#purgatorio

Thegeography of Dante’s Divine Comedy as sketched by Albert Ritter

Miniature decorative motif (illustration for Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri/Purgatory, Canto 32), 2017

Acrylics on card, 11.4 x 11.4 cm

***

130   Then the ground, it seemed to me, opened up
         Between the two wheels, and I saw a dragon
         Come out and dash its tail up through the carriage;

         And, as a wasp retracts its sting, it drew
         Its poisoned tail back to itself, tore out
135    Part of the floor, and gloating wandered off.

         What was left was covered once again —
         As fertile land with grasses — with the feathers,
         Offered perhaps with true and kind intention.

         Both one wheel and the other and the pole-shaft
140    Were once more covered with them in less time
         Than it would take the mouth to heave a sigh.

         Transformed in this way, the sacred structure
         Sprouted heads upon its different parts,
         Three on the pole and one each at the corners.

145    The three were horned like oxen, but the four
         Had just a single horn upon their foreheads:
         Never was seen a monster like that rig!

         Seated there securely, like a fortress
         On a steep hill, a whore appeared to me,
150    Ungirt, with eyes agog to rove about.

         And I saw standing by her side a giant,
         As if he watched that no one take her from him,
         And they, time after time, kissed one another.

         But when she turned her lustful, roving eyes
155    On me, then that ferocious paramour
         Beat her unmercifully from head to foot.

         Then filled with jealousy and fierce with rage,
         He tore the monster loose, and dragged it off
         So far through the woods that just the trees

160    Screened me from the whore and that strange beast.

(trans. James Finn Cotter)