I've been reading the Inferno, the first of the three parts of Dante's Divine Comedy. I'll admit that reading the descriptions of the nine circles of hell have been giving me some joy. Twisted, you say? But there's even a circle for corrupt politicians and people in public office, along with traitors who actively carry out fraudulent activities! Somedays I feel that the effort to constantly be watching over my shoulder and worrying about the safety of friends and loved ones in this small country of just over 1Million people will wear me out. This week I heard about a series of break-ins in neighbourhoods in North East Trinidad - criminals cutting burglar proofing and families being terrorized. I wonder - if we can't get a handle on the crime now, will we ever get it right? Is the crime problem caused in part because our people have lost their morality and spirituality (along with the abysmal failures on the part of the Government and the police to protect citizens)? Well, when I begin to lose hope, I read my holy books and remind myself that even if the evil hurt innocent people in this lifetime, no amount of theif money will save them when they're dead. Aside from all this, the Divine Comedy is a great read.
In the Inferno, the gates of hell bear the inscription:
Through me the way into the suffering city,
Through me the way to the eternal pain,
Through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
My maker was divine authority,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things were made,
And I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, ye who enter here.
The poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300. Dante is thirty-five years old, unable to find the "straight way" to salvation, conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "deep place" where the sun is silent, Dante is rescued by Virgil and the two begin their journey to the underworld. Virgil is Dante's guide through the nine circles of hell.
The 9 circles of hell are concentric, representing a gradual increase in wickedness, and culminating at the center of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. The upper parts of hell are reserved for the passive sinners. The lower parts (the sixth circle and below) of hell are contained within the walls of the city of Dis, surrounded by the Stygian marsh. Punished within Dis are active sinners.
1 First Circle (Limbo)
Here reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. They are not punished in an active sense, but rather grieve only their separation from God, without hope of reconciliation.
2 Second Circle
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.
3 Third Circle
Cerberus guards the gluttons, 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.
4 Fourth Circle
Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the desired mean are punished in this circle. They include the avaricious or miserly, who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them.
5 Fifth Circle
In the swamp-like water of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen or slothful lie gurgling beneath the water.
6 Sixth Circle
Heretics are trapped in flaming tombs.
7 Seventh Circle
This circle houses the violent. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur, and it is divided into three rings:
Outer ring, housing the violent against people and property, who are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood, to a level commensurate with their sins. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron, patrol the ring, firing arrows into those trying to escape.
Middle ring: In this ring are the 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.
Inner ring: The violent against God (blasphemers), the violent against nature (sodomites), and the violent against order (usurers), all reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups.
The last two circles of Hell punish sins that involve conscious fraud or treachery.
8 Eighth Circle
The fraudulent—those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil—are located in a circle named Malebolge ("Evil Pockets"), divided into ten bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches:
Bolgia 1: Panderers (pimps) and seducers march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons. Just as they misled others in life, they are driven to march by demons for all eternity.
Bolgia 2: Flatterers are steeped in human excrement. This is because their flatteries on earth were nothing but "a load of excrement"
Bolgia 3: Those who committed simony are placed head-first in holes in the rock, with flames burning on the soles of their feet (resembling an inverted baptism).
Bolgia 4: Sorcerers and false prophets have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward. In addition, they cry so many tears that they cannot see.
Bolgia 5: Corrupt politicians (barrators) are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals. They are guarded by devils called the Malebranche ("Evil Claws")
Bolgia 6: The bridge over this bolgia is broken: the poets climb down into it and find the Hypocrites listlessly walking along wearing gilded lead cloaks.
Bolgia 7: Thieves, guarded by the centaur (as Dante describes him) Cacus, are pursued and bitten by snakes and lizards. The snake bites make them undergo various transformations, with some resurrected after being turned to ashes, some mutating into new creatures, and still others exchanging natures with the reptiles, becoming lizards themselves that chase the other thieves in turn. Just as the thieves stole other people's substance in life, and because thievery is reptilian in its secrecy, the thieves' substance is eaten away by reptiles and their bodies are constantly stolen by other thieves.
Bolgia 8: Fraudulent advisors are encased in individual flames.
Bolgia 9: A sword-wielding demon hacks at the sowers of discord. As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again.
Bolgia 10: Here various sorts of falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impersonators), who are a disease on society, are themselves afflicted with different types of diseases.
9 Ninth Circle
The Ninth Circle is ringed by classical and Biblical giants. Traitors, distinguished from the "merely" fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying one in a special relationship to the betrayer, are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus. Each group of traitors is encased in ice to a different depth, ranging from only the waist down to complete immersion. The circle is divided into four concentric zones:
Round 1: Caïna, named for Cain, is home to traitors to their kindred. The souls here are immersed in the ice up to their necks.
Round 2: Traitors to political entities, such as party, city, or country, are located here.The souls here are immersed at almost the same level as those in Caïna (Round 1), except they are unable to bend their necks.
Round 3: Ptolomaea.Traitors to their guests are punished here.The souls here are immersed so much that only half of their faces are visible. As they cry, their tears freeze and seal their eyes shut–they are denied even the comfort of tears.
Round 4: Judecca.is for traitors to their lords and benefactors. All of the sinners punished within are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted to all conceivable positions.
Condemned to the very center of hell for committing the ultimate sin (treachery against God) is Satan, who has three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow, each having a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor.
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