I’d have sponsored Dante.
At my job there’s always someone emailing a link to a fundraising page to all network users, or waving a paper sponsor sheet. If Dante had come in one morning and peered around the door of my cupboard-sized office and said ‘Sorry to interrupt your Post-it theft, but I’m climbing the mountain of Purgatory in aid of orphaned gerbils.’ I’d have given him a tenner. Definitely ten and not five, as five is for 10k runs and walks up hills and mini-mountains. Peaks that you need to take a sandwich and a waterproof jacket for that, but that’s about it. Purgatory, according to the diagram in the front of my book, is a rather big task. It’s going to take more than a day, and bizarrely, it is harder the climb the lower down one is, getting easier the longer the pilgrim travels.
Already with ‘Purgatorio’ the second book of ‘The Divine Comedy’, I fear it won’t be as much fun as ‘Inferno‘. There Dante was chatting with people drowning in poo, meeting monsters, and accidentally injuring people who had been turned into shrubbery. Purgatory seems to contain more in the way of vanilla sinners, the proud, the lustful, the negligent and envious. To be honest, I’m probably all of those things of an average Tuesday afternoon.
Still, I wish Dante and Virgil all the best as they begin their climb. I hope they have some Kendal Mint Cake in case of a sugar shortage emergency, and plasters for blisters.
Lucy
Sarah
Man, just imagine the barrage of facebook updates for that expedition. I wonder if you get a goodie bag at the end with a bacofoil blanket, a muesli bar, money off coupons for deodorant and a big shiny medal saying ‘I punished Purgatorio’.
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Oo! There’s a thought. And a t-shirt. But a tech t-shirt, we all know the cotton ones are no good for serious imaginary afterlife systems hikers. They’re not even good enough for a Parkrun.
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So funny. Thanks for sharing! If you’re ever interested in some awesome book reviews and musings, be sure to follow!
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Hello, thanks, and I am already 🙂
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I appreciate you’re trying to be helpful with the advice for fellwalking hell,
but wouldn’t anyone eating mint cake there get put off by the smell?
Apologies for the almost-poetry in this comment by the way,
it was originally accidental (even if appropriate to Dante).
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Put off? Noo! Motivated! Fresh minty mountain air! The small of Kendal Mint Cake is like living in a toothpaste ad, which is pretty odd considering it can probably kill 99% of all known teeth dead, quicker than almost all other foods. 😉
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Ah, I was thinking of this, not the mint cake:
> chatting with people drowning in poo
Or is the idea that mint cake can overcome this as well as provide an emergency supply of calories? You might have a book idea there: Modern Methods and Equipment for Dante’s Inferno. I suppose that a mobile phone with GPS solves a lot of problems these days. But what to wear? Can’t see Gore-Tex being up to it.
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Ha! Yes, I see now, that makes more sense 😉 Speaking of what to wear, the only details of Dante’s wardrobe is that he wears a cord around his waist to remind him to seek poverty, like a monk, although he could just try renting somewhere in to Aberdeen to do that.
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