Cerberus

L'Enfer de Dante Alighieri
« And my Guide extended his two hands, Took of the earth, and with his fists well filled, Threw it into those rapacious gullets.. »
Canto VI, verses 25-27
Drawing by Gustave Doré, woodcut by Antoine Piaud, French translation by Pier-Angelo Fiorentino, accompanied by the Italian text , 1861
BnF, Réserve des livres rares, Smith Lesouëf R-6277
Photo © Bibliothèque Nationale de France
The three-headed dog, Cerberus, stands guard over the infernos of mythology such as Dante’s.
Monsters open up a large number of narrative possibilities: by triumphing over them, the hero reveals his true nature. Hence Cerberus is defeated by the strength of Heracles, by the music of Orpheus, by the good counsel of Aeneas or Psyche. And then Percy Jackson realises that he just wants to play... When a creature is well known to the reader, it tells us more about the one who confronts it through the way that confrontation is handled.
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© BnF, Éditions multimédias, 2020