From: m.driussi@genie.com
Subject: (urth) Inferno
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 98 00:07:00 GMT

Or vo' che sappi che l'altra fiata
chi'i' discesi qua giu nel basso inferno,
questa roccia non era ancor cascata.
Ma certo poco pria, se ben discerno,
che venisse colui che la gran preda
levo a Dite del cerchio superno,
da tutte parti l'alta valle feda
tremo si, ch'i' pensai che l'universo
sentisse amor, per lo qual e chi creda
piu volte il mondo in caosso converso;
e in quel punto questa vecchia roccia,
qui e altrove, tal fece riverso.
(Canto XII, lines 34-45)

alga,

Oh, right! "The one who took/from Dis the highest circle's splendid
spoils" must be Herakles bringing Kerberus up for Labor Twelve. <g>

And on =that= topic, since we've figured out that the quote David
uses in 5HC regarding the iron doggie in the yard comes from the
beginning of the Euripedes play "[something] Heracles" (either "The
Madness of Heracles" or "The Distraction of Heracles" or maybe sometimes
just "Heracles"), what do we make of that?

The iron doggie stands in the yard at 666.  This, then, is the exit
point of the demigod hero on his last labor--next stop, godhood.
(Who would that be in 5HC--M.Million?)  But in the Heracles story,
there was a big rush to get the dog back, wasn't there?  Here the dog
stands.  Sure, it is an obvious "welcome to hell" gag ("where I am,
hell is" quoth the dog paraphrasing Herr Doktor Faustus).  But it also
seems to be a signal that "if I'm not guarding hell, then the dead
are free to mingle with the living," or perhaps even "death has
stopped because I have been chained here"--a sentiment borne out in
sinister shades by the self-cloning tradition (which forcefully
denies the death of an individual) and the dream where the ship's
mast has become a tree that roots the ship to the ground.

=mantis=

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