April 16– From The Divine Comedy by Dante (1314)
Summary:
Commentary: Today's date note says that on this day in 1311 Dante encouraged attacks on Florence. From a casual Google, it looks like he wrote to a bunch of rulers. Interesting tidbit.
This is more what I expect from a Divine Comedy selection, after we got a Purgatorio bit before. We're about halfway through Hell here, dealing with the deadly sin of Anger and then moving to Heresy. I feel like the next canto (10) might've been more appropriate here, since it's more political, if we're doing the anniversary of Dante's beef with Florence.
For our letter, M is for Megaera, one of the Furies/Erinyes, not to be confused with Megara, Hercule's wife who is sort of in the Disney movie.
She shows up in this sweet metal illustration:
It always surprises me that modern Greek mythology derived fantasy doesn't make more use of the Erinyes. They're the ultimate femme fatales, and you get to do all kinds of female empowerment/revenge stuff with them. Seems like a gimme one way or another for most writers.
Hmmmm - now I might have to use the Erinyes in a book!
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