So in my College Prep English class my teacher is having us read Dante's "Inferno". Here's a little bit of background for those of you who don't have a clue....Dante wrote three poems "Inferno" (Hell), "Purgatorio" (Purgatory) and "Paradiso" (Heaven). Together these three poems make up the "Divine Comedy". Basically it is about Dante being guided thru Hell and Purgatory by Virgil. In "Inferno" the punishment fits the crime. Outside of Hell is the vestibule. In the vestibule is the opportunists, they were neither good nor evil in life.
Circle 1 has the good Pagans- they lived before Christ so they could not accept him, they couldn't accept him so they were sent to Hell. They suffer no physical punishment.
Circle 2 has those who sinned through passion. Illicit lovers and unfaithful wives and husbands are here. They allowed themselves to be tossed by the storms of passion on earth so now in hell they are tossed by actual winds.
Circle 3 has the gluttonous. Since they enjoyed eating on earth they are now eaten by Cerberus (3 headed dog). And since they enjoyed the delicacies in life, they now live in muck.
Circle 4 has the hoarders and wasters. They worked without meaning in life, now they work without meaning in death...they push huge boulders against each other.
Circle 5 has the wrathful and angry. They now spend eternity hitting each other.
Circle 6 has the heretics. They deliberately reject religion. They lie on burning tombs and on Judgement Day, the lids will be nailed shut forever. They chose to conceal themselves from God so they will be forever concealed from Him and all beings.
Circle 7 has the violent. Here the murders simmer in a river of boiling blood. The suicides are changed into trees because they rejected their human form. The blasphemers, sodomites and the usurers (violent against God, Nature and Art) are lying on a steaming sterile desert, bathed in a constant rain of fire.
Circle 8 holds the seducers, panderers, faltterers, simonias, fortune-tellers, hypocrites, theives, and falsifiers. Since there are many sinners in this level of Hell there are many punishments. As usual, punishment fits the crime. The fortune-tellers have their heads on backwords-they tried to see ahead, now they only see behind. The theives have their bodies stolen by a reptile and must steal them back. The falsifiers are disfigured by disease because their lies disfigured the world.
Circle 9 holds those guilty of treason. Those guilty of treason are ranked according to their guilt: first the treacherous against kin, then country, then guests and hosts, finally those treacherous against their masters. All are encased in ice, as their cold hearts suggest they should be. They are layered according to their treason. At the very bottom of the pit are three sinners- Judas, Brutus, and Cassius for treachery against God.
Dante meets his foes and those who he didn't like. He kind of uses this as personal revenge on these people. They warn him to change his ways or he will end up in Hell himself.
