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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
how tall is lucifer though
adventurous
challenging
dark
medium-paced
I can proudly say I have now read 1/3 of The Divine Comedy! This was one of those intimidating classics I never thought I would be able to read; alas I have now conquered it. This tale follows Dante and the first part of his journey through the may rings of Hell, accompanied by Virgil. It was funny, interesting and thought provoking.
and yes, this was read in preparation for Katabasis...
and yes, this was read in preparation for Katabasis...
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
tense
medium-paced
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I decided that my big reading challenge this year was to read books from as many different genres as I could. I want to get out of my usual comfort zone of romance and fantasy. Occasionally I need something different, anyway. And after the past 3 days of reading Ice Planet Barbarians books, I felt like it was time to pick up something . . . intelligent.
This isn't my first read-through of Dante's Inferno. I think we all had that week in high school, no? But it was my first time reading it as an adult, knowing that it's more than just a nightmare-scape about all the different levels of hell. I highly suggest having a reading guide handy while going through this, because the political and religious figures we encounter alongside Dante and Virgil won't resonate with many of us, and their purpose in the larger story being told provide shades and nuance you won't otherwise pick up on.
Okay so where to begin? How the hell am I supposed to review something like this? I'm just gonna leave my notes as I go through this, I guess.
Reader's Notes - Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
<u>Canto III: The Gate of Hell: </u>
To be exceedingly blunt: this is religious fan fiction.
Dante is a BIG fan of writing real life people into his works. If he loved them they were a divine messenger. If they were a well-respected figure that Dante looked up to (Virgil) they acted as a guide (and master???) through the book. If Dante didn't like a person...guess where <i>they</i> ended up? You've got 9 tries.
And, I mean, we can't even be mad about it - the dude warns us:
<b>I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.
SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.
I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,
PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.
ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR
WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.</b>
Ah yes. The ominous inscription over the gate to Hell. A warning to Dante, but also the reader - everything we're about to encounter is totes 100% accurate because GOD is just and good and he put all these people exactly where they need to be because they were BAD BAD BAD when they were alive and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that Dante thinks they're rotten. Nope!
Before we even reach the first level of hell everything's already awful. Virgil and Dante run across this giant mass of people who are naked and bleeding and chasing this giant blank banner and Dante asks what's up with that and Virgil states that these are the people who never really committed to any belief in life. They didn't stand on business, so now they're being forced to run after some pointless banner for eternity while being stung by wasps.
Honestly this kinda sounds worse than some of the hell-layers, not gonna lie.
Then we encounter Charon - remember what I said about this being fan fiction? Consider this a Christianity/Greek Mythology crossover.
Even Dante, all the way back in the 1300s wrote his character passing out as a way to end a chapter. Unbelievable.
<u>Canto IV: Circle 1, Limbo</u>
Dante: What the hell is all this noise?
Virgil: ๐คจ...Hell?
This is Hell's waiting room. Basically a giant dentist's office. Here's where all the people who were born before Christ ended up - because THAT'S fair. Leave it to a Catholic to come up with this BS.
But hey, at least there's no torture.
Dante runs into several famous figures - namely poets and philosophers from before Christ. Homer, Horace, Ovid, etc.
Let the fanboying commence! Of course all these famous faces just think Dante's the best. ๐ This is self-masturbatory in the extreme and I'm bored.
<u>Canto V: Circle 2, The Carnal</u>
<img src="https://media.tenor.com/DAFlmuvQi4kAAAAM/wind-windy.gif"/>
Only everybody's naked - apparently it's not as fun as it sounds.
Here we run into Cleopatra (who's apparently bad because she caused the downfall of some of Rome's top men, and that makes Dante angry - because the Roman Empire is LITERALLY his Roman Empire.)
We hear the tragic tale of 2 lovers who were basically a spicy AITA Reddit post (Wife cheats on her husband with her husband's bother and the husband kills them - you know, normal things)Annnnnd then Dante passes out. Again.
<u>Canto VI: Circle 3, The Gluttons:</u>
Everyone's a chew toy. Yay.
Also it's raining, snowing and hailing all the time. So. That's fun. I hope Dante brought his galoshes.
Here we first encounter a character who can tell what's going on in the surface of earth - particularly the political climate of Florence. Dante seems kind of obsessed with this topic because he's gonna continue binging it up to others as they go.
<u>Canto VII: Circle Four, The Hoarders and the Wasters
Circle Five, The Wrathful and the Sullen</u>
Circle 4 - Greed: This is the world's worst game of Red Rover I've ever heard of.
Naked bald people running into and walloping each other with bags of money - I'm sorry. I would have lost my absolute shit if I'd seen this.
Half of these people are Church members (oooooooh) and the other half are just greedy fuckwits engaging in the WWE smackdown of the eternal afterlife.
Circle 5 - Wrath: Literally this is just ... mud-wrestling.
Why does this whole canto just sound like a Saturday night in Alabama?
<u>Canto VIII: Circle Five: Styx - The Wrathful, Phlegyas
Circle Six: Dis - The Fallen Angels</u>
The City of Dis is basically where the lower levels of Hell are. But the Fallen Angels don't want Dante going in there and lock the gates even after Virgil tells them that they're on a quest from God.
The three furies show up and call Medusa and by this point Virgil and Dante are both having panicky meltdowns. They're saved when an actual angel (an...unfallen one...) shows up, busts down the gates and tells the fallen angels to GTFO and let these 2 people pass unless they want to be beaten to all hell the way Cerberus was.
Pretty badass part of the story actually, because this is the first time the claim Dante makes that he's on a quest from God is backed up by a divine being. Also fuck all these fallen assholes for getting in the way.
<u>Cantos IX +XI: Circle Six, The Heretics</u>
Everybody who's ever said "there's no heaven/hell/afterlife" live here.
Everybody here's laying down in a coffin and being roasted.
Dante doesn't give a shit about any of that, though. He wants to know what's goin on in Florence again. Here we learn that the dead can't see the present - only Florence in the past and Florence in the future.
At least we get an explanation of how Hell works from Virgil at this point in the story. Basically, every level deeper gets worse, and how you're judged to go into whatever level is by how many people you've hurt or by how bad that hurt was.
We also learn that God's most despised sins revolve around the betrayal of or mockery of love.
Okay, fair enough.
<u>Canto XII: Circle Seven, Round 1: The Violent Against Neighbors</u>
So, the last few layers of hell are divided up into different layers. Thank god my book has a graph in the notes.
This 'round' is identified by the RIVER OF BOILING BLOOD. This is where all the military leaders, conquerors, war lords and highwaymen are. "As they bathed in blood in life, so they are boiled in it in death." This is where Dante sees Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun.
<u>Canto XIII: Circle Seven, Round 2: The Violent Against Themselves</u>
Dante and Virgil leave the blood river for the Wood of the Suicides. Virgil, the sick fuck, tells Dante to yank a branch off a tree and when he does, the tree begins to bleed.
THE PEOPLE ARE THE TREES.
Thanks for the therapy we're gonna need after this, Virg.
<u>Canto XIV - XVII: Circle Seven, Round 3: The Violent Against God, Nature, and Art</u>
Woof. We've reached the no-no chapter, folks. Break out your pitchforks!
This is the area designated for the 'blasphemers', 'sodomites', and 'usurers'. It's a giant pit of burning sand and it's raining fire.
This is where God (via Dante) puts the Gays.
It bears mentioning that even the Catholic Church at the time side-eyed the FUCK out of this part of Dante's Comedy.
Like how you gonna put being GAY below MURDER? GTFO.
In the words of Wendigoon: So according to Dante, the actions of violence you can commit are genocide, suicide, being gay, and charging high rent - in that order. ๐๐๐๐
<u>Canto XVIII: Circle Eight, The Fraudulent and Malicious
Bolgia One: The Panderers and Seducers
Bolgia Two: The Flatterers</u>
There's like 10 different levels to Circle 8, so buckle the fuck up.
1. This pit is for the human traffickers and anybody who betrays their lover. They're forced to run the length of the trench they're in while being whipped by devils.
2. This is the shit-pit. It's for people who deceive using words or flattery. If you're a bullshitter IRL, you're now forced to fight with your fellow bullshitters for all eternity. While also being naked and covered in sores.
<u>Canto XIX: Circle Eight: The Simoniacs
Bolgia Three:</u>
3. "Sellers of sacred artefacts". Basically church workers who'd ask for money telling people it was going to go to one place, but it wasn't, it was going somewhere entirely different. Those big TV Evangelists who stole your grandma's retirement fund to buy million dollar camper vans and build churches the size of stadiums? Yeah, that's these people.
These people are being forced to crawl into these holes in this hot rock or walk over hot coals.
<u>Canto XX: Circle Eight: The Fortune Tellers and Diviners
Bolgia Four:</u>
4. These people have their heads twisted around on their bodies and are then forced to walk backwards. This...this doesn't sound like a terrible punishment this deep into hell, but whatever.
Dante's particularly affected by this pit for some reason - despite the fact that he's seen TRUE horror for the past like, 200 pages.
Maybe it's because I've seen a lot of horror films, but this seems <i>mild</i>.
<u>Canto XXI + XXII: Circle 8: The Grafters
Bolgia Five:</u>
5. Ah yes. The BOILING PIT OF TAR. ๐Because this punishment scale makes TOTAL sense.
This is where most of the politicians are. People who exchange money for political office. I have a feeling this place is CROWDED.
<u>Canto XXIII: Circle 8: The Hypocrites
Bolgia Six:</u>
6. These guys are ... just being weighed down by heavy robes. Again with the scaling punishment. I feel like Dante needed an editor.
These guys honestly should have been in the Oil with the politicians. They're basically the same thing.
<u>Canto XXIV + XXV: Circle 8: The Thieves
Bolgia Seven:</u>
7. I think this is where Dante lost me. There's these weird lizard creatures in the seventh pit and they're stinging these people who are running around while simultaneously being bound up by snakes. The people who get stung get turned into ash, which then somehow reforms into the person again.
There's a lot of other descriptions of souls being bitten and turning into random animals and smoke and I don't know man. It's like some weird episode of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something. Dante was clearly on drugs. ๐คจ๐คทโโ๏ธ
<u>Canto XXVI + XXVII: Circle 8: The Evil Counselors
Bolgia Eight:</u>
8. Everybody's just. On fire.
These are cult leaders, for lack of a better description. People who led others to death etc.
<u>CantoXXVIII: Circle 8: The Sowers of Discord
Bolgia Nine</u>
9. Dante describes this trench as essentially the spoils of every war that has ever been fought. These mutilated bodies are the souls of people who have caused chaos on purpose.
Dante mentions a few people here - several he knew in real life (because why not? Nothing says I hate you like shoving you into the 8th circle of hell and ripping your body apart for all eternity), as well as famous faces like the Islamic Prophet Muhammed.
<u>Canto XXIX + XXX: Circle 8: The Falsifiers (Class 1, Alchemists)
(Class 2, 3, + 4: Evil Impersonators, Counterfeiters, False Witnesses)
Bolgia Ten:</u>
10. This trench is pitch black, and everyone in it is sick with "illnesses far beyond earth". So. Pestilence.
Dante meets several people here who all end up fighting each other, and Dante's thrilled before Virgil tells him to knock it off. He cries over people having their heads put on backwards, but is GIDDY over people who are covered in sores fighting each other? Um.
<u>Canto XXXI: The Central Pit of Malebolge - The Giants</u>
It's still dark, Dante encounters a series of giants, stuck half in the ground. They're all surrounding this well. They ask this one Giant named Antaeus to help them down the well and he's reluctant but Dante, big badass writer that he is promises he can make Antaeus famous by writing about him in his story if he agrees to help them and so Antaeus does.
I said it early on, but this is a self-masturbatory piece in the extreme.
<u>Canto XXXII: Circle Nine: Cocytus - Compound Fraud
Round 1: Caina - The Treacherous to Kin
Round 2: Antenora - The Treacherous to Country</u>
Round 1: So Virgil and Dante land on a frozen lake with bodies in it and heads breaking through the ice.
Treachery against family is the least offensive of the treasons because we're born into family - we don't have a choice of who to be loyal to.
Round 2: Er. Dante's got it fucked up in my opinion. He believes we should be loyal to our country over our FAMILY. That's why this round is worse - ie, further into the center of Hell than the poor schmucks stuck in the ice.
I swear some of this story just doesn't make ANY sense to me.
He does encounter a few people here, one that's a traitor to Florence, so Dante swears he's going to write this man into his story so he can be shamed for all time. Cool story breh.
The other is a pair of dudes where one's eating the other's head. Dante uses this moment to comment on his disdain for Pisa.
I don't know, I didn't care. It's weird how the deeper we go the less I care about what's actually going on because this last circle is actually pretty boring.
<u>Canto XXXIII: Circle Nine: Cocytus - Compound Fraud
Round 2: Antenora - The Treacherous to Country
Round 3: Ptolomea - The Treacherous to Guests and Hosts</u>
Round 3: The reason treachery against guests and hosts is worse than the previous two is because these are bonds you've chosen to make.
The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, and all that.
Here we learn through Dante's interaction with a Friar that he knows to still be living that when a soul commits a crime that's so heinous as to be sent to the 9th circle of Hell, the moment that they commit said crime, their soul is sucked directly into hell, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 and their body is filled with a demon. And that's where possessions come from.
<img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/4b/7f/e54b7f4793a687191cd877fedb2ce9f6.gif"/>
<u>Canto XXXIV: Circle Nine: Cocytus - Compound Fraud
Round 4: Judecca - The Treacherous to Their Masters
The Center: Satan</u>
Round 4: Treachery against your master (God) is obviously the worst. Because God is perfect, and any sin against him comes from a place of pure evil and malice.
The Center: Dante describes Lucifer as gargantuan. Like, the size of a literal mountain.
Homeboy's also got 3 faces. One's black, once's a crimson red, the last is a bright yellow. He's crying blood and tears from all 3 faces, which runs down his body.
There are only 4 people in this very bottom pit of Hell:
Lucifer - obviously. For betraying humanity and God.
Brutus & Cassius - These are the 2 men who conspired to kill Caesar. Obviously because Dante's got a hardon for Rome, this is a BIG deal. They're being gnawed on by 2 of Lucifer's heads
Judas - The guy who betrayed Jesus. This dude's got the worst of everybody, he's in Lucifer's middle-head mouth.
Virgil then tells Dante that now he's been to the deepest part of Hell, it's time for them to climb their way out. What follows is some fuckery it'd take entirely too much acid to properly comprehend.
Virgil puts Dante on his back and begins to climb up Lucifer's body. Dante's eyes are closed for a while, and when he opens them, instead of staring at Lucifer's chest like he expected, he's staring at his legs. And Virgil explains that this whole time they've been traveling to the center of the earth and now they're working their way out the other side. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Listen, I'm not going to lie - this is heavy on the fever dream. There's a lot of really intense, gross, and interesting imagery in the first third of the divine comedy. But does it really have a <i>point</i>? I don't think it does. Maybe that's a hot take.
It's just some random dude's self-insert pseudo religious fan fiction where he gets to meet all his heroes and call out and punish everybody he doesn't like. It was neat to find the easter eggs - the characters mixed in with real world people. But I still don't particularly understand why this is such a popular thing for high school students to read.
This isn't my first read-through of Dante's Inferno. I think we all had that week in high school, no? But it was my first time reading it as an adult, knowing that it's more than just a nightmare-scape about all the different levels of hell. I highly suggest having a reading guide handy while going through this, because the political and religious figures we encounter alongside Dante and Virgil won't resonate with many of us, and their purpose in the larger story being told provide shades and nuance you won't otherwise pick up on.
Okay so where to begin? How the hell am I supposed to review something like this? I'm just gonna leave my notes as I go through this, I guess.
Reader's Notes - Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
<u>Canto III: The Gate of Hell: </u>
To be exceedingly blunt: this is religious fan fiction.
Dante is a BIG fan of writing real life people into his works. If he loved them they were a divine messenger. If they were a well-respected figure that Dante looked up to (Virgil) they acted as a guide (and master???) through the book. If Dante didn't like a person...guess where <i>they</i> ended up? You've got 9 tries.
And, I mean, we can't even be mad about it - the dude warns us:
<b>I AM THE WAY INTO THE CITY OF WOE.
I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN PEOPLE.
I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL SORROW.
SACRED JUSTICE MOVED MY ARCHITECT.
I WAS RAISED HERE BY DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE,
PRIMORDIAL LOVE AND ULTIMATE INTELLECT.
ONLY THOSE ELEMENTS TIME CANNOT WEAR
WERE MADE BEFORE ME, AND BEYOND TIME I STAND.
ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE.</b>
Ah yes. The ominous inscription over the gate to Hell. A warning to Dante, but also the reader - everything we're about to encounter is totes 100% accurate because GOD is just and good and he put all these people exactly where they need to be because they were BAD BAD BAD when they were alive and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that Dante thinks they're rotten. Nope!
Before we even reach the first level of hell everything's already awful. Virgil and Dante run across this giant mass of people who are naked and bleeding and chasing this giant blank banner and Dante asks what's up with that and Virgil states that these are the people who never really committed to any belief in life. They didn't stand on business, so now they're being forced to run after some pointless banner for eternity while being stung by wasps.
Honestly this kinda sounds worse than some of the hell-layers, not gonna lie.
Then we encounter Charon - remember what I said about this being fan fiction? Consider this a Christianity/Greek Mythology crossover.
Even Dante, all the way back in the 1300s wrote his character passing out as a way to end a chapter. Unbelievable.
<u>Canto IV: Circle 1, Limbo</u>
Dante: What the hell is all this noise?
Virgil: ๐คจ...Hell?
This is Hell's waiting room. Basically a giant dentist's office. Here's where all the people who were born before Christ ended up - because THAT'S fair. Leave it to a Catholic to come up with this BS.
But hey, at least there's no torture.
Dante runs into several famous figures - namely poets and philosophers from before Christ. Homer, Horace, Ovid, etc.
Let the fanboying commence! Of course all these famous faces just think Dante's the best. ๐ This is self-masturbatory in the extreme and I'm bored.
<u>Canto V: Circle 2, The Carnal</u>
<img src="https://media.tenor.com/DAFlmuvQi4kAAAAM/wind-windy.gif"/>
Only everybody's naked - apparently it's not as fun as it sounds.
Here we run into Cleopatra (who's apparently bad because she caused the downfall of some of Rome's top men, and that makes Dante angry - because the Roman Empire is LITERALLY his Roman Empire.)
We hear the tragic tale of 2 lovers who were basically a spicy AITA Reddit post (Wife cheats on her husband with her husband's bother and the husband kills them - you know, normal things)Annnnnd then Dante passes out. Again.
<u>Canto VI: Circle 3, The Gluttons:</u>
Everyone's a chew toy. Yay.
Also it's raining, snowing and hailing all the time. So. That's fun. I hope Dante brought his galoshes.
Here we first encounter a character who can tell what's going on in the surface of earth - particularly the political climate of Florence. Dante seems kind of obsessed with this topic because he's gonna continue binging it up to others as they go.
<u>Canto VII: Circle Four, The Hoarders and the Wasters
Circle Five, The Wrathful and the Sullen</u>
Circle 4 - Greed: This is the world's worst game of Red Rover I've ever heard of.
Naked bald people running into and walloping each other with bags of money - I'm sorry. I would have lost my absolute shit if I'd seen this.
Half of these people are Church members (oooooooh) and the other half are just greedy fuckwits engaging in the WWE smackdown of the eternal afterlife.
Circle 5 - Wrath: Literally this is just ... mud-wrestling.
Why does this whole canto just sound like a Saturday night in Alabama?
<u>Canto VIII: Circle Five: Styx - The Wrathful, Phlegyas
Circle Six: Dis - The Fallen Angels</u>
The City of Dis is basically where the lower levels of Hell are. But the Fallen Angels don't want Dante going in there and lock the gates even after Virgil tells them that they're on a quest from God.
The three furies show up and call Medusa and by this point Virgil and Dante are both having panicky meltdowns. They're saved when an actual angel (an...unfallen one...) shows up, busts down the gates and tells the fallen angels to GTFO and let these 2 people pass unless they want to be beaten to all hell the way Cerberus was.
Pretty badass part of the story actually, because this is the first time the claim Dante makes that he's on a quest from God is backed up by a divine being. Also fuck all these fallen assholes for getting in the way.
<u>Cantos IX +XI: Circle Six, The Heretics</u>
Everybody who's ever said "there's no heaven/hell/afterlife" live here.
Everybody here's laying down in a coffin and being roasted.
Dante doesn't give a shit about any of that, though. He wants to know what's goin on in Florence again. Here we learn that the dead can't see the present - only Florence in the past and Florence in the future.
At least we get an explanation of how Hell works from Virgil at this point in the story. Basically, every level deeper gets worse, and how you're judged to go into whatever level is by how many people you've hurt or by how bad that hurt was.
We also learn that God's most despised sins revolve around the betrayal of or mockery of love.
Okay, fair enough.
<u>Canto XII: Circle Seven, Round 1: The Violent Against Neighbors</u>
So, the last few layers of hell are divided up into different layers. Thank god my book has a graph in the notes.
This 'round' is identified by the RIVER OF BOILING BLOOD. This is where all the military leaders, conquerors, war lords and highwaymen are. "As they bathed in blood in life, so they are boiled in it in death." This is where Dante sees Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun.
<u>Canto XIII: Circle Seven, Round 2: The Violent Against Themselves</u>
Dante and Virgil leave the blood river for the Wood of the Suicides. Virgil, the sick fuck, tells Dante to yank a branch off a tree and when he does, the tree begins to bleed.
THE PEOPLE ARE THE TREES.
Thanks for the therapy we're gonna need after this, Virg.
<u>Canto XIV - XVII: Circle Seven, Round 3: The Violent Against God, Nature, and Art</u>
Woof. We've reached the no-no chapter, folks. Break out your pitchforks!
This is the area designated for the 'blasphemers', 'sodomites', and 'usurers'. It's a giant pit of burning sand and it's raining fire.
This is where God (via Dante) puts the Gays.
It bears mentioning that even the Catholic Church at the time side-eyed the FUCK out of this part of Dante's Comedy.
Like how you gonna put being GAY below MURDER? GTFO.
In the words of Wendigoon: So according to Dante, the actions of violence you can commit are genocide, suicide, being gay, and charging high rent - in that order. ๐๐๐๐
<u>Canto XVIII: Circle Eight, The Fraudulent and Malicious
Bolgia One: The Panderers and Seducers
Bolgia Two: The Flatterers</u>
There's like 10 different levels to Circle 8, so buckle the fuck up.
1. This pit is for the human traffickers and anybody who betrays their lover. They're forced to run the length of the trench they're in while being whipped by devils.
2. This is the shit-pit. It's for people who deceive using words or flattery. If you're a bullshitter IRL, you're now forced to fight with your fellow bullshitters for all eternity. While also being naked and covered in sores.
<u>Canto XIX: Circle Eight: The Simoniacs
Bolgia Three:</u>
3. "Sellers of sacred artefacts". Basically church workers who'd ask for money telling people it was going to go to one place, but it wasn't, it was going somewhere entirely different. Those big TV Evangelists who stole your grandma's retirement fund to buy million dollar camper vans and build churches the size of stadiums? Yeah, that's these people.
These people are being forced to crawl into these holes in this hot rock or walk over hot coals.
<u>Canto XX: Circle Eight: The Fortune Tellers and Diviners
Bolgia Four:</u>
4. These people have their heads twisted around on their bodies and are then forced to walk backwards. This...this doesn't sound like a terrible punishment this deep into hell, but whatever.
Dante's particularly affected by this pit for some reason - despite the fact that he's seen TRUE horror for the past like, 200 pages.
Maybe it's because I've seen a lot of horror films, but this seems <i>mild</i>.
<u>Canto XXI + XXII: Circle 8: The Grafters
Bolgia Five:</u>
5. Ah yes. The BOILING PIT OF TAR. ๐Because this punishment scale makes TOTAL sense.
This is where most of the politicians are. People who exchange money for political office. I have a feeling this place is CROWDED.
<u>Canto XXIII: Circle 8: The Hypocrites
Bolgia Six:</u>
6. These guys are ... just being weighed down by heavy robes. Again with the scaling punishment. I feel like Dante needed an editor.
These guys honestly should have been in the Oil with the politicians. They're basically the same thing.
<u>Canto XXIV + XXV: Circle 8: The Thieves
Bolgia Seven:</u>
7. I think this is where Dante lost me. There's these weird lizard creatures in the seventh pit and they're stinging these people who are running around while simultaneously being bound up by snakes. The people who get stung get turned into ash, which then somehow reforms into the person again.
There's a lot of other descriptions of souls being bitten and turning into random animals and smoke and I don't know man. It's like some weird episode of Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something. Dante was clearly on drugs. ๐คจ๐คทโโ๏ธ
<u>Canto XXVI + XXVII: Circle 8: The Evil Counselors
Bolgia Eight:</u>
8. Everybody's just. On fire.
These are cult leaders, for lack of a better description. People who led others to death etc.
<u>CantoXXVIII: Circle 8: The Sowers of Discord
Bolgia Nine</u>
9. Dante describes this trench as essentially the spoils of every war that has ever been fought. These mutilated bodies are the souls of people who have caused chaos on purpose.
Dante mentions a few people here - several he knew in real life (because why not? Nothing says I hate you like shoving you into the 8th circle of hell and ripping your body apart for all eternity), as well as famous faces like the Islamic Prophet Muhammed.
<u>Canto XXIX + XXX: Circle 8: The Falsifiers (Class 1, Alchemists)
(Class 2, 3, + 4: Evil Impersonators, Counterfeiters, False Witnesses)
Bolgia Ten:</u>
10. This trench is pitch black, and everyone in it is sick with "illnesses far beyond earth". So. Pestilence.
Dante meets several people here who all end up fighting each other, and Dante's thrilled before Virgil tells him to knock it off. He cries over people having their heads put on backwards, but is GIDDY over people who are covered in sores fighting each other? Um.
<u>Canto XXXI: The Central Pit of Malebolge - The Giants</u>
It's still dark, Dante encounters a series of giants, stuck half in the ground. They're all surrounding this well. They ask this one Giant named Antaeus to help them down the well and he's reluctant but Dante, big badass writer that he is promises he can make Antaeus famous by writing about him in his story if he agrees to help them and so Antaeus does.
I said it early on, but this is a self-masturbatory piece in the extreme.
<u>Canto XXXII: Circle Nine: Cocytus - Compound Fraud
Round 1: Caina - The Treacherous to Kin
Round 2: Antenora - The Treacherous to Country</u>
Round 1: So Virgil and Dante land on a frozen lake with bodies in it and heads breaking through the ice.
Treachery against family is the least offensive of the treasons because we're born into family - we don't have a choice of who to be loyal to.
Round 2: Er. Dante's got it fucked up in my opinion. He believes we should be loyal to our country over our FAMILY. That's why this round is worse - ie, further into the center of Hell than the poor schmucks stuck in the ice.
I swear some of this story just doesn't make ANY sense to me.
He does encounter a few people here, one that's a traitor to Florence, so Dante swears he's going to write this man into his story so he can be shamed for all time. Cool story breh.
The other is a pair of dudes where one's eating the other's head. Dante uses this moment to comment on his disdain for Pisa.
I don't know, I didn't care. It's weird how the deeper we go the less I care about what's actually going on because this last circle is actually pretty boring.
<u>Canto XXXIII: Circle Nine: Cocytus - Compound Fraud
Round 2: Antenora - The Treacherous to Country
Round 3: Ptolomea - The Treacherous to Guests and Hosts</u>
Round 3: The reason treachery against guests and hosts is worse than the previous two is because these are bonds you've chosen to make.
The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, and all that.
Here we learn through Dante's interaction with a Friar that he knows to still be living that when a soul commits a crime that's so heinous as to be sent to the 9th circle of Hell, the moment that they commit said crime, their soul is sucked directly into hell, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 and their body is filled with a demon. And that's where possessions come from.
<img src="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/4b/7f/e54b7f4793a687191cd877fedb2ce9f6.gif"/>
<u>Canto XXXIV: Circle Nine: Cocytus - Compound Fraud
Round 4: Judecca - The Treacherous to Their Masters
The Center: Satan</u>
Round 4: Treachery against your master (God) is obviously the worst. Because God is perfect, and any sin against him comes from a place of pure evil and malice.
The Center: Dante describes Lucifer as gargantuan. Like, the size of a literal mountain.
Homeboy's also got 3 faces. One's black, once's a crimson red, the last is a bright yellow. He's crying blood and tears from all 3 faces, which runs down his body.
There are only 4 people in this very bottom pit of Hell:
Lucifer - obviously. For betraying humanity and God.
Brutus & Cassius - These are the 2 men who conspired to kill Caesar. Obviously because Dante's got a hardon for Rome, this is a BIG deal. They're being gnawed on by 2 of Lucifer's heads
Judas - The guy who betrayed Jesus. This dude's got the worst of everybody, he's in Lucifer's middle-head mouth.
Virgil then tells Dante that now he's been to the deepest part of Hell, it's time for them to climb their way out. What follows is some fuckery it'd take entirely too much acid to properly comprehend.
Virgil puts Dante on his back and begins to climb up Lucifer's body. Dante's eyes are closed for a while, and when he opens them, instead of staring at Lucifer's chest like he expected, he's staring at his legs. And Virgil explains that this whole time they've been traveling to the center of the earth and now they're working their way out the other side. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Listen, I'm not going to lie - this is heavy on the fever dream. There's a lot of really intense, gross, and interesting imagery in the first third of the divine comedy. But does it really have a <i>point</i>? I don't think it does. Maybe that's a hot take.
It's just some random dude's self-insert pseudo religious fan fiction where he gets to meet all his heroes and call out and punish everybody he doesn't like. It was neat to find the easter eggs - the characters mixed in with real world people. But I still don't particularly understand why this is such a popular thing for high school students to read.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don't really consider myself a Catholic at all anymore but I think this poem is the closest I've come since being in the church to "getting it." Such a powerful depiction of a Satan and his subjects who are trapped in Hell by their own guilt or refusal to repent that weaves in real political and religious figures in a way that I would need a lot more understanding of the history of Rome, Catholicism, and medieval Italy to fully understand. "Then we came forth to rebehold the stars" could be the most beautiful ending I've ever read in poetry.
slow-paced
funny
mysterious
medium-paced