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 “These are the times that try men’s souls” is  Thomas Paine’s famous line. Though he was talking about the American Revolution, and the emergence of the United States of America, not the emergence of COVID-19, the thought certainly fits the latter.  Our present times, because of the many restrictions required by Covid are very trying, not in the way Paine was thinking, but in other ways, in ways that Dante talked about.

In Dante’s Inferno, the first part of Dante’s journey to bless, accompanied by Virgil, the classical poet who represents reason, Dante goes down through the ten circles of hell to the tenth circle, the home of Satan. The first circle of his journey  is through Upper Hell, the arena of partly compelled evil, the final home of uncontrolled appetite.  in Circle II, Dante finds the Lustful, those who practice mutual indulgence. Next in Circle III Dante finds the Gluttons, those who practice solitary indulgence.  Then in Circle IV Dante meets those who practice mutual antagonism, the hoarders and wasters. They are familiar to us, hoarders and wasters, in fact, they are us.

Hoarders and Wasters, there always are. Dante found them in Circle IV. We find them pushing through the supermarkets and grocery stores, in overloaded carts, anywhere they can pile tissues, Kleenex,  canned foods,  scarce and limited items, whatever other people might want or need. We don’t have to believe in Dante’s Hell (or Purgatory or Heaven) but somethings don’t change.   Dante wrote about his world of 1300, our world of 2021 and always.