Dante’s Inferno, the Structure of Hell
Dark Wood of Error (Canto I, II)
Leopard, Lion, She-Wolf, Virgil
Gate of Hell – The cowards (III)
Opportunists, chasing the banner naked, wasps & hornets, maggots & worms
Charon and the river, Acheron, functions as a boundary separating the cowardly neutrals from the souls in the circles of hell proper
Circle One - Those in limbo (IV)
The guiltless damned (unbaptized) are punished by living in a deficient form of Heaven
Classical Poets (Homer, Ovid, Lucan, Horace)
Harrowing of Hell, emphasizes the power—both physical and psychological—of Christ's raid on hell.
Aristotle, even in Hell, gets treated with respect
Circle Two - The lustful (V)
Blown about to and fro by a violent storm, without hope of rest, this symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly
Semiramis, Cleopatra, Dido, Helen of Troy, Achilles
Paolo and Francisca
Circle Three - The gluttonous (VI)
Forced to lie in a vile slush made by freezing rain, black snow, and hail, this symbolizes the garbage that the gluttons made of their lives on earth, slavering over food
Cerberus, the 3-headed dog
Circle Four - The hoarders (VII)
Avarice: greed, lust for material gain
Degrades the sinners by making them so physically squalid that they are unrecognizable to the travelers; they must “joust” but with weights (like money bags), which they must push with their chests
Plutus
Circle Five - The wrathful and the sullen (VII-VIII)
Focused on anger, that is either expressed (wrath) or repressed (sullenness)
The two groups suffer different punishments appropriate to their type of anger--the wrathful ruthlessly attacking one another and the sullen stewing and gurgling below the surface of the muddy swamp
Confined to the river Styx
Phlegyas
The Furies (Megaera, Tisiphone, Allecto) and Medusa
LOWER HELL, the walled city of Dis (VIII-IX)
Guarded by fallen angels, the city of Dis and the lower reaches of Hell punish active sins
Circle Six - The heretics (X)
Trapped in flaming tombs, symbols of their doubting a life after death
Circle Seven - The violent
Ring 1. (Against neighbor) Murderers, robbers, and plunderers (XII)
Immersed in a river of boiling blood, to a level commensurate with their sins
Ring 2. (Against self) Suicides and squanderers (XIII)
Transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees, they are torn at by the harpies like some horrid forest; they will not see their bodies again, since they “gave them up” via suicide
Ring 3. (Against God) Blasphemers [directly], (XIV)
Sodomites [nature], (XV-XVI)
andUsurers [art, industry] (XVII)
Barren desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky; the Blasphemers must lie on the sand, the Usurers sit; and the Sodomites wander in groups
Minotaur
Centaurs fire arrows at anyone trying to escape
Harpies tear at the bushes the Suicides have become
Circle Eight - The Fraudulent(Malebolge)
TrenchI. Panderers and Seducers (18)
March in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped and driven by demons, just as they misled others in life, for all eternity
Trench II. Flatterers (18)
Steeped in human excrement, because their flatteries on earth were nothing but "a load of excrement"
Trench III. Simoniacs (19)
Those who paid for holy offices within the church are punished to be buried upside down, the soles of their feet burning with oil, in a mock baptism
Trench IV. Sorcerersand False Prophets (20)
Their heads twisted around on their bodies backward, they cry so many tears that they cannot see. This is symbolic because these people tried to see into the future by forbidden means; thus in Hell they can only see what is behind them and cannot see forward
Trench V. Barrators (Political Corruptors) (21-23)
Trench VI. Hypocrites (23)
Trench VII. Thieves (24-25)
Pursued and bitten by snakes and lizards, the bites make them undergo various transformations, with some resurrected after being turned to ashes, some mutating into new creatures, and still others exchanging nature with the lizards themselves that chase the other thieves in turn…
The tenuous hold on one's identity--with dramatic transformations of human and reptilian forms--suggests that no possession, no matter how personal, is safe in the realm of theft
Cacus, the centaur
Trench VIII. False Counselors (26-27)
As these used rhetoric— eloquence aimed at persuasion— for insidious ends and to spread false news, they are encased within individual tongues of fire, hidden like their true thoughts in life
Trench IX. Schismatics (28)
Sowers of discord, the schismatics were intentionally divisive
As they divided institutions, communities, and families in life, so these figures are physically—and repeatedly—sliced apart by sword-wielding demons for eternity in Hell
Trench X. Falsifiers (29-30)
Their corrupting influence--on metals (alchemists), money (counterfeiters), identity (imposters), and truth (liars)--is reflected in their diseased bodies and minds
Circle Nine – Betrayers
Region i: Traitors to their kindred (Caina) (32)
named after the biblical Cain (first child of Adam and Eve), who slew his brother Abel out of envy after God showed appreciation for Abel's sacrificial offering but not Cain's
Immersed in ice up to their faces, “where shame can show itself”
Mordred, from Arthurian legend
Region ii: Traitors to their country (Antenora) (32-33)
named for the Trojan prince Antenor, this region is for those who betrayed their political party or their homeland
Immersed in ice up to the neck, which they are unable to bend
Region iii: Traitors to their guests (Ptolomea) (33)
shows the special rule for those who betray their guests: their souls descend immediately to hell and their living bodies are possessed by demons when they commit these acts
Souls here lay supine on the ice, which covers them except for half of their faces. As they cry, their tears freeze and seal their eyes shut–they are denied even the comfort of tears
Region iv: Traitors to their benefactors, lords (Judecca) (34)
for those who, by betraying their masters or benefactors, committed crimes with great historical and societal consequences
Completely encapsulated in ice, they are distorted in all conceivable positions.
The frozen lake, Cocytus, is ringed by classical and Biblical giants
Sitting atop a frozen lake is Lucifer…
Brutus and Cassius, stuffed feet first in the jaws of Lucifer's black and whitish-yellow faces respectively, are punished in this lowest region for their assassination of Julius Caesar (44 B.C.E.), the founder of the Roman Empire that Dante viewed as an essential part of God's plan for human happiness.