02.05.08

XXV.

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.


The author is saying that Heaven and Hell is only an opinion, and people are so gullible to believe it.
The author is blaming the saints in the past who made up the stuff about Heaven and Hell. He is also angry at them for doing so and making many people even the day the author wrote the poem believing so. The author is certain that they have only acted as if they knew all about the two worlds, but they were all lies. The author also uses a metaphor, that the idea of heaven and hell were like foolish prophets. He claims that now they are not even alive, so it doesnt even matter. This can mean more than one thing. It can mean that they only did it for the time when they needed control for their people, and it can also mean that the people who calimed to have proven their theories are not there to explain it again, so people shoud be more skeptical.

Also even other than this quatrain he shows his opinion in many other kind of forms. In text XXXIII, he mentions children's "blind understanding." This implies how children with blank minds will believe anything, and when christians teach these blank minds about the two worlds, they will believe it, because they do not know what to believe. Also, in text XXXII the author says that "there was a veil past which I could not see" which means basically taht he could not see the future. In this line, he is trying to say that nobody can really see the future, and that the saints who made up all those stuff could not have seen the future either, and the existance of Heaven and Hell, and beliefs of angels and God and stuff cannot be really proven, because it cannot be seen.