{"id":352,"date":"2017-06-01T22:05:20","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T22:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/?p=352"},"modified":"2017-06-01T22:08:32","modified_gmt":"2017-06-01T22:08:32","slug":"geryon-the-manticore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"Geryon the Manticore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou will soon see exactly what your thoughts dream\u201d – Vergil, Inferno 16:121<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Geryon the Manticore guards the descent from violent to the fraudulent.\u00a0 As such, he maintains features that are the domain of each.\u00a0 His human head and leonine body alight in the realm of violence, while his reptilian spine and tail hang off the edge of a cliff. \u00a0At the bottom of\u00a0the cliff are the frauds.<\/p>\n

Ancient Greek statue of Geryon<\/p>\n

Of all the monsters of the Inferno, Geryon was the biggest challenge to draw. \u00a0Dante’s\u00a0gives a descriptive account of Geryon\u00a0– but beyond that, the history of this monster is as chimerical as its identity. \u00a0Geryon the Manticore has its\u00a0beginnings in ancient mythology. \u00a0The Hercules myth recounts him as a warrior with three heads.\u00a0 Another sees him as three headed with a serpent\u2019s body \u2013 and that\u2019s the closest one we have to Dante\u2019s vision.\u00a0 Wikipedia sums it up best:<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to Hesiod, Geryon had one body and three heads, whereas the tradition followed by Aeschylus gave him three bodies. A lost description by Stesichoros said that he has six hands and six feet and is winged; there are some mid-sixth-century Chalcidian vases portraying Geryon as winged. Some accounts state that he had six legs as well while others state that the three bodies were joined to one pair of legs. Apart from these bizarre features, his appearance was that of a warrior.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gustav Dore gave us a good approximation, but we knew a kindly old man\u2019s face doesn\u2019t gain the trust it used to. \u00a0You could see how in Victorian times that face was so trustworthy, but not today.<\/p>\n

\"Probably<\/a>

Probably to our detriment that we don’t trust that face anymore.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ancient<\/a>Looking up modern takes on the Manticore didn\u2019t do us any good at all.\u00a0 Modern illustrations pit him as a Dungeons and Dragons style creature meant to spur your aggression to attack and win XP and gold loot.\u00a0 Unfortunately our friend Geryon does the exact opposite.\u00a0 He gains your trust with his kindly face, intimidates you with his overpowering physique, and once you\u2019ve let your guard down, in comes the stinger.<\/p>\n

\"Is<\/a>

Is this a charming face you would trust and give all your money to? No, no it is not.<\/p><\/div>\n

Fortunately for us literary types, we don\u2019t have to go by pictures alone and could go by pure imaginings.\u00a0 I recalled Douglas Adams\u2019 account of \u201clionized men\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cFlare-riding is one of the most exotic and exhilarating sports in existence,\u00a0 and\u00a0 those who can dare and afford it are amongst the most\u00a0 lionized\u00a0 men\u00a0 in\u00a0 the\u00a0 Galaxy.\u00a0 It is also of course stupefyingly\u00a0 dangerous – those who don’t die riding invariably die of sexual exhaustion at one of the Daedalus Club’s Apres-Flare parties.\u201d \u2013 Restaurant at the end of the Universe<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Combine that with the lion\u2019s mane of a glam rocker (who had comparable sex lives), and we would have an ideal starting point. \u00a0Add the basic physics of Dore\u2019s Manticore, and we\u2019d have something.<\/p>\n

\"Lionized<\/a>

Lionized glam rockers. This + Dore = success!<\/p><\/div>\n

And so we went, straight from imagination.\u00a0 I wish I still had my first chicken scratch version of our final Geryon, or any of the endless frustrating iterations we went through before we finally settled on one. \u00a0There was one picture of a Manticore I missed that was rather interesting, it was a toothy businessman with a Cheshire cat smile.<\/p>\n

And I hate to say that in the end, Jim couldn\u2019t come up with a version that satisfied me, which was indeed a rare experience.\u00a0 So we went to a third party, Esmeralda Acosta, to help us out.\u00a0 I had a feeling a woman could get this concept better, they seem so used to dealing with charming frauds.<\/p>\n

\"Geryon<\/a>

Geryon the Manticore. In final form.<\/p><\/div>\n

And that’s what led us to our final drawing. \u00a0Even looking at it now, I’d say there’s some things I’d like to tweak (a more heartthrobby face?). \u00a0But art is never so much finished as it is abandoned.<\/p>\n

So we can see how the Manticore as we know it really has its roots in Dante. \u00a0Other myths abound all the way back to ancient times, before even ancient Greece. \u00a0But Dante modernizes it and gives it solid form that really brings out the nature of fraud.<\/p>\n

Another interesting point about the Manticore is how Dante and Vergil summon it. \u00a0In the Inferno, Dante has to throw his rope belt over the cliff to bring it up. \u00a0There’s some debate as to what it means, but I had my definite take on it. \u00a0Dante makes mention about how he was hoping to “snare the leopard” in the beginning of Inferno with this belt.<\/p>\n

The leopard in the beginning represents the sins of lusty youth – gaudy pelt, showing off, prancing around with no real purpose or meaning. \u00a0The pelt of the Manticore mirrors the pelt of the leopard. \u00a0The belt is a cultural representation of chastity\u00a0(like with the Party women in 1984) and so Dante was hoping through chastity to overcome that beast of sins of youth.<\/p>\n

This is what made the Manticore really interesting to me. \u00a0We just finished crossing the plains of sodomites, those who did violence to the sacredness of sexuality. \u00a0And we are about to descend into the frauds, which have a distinct interest in exploiting sexuality. \u00a0So the Manticore (with its lionized visage) would not be summoned unless we gave up our hope for a chaste monogamous life. \u00a0If perhaps some of us go through it, it generally is a myth. \u00a0Especially in these parts of hell.<\/p>\n

So, while I did not have a belt, I had my locket. \u00a0By tossing this down, I tossed down my own dreams of being reunited with my love in the flower of youth. \u00a0Thus I would no longer\u00a0disinterestedly pass by all I was now about to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou will soon see exactly what your thoughts dream\u201d – Vergil, Inferno 16:121 Geryon the Manticore guards the descent from violent to the fraudulent.\u00a0 As such, he maintains features that are the domain of each.\u00a0 His human head and leonine […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[40],"tags":[41,31,47,36,44,43,42,32,45,30,46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363,"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infernolosangeles.com\/online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}