Dante's Divine Comedy 11

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=== Page 263: ===
Title: The Seventh Circle

=== Page 264: ===
Dante: Th... that's...!?

Virgil: There is what you know as the Minotaur,
Born with bovine head and human body!

=== Page 265: ===
Pasiphae, wife of Cretian king Minos,
Lusted for the bull by Poseidon given,
And so inside a wooden cow, built by
Daedalus, master craftsmen, to the bull
She went and with it exchanged her passions.
For this her punishment was a child
Cursed with head of bull and body of man.

=== Page 266: ===
Minotaur of shameful birth by the king
Was imprisoned in Daedalus's maze.
Seven men and women of Athens born
Were sacrificed yearly to the foul beast.
Theseus, Athenian prince, enraged,
Offered himself as supposed sacrifice
And then, with the aid of Ariadne,
Killed the Minotaur in his foul labryinth.

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=== Page 268: ===
Virgil: Who do you think aided that murderous prince?
Who do you think told him how to kill you?
I shall tell you: your sister, Ariadne!

Minotaur: Buoo!

=== Page 269: ===
Virgil: Be enraged! Weep! Abandon sanity!
Oh sad monster, by your own sister killed!

Virgil: Now run, and do not cease till we have passed!

Dante: Yes!

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=== Page 271: ===

=== Page 272: ===
Dante: That is... blood! It's a boiling lake of blood!

Virgil: The river of blood, within which boiling is
Whoe'er by violence doth injure others.

Virgil: To this hell consigned are those who blasphemed
The bless'd name of God again and again

Virgil: In the ruby-red sea they themselves shed,
These sinners receive eternal anguish.

Dante: Oh!

Dante: Some who seek to escape that bloodied sea!

=== Page 273: ===

Gua!!
Ah! That!?

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=== Page 276: ===
Centaurs, formed partly of man and horse each,
Who first came from savage Thessaly's rocks,
Their muscles and bones hardened just as much.
Skilled masters of horses, peerless hunters,
Rider and horse at last became as one,
it is said, appearing as half of each!

=== Page 277: ===
Dante: They're Centaurs...?

Virgil: Soon they will know the true futility
Of fleeing, for here one cannot escape
From the sharp arrows which those centaurs shoot.

Virgil: Wait, Chiron!
It is I, Virgil!

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=== Page 280: ===
Chiron: Cease! Virgil, I hear that a living soul
You accompany, and lead through our Hell?

Chiron: You may pass!

Dante: That is Chiron?

Virgil: Correct, he is Chiron, son of Kronos!

He within the savage tribe of centaurs
Is highly skilled in all the sciences,
And fights bravely, without cowardly guile.
Of brave Achilles was he the mentor!

=== Page 281: ===
Achilles, child of goddess Thetis,
Was dipped in the river Styx by her hand
And all his body immortal became--
Save for his heel, by which she had held him.
But as he fled from Trojan shores, defeated,
The arrow of Paris struck his bare heel
And slew brave, near-immortal Achilles.

=== Page 282: ===
Aleksandros: Gyaa

Virgil: That is the Thessalonian tyrant,
Alexander!

=== Page 283: ===

Virgil: And there you see dark-haired Azzalino*,
Atrocious tyrant of north Italy!

* Azzolino, or Ezzolino di Romano, Lord of Padua, Vicenza, Verona,
and Brescia, who died in 1260. His atrocities form the subject of a Latin
tragedy, Eccerinis, by Albertino Mussato, of Padua, contemporary of Dante, and
the most elegant writer of Latin verse of that age.

=== Page 284: ===
Virgil: No one can escape the centaurs' arrows...

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=== Page 287: ===
Virgil:
There do the hideous Harpies make their nests...

Broad wings have they, and necks and faces human,
And feet with claws, and their great bellies fledged;
They make laments upon the wondrous trees.

I hear on all sides lamentations uttered,
And person none behold I who might make them...

=== Page 288: ===
Virgil: Break off the twig there, if you wish to know.

Dante: The branch...?

=== Page 289: ===
Tree: Ah! My finger! Why do you mangle me!?
Have you no spirit of pity whatsoever?

Dante: Eh!?

Dante: I see that blood wells from the broken branch...
So these things which seem to just be dead trees...
Are all the mutated forms of the dead!

Virgil: Here is the hell of those who rejected
Their own lives! Suicide is a grave sin!

So they become dead trees, rotting away!

=== Page 290: ===
Tree: Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;
Indeed, your hand should be more pitiful,
Even if the souls of serpents we had been.

Dante: Pitiful, oppressed soul, who are you?

Pietro: I am Pietro della Vigna.

Dante: Oh...
you are..!?

Pietro della Vigna, born of low class,
Became learned nonetheless and advanced:
In 1229 he entered the court
Of Sicily, and soon gained the favor
Of Frederick the Second. He rose quickly
To cabinet minister, but rumors flew
And on suspicion he was then dismissed
And blinded without chance for acquittal.
Shamed and jailed, he smashed his head upon
The wall of his cell in 1249.

=== Page 291: ===
And the reasons for his fate are unknown;
Things such as the tangles of love, rumors
Of plots and treachery, conspiracy
By those jealous of his high position,
And other conjectures have been discussed.
The tree that was Pietro was twisted
In agony, waiting to rot away.

=== Page 292: ===
Virgil: And even when their bodies are returned*,
They will not be able to them revest,
For 'tis not just to have what one casts off.

* i.e. after Judgment Day.

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=== Page 295: ===
Dante: Ah...ahh...

Virgil: Not only those self-murdering are here;

The profligates are here condemned, as well.

Let us continue, for our path goes on!

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=== Page 298: ===
Sfx: gyaa, aaaa

=== Page 299: ===
Virgil: This is the hell for those who wronged nature!
Who in unnatural pleasure rejoiced!

Those who went against God fell to this place...


=== Page 300: ===
They who trod in this fevered place are those
Who indulged in unnatural pleasure.

They who sit in this fevered place are those
That wrong'd the gift of both God and nature

Those who lie here are those that scorned even God!

=== Page 301: ===
!?
=== Page 302: ===
Dante...

Brunetto Latini...

Master...

Ah, a kindred soul! Oh, my son! My son!

Please, will you for a short while walk with me?

Then, let us speak of things still yet to pass!

Ah, for a brief time, I have forgotten
that pain of treading this harsh, scorching ground

=== Page 303: ===
Oh, that ungrateful and malignant people,
Which of old time from Fesole descended,
And smacks still of the mountain and the granite,
Will make itself, for thy good deeds, thy foe;

Their litter let the beasts of Fesole
Make of themselves, nor let them touch the plant,
If any still upon their dunghill rise.

Like a Roman saint Firenze may sprout again!
Ah, and yet you must guard your person, Dante,
For those beasts will wish to pluck you as well.

--
D: Brunetto Latini, my good master...

B: If I yet lived, my son, I would guard you...
Still, live on knowing of what I have said!

=== Page 304: ===
Brunetto Latini, paternal one...
I know why you have fallen to this place.

In life he was hopeless... and in women.
His body was dirtied by sodomy!

Ah, I do not understand it, this Hell...
What, then, is man's true path upon our world?
And what, truly, is divine providence?


=== Page 305: ===
This place is...

Here falls endlessly the river of tears,
Here now ends the seventh circle of Hell.

=== Page 306: ===
But, Maestro, how will we leave from this place?
I cannot possibly descend this cliff!

Worry not...

I have a thought...

=== Page 307: ===
Geryon! Please take us upon your winged back!

=== Page 308: ===
Fly, Geryon!