Aug 2019
THE EIGHT CIRCLE OF HELL
I never asked to be
de Born.
But I guess that
yes I am.
He in Dante's hell
carrying his severed head
holding it up
like a lantern
with a piteous
"Oh woe is me!"
But it wasn't Dante's
words but Doré's
illustration that
haunted my childhood
walking through
my nightmares.
Now with your death
I enter the eight circle of hell.
Like Dante I have lost
my way.
Love
my only guide.
I never asked to be
de Born.
But I guess that
yes I am.
He in Dante's hell
carrying his severed head
holding it up
like a lantern
with a piteous
"Oh woe is me!"
But it wasn't Dante's
words but Doré's
illustration that
haunted my childhood
walking through
my nightmares.
Now with your death
I enter the eight circle of hell.
Like Dante I have lost
my way.
Love
my only guide.
Bertran de Born was one of the major Occitan troubadours of the twelfth century and as a sower of schism, punished in the ninth bolgia of the eighth circle of Hell (Canto XXVIII), carrying his severed head like a lantern. Gustave Doré depicts this in his illustrations to the Divine Comedy.
