Monday, June 29, 2015

Dante 19

The Hell Hounds
From Dante's Inferno canto xiii:

In the same way as he is who perceives
  The boar and chase approaching to his stand,
  Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;

And two behold! upon our left-hand side,
  Naked and scratched, fleeing so furiously,
  That of the forest, every fan they broke.

He who was in advance: "Now help, Death, help!"
  And the other one, who seemed to lag too much,
  Was shouting: "Lano, were not so alert

Those legs of thine at joustings of the Toppo!"
  And then, perchance because his breath was failing,
  He grouped himself together with a bush.

Behind them was the forest full of black
  She-mastiffs, ravenous, and swift of foot
  As greyhounds, who are issuing from the chain.

On him who had crouched down they set their teeth,
  And him they lacerated piece by piece,
  Thereafter bore away those aching members.

Thereat my Escort took me by the hand,
  And led me to the bush, that all in vain
  Was weeping from its bloody lacerations.

"O Jacopo," it said, "of Sant' Andrea,
  What helped it thee of me to make a screen?
  What blame have I in thy nefarious life?"

When near him had the Master stayed his steps,
  He said: "Who wast thou, that through wounds so many
  Art blowing out with blood thy dolorous speech?"

And he to us: "O souls, that hither come
  To look upon the shameful massacre
  That has so rent away from me my leaves,

Gather them up beneath the dismal bush;
  I of that city was which to the Baptist
  Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this

Forever with his art will make it sad.
  And were it not that on the pass of Arno
  Some glimpses of him are remaining still,

Those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it
  Upon the ashes left by Attila,
  In vain had caused their labour to be done.

Of my own house I made myself a gibbet."

Blake's Hell Hounds Plate 26 The Hell Hounds

what it mewhat it means

The two nudes are said to be Giacomo da Sant' Andrea 


133 Jacopo da Sant' Andrea of Padua, another squanderer, was murdered in 1239.

and Lano da Siena:
120 Lano da Siena, a well-known spendthrift, died fighting the Aretines in 1287









Saturday, June 27, 2015

Dante 18

The Self Murderers

Here's part of Dante's Inferno associated with Plate 25 of Blake's Illustrations of Dante's Inferno

"Inferno: Canto XIII
Not yet had Nessus reached the other side,
  When we had put ourselves within a wood,
  That was not marked by any path whatever.

Not foliage green, but of a dusky colour,
  Not branches smooth, but gnarled and intertangled,
  Not apple-trees were there, but thorns with poison.

Such tangled thickets have not, nor so dense,
  Those savage wild beasts, that in hatred hold
  'Twixt Cecina and Corneto the tilled places.

There do the hideous Harpies make their nests,
  Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades,
  With sad announcement of impending doom;

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.

And the good Master: "Ere thou enter farther,
  Know that thou art within the second round,"
  Thus he began to say, "and shalt be, till

Thou comest out upon the horrible sand;
  Therefore look well around, and thou shalt see
  Things that will credence give unto my speech."

I heard on all sides lamentations uttered,
  And person none beheld I who might make them,
  Whence, utterly bewildered, I stood still.

I think he thought that I perhaps might think
  So many voices issued through those trunks
  From people who concealed themselves from us;

Therefore the Master said: "If thou break off
  Some little spray from any of these trees,
  The thoughts thou hast will wholly be made vain."

Then stretched I forth my hand a little forward,
  And plucked a branchlet off from a great thorn;
  And the trunk cried, "Why dost thou mangle me?"

After it had become embrowned with blood,
  It recommenced its cry: "Why dost thou rend me?
  Hast thou no spirit of pity whatsoever?

Men once we were, and now are changed to trees;
  Indeed, thy hand should be more pitiful,
  Even if the souls of serpents we had been."

As out of a green brand, that is on fire
  At one of the ends, and from the other drips
  And hisses with the wind that is escaping;

So from that splinter issued forth together
  Both words and blood; whereat I let the tip
  Fall, and stood like a man who is afraid.

"Had he been able sooner to believe,"
  My Sage made answer, "O thou wounded soul,
  What only in my verses he has seen,

Not upon thee had he stretched forth his hand;
  Whereas the thing incredible has caused me
  To put him to an act which grieveth me.

But tell him who thou wast, so that by way
  Of some amends thy fame he may refresh
  Up in the world, to which he can return."

And the trunk said: "So thy sweet words allure me,
  I cannot silent be; and you be vexed not,
  That I a little to discourse am tempted.

I am the one who both keys had in keeping
  Of Frederick's heart, and turned them to and fro
  So softly in unlocking and in locking,

That from his secrets most men I withheld;
  Fidelity I bore the glorious office
  So great, I lost thereby my sleep and pulses.

The courtesan who never from the dwelling
  Of Caesar turned aside her strumpet eyes,
  Death universal and the vice of courts,

Inflamed against me all the other minds,
  And they, inflamed, did so inflame Augustus,
  That my glad honours turned to dismal mournings.

My spirit, in disdainful exultation,
  Thinking by dying to escape disdain,
  Made me unjust against myself, the just.

I, by the roots unwonted of this wood,
  Do swear to you that never broke I faith
  Unto my lord, who was so worthy of honour;

And to the world if one of you return,
  Let him my memory comfort, which is lying
  Still prostrate from the blow that envy dealt it."

Waited awhile, and then: "Since he is silent,"
  The Poet said to me, "lose not the time,
  But speak, and question him, if more may please thee."

Whence I to him: "Do thou again inquire
  Concerning what thou thinks't will satisfy me;
  For I cannot, such pity is in my heart."

Therefore he recommenced: "So may the man
  Do for thee freely what thy speech implores,
  Spirit incarcerate, again be pleased

To tell us in what way the soul is bound
  Within these knots; and tell us, if thou canst,
  If any from such members e'er is freed."

Then blew the trunk amain, and afterward
  The wind was into such a voice converted:
  "With brevity shall be replied to you.

When the exasperated soul abandons
  The body whence it rent itself away,
  Minos consigns it to the seventh abyss.

It falls into the forest, and no part
  Is chosen for it; but where Fortune hurls it,
  There like a grain of spelt it germinates.

It springs a sapling, and a forest tree;
  The Harpies, feeding then upon its leaves,
  Do pain create, and for the pain an outlet.

Like others for our spoils shall we return;
  But not that any one may them revest,
  For 'tis not just to have what one casts off.

Here we shall drag them, and along the dismal
  Forest our bodies shall suspended be,
  Each to the thorn of his molested shade."

We were attentive still unto the trunk,
  Thinking that more it yet might wish to tell us,
  When by a tumult we were overtaken,

In the same way as he is who perceives
  The boar and chase approaching to his stand,
  Who hears the crashing of the beasts and branches;

And two behold! upon our left-hand side,
  Naked and scratched, fleeing so furiously,
  That of the forest, every fan they broke.

He who was in advance: "Now help, Death, help!"
  And the other one, who seemed to lag too much,
  Was shouting: "Lano, were not so alert

Those legs of thine at joustings of the Toppo!"
  And then, perchance because his breath was failing,
  He grouped himself together with a bush.

Behind them was the forest full of black
  She-mastiffs, ravenous, and swift of foot
  As greyhounds, who are issuing from the chain.

On him who had crouched down they set their teeth,
  And him they lacerated piece by piece,
  Thereafter bore away those aching members.

Thereat my Escort took me by the hand,
  And led me to the bush, that all in vain
  Was weeping from its bloody lacerations.

"O Jacopo," it said, "of Sant' Andrea,
  What helped it thee of me to make a screen?
  What blame have I in thy nefarious life?"

When near him had the Master stayed his steps,
  He said: "Who wast thou, that through wounds so many
  Art blowing out with blood thy dolorous speech?"

And he to us: "O souls, that hither come
  To look upon the shameful massacre
  That has so rent away from me my leaves,

Gather them up beneath the dismal bush;
  I of that city was which to the Baptist
  Changed its first patron, wherefore he for this

Forever with his art will make it sad.
  And were it not that on the pass of Arno
  Some glimpses of him are remaining still,

Those citizens, who afterwards rebuilt it
  Upon the ashes left by Attila,
  In vain had caused their labour to be done.

Of my own house I made myself a gibbet."




For description of the picture go here.

Wikipedia 

The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides, c. 1824–27.William BlakeTate. 372×527 mm.
The Wood of the Self-Murderers: The Harpies and the Suicides is a pencil, ink and watercolouron paper artwork by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake (1757–1827). The work was completed between 1824 and 1827 and illustrates a passage from the Inferno canticle of theDivine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1265–1321).[1] The work is part of a series which was to be the last set of watercolours he worked on before his death in August 1827. It is held in the Tate Gallery, London.
Blake was commissioned in 1824 by his friend, the painter John Linnell (1792–1882), to create a series of illustrations based on Dante's poem. Blake was then in his late sixties, yet by legend drafted 100 watercolours on the subject "during a fortnight's illness in bed".[2] Few of them were actually coloured, and only seven gilded.[3] He sets this work in a scene from one of the circles of hell depicted in the Inferno (Circle VII, Ring II, Canto XIII), in which Dante and the Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BCE) travel through a forest haunted by harpies—mythological winged and malign fat-bellied death-spirits who bear features of human heads and female breasts.

Classical bust of Dante's travelling companion Virgil from the entrance to his tomb inNaples, Italy
The harpies in Dante's version feed from the leaves of oak trees which entomb suicides. At the time Canto XIII (or The Wood of Suicides) was written, suicide was considered by the church as at least equivalent to murder, and a contravention of the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill". Many theologians believed it to be a deeper sin than murder, as it constituted a rejection of God's gift of life.[4] Dante describes a tortured wood infested with harpies, where the act of suicide is punished by encasing the offender in a tree, thus denying eternal life and damning the soul to an eternity as a member of the restless living dead, and prey to the harpies.[5]Blake's painting shows Dante and Virgil walking through a haunted forest at a moment when Dante tears a leaf from a bleeding tree. He drops it in shock on hearing the disembodied words, "Wherefore tear'st me thus? Is there no touch of mercy in thy breast?".[1]
In Dante's poem, the tree contains the body of Pietro della Vigna (1190–1249), an Italian jurist and diplomat, and chancellor and secretary to theEmperor Frederick II (1194–1250). Pietro was a learned man who rose to become a close advisor to the emperor. However, his success was envied by other members of Frederick II's court, and charges that he was wealthier than the emperor and was an agent of the pope were brought against him. Frederick threw Pietro in prison, and had his eyes ripped out. In response, Pietro killed himself by beating his head against the dungeon wall. He is one of four named suicides mentioned in Canto XIII,[6] and represents the notion of a "heroic" suicide.[7]
Describing the scene, Dante wrote:
Here the repellent harpies make their nests,
Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades
With dire announcements of the coming woe.
They have broad wings, a human neck and face,
Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw
Their lamentations in the eerie trees.[5]

Harpies in the Forest of Suicides, an 1861engraving by Gustave Doré, illustrates the same canto of the Inferno.
Although Pietro does not reveal his identity to the travellers in Dante's episode, he does moralise on the act of suicide, asking (as paraphrased by the historian Wallace Fowlie) if it is better to submit to chastisement and misfortune or take one's own life.[6] In Canto XIII, Pietro says, "I am he that held both keys of Frederick's heart / To lock and to unlock / and well I knew / To turn them with so exquisite an art.[8]

Dante Alighieri and Virgil enter the wood, William Blake. From Inferno Canto II 139–141'.
Blake shows a number of contorted human figures embedded in the oak trees in the foreground. To the right, a male figure is seated and wears a crown. A female form is hung upside-down and transformed into a tree on Dante and Virgil's left. This figure may have been inspired by Dante's reference to La Meretrice, or Envy, to whom Pietro attributed his fall.[1] Examining Blake's use of camouflage in the work, the art historian Kathleen Lundeen observes, "The trees appear to be superimposed over the figures as if the two images in the previous illustration has been pulled together into a single focus. Through the art of camouflage, Blake gives us an image in flux, one which is in a perpetual state of transmutation. Now we see trees, now we see people."[9]
Three large harpies perch on branches spanning the pair of travellers, and these creatures are depicted by Blake as monstrous bird–human hybrids, in the words of the art historian Kevin Hutchings, "functioning as iconographic indictments of the act of suicide and its violent negation of the divine human form".[10]
The harpies' faces are human-like except for their pointed beaks, while their bodies are owl-shaped and equipped with claws, sharp wings and female breasts. Blake renders them in a manner faithful to Dante's description in 13:14–16: "Broad are their pennons, of the human form / Their neck and countenance, armed with talons keen / These sit and wail on the dreary mystic wood."[11]
In March 1918, The Wood of the Self-Murderers was sold by Linnell's estate, through Christie's, for £7,665 to the British National Art Collections Fund. The Art Collections Fund presented the painting to the Tate in 1919.[12]

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Dante 14




The Stygian Lake and the Sining Fighters

The Picture


Plate 16 of Blake's Illustration of Dante's Inferno

Inferno VII: 100-120:

This from page 40 of Klonsky book entitled 'Blake's Dante':
We crossed the circle to the other bank,
  Near to a fount that boils, and pours itself
  Along a gully that runs out of it.

The water was more sombre far than perse;
  And we, in company with the dusky waves,
  Made entrance downward by a path uncouth.

A marsh it makes, which has the name of Styx,
  This tristful brooklet, when it has descended
  Down to the foot of the malign gray shores.

And I, who stood intent upon beholding,
  Saw people mud-besprent in that lagoon,
  All of them naked and with angry look.

They smote each other not alone with hands,
  But with the head and with the breast and feet,
  Tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth.

Said the good Master: "Son, thou now beholdest
  The souls of those whom anger overcame;
  And likewise I would have thee know for certain

Beneath the water people are who sigh
  And make this water bubble at the surface,
  As the eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turns.

*****************************************************
And on page 140:
Blake arranged them in groups of three;
the two groups at the top have raised fists and aimed at the others;

The group at the bottom seem to be knocked out.

They're all under the water; the destructive nature of the Sea of Time
and space shows itself here.

We might surmise that the threes represent the three zoas who 
dominate Blake's system of thought.

The description of the plate appears here   in the blake archives.




Thursday, June 18, 2015

Dante 13

Plutus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Plutus in Divine Commedia, portrayed byGustave Doré
Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe is the opening line of Canto VII of Dante Alighieri'sInferno. The line, consisting of three words, is famous for the uncertainty of its meaning, and there have been many attempts to interpret it. Modern commentators on the Inferno view it as some kind of demonic invocation to Satan.

Text[edit]

The line is a shout by Pluto. Pluto (also identified with Plutus and Hades) was originally the Roman god of wealth and the underground, but in the Inferno, Dante has made Pluto into a repulsive demon who guards the fourth circle, where souls are punished who have abused their wealth through greed or improvidence.[3] The full strophe, plus the following four, which describes Dante's and Virgil's entire meeting and confrontation with Pluto reads:
The scant information that can be gleaned from the text is this:
  1. Virgil understands the meaning ("And that benignant Sage, who all things knew..."), and is replying.
  2. That the line is just the beginning of something else ("Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began...).
  3. It is an expression of anger ("And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf / Consume within thyself with thine own rage.").
  4. That it has the effect of a threat to Dante (And that benignant Sage, who all things knew, / Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear / Harm thee; for any power that he may have / Shall not prevent thy going down this crag.

Plutus from Blake's Illistrations of Dante's Inferno
Wiki Commons

Inferno: Canto VII


"Pape Satan, Pape Satan, Aleppe!"
  Thus Plutus with his clucking voice began;
  And that benignant Sage, who all things knew,

Said, to encourage me: "Let not thy fear
  Harm thee; for any power that he may have
  Shall not prevent thy going down this crag."

Then he turned round unto that bloated lip,
  And said: "Be silent, thou accursed wolf;
  Consume within thyself with thine own rage.

Not causeless is this journey to the abyss;
  Thus is it willed on high, where Michael wrought
  Vengeance upon the proud adultery."

Even as the sails inflated by the wind
  Involved together fall when snaps the mast,
  So fell the cruel monster to the earth.


Monday, June 15, 2015

Dante 12

Cerberus
"When Cerberus perceived us, the great worm!
   His mouths he opened, and displayed his tusks;
   Not a limb had he that was motionless.

And my Conductor, with his spans extended,
  Took of the earth, and with his fists well filled,
  He threw it into those rapacious gullets.

Such as that dog is, who by barking craves,
  And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws,
  For to devour it he but thinks and struggles,

The like became those muzzles filth-begrimed
  Of Cerberus the demon, who so thunders
  Over the souls that they would fain be deaf."


Cerberus; Blake's Plate  12 of his Ilustrations of Dante 

"The "great worm" Cerberus guards the gluttons, who are forced to lie in a vile slush produced by ceaseless foul, icy rain (Virgil obtains safe passage past the monster by filling its three mouths with mud). In her notes on this circle,Dorothy L. Sayers writes that "the surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence."[11] The gluttons lie here sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives.[11] Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality – which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction.[12]
In this circle, Dante converses with a Florentine contemporary identified as Ciacco, which means "hog."[13] A character with the same nickname later appears in The Decameron ofGiovanni Boccaccio.[14] Ciacco speaks to Dante regarding strife in Florence between the "White" and "Black" Guelphs. In one of a number of prophecies in the poem, Ciacco "predicts" the expulsion of the White party, to which Dante belonged, and which led to Dante's own exile. This event occurred in 1302, after the date in which the poem is set, but before the poem was written[13](Canto VI).

Blake extended himself in the Book of Job with this picture, shades of Behemoth and Leviathan:
wikipedia

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Dante 11


"In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. Dante condemns these "carnal malefactors" for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.
In this circle, Dante sees SemiramisDidoCleopatraHelen of TroyAchillesParisTristan, and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life. Dante is told by Francesca da Rimini how she and her husband's brother Paolo Malatesta committed adultery, but then died a violent death, in the name of Love, at the hands of her husband, Giovanni (Gianciotto). Francesca reports that their act of adultery was triggered by reading the adulterous story of Lancelot andGuinevere (an episode sculpted by Auguste Rodin in The Kiss). Nevertheless, she predicts that her husband will be punished for his fratricide in Caïna, within the ninth circle (Canto V).
The English poet John Keats, in his sonnet "On a Dream," imagines what Dante does not give us, the point of view of Paolo:
... But to that second circle of sad hell,
Where ‘mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.
"

The Circle of the Lustful, Plate 10 of Blake's Illustrations of Dante's Inferno

From Inferno V:

I came into a place mute of all light,
   Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest,
   If by opposing winds 't is combated.

The infernal hurricane that never rests
   Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
   Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

When they arrive before the precipice,
   There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
   There they blaspheme the puissance divine.

I understood that unto such a torment
   The carnal malefactors were condemned,
   Who reason subjugate to appetite.

And as the wings of starlings bear them on
   In the cold season in large band and full,
   So doth that blast the spirits maledict;

It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
   No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
   Not of repose, but even of lesser pain.

And as the cranes go chanting forth their lays,
   Making in air a long line of themselves,
   So saw I coming, uttering lamentations,

To sensual vices she was so abandoned,
   That lustful she made licit in her law,
   To remove the blame to which she had been led.

After that I had listened to my Teacher,
   Naming the dames of eld and cavaliers,
   Pity prevailed, and I was nigh bewildered.

And I began: "O Poet, willingly
   Speak would I to those two, who go together,
   And seem upon the wind to be so light."

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Dante 9


From Inferno: Canto IV:

Broke the deep lethargy within my head
  A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,
  Like to a person who by force is wakened;

And round about I moved my rested eyes,
  Uprisen erect, and steadfastly I gazed,
  To recognise the place wherein I was.

True is it, that upon the verge I found me
  Of the abysmal valley dolorous,
  That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.

Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous,
  So that by fixing on its depths my sight
  Nothing whatever I discerned therein.

"Let us descend now into the blind world,"
  Began the Poet, pallid utterly;
  "I will be first, and thou shalt second be."

And I, who of his colour was aware,
  Said: "How shall I come, if thou art afraid,
  Who'rt wont to be a comfort to my fears?"

And he to me: "The anguish of the people
  Who are below here in my face depicts
  That pity which for terror thou hast taken.

Let us go on, for the long way impels us."
  Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter
  The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.

There, as it seemed to me from listening,
  Were lamentations none, but only sighs,
  That tremble made the everlasting air.

And this arose from sorrow without torment,
  Which the crowds had, that many were and great,
  Of infants and of women and of men.

To me the Master good: "Thou dost not ask
  What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are?
  Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,

That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
  'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism
  Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;

And if they were before Christianity,
  In the right manner they adored not God;
  And among such as these am I myself.

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
  Lost are we and are only so far punished,
  That without hope we live on in desire."

Great grief seized on my heart when this I heard,
  Because some people of much worthiness
  I knew, who in that Limbo were suspended.

"Tell me, my Master, tell me, thou my Lord,"
  Began I, with desire of being certain
  Of that Faith which o'ercometh every error,

"Came any one by his own merit hence,
  Or by another's, who was blessed thereafter?"
  And he, who understood my covert speech,

Replied: "I was a novice in this state,
  When I saw hither come a Mighty One,
  With sign of victory incoronate.

Hence he drew forth the shade of the First Parent,
  And that of his son Abel, and of Noah,
  Of Moses the lawgiver, and the obedient

Abraham, patriarch, and David, king,
  Israel with his father and his children,
  And Rachel, for whose sake he did so much,

And others many, and he made them blessed;
  And thou must know, that earlier than these
  Never were any human spirits saved."

We ceased not to advance because he spake,
  But still were passing onward through the forest,
  The forest, say I, of thick-crowded ghosts.

Not very far as yet our way had gone
  This side the summit, when I saw a fire
  That overcame a hemisphere of darkness.

We were a little distant from it still,
  But not so far that I in part discerned not
  That honourable people held that place.

"O thou who honourest every art and science,
  Who may these be, which such great honour have,
  That from the fashion of the rest it parts them?"

And he to me: "The honourable name,
  That sounds of them above there in thy life,
  Wins grace in Heaven, that so advances them."

In the mean time a voice was heard by me:
  "All honour be to the pre-eminent Poet;
  His shade returns again, that was departed."

After the voice had ceased and quiet was,
  Four mighty shades I saw approaching us;
  Semblance had they nor sorrowful nor glad.

To say to me began my gracious Master:
  "Him with that falchion in his hand behold,
  Who comes before the three, even as their lord.

That one is Homer, Poet sovereign;
  He who comes next is Horace, the satirist;
  The third is Ovid, and the last is Lucan.


Plate 8 of Blake's Illustrations of Dante's Infermo
Homer and the Ancient Poets
Wikipedia Commons
This is the Illustration Description of Blake Archive
The scene is set in hell. The ground at the lower border of the design is covered with grass and a few scattered leaves. A thick forest of leafy trees appears across the lower half of the design and rises along the cliff to the right. The roots of a tree in the lower right are prominent and the branches of several trees are also visible. Dark wash throughout the design indicates sky; a thick band of clouds or perhaps smoke extends horizontally across the upper portion of the image. A rocky cliff rises in the right half of the design. Two gowned males with long hair stand at the edge of the cliff. The figure to the left represents Dante. He faces left with his head turned down slightly; he likely looks down at the figures below. Both arms are bent and his hands are raised with the palms held vertically. The figure to the right represents Virgil. He faces slightly left and may look towards Dante. Virgil's left arm is bent and the palm of his left hand may be held vertically. Two steps or plinths rising above the trees at the left border of the design suggests an altar; a fire burns on the upper step. A gowned male with long hair and a beard stands to the right of the fire. The figure faces left in profile. His left arm is bent and he holds a vase, censer, or other vessel; smoke rises from the vase. Seventeen nude figures fly or hover in the sky in the center of the design. Seven figures are apparently female, identifiable by long hair or exposed breasts; they may be the mothers of the ten children and infants within the group. Five gowned males stand in the lower left portion of the design; they likely represent the ancient poets, although only four (Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan) are named in the poem. Each poet wears a spiky crown or vegetative wreath and three of the figures have long beards. The central figure is probably Homer. From left to right, the figures hold a book, scroll, sword, and lyre; the figure furthest right is partially obscured by a tree trunk. Two gowned figures with long hair stand beneath the clouds or smoke in the lower right portion of the design. Each figure holds and likely plays an instrument; the figure to the left holds a lyre at his or her side and the figure to the right holds a horn to his or her lips. The head of the figure to the left is turned up and he or she likely looks towards the figure to the right. Further down and to the right is a figure with long hair lying prone on the ground, facing down. The figure's left leg is extended, perhaps obscuring the right leg, and the left arm may be bent above or under the figure's head. Three lightly sketched figures sit or kneel together in the lower right portion of the design. The figures may lean against each other.