the first time i was aware of Dante’s poems was when it was mostly featured as the backbone of the storyline for Jodi Picoult’s The Tenth Circle, i think.
Dante’s poem, the Divine Comedy is mostly about the journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. i’m reading them online now. i’m not kidding when i say it’s really long, very deep, and sort of dark, but .. so far so good. i mean, this was written in Italian in 1308.
according to Dante, hell is divided into nine circles.
the first circle was reserved for ‘the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ.’
the third, for the gluttons, who are 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. the fourth ring of hell is for materialistic people; the fifth for wrathful; the sixth is for heretics.
the seventh circle of hell is for the violent, and is further broken down into three rings – the outer ring for violence against people and property, the inner ring for violence against God, and the middle ring is for suicides, ‘who are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees. They are torn at by the Harpies. Unique among the dead, the suicides will not be bodily resurrected after the final judgment, having given their bodies away through suicide. Instead they will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the limbs.’
the eight ring punish sins that involve conscious fraud.
the ninth and the last ring is reserved for, basically, traitors. all i can sort of understand is that, to Dante, the worst sinners are those who betrayed others. and so they spend eternity in the deepest of hell, frozen and encased in ice, and when they cry, their tears freeze up to further immobilize them in ice. you see, to Dante, the worst punishment, is not being able to move, or flinch, or speak. at all. complete, total immobility. Cain, who betrayed his brother; Antenora of Troy, who betrayed his city to the Greeks; and Judas, who betrayed Christ.
after visiting hell, Dante move up to the purgatory, and then further up to heaven.
…
you might, or might not notice that i left out the second ring.
cos i’m fascinated most with the second circle of hell. this, you see, is to punish the adulterers, the cheaters and the sluts.
‘Those overcome by lust are punished in this circle. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are 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.’
well. guess which circle of hell i’d be going to?
…
Canto V, Inferno.
127 ‘One day, to pass the time in pleasure,
128 we read of Lancelot, how love enthralled him.
129 We were alone, without the least misgiving.
130 ‘More than once that reading made our eyes meet
131 and drained the color from our faces.
132 Still, it was a single instant overcame us:
133 ‘When we read how the longed-for smile
134 was kissed by so renowned a lover, this man,
135 who never shall be parted from me,
136 ‘all trembling, kissed me on my mouth.
137 A Galeotto was the book and he that wrote it.
138 That day we read in it no further.’
139 While the one spirit said this
140 the other wept, so that for pity
141 I swooned as if in death.
142 And down I fell as a dead body falls.
