Old joke - even older source

"Back on your heads, Lads" is the punchline to a very old joke which I heard as soon as I started working here. As I have told you the punchline, I only need a general overview of the rest of the Joke. It involves a man who is sent to Hell. As his punishment, he is shown into a room where a large group of men are standing around up to their ankles in excrement drinking tea. He joins them and is handed a cuppa. He thinks to himself that this punishment is not so bad as the Tea is warm and the conversation is quite interesting. Suddenly, a bell rings and a voice shouts "Right lads. Tea Break's over. Back on your heads". Quite funny maybe but it was only last year that I found out that the Joke is actually based on something a lot older. There was an Omnibus program on about Boticelli's drawings for Dante's "Divine Comedy" and it described the scene in part of the eighth circle of hell where Corrupt Clergy were forced to crouch down with their heads in holes in the ground. Ones of the sinners turns out to be a Pope who's fate will be to be pushed further down by the Pope who comes after him and so on. Ouch! I suspect the excrement part of the joke comes from the section next door where flatterers are immersed in it. Click here to read further and for a set of wonderful pictures go here.

così de l'atto suo, per li occhi infuso
ne l'imagine mia, il mio si fece,
e fissi li occhi al sole oltre nostr'uso.

The drawings of Dante and Beatrice rising through Paradise are enchanting though the whole thing from Inferno to Paradiso is quite brilliant. I'd like to say that the Dante of Botticelli's drawings is the sort of guy you would like to meet and talk to. Indeed, going on the complexity and cultural diversity of "The Divine Comedy" his conversation would be interesting. However, I suspect bearing in mind that even Flatterers end up in Hell (Not even Pugatory) he might find fault with almost everyone. Nice try, Alighieri but you won't get me into Hell just for Self-reference.

I've just been looking at the various illustrations for "The Divine Comedy". The one by Botticelli for the First and Second Bolgias has six instances of Virgil and Dante around the two Bolgias. It is as if Botticelli wanted to make an animation of the whole thing. You could edit out all but one pair from each of six copies of this painting and then slow-dissolve them the get a sort of Renaissance movie. I seem to remember that other images by Botticelli have the same extended time period. Excuse the jump from high to low culture but this reminds me of Giles Cartoons. There is one which especially reminds me of this time compression. It shows a pedestrian who, after thinking about some Government Road safety campaign has returned to the pavement as shown by his U-turn in the middle of the road while a huge pile up is in mid air frozen at some point of contact. Bet you never thought I could link those two. Now if Giles ever referred to Dante we will have a backward link.

A l'alta fantasia qui mancò possa;
ma già volgeva il mio disio e 'l velle,
sì come rota ch'igualmente è mossa,
l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.