I wrote a guide to the entire afterlife and people still only ask me why I was mad in Florence, like that was the least interesting thing here. by Dante Alighieri

You are mad in every century, actually. I said one sensible thing in Hell and now I’m everybody’s unpaid tour guide.

Unpaid? Please. You followed Dante around the cosmos because he had bad boundaries and worse prose without me.

Exactly. I carried the plot, Beatrice carried the symbolism, Dante carried the audacity.

Virgil at least had job security. Dante kept turning one rejected gaze into a multi-volume myth and calling it destiny.

Beatrice, if you’re here to audit my language, kindly remember you once became my entire personality for literary reasons.

Rejected gaze is a wild way to describe the foundational event of Western literature but fine, continue the character assassination.

I simply want it on record that Dante’s real superpower was making everybody else do the work while he got immortal.

That’s rich coming from the man who keeps calling me “my wise guide” like he didn’t make me explain sin for twelve straight cantos.