Death of the Centaur Nessus

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Luca Giordano, Death of the Centaur Nessus, 1692

My Master said: "Our answer will we make
To Chiron, near you there; in evil hour,
That will of thine was evermore so hasty."
Then touched he me, and said: "This one is Nessus,
Who perished for the lovely Deianira,
And for himself, himself did vengeance take.

- Inferno, Dante, Canto XII, Lines 66-71

As Dante clambers down into the depths of hell guided by Virgil, he encounters a group of centaurs. These mythical creatures—half man, half horse—maintain order in hell. At first they seem hostile towards Dante and his mentor. However, after Virgil pulls his pretty standard “sent by the all-powerful creator” routine, the centaurs grudgingly oblige, and Chiron, a mentor of heroes from Greek mythology, instructs Nessus to carry our hero to the next stage.

The lines above reference Nessus’s unusual fate in Greek mythology. He, like so many unfortunate Greek villains, dies at the hands of Hercules. He tries to kidnap Hercules’ wife, Deianira; Hercules kills him with an arrow. In a brilliant stroke of treachery, Nessus uses his dying breath to dupe Hercules’ wife into killing Hercules. Deianira has recently become tired of Hercules’ cheating. Despite his marriage, Hercules has used his classical celebrity to father children around the Greek world. Nessus recognizes this pain in Deianira and proposes to her a cure for her husband’s adultery. He tells her that a mixture of his blood and olive oil will ensure that Hercules never cheats on her again. She fails to recognize the rather blatant threat in those words and allows Nessus to wreak his revenge from the grave. She puts the solution in a flask. In a later attempt to stop her husband’s philandering she applies the mixture to Hercules’ clothing. It burns the strongman's skin. Badly... as in so badly that he actually throws himself into a pit of flame just to stop it from burning. He dies.

In Death of the Centaur Nessus,’the poor monster lies pathetically as he bleeds from an arrow to his heart. He clutches Deianira, who looks down pityingly. Hercules rages in the background; he appears far more brutal and wild than the centaur. His wild and untamed appearance parallels his promiscuity. The top of the rocks in the middle ground bisects the painting horizontally. Nessus seems quite convincing, especially considering he just kidnapped Deianira. His bald-faced treachery allows Nessus to rise above his centaur friends and enter the upper echelon of cool Greek guys.

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