WEBVTT

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OK, get ready.

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It's time for Dante.

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I'll tell you,
just briefly, what

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I've done with my translation.

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I love this poem, and
I'm sure you will too.

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And maybe you already do.

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What's brilliant about it
is that Dante conceived

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a kind of hell where
the punishments were

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an exact fit for the crime.

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And it's fascinating how
smart he was about it,

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and what a vivid world
he's able to create,

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where you see your own
foibles as a human.

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And you also see the
river of boiling blood

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with the despots in it.

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But it's impossible not to
see one's own shortcomings

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and try to be better.

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So it's a brilliant
poem, but it's often,

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when it's translated
into English,

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there are certain
gestures translators

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make to make sure
that you know it's

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an old poem from a previous era.

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It was written between,
say, 1307 and 1316,

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something like that.

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It's part of the Divine
Comedy, so Inferno, Purgatory,

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and Paradise.

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So I kept thinking, shouldn't
it sound like everyday English?

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Isn't that what
translation is, is to put

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a poem into your language?

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And, in fact, if we put it
into the language of the 1300s,

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it would sound like Chaucer.

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And they don't do that.

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Instead, they put it into some
kind of 16th or 17th century

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English with thouest and canst.

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So, Dante actually wrote,
not in literary Latin, which

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was the language of
poetry at that time,

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but in the Tuscan dialect,
in the vernacular, because he

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wanted a living language.

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So what I've done is to put
it into contemporary English.

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And yet, I've tried
to substitute.

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He had a very elaborate
rhyme scheme that

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created a very musical sound.

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So instead, I've
substituted the sounds

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of contemporary English
poetry, which are alliteration,

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assonance, and internal rhyme.

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And I've kept the
three-line stanzas,

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which is how he did it.

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And every once in a while
there would be moments

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where, if I was going to put
it into contemporary English,

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things seemed very
old-fashioned,

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like something was
faster than an arrow.

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And that's not usually how
we think about speed anymore.

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So I would try to find
an equivalent that

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embodied the original.

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And in that case, I came up with
a car that's called an Ultimate

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Aero, A-E-R-O, that, in 2007,
was the fastest production car

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in the world.

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It's since been replaced in
the Guinness World Records

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by a faster car.

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But that's our idea of speed.

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So now it's, "the skiff
that came across the pond

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was faster than
an Ultimate Aero."

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But I've also not
done that so often

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that it becomes a comic
romp, because I really

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wanted the original poem.

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So I'm going to read
you Canto III, which

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is kind of the antechamber
to Hell proper.

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And the people who are there
were people who would have

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opportunities to stand
up for good, but didn't.

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And so, they haven't
really been terrible,

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so they're not farther down
where the punishments are

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more painful.

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But you'll see what happens.

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So the first three
tercets are all in caps,

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because it's a sign.

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So Dante's reading this
sign, more or less out loud.

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"WELCOME TO THE CITY OF WOE.

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WELCOME TO EVERLASTING SADNESS.

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WELCOME TO THE GRAVE CAVE.

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JUSTICE MADE THE MAKER BUILD IT
JUST LIKE THIS, WITH PRIMITIVE

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LOVE AND BRICKS OF WISDOM.

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IF BEING IS POWER, POWER
CREATED IT, i.e., IT IS.

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BEFORE THIS, THERE WAS NOTHING
THAT WASN'T ETERNAL, AND AFTER,

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NOTHING BUT THE ETERNAL.

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YOU, WHO HAVE NO
HOPE, ENTER HERE."

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These words, in soot and all in
caps, as if by a hurried hand,

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were scrawled on
the stone overhead,

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above a creaking door.

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"Sir," I said.

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"This is harsh."

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He spoke like an expert
nephew to a drunkard uncle.

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"Now you need to leave
behind your fear.

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Now you need to
kill your cowardice.

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We're where I said
we'd come to, the place

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where you see the wretched
dead, who have lost

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the aid of their intellect."

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He touched my hand as if to
tell me all would be all right.

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Then we crossed over
from where we'd been,

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into the inner sanctum
that houses hidden things.

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The starless air was echoing
with countless sighs,

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horrific cries,
extended loud laments.

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I was in tears as I listened.

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The angry accents, the strident
utterances, the striking hands,

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the near deafening chorus
of a million dolls'

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dark inner voices
crying mama, mama, mama,

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veered off walls and
swirled around and around,

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like sand in a storm becomes one
with the wind that carries it.

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And I, circled by horror,
said, "Sir, what am I hearing?

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Who are these people
so overcome by grief?"

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He said, "This is
the inheritance

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of the contemptible, who did
nothing wrong, but nothing

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right.

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They blend together with
that band of vile angels

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who didn't rebel but who also
didn't stand with God, but only

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for themselves in selfishness.

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To preserve its beauty,
heaven threw them out.

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Deepest hell doesn't want
them, since the truly wicked

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would be able to
gloat, We're worse.

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We're truly depraved."

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I asked, "What torments them?

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Why do they cry so loud
and so unremittingly?"

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He answered, "I'll
tell you quickly.

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They wish to die, but cannot.

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Their blind lives are so empty,
so without reprieve, they

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envy the nothing that
an ending would be.

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They're not meant
to be remembered.

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Mercy turns her back.

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Justice disdains them.

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They're not worth our attention.

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Look, and then let's go."

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Then I saw a flag,
moving forward so fast,

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and flipping back and
forth so relentlessly it

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seemed indefatigable.

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It was followed by a sad
and endless train of people,

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racing after.

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Never had I dreamed death
had so many sycophants.

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I saw some I
recognized, and then

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the ghost of one who'd stood
down when faced with doing good

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and chose instead
to be a coward.

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I knew, incontestably, this
scourge, these contemptible sad

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sacks were the enemies
of both Jekyll and Hyde.

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They'd never lived, and
now would never die.

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Naked as the they were born,
bitter wasps and hornets

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covered them.

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Blood trickled
between their tears.

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The sorry, sticky mixture
dripped from their chins

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to their feet and into
the mouths of maggots.

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Further on, beyond these,
I saw a crowd gathered

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on the bank of a wide river.

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I asked my guide, could you
please tell me who these are,

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and why they're waiting
with such eagerness

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to board the boat I can barely
make out in the distance?

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He told me, "Hush,
it will all be clear

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when we reach the bank of
the miserable river Acheron."

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I was afraid I'd annoyed him by
asking, so I stared at my feet

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and stayed quiet until
we reached the river.

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Then, out of nowhere,
there was an old man

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with white hair coming toward
us in a boat, growling,

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"Give it up, you scum uncles.

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You'll never see the sky again.

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Like Red Rover, I'm taking
you over to the other side,

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where you'll eat and
drink perpetual darkness.

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Your naked asses will feel
the furnace and the ice.

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And you, with the beating
heart, step away from the dead."

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When I stood my
ground he said, "You

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can't get to where
you're going from here.

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You need the dinghy
marked P for purgatory.

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That one leaves from
a different pier."

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Virgil said, "Charon, calm down.

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We were standing on the ramp.

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It's been decided where
decisions are made.

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His passport has a stamp.

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Now leave it alone."

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The hairy cheeks of the
boatman, king of the river rats,

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went slack.

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His fire eyes flared,
but he kept silent.

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The weary and naked
ones, however,

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went ashen, and
gritted their teeth

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as soon as they heard
his vicious speech.

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They cursed God, their
parents, the human race,

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the moment of their conception,
their fathers' seed,

00:09:09.870 --> 00:09:12.120 align:middle line:84%
the space between
their mothers' legs,

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and the bed where
they were made.

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Then they moved as
one, as if conjoined,

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sobbing all the while,
along the evil shore that

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awaits any and all who
failed to fear God.

00:09:24.330 --> 00:09:27.840 align:middle line:84%
Where demon Charon, his eyes
like hollow furnaces filled

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with fire, herds them
together with a nod,

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or beckons with a bent finger,
smacking the stragglers

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with his oar.

00:09:37.410 --> 00:09:40.020 align:middle line:84%
Fall signals the tree
to drop its leaves

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and it does, one after
another, until the branch

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looks down and sees a
blanket on the ground.

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Like that, Adam's
wicked children

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leave the shore, one
by one when summoned,

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the way trained birds come
when called with a tin whistle.

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Then they go over
the murky water.

00:09:59.190 --> 00:10:02.090 align:middle line:84%
Before the boat has
landed on the far side,

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a new group is already
huddled, naked on the near.

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"Now," said my teacher,
"to your earlier question.

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The ones you see here have
died before making amends.

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They come from
every known country.

00:10:15.620 --> 00:10:18.350 align:middle line:84%
The reason they're so
eager to cross the river

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is that the desire for
divine justice prompts them.

00:10:21.950 --> 00:10:25.940 align:middle line:84%
The very thing they fear is
precisely what they want.

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The good never board
the boat, so if Charon

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curses both your shoes and the
dirt beneath your feet, perhaps

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you now know why."

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At that, the
pitch-dark plane shook.

00:10:37.970 --> 00:10:41.900 align:middle line:84%
Every aspect of that moment
is burned into my brain.

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The cold sweat
inside my clothes,

00:10:44.660 --> 00:10:48.410 align:middle line:84%
the hot wind that rose off
the ground, wet with tears,

00:10:48.410 --> 00:10:52.340 align:middle line:84%
the massive crimson camera
flash that lit the night scene

00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:54.170 align:middle line:90%
and turned us red.

00:10:54.170 --> 00:10:58.520 align:middle line:84%
I lost it and dropped, like
someone taken by exhaustion,

00:10:58.520 --> 00:11:01.150 align:middle line:90%
or like a phone goes dead.

00:11:01.150 --> 00:11:02.038 align:middle line:90%