About half way there for the sketch, mostly detail stuff left to do.

I'm thinking about painting a mood piece for inspiration.

Project Dante

Canto XI

We came along a rim like shoulder 1
All ringed around by massive boulders
We found a crowd most cruelly pent
As air was fouled by dreadful stench 4
So down we go and pray to heaven
Before we enter circle seven
In the meantime troubled breathing
Lay against a headstone heaving 8
Names inscribed upon the stone
List the popes from number one
So sat we down to clear the air
As Virgil then some wisdom shared 12
'Beyond this broken ring of stones
Three rings descend to Satan's bones
The six behind were of their sort
But those below this circle fort 16
Reflect the worst that man can be
All locked in pain eternally
The way that hell is crafted here
From top to bottom make it clear 20
Those cowards who from hell without
Then Limbo ring in thickest cloud
Then the lustful in the second
Sex the sin, just for the record 24
Third ring holds those gluttons most
Who sit in stinking rain as ghosts
The fourth ring is the place to be
If you have been consumed by greed 28
The weight of wealth will drag them down
Upon their death to prison round
We then descend to circle five
Where wrathful and the sullen thrive 32
And then we enter circle six
The burning graves beyond the Styx
Now comes the time to draw a line
That separates these different crimes 36
As all below this bitter rim
Are all those damned by deeper sin
The seventh set in circles three
Divided by severity 40
The first reserved for those who kill
And those that rob and things worse still
The next is there for those that die
By their own hand, in hell they fry 44
The last for those who dare blaspheme
In circle third their ass is reamed
And so we come to circle eight
A place arranged for those too late 48
The lawyers and the liars crash
With flatterers and like same trash
The final ring is number nine
The deepest place for deepest crime 52
Those foulest who betrayed their lords
In lake of ice impaled on swords
And so the souls of traitors born
In hells ninth ring by heaven scorned 56
So there it is boy, top to pit
The lay of layered prison split
The sings arranged from least to worst
A place in death for all those cursed 60
Where every sin is marked in line
How foul it was, how base the crime.'
Though glad I was to know the way
That God did punish sin today 64
Then Virgil stands and looks to sky
To see which stars above fly by
And so we leave for lowest levels
Path that leads us to the devil 68
The rings that hold those left behind
We'd set ourselves to it, we'd bind
Our fate to travel down this trail
From now until the end of tail. 72

Sketches of the Minotaur from Canto XII.

It should be pointed out that the minotaur, in its original setting withing the maze, was never described as the head of a bull on a man's body. I had sketched a little bit around the usual minotaur proportions but I couldn't make it work (and anyway, I always thought it looked a bit stupid.)

This I think will work much better, a mans head on a bulls body.

Another scan from my working copy of the Inferno.

A scanned page from one of the notebooks. Project Dante has stretched t0 about six or seven so far, and I'm only as far as Canto XI which means theres still 24 to go.

The individual at the bottom is performing the first known instance of the Goatse Ritual, a strange and frightening thing that has haunted the internets since it first started being netty (and tubey.)


Its actually based on a drawing by Dore and the guy at the bottom is supposed to be the PM.

Coops BellyTanker at the Positive Ape Index

Project Dante

Canto X

Now followed we a narrow path 1
Between these scenes of pain and wrath
'O Highest Virtue,' I decried
'Can those within the graves be spied?' 4
My master turned and told me then
'Their spirits burn in flame within
And only on the final day
When Armageddon come their way 8
Will flesh that once before was worn
In time to face the Savior's scorn
Within this crematory lies
The ghosts of those who thought when died 12
That soul would cease to be right there
So life best lived without a care
No those who lived by being free
Must burn in hell for eternity.' 16
Then heard I voice cried out in pain
That begged of me to know my name
And asked me from which city came
And why I journeyed through the flame 20
And how I toured this frightful ring
This shade who once before was king
So Virgil turned and led me t0
Where ghost of Nixon rose on through 24
With head held high, with look of scorn
He stared at me as though I worm
'Who were your fathers?' then he asked
As burned he in the fire basked 28
It made me glad for I to know
This sinner to the bad place go
So told him then of who I was
My name, my church, my favorite cause 32
I told the shade and held none back
As listened he from roasting crack
Then lectures me his manner grand
As future there his vision spanned 36
And told me tales of things to come
And battles made to distant drums
He told me then of wars in line
From Friday next to end of time 40
Right then I grasped the fate of soul
The past and future only know
But not the present could they see
Just echoes of the things that be 44
And when the final portal closed
These souls would burn while others rose
So crept I close then to the brink
And looked I into grave I sink 48
My gaze it falls on writhing mass
That cooked within the steaming gas.
One thousand pairs of bloodshot eyes
There locked on mine as watched I fry 52
Then catch my foot and fall head first
Into the burning grave with cursed
But virgil he then caught my bag
And hauled me back, on fumes I gag 56
So Virgil turns and cautions there
'The way is long and far from fair.'
So walk we on through circle sixth
As gathered then an evil stink. 60

A lot of stuff got left out of this canto for various reasons. There was no real reason to go into the other spirits in the burning graves of the sixth circle, so I left out Farinata's reference to the clergy entombed within and also to the second head that appeared and asked for its son.

The fate of the souls, in terms of their vision and ability to see is discussed in the canto, although it has to be said, that this is discussed earlier in the work as well.

I thought after all the cuts that this one would be too short but it didn't turn out so.

In Canto XI Virgil discusses the structure of hell and the philosophy of punishment that leads some to the first or third circles and the sins that are punished in the last three rings.

Thats next.

PS I'm up to my gills at work so I have only a limited amout of time to draw and write. I seem mostly to be working later at night on the Inferno (Project Dante) but hoepfully I'll be able to get a lot done in the next few weeks.

Page of sketches. Trying to get a look together. Scribbles mostly but theres a nice composition in there for the heretics ring.