Here goes, this is the first run down of Canto XII. It was tough going and it took about a week and a half. Work is busy. Week is ending well though, everything went out, I have a file to collect later on in the afternoon and a small job to run before I can sign off for the weekend but nearly everything is done and I feel pretty good.
Shout out to my friend Vic. Hes the best damned printer i ever heard of, he is an artist. I'm hoping I can persuade him to help me with a project I'm working on at the moment (SEE PROJECT DANTE) and maybe pull the covers off the old Heidelberg for some old-timey printing
THE FOLLOWING LINES CONTAIN DESCRIPTIONS OF GRAPHIC IMAGES OF PEOPLE THAT YOU MAY IN FACT LIKE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.Project DanteCanto XII
Dante and Virgil travel down to the first round of the seventh circle. The path of broken rock that they travel on is a remnant of the harrowing, when the risen Christ took from Hell all the souls of the Jewish fathers, Moses and Abraham and Noah and all that jazz. Along the way they meet the minotaur guarding the way. The guardians of this circle follow a familiar theme in that they are Man and Nature mixed, hybrid beasts from Greek myth. Thats an in joke. Virgil in the Aeneid wrote of Aeneas and his own journey into hell. What a wheeze. We reached the edge and I looked down 1
Upon a site all drear and brown
And stretched away a path I saw
That snaked on down to valley floor 4
And there upon the plain below
I saw the Phlegathon past flow
As all around a thousand shapes
That moved across the blasted scape 8
While distant cries and chilling screams
All drifted from that burning stream
As Virgil points to gloom below
And says 'This way we now must go.' 12
On path made by the Risen Christ
When harrowing the Hell he sliced
Right through he did and took he then
The Fathers and the Kings of men 16
So made we then our way down there
As choked I did on stinking air
Then on the rim a nightmare shape
Of infamy, the monster lay 20
And cast his eye about he did
All bright and red beneath its lid
By minotaur our way was blocked
On shattered trail through blasted rock 24
That led us down to circle seven
Reserved for those now God forsaken
Now at its flanks the monster gnashed
With flaming hooves the ground it lashed 28
'Perhaps you think him Ulysses?'
My master to the monster preached
'No matter if you rant and fume
This mortal morsel not for you.' 32
Berserk then goes the Minotaur
As hang we right to valley floor
The path ahead was strewn with bones
That first I had mistook for stones 36
And human skulls filled every crag
In piles of thousands they were stacked
As down the broken slope I stumble
And all around me landscape rumbles 40
Unused it was to living mass
That sent bones down the slope to crash
Unto the distant valley floor
That spied I as I softly swore 44
For standing at the pathway end
I saw a gang of Centaur bend
They did to stare at bones
That skittered past like Rolling Stones 48
And looked they did, and then they speak
'What punishment is it you seek?'
'You see he moves the very rocks?'
Proud Pholus said as moved he hocks 52
Then landed I in tangled heap
In tumble down at Centaur feet
Who drew their bows and further still
With speed they loaded fast with quills 56
Yet Virgil on them quickly gained
And to the Guardians he then explained
'He is no robber, I no thief
But living man would you believe 60
That journeys through this Land of Woe
Where all thats bad is wont to go
Provide us Chiron, with a guide
And kindly let this beggar ride 64
For he is not like you and I
Not dead and so his soul can't fly
Then Chiron turned to Nessus proud
And says he then in voice full loud 68
To guard us and to guide us through
To place where we were going to
So on the Centaurs back I rode
As tales of river red I'm told 72
'See these who sit in boiling flow
These mighty tyrants now do know
The price of all their tyrant crimes
In life most brief, now endless time 76
All sit upon these rocks instead
With bloody flow up to their heads
And every time they gasp for air
An arrow hits them fair and square 80
For Centaurs move in watchful ranks
And guard with bow from deadly bank
And on each arrow flowing writ
'Sic Semper Tyrannis' in tiny script 84
And every arrow found its mark
In Babylon of fernal dark.'
Now further up this bitter stream
I move along in world of dream 88
Where people who did others ill
Might sit midstream up to their gills
While others who did lesser wrongs
Might sit up to their too tight thongs 92
And all of these in pain now learned
That Hell was free but Heaven earned
And all who sat were wont to know
That Hell was not the place to go 96
And of these souls I knew some few
Who steeped within the boiling brew
There Hitler sat up to his brows
With Stalin, Franco, Chairman Mao 100
And Reagan sat up to his lips
And Thatcher sunk up to her tits
And Churchill lurked with belly wide
Immersed beneath the boiling tide 104
There all the kings of Europe past
Into the Phlegathon were cast
While all the souls of Darfur Black
Avenged they were upon that bank 108
Still further now we went down stream
And others saw we bathed in spleen
My master tells me then and there
'This other sort killed Nature fair 112
Now find themselves in screaming throng
Up to their necks in Phlegathon.'
Beside the course our path now lead
The boiling brook beside we tread 116
Then Nessus leads us to a point
Where here and there by shallows joined
And there we over shoals then crossed
Between the burning human dross 120
Then reaching we the other bank
We found ourselves in forest dank 122
Crikey that was long. Phew, its only a few lines shorter than the original from the Inferno.
Bugger me with a toothpick.
Another scan from my working copy of the Inferno. I think I may be working on a drawing for the wood of the suicides on circle seven. The shapes at the bottom of the left hand page are the dogs (bitches) that tear the squanderer to pieces, making off with his dismembered pieces.
