Hey- this story starts on Good Friday! Get preppin'!
All images are from my 1948 copy of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri published by Pantheon Books. I got this book when, after my neighbor loaned it to me, he died. His name was Rich Schultz, and he fell off a 24" stage with a bundle of lighting cable on his shoulder, as a result of a grand mal seizure. He was kind and good. An avid collector, it was no surprise he had a volume like this. He was a prison guard summers, but his real passion was theatrical lighting, and he was snuffed just as that career was getting started. A shame.
I'm presenting Inferno first, later I'll present Purgatorio, then Paradiso.
All Gustave Dore' Images in the table link to BIG images in order to see detail.
This is worthy of the best masters of horror - decapitated bodies hoist their own countenances high in order to warn the travelers.
Ragged, torn off limbs,
shattered bodies in various degrees of pain, vivisection,
and living entombment.
The poem is 14th century - the engravings are 19th century. Gustave Dore' really did his best to freak freely in a negative sense, so to speak.
Finally I'll state that these are unfolding for me as they are for you - in the here and now.
Thank yourselves for growing up and waking up to realize this kind of unforgiving monkey business does not await you. That doesn't excuse bad behavior, though, so be good.
