Clockwise and Counter
I was reading Inferno today, and became intrigued with a pattern I was seeing. Dante and Virgil travel clockwise, but do so by turning left. Why is this strange?
1. To move clockwise is to move in harmony with nature. It is the direction of the sun's movement.
2. Normally, to move in a circle clockwise would require turning to the right. (The right hand being dextere, the left hand being sinister[correct my spelling if it's wrong]).
3. To turn left normally signifies moving against nature, and possibly agains the will of God.
4. However, if one is facing inward rather than outward, to turn left is to move clockwise.
So...Dante and Virgil move clockwise because they are in God's will, but in Hell which is closed in upon itself, they can only do so by going left.
Any thoughts?
posted by Joi at 7:59 AM
3 Comments:
I have been taking an astronomy class and one of the greatest surprises to me was the fact that everything in the universe actually rotates counter-clockwise. The RCC actually killed many people over this thought, among many others, becuase it differed from the Classic idea that to move in harmony with God was to move clockwise.
My main struggle lately has been to try to find a way to reconcile Classic thought with modern science. If these things are true (true Philosophy, true Theology, and true Science) then they will all work together and prove each other as well as compliment each other. One could argue that science was the demise of Classic thought. While I am not the one going into space to test and see if sience is correct in their current views of Helio-centry or anything else that they have "discovered", it does seem to be true. Now, I also beleive that the Classics had the correct view of how the world opperates around God and how spiritual matters interact. If both of these are true then, there must, by necessity, be a way to reconcile the two. They cannot both be completely correct, man is fallible, but they can be mostly correct; and if they are mostly correct then they can mostly coincide and build upon each other thus showing us how to live.
Do you have any more thoughts on the movements of the cosmos and how they relate to current scientific trends, as well as Classic thought, and how we can reconcile the two?~nyx
Is there an objective orientation to the universe? E.g. the true up, down, left, right, front, back.
Brava! Ma in italiano diciamo 'destra' e 'sinistra' per 'right' and 'left'
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