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Ye were not made to live like unto brutes, but for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.
UlyssesInferno · Canto XXVI.116
Circle 8: Fraud
Canto 26 of 34 — 76% descent
In the Eighth Circle, among the evil counselors, a twin flame holds Ulysses and Diomedes. Ulysses tells how, after returning to Ithaca, he could not stay. He sailed west past the Pillars of Hercules, urging his aged crew with this famous speech. They glimpsed a mountain (Purgatory) before God sent a whirlwind that drowned them all.
Why This Matters
Ulysses’ speech to his crew — a Renaissance call to human aspiration, though Dante places him in Hell for it.
knowledgeambitiontransgression
The Flaming Spirits of the Evil Counsellors
Gustave Doré, 1857 · Public Domain