Editing Centaur (section)

===Medieval literature===
Centaurs are among the creatures which 14th-century Italian poet [[Dante]] placed as guardians in his ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]''. In Canto XII, Dante and his guide [[Virgil]] meet a band led by [[Chiron]] and [[Pholus (mythology)|Pholus]], guarding the bank of [[Phlegethon]] in the seventh circle of Hell, a river of boiling blood in which the violent against their neighbours are immersed, shooting arrows into any who move to a shallower spot than their allotted station. The two poets are treated with courtesy, and [[Nessus (mythology)|Nessus]] guides them to a ford.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Dante]] |title=[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]] |at=12.55-139}}</ref> In Canto XXIV, in the eighth circle, in Bolgia 7, a ditch where thieves are confined, they meet but do not converse with [[Cacus]] (who is a giant in the ancient sources), wreathed in serpents and with a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders, arriving to punish a sinner who has just cursed God.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Dante]] |title=[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]] |at=25.17–33}}</ref> In his ''[[Purgatorio]]'', an unseen spirit on the sixth terrace cites the centaurs ("the drunken double-breasted ones who fought Theseus") as examples of the sin of [[gluttony]].<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Dante]] |title=[[Purgatorio]] |at=24.121–123}}</ref>