Dante Machiavelli Bhagavad Gita

Dante, Machiavelli, Bhagavad-Gita

Epic Ethics

The ethics of the epic quest, as expressed in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey," to take just two examples of nationalist and epic heroic sagas, are ultimately justifications of cultural dominance of a particular ruling group and set of values. Although these heroic epics may highlight occasional great moments of individual morality, they ultimately provide support, justification, and legitimating narratives for the dominant, aristocratic form of government of the day. For instance, Achilles is a great warrior because he is a decedent of the Gods. Odysseus is chosen as the legitimate focus of his own dramatic poem because Athena favors his kingship of Ithaca. Although the narrative structures of Homer's epics may 'test' these men, the narrative epic structure also validates the values of military prowess and social rewards that lie at the heart of establishing a great and epic kingdom, ruled by the few. The stories suggest that the noble aristocracy, all descendents of epic heroes, rule because they are better or at least more deserving of narrative validation than the commoners who are ruled. Within the epic narratives of war and quests, ordinary people exist merely as plot points to show off the excellence of the hero.

However, Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" from the Gospel of Matthew in the canonized New Testament quite explicitly rejects this view. Jesus speaks to those whom, for Homer, might merely exist as one of the hungry ghosts of the Grecian underworld in Hades. Blessed are the meek, the poor, Jesus famously says in this particular sermon, even though the Gospel of Matthew begins with a defense of Jesus' own greatness as a descendant of epic kings of the Hebraic Bible, beginning with King David.

Dante's "Inferno" likewise takes up a common epic trope -- in the case of Dante, that of the heroic quest rather than the heroic claim to greatness because of aristocratic lineage. But Dante reformulates the epic quest narrative and makes it a Christian and moral quest, rather than a nationalist and military quest. Dante thus renders the quest narrative as internal, rather than external, and by stressing such internality, makes it more universal. Anyone with a soul can embark down the "Inferno," learn from its mistakes, and thus attain paradise, unlike the military epic of "The Iliad," where one must be a king or prince leading battalions of men to draw the narrative focus for any length of time. Such an internal journey is not limited to Christian reformulations of epic ethics -- the "Bhagavad-Gita's" hero learns just as much from his internal, searching, religiously oriented dreams of his quest epic, rather than any of the physical epic challenges he also faces over the duration of the poem.