once pristine

bettelheim (p87): 'King Shahryar suffers terribly from an internal wound: the belief that nobody could truly love him' : this is also the wound that dante suffers : for the king this wound came from his wife's infidelity, and for that he is punishing all women; for dante this wound came from the knowledge of his immeasurability to and unworthiness of Beatrice, and for that he has been banished to the selva : the frame story for both sagas follows a similar theme, both the king and dante witness the stories of others in the process of achieving the goal: overt and comedic in both cases with happy endings, their internal wounds are healed by experiencing : in the king's case the hell is self designed, in dante's case the terrain is divinely structured, in both cases the critical topography is internal and the ultimate triumph is self attainment