Listen kiddies...

I'm up to my nettles with work, I was supposed to be on a practical sabbatical, which obviously hasn't happened. Its the week before christmas, theres job coming out of the woodword, up the ying yang as it were. Anyway, long story short, lots done, I'll begin laying out the book in earnest in the next couple of weeks. From that point on it should be multiple posts daily as we work out all the decoration, illustration etc.

So, I apologize for the sparsity of posts, but that will be amended soon.

In the meantime, I direct you to the new design and the archives.

Also, I just finished a verse that I like a whole lot, its from canto XXV, and its kind of like Dante warning the audience that what they hear, they may not believe. But Dante, doesn't care, he'll say it though it sound mad.

Goes like this...

So listen now, I’ll say it once
The tale of how these souls undone,
And never tell these words again,
Or think of it, lest drive insane!
But after this, that sounds like rant
I saw it, nothing says I can’t!
And tell you here of all I seen,
And care not if you choose believe.
For God my witness, all I tell
I swear upon my soul in Hell!

And then this bit for the Centaur, not with his fellows guarding the Phlegathon...

Then saw I centaur, lost from rank
Of brothers on the bleeding bank,
Who’d lived in rage inside a cave,
And thought himself some pennies save.
A hundred times, the heroes club,
Came down until his brains were scrubbed
And he was dead before one tenth
Of blows had put in head a dent.
Across the walls and on the floor,
All splattered with the centaur’s gore,
Now Hell had suit this shade most well,
He had been killed? I could not tell.
For hale he was, their was no blood
Upon this centaur, proud who stood
With dragon twisted at his nape,
His lower body serpent draped!
Its fair to say he looked full well,
That he be damned and just a shell!
The burning drake upon his neck,
His golden body diamond flecked,
Was casting purple flame about,
At all that moves, it fire spouts!
With wings upswept, with dreadful breath,
This monster by the maker sent!


The hero referred to is Hercules, the pennies saved alludes to the Centaurs theft (stealing Hercules cattle, the crime for which he is damned) from where it lived, in a cave, beneath a dark mountain. Hercules slew him with 'a hundred blows' but the Centaur, Cacus, was 'dead before the tenth blow fell.' He reputedly lived in a grotto beneath Mt. Aventine, one of the seven hills that would later become Rome.

Anyway, exciting things happening, many things to announce, looking forward to '07.