Dante’s Inferno

Introduction Dante travels through Hell, Purgatory, then Heaven (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) Virgil (author of Aeneid) his guide

Entrance & “Lobby” Enters Hell Gate inscription: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” “the Uncommitted” People who did NEITHER right nor wrong

Entrance & “Lobby” Pontius Pilate Punishment: pursued/stung by wasps/hornets, other insects drink blood/tears Contrapasso Symbolic instance of “poetic justice”

Crossing into Hell Acheron (river) Ferried across by Charon Does not want to take Dante (still alive)

Circle One: Limbo Unbaptized & virtuous pagans Similar to Fields of Asphodel (Hades) Neutral (neither punishment nor reward) Green fields, castle (“wisest men of antiquity”)

Circle One: Limbo Beyond this, all circles are punishments for “active, deliberately willed sin” Divided into groups of “wantonness, violence, and fraud” Descending in level, increasing in severity (lower = worse)

Circle Two: Lust Minos – “judge of the dead” (determines which “circle” each soul is “sentenced” to here) Punishment: souls “blown back & forth by terrible winds of violent storm” Contrapasso – mirrors the power of lust to “blow about” one’s desires aimlessly

Circle Three: Gluttony Guarded by Cerberus 3-headed guardian dog Punishment: souls forced to lie in a “vile slush” created by equally foul, icy rain Contrapasso – gluttons lie sightless, heedless of others, mirroring the empty, cold, selfish nature of their sin

Circle Four: Greed Avaricious or miserly (hoarded possessions) Prodigal (squandered possessions) Punishment: souls forced to “joust” using great weights pushed with their chests Contrapasso – “so absorbed in their activity (i.e. focused on wealth) they have lost their sense of self”

Circle Five: Anger Punishment Sullen – lie beneath the water Wrathful – fight on the surface of the river Styx (marshlands/swamp) Sullen – lie beneath the water Contrapasso: Eternally “at war” with each other Souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state in which they arrive No redemption/salvation possible at this point

Circle Six: Heresy But first… Active, not passive, sins here “lower parts of Hell” lie within Dis (city) Protected by walls/fallen angels, surrounded by Stygian marsh Active, not passive, sins here Dante, at first, refused entry Poem begins to deal with sins “philosophy and humanism cannot understand”

Circle Six: Heresy Heretics Punishment: trapped in flaming tombs Contrapasso: heretics denied the immortality of the soul, and are punished with eternal pain (burning)

Circle Seven: Violence “Lower Hell” begins here Violent / malicious sins punished here

Circle Seven: Violence Guarded by the Minotaur ½ man, ½ bull Divided into three rings Outer ring Violent against people/property Punishment: immersed in Phlegethon (river of boiling blood & fire) to a “level commensurate with their sins” Contrapasso: greater the sin, deeper the immersion Centaurs patrol the ring, fire arrows at any who attempt to rise higher than allowed

Circle Seven: Violence Middle Ring Suicides Punishment: transformed into thorny bushes, fed upon by Harpies Contrapasso: can only “speak” if broken (twig broken from branch) Broken, in part, by profligates (uncaring)

Circle Seven: Violence Middle Ring Profligates (wastefully extravagant) Punishment: pursued & mauled by dogs Contrapasso: “threw away” wastefully their lives, in part they “throw away” lives of suicides (pursuit by dogs, destruction of suicide bushes)

Circle Seven: Violence Inner Ring Violent against God (blasphemers) Violent against nature (usurers) Punishment: desert of flaming sand, fiery snakes rain from the sky Blasphemers lie on the sand, usurers sit, others wander about in groups Contrapasso: the culture of the day saw these sins as “unnatural and sterile,” like the fire rain/fire sands

Circle Eight: Fraud Frauds (deliberate, knowing evil) Malbolge 10 “Bolgie” (ditches of stone)

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers Punishment: march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons Contrapasso: used passions of others to drive them to do bidding, now driven by whip-wielding demons

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 2: Flatterers Punishment: engulfed in human excrement Contrapasso: excrement symbolic of the words used to flatter

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 3: simony Selling of church offices Punishment: placed head-first into holes in rock, flames burning soles of feet Contrapasso: holes symbolize baptismal fonts

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 4: sorcerers, astrologers, false prophets Punishment: heads twisted around backwards Contrapasso: response to attempts to “see into the future”

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 5: corrupt politicians Punishment: immersed in a lake of boiling pitch Contrapasso: represents the sticky, black nature of corrupt deals/actions

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 6: hypocrites Punishment: walk wearing gilded lead cloaks Contrapasso: cloaks represent the falsity of actions, which also weighs them down & makes spiritual progress impossible

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 7: Thieves Punishment: bitten by snakes/lizards Bites cause transformation, loss of identity Contrapasso: as they stole in life, their identity is “stolen”

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 8: fraudulent advisers / evil counsellors Punishment: concealed w/in flames Contrapasso: “hidden” within the flames, as their true motives were “hidden”

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 9: sowers of discord Punishment: demon hacks their bodies apart with a sword Contrapasso: as they divided others, their bodies are divided

Circle Eight: Fraud Bolgia 10: falsifiers Alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, impostors Punishment: disease affliction Contrapasso: they are themselves a “sickness” on society

Circle Nine: Treachery Ringed by “classical & Biblical giants” 4 “rounds” Frozen in ice at progressively greater depths

Circle Nine: Treachery Round 1(Caina) Family (chins) Round 2 (Antenora) Community (same as Caina) Round 3 (Ptolomaea) Guests (lying in ice, only faces uncovered) Round 4 (Judecca) Liege lords / benefactors Completely encased, distorted positions

Circle Nine: Treachery Satan Waist-deep Three faces Six wings (create icy winds of Hell) Each face chews a traitor Brutus Cassius Judas Iscariot