Diagnose Woland

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

I was forced to write this miniature by a conversation between two medical students, who were sitting at a table in a cozy summer cafe, on a warm August evening, talking lively on a topic that aroused my interest.

It was about the novel by M. Bulgakov “ Master and Margarita (!!!). Agree that it is almost impossible to hear a judgment about this novel from today's youth, based on a simple statement - they did not read it. The subject of the dispute was so interesting that I asked for forgiveness and invited them to speak more specifically about the essence of the conversation.

The girls condescendingly examined my figure and took me for an old womanizer, at first they did not perceive me, but when I began to recite the chapter "The Last Flight" by heart, opening their mouths, they offered to sit down with them. Our conversation dragged on after midnight, since the cafe was open around the clock, tea and pastries were prepared there excellent, and, unlike the interlocutors, I was a wealthy person.

The conversation was about the girls' envy of the fate of the Master and Margarita, which Yeshua-Ha-Notsri had prepared for them, asking through Matthew Levi to help Satan in resolving their further existence.

Each of them dreamed of meeting such love as Bulgakov's heroes, reliving their adventures and receiving at the end of their well-deserved reward from Woland. And, frankly speaking, they liked Woland himself. You never know?!

This is exactly what made me join in their conversation.

Taking the position of a famous writer, I began my story by saying the first phrase of his book "Never Talk to Unknown People" and pointing a finger at myself, which caused the students to laugh.

In other matters, they soon stopped laughing …

- Listen to the soundless, - Margarita said to the master, and the sand rustled under her bare feet, - listen and enjoy what you were not given in life - silence. Look, ahead of you is your eternal home, which you were given as a reward. I can already see the Venetian window and the climbing grapes, it rises to the very roof. Here is your home, here is your eternal home. I know that in the evening those whom you love, whom you are interested in and who will not disturb you will come to you. They will play for you, they will sing to you, you will see what kind of light is in the room when the candles are burning. You will fall asleep, putting on your greasy and eternal cap, you will fall asleep with a smile on your lips. Sleep will strengthen you, you will begin to reason wisely. And you won't be able to drive me away. I will take care of your sleep.

So spoke Margarita, walking with the master in the direction of their eternal home, and it seemed to the master that Margarita's words were flowing in the same way as the stream left behind was flowing and whispering, and the master's memory, restless, pricked with needles, began to fade. Someone released the master, as he himself had just released the hero he had created …

The writer Bulgakov was quite familiar with the mystical traditions of Catholicism, which, in fact, is not surprising. The positions of Catholicism are strong in Ukraine, where Mikhail Afanasyevich lived earlier. In addition, having the specialty of a syphilisologist (he himself called syphilis Lewis), he, like any doctor, represented the structure of the human body and the features of his psyche, and that is why he put the action of his novel in the peak form of human passions - love and the struggle of opposites. Besides a reluctant mystic, he undoubtedly read Dante.

I will not bore the reader with the details of the conversation, I will just move on to presenting my thoughts, where did the Master and Margarita actually go, stepping barefoot on the rustling sand.

According to Dante, Hell consists of nine circles. Let's dwell on each of them in detail.

Building the model of Hell, Dante follows Aristotle, who in his Ethics classifies the sins of incontinence (incontinenza) to the 1st category, the sins of violence ("malice" or malizia) to the 2nd, and the sins of deception ("Violent bestiality" or matta bestialitade). Dante has 2-5th circles for the intemperate, 7th circle for rapists, 8-9th - for deceivers (8th - just for deceivers, 9th - for traitors). Thus, the more material the sin is, the more forgivable it is.

Nine circles of HELL

Structure

1 circle

Limbo

Guardian

Charon (at least an intermediary)

Type of punishment

Painless grief

Languishing

Unbaptized babies [not the official position of the Vatican, according to the report of the International Theological Commission of the Vatican on 2007-19-01] and virtuous non-Christians

All examples of Dante

The greatest poets of antiquity are Homer, Horace, Ovid, Lucan;

Roman and Greek heroes - Electra, Hector, Aeneas, Caesar, Penthesileia, Camilla, Lavinia with her father Latina, Brutus, Julia (Pompey's wife), Lucretia (dishonored by the royal son Sextus Tarquinius), Cornelia, Marcia (wife of Catan Uticus) + Saladin (Salah ad-din Yusuf ibn-Ayyub; his own name is Yusuf, the son of Ayyub, and Salah-ad-din is an honorary nickname meaning "Rightness of faith" (1137, Tikrit-1193, Damascus) - Muslim commander, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt and Syria. By origin Kurd.);

Scientists, poets and doctors - Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Diogenes, Thales, Anaxagoras, Zeno, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Dioscorides, Seneca, Orpheus, Lin, Tullius, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna, Averrois

2 circle

Guardian

Minos (In mythology, a just king; here it is a demon)

Languishing

Voluptuous (fornicators and adulterers, just passionate lovers).

Type of punishment

Twisted and tormented by the storm

All examples of Dante

Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Elena the Beautiful, Achilles, Paris, Tristan; Francesca and Paolo

3 circle

Guardian

Cerberus

Languishing

Gluttons, gluttons and foodies.

Type of punishment

Rotting in the sun and rain

All examples of Dante

Ciacco (Italian: Ciacco) is one of the characters in the Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, written between 1308 and 1321.

Chakko is a glutton who stays in a stinking swamp in cold rain in the third circle of Hell. Dante sympathizes with him, therefore it is he who predicts Dante his future exile

4 circle

Guardian

Plutos In mythology, the god of wealth, here it is a bestial demon

Languishing

Miserly and squandered (inability to spend wisely)

Type of punishment

Wall-to-wall (perpetual controversy)

All examples of Dante

You are not given to recognize them:

They have such filth from a disgusting life, That to reason their appearance is dark

5 circle

Stygian swamp

Guardian

Phlegius is a carrier through the swamp (in ancient Greek mythology, the son of Apeca and Chryses, who ruled in Orchomenes after Eteocles, the father of Eton and Coronis, who was the mother of Asclepius from Apollo. Angry at his daughter for her love affair with Apollo, Phlegius burned down the temple of God, but as punishment for this, he was killed with arrows and in the underworld he was condemned to eternal execution - to sit under a rock, ready to collapse every minute. Phlegias was the ancestor of the mythical robber tribe of Phlegians, who were ranked among the Minian people and who lived in Phocis or Hirton (Thessaly) Phlegius was credited with the founding of the ancient Boeotian city of Phlegia.)

Languishing

Angry and lazy

Type of punishment

Eternal fight up to the throat in the swamp

All examples of Dante

Florentine knight Philippe degli Adimari ("Argenti") - a wealthy Florentine knight, a supporter of the Blacks, distinguished by his arrogance and frenzied disposition. He was nicknamed Arjeiti, that is, "silver", because he shod his horse with silver. There is reason to believe that there was a sharp personal enmity between him and Dante.

6 circle

Walls of the city of Dita (Hades among the Greeks)

Guardian

Furies (in ancient Greek mythology, the goddess of revenge; daughters of Nikta and Erebus. In Roman mythology, they correspond to the Furies.)

Languishing

Heretics [Heretics - apostates from the faith and deniers of God - are singled out separately from the crowd of sinners who fill the upper and lower circles, in the sixth circle. In the abyss of the lower Hell, with three ledges, like three steps, there are three circles - from the seventh to the ninth. In these circles, malice is punished, wielding either force (violence) or deceit.] And false teachers

Type of punishment

Be ghosts in red-hot graves

All examples of Dante

epicureans: Farinata degli Uberti, Cavalcante Cavalcanti, Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Ottaviano degli Ubaldini [Cardinal Ottavio (died 1273), a zealous Ghibelline, so influential that if they just said "cardinal", they meant him. His phrase has survived: “If there is a soul, then I destroyed it for the sake of the Ghibellines.”], Pope Anastasius II

7 circle (divided into 3 belts)

Guardian

Minotaur

Languishing

Committing violence

7/1-Rapists over the neighbor and over his property (tyrants and robbers), 7/2-Abusers over themselves (suicides) and over their property (players and motes, that is, senseless destroyers of their property), 7/3-Abusers of a deity (blasphemers), against nature (sodomites) and art (covetousness)

Type of punishment

Boil in the bloody river. Those who lean out are shot by the centaurs Nessus (mythology), Chiron and Foul

7/1-Boil in the bloody river. Those who lean out are shot by the centaurs Nessus (mythology), Chiron and Foul

7/2-Suicides, in the form of trees, are tormented by harpies; Motov are being driven by hounds

7/3-languish in the sultry desert by the burning stream

All examples of Dante

Alexander the Great, tyrant Dionysius, Count Azzolino, Obizzo d'Este, Count Guy de Montfort, Attila, Pierre, Sextus, Riniere de'Pazzi, Riniere of Corneto, Pierre della Vigna; Siena Lano, wealthy Paduanian Giacomo da Sant Andrea Capanei, Brunetto Latini, Priscian, Guido Guerra, Count Guidi, Teggiaio Aldobrandi degli Adimari, Jacopo Rusticucci, Guglielmo Borsiere, Vitaliano del Dente

8 circle (contains 10 moats, the most popular of the circles)

Sinuses, or Evil Crevices

The sinuses are separated from each other by shafts (rolls). Towards the center, the area of Evil Crevices slopes, so that each next ditch and each next rampart are located slightly lower than the previous ones, and the outer, concave slope of each ditch is higher than the inner, curved slope. The first but counting shaft is adjacent to the circular wall. In the center is the depth of a wide and dark well, at the bottom of which lies the last, ninth, circle of Hell. From the foot of the stone heights, that is, from the circular wall, to this well go with radii, like the spokes of a wheel, stone ridges, crossing ditches and ramparts, and above the ditches they bend in the form of bridges, or arches. In the Evil Crevices, deceivers are punished who deceived people who are not connected with them by special bonds of trust.

Guardian

Geryon

Geryon in ancient Greek mythology is a three-headed and three-body giant, the son of Chrysaor and Kalliroi. Lived on the island of Erifia (which, according to the Greeks, was located on the western edge of the world, beyond the Ocean). Hercules stole Geryon's cows, killing the guards of the Geryon flocks, the shepherd Eurytion and Orff's dog, and then Geryon himself (the tenth feat of Hercules).

Languishing

Who deceived those who did not trust

8/1-Pimps and seducers

8/2-Flatterers

8/3-Holy merchants, high-ranking clerics who traded church positions ("Simonists")

8/4-Diviners, fortunetellers, astrologers, witches

8/5-Bribe-takers, bribe-takers

8/6-Hypocrites

8/7-Thieves

8/8-Crafty Counselors

8/9-Instigators of Discord

8/10-Alchemists, false witnesses, counterfeiters

Type of punishment

8/1-sinners go in two opposite streams, scourged by demons

8/2-Stuck in feces offensive

8/3-The bodies are chained in rocks, fire streams down the foot

8/4-The head is turned half a turn (it is interesting horizontally or vertically so that, for example, it would be more convenient for birds from the top to shit on sinners)

8/5-Boil in resin. In those who stick out, the devils stick the hooks

8/1

8/7-Torment by reptiles (kenhr, amphisbene, farey, yakul, echidna), interconversion with them

8/8-Souls are hidden (burn) inside the lights

8/9-Eviscerate

8/10-Leprosy and versicolor

All examples of Dante

examples are huge. You should read Dante Alighieri Himself

9 circle

Ice Lake Cocytus

Cain's Belt

Antenor's Belt

Tolomey's Belt

Giudecca Belt

Middle, center of the universe

Guardian

Giants (Briareus, Ephialtes, Antaeus)

Languishing

Who deceived those who trusted:

Traitors to relatives

Traitors to the motherland and like-minded people

Traitors to friends and companions

Traitors to benefactors, majesty divine and human

Frozen in the ice floe Dith (Lucifer) torments in his three mouths the traitors to the majesty of the earth and heaven (Judas, Brutus and Cassius)

Type of punishment

Frozen in the ice up to their necks, and their faces are turned down

All examples of Dante

Brothers Alberti (Counts of Mangona), Focaccia, Camichon

Bocca, Carlino, Duer, Beccheria, Gianni Soldanier, Ganellon, Tebaldello dei Zambrazi, Tidei, Ugolino della Gherardesca

Monk Alberigo

The longer I told the young doctors, the more round their eyes became. Of course, they already understood that Yeshua refused to lovers in the Light, that is, eternal life in Paradise, and asked Woland to place them in the first circle of Hell, called Limb, where painless grief reigns.

The essence of existence and the height of the aspiration of the Christian soul is not heavenly booths and the possibility of eternal bliss and libation of nectars on the shore of happiness washed by waves of heavenly bliss. The soul seeks to contemplate God and, like angels, burn with love for him. According to Dante, the limb contains all material goods and earthly values. BUT THERE IS NO GOD..

The world of Hell is ruled by Satan and God will go down there only on the day of the Last Judgment.. Is it possible to get a reward from the Devil? His destiny is the punishment of those who accepted his intrigues, which happened to Margarity, who signed the contract with him, through washing in blood before the ball at Satan, who became a witch.

As for the Master, then he is not sinless either. His connection with Margaret is adultery, one of the deadly sins written on the tablets of King Solomon! And you can't call him righteous in life …

Sinful souls of lovers are doomed to eternal torment in Limbe, despite the seeming prosperity there. The lot of lovers is eternal painless grief. It is unlikely that their fate is better than that described by Bulgakov, the fate of Pontius Pilate, the Horseman of the Golden Spear. The master, having let go of his hero, took his place himself, in sad sorrow and the ever-repeating morning and evening with a candlelit dinner in the assembly of those who would not bother him. Don't you think that this is at least boring? How not to recall here the words of Azazelo: "It happens so, diamond donna, that your husband is tired of it?"

The students sat silent and lost. Mindful of their chosen medical profession, I ventured to suggest that they diagnose Woland and cited an excerpt from the chapter "By candlelight"

…. There was silence for several seconds. "He is studying me," thought Margarita and with an effort of will tried to restrain the trembling in her legs.

But everything is simple! Suffice it to recall Bulgakov's medical specialty. A venereologist specializing in the treatment of syphilis described all its symptoms: a sore knee, a low voice turning into a wheezing, different eyes of Satan, and finally the memory left by a charming witch during the Sabbath on the Broken Mountains.

I also told them about the vampire Gella, who was not taken on the last flight, because according to Catholic beliefs, vampires are souls that linger on Earth, dead during the day and coming to life at night, and therefore do not exist in the two warring worlds of Light and Dark. We also talked about Woland's chair that appeared out of nowhere on the stage of the Variety, about the fate of Natasha's servant who wanted to remain a witch, and finally about what Bulgakov did not finish, about the madness and drug addiction of the only student of Master Ivashushka, who was previously a simple guy Ivan Bezdomny - a man of his time …

The clock on the town hall tower struck midnight. Mysterious shadows ran along the cobblestones of the streets, and from the roof of the Dominican cathedral, a black basement cat, who had confused the seasons, yelled in good language.

I paid for the food, thanked the girls for the conversation, and limping on my wounded leg back in Afghanistan, I walked to my car, which was standing in full view of the tables.

Already sitting in a comfortable chair, I heard through the lowered window on the driver's side: