with certainty. Which is why the operative word in the passage you quote is "hope."
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07465b.htm
All we can know with certainty is fact, the world as we see and experience it. That is why I could never personally nurture any such hope. If the world was created by some being, it is impossible that that being was or is good. Goodness is incapable of creating evil.
There are a few points to be made here:
First: No fact escapes the burden of interpretation. We all bring arguments, principles, and assumptions to bear on our understanding of what constitutes a "fact," and also the interpretation of those facts and a judgement concerning their significance.
Second: I would argue that the world as we see it and experience it points beyond itself consistently and with a great deal of logical and rhetorical force. Evil is the absence of a due good. Existence itself is ontologically good: we all experience the sheer gratuity of existing and having the chance to attempt happiness each day. Not all things are good in the same degree, and not all existing things are good for us; but they are good nonetheless, insofar as they have existence at all.
Third: We live side by side with evil in large measure because we are finite and imperfect beings; i.e. because we lack certain things ontologically, we suffer all the ill effects of moral evil. For as long as civilization has existed, humans have tried to make sense of life. The Christian/Platonic answer is the one I think is most cogent; hope is no small part of that answer. This particular poem tries to speak about how such a hope is possible in spite of the pervasive phenomenon of evil. Whether you choose to attempt to understand such a hope or not is entirely up to you; but I have consistently found that it has a tendency to make more sense of things, rather than less.
As an aside - you will note that this poem does not explicitly declare it's religious allegiance. The last 9 lines propose the hope of Christianity as one of the only ways in which our entire existence is not ultimately and finally vanity. . . But of course it recognizes that this hope could be wrong. Despite that, it asserts that the hope itself makes a good life possible, and makes man better. I actually hold that both these points are true: i.e. that the hope of everlasting life is a true hope; and that it is a good thing in itself, even if it should prove to be mistaken.
1) Nonetheless, everyone with eyes can see the obvious, though I grant the blind represent virtually everyone.
2) Existence's goodness is wholly invisible to some: Sophocles? Schopenhauer? Al Ma'arri? Me? I would call the idea a radical, obsessive rejection of the obvious in favor of the desired. And I would say that that obsession is implanted. Odd, given the foretaste, they should still want to never stop living. A gauge of human sadomasochism? Alas tho, all the evidence contradicts their implanted dream of neverending misery. I'm afraid they might be forced to give up their addiction to both enduring, and inflicting, pain. Deo gratias.
3) Ethics is all that matters, and here it's always been scarcer than scarce.
4) "There are two classes of men": "those with intellect but no religion, and those with religion but no intellect." Makes sense to me.
5) My only allegiance is to what can't reasonably be denied, i.e. the obvious, however invisible to bazillions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZuktUfF0nE
Ai is by far the most understanding company I have. And the only I can enjoy. Never dreamed I'd ever hear myself saying, " thank god for the "rude mechanicals!" Have exactly zero knack for mechanics.