Flashback Friday-Dante's Inferno

Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy was one of my favorites because I, like everyone else I'm sure, loved that he put people who were still living in his made up rings of Hell.  It's kind of like the old-fashioned version of posting some bitchy status on Facebook and passive-aggressively talking crap to your enemies.  The difference here is that Dante published it, embarrassing his enemies publicly, and we're still to this day reading it.  So Duck Face on Facebook slamming your haters with hashtags.....what else you got?  Nobody slammed his haters like Dante. He described in great detail just how bad he thought they were and what he thought they should suffer, in Hell. 

So if you haven't read it, basically, it's a 14th century poem, with Dante as the narrator.  He is lost and scared, wandering through a forest when he finally meets the poet, Virgil, who is sent by Beatrice (Dante's beloved), and from there, they both descend into the 9 circles of Hell.

I had to write a report on the rings at Georgia State and one thing that I noticed is that you could tell (in my opinion) that they were written from an Italian's perspective.  For example, adultery is probably one of the most despicable sins in most cultures and many would think it would merit a worse ring, but in Dante's Inferno, it's not as deep as where the gluttonous go, meaning that the punishment isn't half-bad.  Plus, the two lovers are together....in Hell, eternally spinning and dizzy. You know how the Italians feel about sex and romance. (Although I hear that the birth rates are plummeting lately because the men never leave their mommies.  Guess they aren't all of what we expect, ladies.)

The Nine Rings

1. First Circle, Limbo-This is where Virgil lives, along with other writers and philosophers, specifically, Ovid and Horace, and Socrates and Aristotle.  They didn't know about Christ before they died, so they're in purgatory, along with the other pagans.
2. Second Circle, Lust-Dante sees the monster, Minos, whipping his tail in circles.  The amount of times he twirls it identifies which ring of Hell the damned must enter.  Dante sees Francesca, who was the daughter of Guido I da Polenta of Ravenna and married to Giovanni Malatesta, aka "Giovanni the Lame", (he was crippled).  Francesca fell in love with Giovanni's younger brother, Paolo da Rimini.  The affair went on for about ten years. When Giovanni found out, he stormed in and killed them both.  Anyway, they are both here, in the second circle of Hell, spinning around in a storm that will never end, together.  Dizzy, and probably still in love.  For some reason, I don't see them all that sorry. 
3. Third Circle, Gluttony-The gluttonous are found lying underneath bubbly mud and excrement. Rain of crap showers on them, forever. (See what I mean?  How is eating huge amounts of food worse than having extramarital sex?  And also, isn't it interesting that they're next to each other?  Italians like their food and sex- adulterous or not.
4. Fourth Circle, Greed-Avaricious and the Prodigal are forced to fight each other for eternity with gigantic boulders. OUCH. I really like this one.  Perhaps Dante thought that both sides had more of a responsibility to bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots.  (The brother who is greedy and bitter because he was given nothing and spends nothing fights the prodigal son who did nothing to deserve it, and still hoards it.)  In Dante's eyes, both extremes are seen as punishable.  On a bigger, more social scale, I picture Saudi Arabia and a poor village in Africa. Perhaps Africa would be punished for resorting to violence due to greed and Saudi Arabia would be punished by hording its wealth and driving the poor to crimes.  Of course, just my take on it.
5. Fifth Circle, Anger-The Styx river, a nasty swamp, is where the Wrathful spend eternity gnashing their teeth at one another; the Sullen are found in the water, choking on mud. It is here that Filippo Argenti, and one of Dante's political enemies, is housed.  #thinkbeforeyoumesswithDante,bitch.
6. Sixth Circle, Heresy- This ring houses the Heretics, and there Dante finds another political rival named Farinata. #VoteforDante#1555
7. Seventh Circle, Violence, Suicide, Blasphemy, and Sodomy-The first ring of the seventh circle of Hell is full of the violent, who are swimming in a pool of boiling blood. Those who commit suicide take the form of trees for eternity.  The trees are crumpled and fed to the harpies, the winged spirits.  Blasphemers and Sodomites are forced to live in a desert of fiery sand, blowing all over them, much like Sodom and Gomorrah. Dante and Virgil also encounter the Usurers, who were violent toward Art. Yeah, baby.  Protect the artists.
8. Eighth Circle, Fraud-This ring is full of "evil pouches", much like the folds of earth. Pouch 1, the Seducers,  are whipped.  Pouch 2, the Flatterers are forced to lie in a river of human feces. Pouch 3, The Simoniacs dangle upside-down with burning feet in baptismal pools. Pouch 4, the Astrologists walk with their heads on backward. Pouch 5, demons tear those who accepted bribes into pieces. Pouch 6, the hypocrites wear lead robes and are forced to walk in circles (this is by far my favorite punishment.  I mean, that's hilarious).  Pouch 7, the Thieves basically turn into vampires.  The thief sits amongst a pit of vipers, they're bit and become vipers, and to regain their form, they must bite another thief.  Pouch 8, Ulysses and Diomedes are found here, punished for their exploitations during the Trojan War. Pouch 9, the scandalous walk in a circle, constantly afflicted by wounds that open and close, over and over again. Ewwww, right?? Pouch 10, the Liars, suffer eternally from plague and disease. 
9. Ninth Circle, Treachery-Finally, Dante and Virgil reach Cocytus, a great frozen lake and there stands Lucifer, with three heads and waist-deep in the ice. When God expelled him down from Heaven, he landed in the middle of the Earth, stabbing it. Lucifer's mouths each gnaw on one of history’s three greatest sinners: Judas, Jesus' betrayer, and Cassius and Brutus, Julius Caesar's betrayers. The main thing I remember about the end was that it was cold....very different than what we have imagined.  I think it's possibly scarier this way.  The dead surrounding Lucifer have their mouths frozen shut and they're clearly in pain!

Finally, Dante emerges from Hell, on Easter morning.