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Inferno · Purgatorio · Paradiso
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Inferno (Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic
poem Divine Comedy. It is followed byPurgatorio and Paradiso. It is
an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by
the Roman poetVirgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering
located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey
of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection
of sin.[1]
After passing through the "vestibule," Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will
take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted
by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil
forces Charon to take him by means of another famous line: Vuolsi così colà
dove si puote, which translates to "So it is wanted there where the power lies,"
referring to the fact that Dante is on his journey on divine grounds. The wailing
and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat contrast with the
joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio. However,
the actual passage across the Acheron is undescribed since Dante faints and
does not wake up until he is on the other side.
Virgil then guides Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles
are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating
at the centre of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. Each circle's sinners
are punished in a fashion fitting their crimes: each sinner is afflicted for all of
eternity by the chief sin he committed. People who sinned but prayed for
forgiveness before their deaths are found not in Hell but in Purgatory, where they
labour to be free of their sins. Those in Hell are people who tried to justify their
sins and are unrepentant.
Allegorically, the Inferno represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really
is. What the three beasts may represent has been the subject of much
controversy over the centuries, but one suggestion is that they represent three
types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious.[5]These three types
of sin also provide the three main divisions of Dante's Hell: Upper Hell (the first 5
Circles) for the self-indulgent sins, Circles 6 and 7 for the violent sins, and Circles
8 and 9 for the malicious sins.
In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. Dante condemns these
"carnal malefactors"[9] for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the
first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown back and forth by
the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of
lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly.
In this circle, Dante sees Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of
Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan, and many others who were overcome by sexual
love during their life. Dante is told by Francesca da Riminihow she and her
husband's brother Paolo Malatesta committed adultery, but then died a violent
death, in the name of Love, at the hands of her husband, Giovanni (Gianciotto).
Francesca reports that their act of adultery was triggered by reading the
adulterous story ofLancelot and Guinevere (an episode sculpted by Auguste
Rodin inThe Kiss). Nevertheless, she predicts that her husband will be punished
for his fratricide in Caïna, within the ninth circle (Canto V).
The English poet John Keats, in his sonnet "On a Dream," imagines what Dante
does not give us, the point of view of Paolo:
... But to that second circle of sad hell,
Where ‘mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,
Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.[10]
Third Circle (Gluttony)[edit]
In Gustave Doré's illustrations for the fourth circle, the weights are huge money bags.
Lower Hell, inside the walls of Dis, in an illustration by Stradanus. There is a drop from the sixth
circle to the three rings of the seventh circle, then again to the ten rings of the eighth circle, and,
at the bottom, to the icy ninth circle.
Outer ring: This ring houses the violent against people and property.
Sinners are immersed inPhlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire, to a level
commensurate with their sins: Dionysius I of Syracuse, Guy de
Montfort, Obizzo d'Este, Ezzelino III da Romano, Rinier da Corneto, and
Rinier Pazzo are also seen in the Phlegethon as well as references to Atilla
the Hun. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron and Pholus, patrol the ring,
shooting arrows into any sinners who emerge higher out of the river than each
is allowed. The centaur Nessus guides the poets along Phlegethon and
across a ford in the widest, shallowest stretch of the river (Canto XII). This
passage may have been influenced by the early medieval Visio Karoli Grossi.
[27]
Illustration by Sandro Botticelli: Dante and Virgil visit the first two Bolgie of the eighth circle
Jason and Medea, by John William Waterhouse (1907)
The last two circles of Hell punish sins that involve conscious fraud or treachery.
These circles can be reached only by descending a vast cliff, which Dante and
Virgil do on the back of Geryon, a winged monster traditionally represented as
having three heads or three conjoined bodies.[33] However, Dante describes
Geryon as having three mixed natures: human, bestial, and reptilian.[33]Dante's
Geryon is an image of fraud, having the face of an honest man on the body of a
beautifully colored wyvern, with the furry paws of a lion and a poisonous sting in
the pointy scorpion-like tail[34] (Canto XVII).
The fraudulent – those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil – are located in a circle
named Malebolge ("Evil Pockets"). This circle is divided into ten Bolgie, or
ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches
:
Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers march in separate lines in opposite
directions, whipped by demons (here Dante makes reference to a recent
traffic rule developed for the Jubilee year of 1300 in Rome: keep to the right).
[35]
Just as the panderers and seducers used the passions of others to drive
them to do their bidding, they are themselves driven by whip-wielding demons
to march for all eternity.[35] In the group of panderers, the poets notice
Venedico Caccianemico, who sold his own sister to the Marchese d'Este. In
the group of seducers, Virgil points out Jason, who gained the help
of Medeaby seducing and marrying her only to later desert her forCreusa.
[35]
Jason also seduced Hypsipyle, but "abandoned her, alone and
pregnant"[36] (Canto XVIII).
Round 1 is named Caïna, after Cain, who killed his own brother. Traitors
to kindred are here immersed in the ice up to their chins – "the place / where
shame can show itself"[53] Mordred, who attacked his uncle/father King Arthur,
is one of the traitors here: "him who, at one blow, had chest and shadow /
shattered by Arthur's hand"[54] (Canto XXXII).