Dante’s Divine Comedy

Do you sometimes play a game of poker or football, have a bet on a horse or dog race and you know that you will lose but you simply cannot get out of the situation. Why is that? What drives us on to get involved when the result is pre-ordained?

Yes it is still man verses man (or team verses team) and there can always be shock results, but, these are rare and few. So when you are faced with these situations just remember Dante’s Divine Comedy  and hopefully you will get through the task without too much damage.

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.

Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.

Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.

Such characters in colour dim I mark’d
Over a portal’s lofty arch inscrib’d:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.

The Gaslight Anthem – Navesink Banks