DANTE’S INFERNOVisions of Hell

THE GREEK UNDERWORLDRulers: Hades and

Persephone

Location◦ Beneath secret places of

earth (Iliad)

◦ Over edge of world, across ocean (Odyssey)

◦ Various entrances in caverns & deep lakes (later poetry)

Rivers separating underworld from earth◦Acheron: woe

◦Phlegethon: fire

◦Cocytus: lamentation

◦Lethe: forgetfulness

◦Styx: the unbreakable oath

Divisions of the Underworld

◦ Tartarus Prison of sons of earth

Deepest region

Wrongdoers are punished here

◦ Erebus: where the dead pass &

are judged when they die

◦ Elysian Fields: place of blessedness,

where the good go

Important Figures◦ Cerberus: 3-headed dog guards

entrance (you can come in, but you can’t leave)

◦ Judges: Minos, Aeacus, Rhadamanthus

◦ Erinyes (Furies) Greeks believed they pursued sinners

on earth

Romans placed them in underworld, punishing dead sinners

◦ Sleep and Death: brothers, send dreams from underworld through 2 gates Horn: true dreams

Ivory: false dreams

SOME SUFFERING SINNERS IN THE UNDERWORLD

• Tityus: tried to rape Zeus’ mother, so bound to earth; vultures tear out his liver daily

• Ixion: tried to seduce Hera, so was bound to a spinning, flaming wheel for eternity

• Sisyphus: betrayed a secret of Zeus, so now he spends eternity pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down before he can get to the very top

• The Danaids: 49 sisters who murdered their grooms and now have to fill barrels that are full of holes (spoiler: it always drains out)

•Tantalus: he’s the worst! He served his own children to gods for dinner. His punishment? He stands waist-deep in a pool of clear, fresh water, under a tree full of juicy ripe fruit. He is super thirsty and super hungry, but when he reaches for fruit, the branches pull back, and when he tries to drink, the water recedes. So he’s surrounded by food and water and can have none.• *****tantalize: to dangle the bait, always

just out of reach!

VIRGIL’S ACCOUNT OF THE UNDERWORLD

• In Hamilton’s Mythology book, read pages 317-322 (“The Descent into the Lower World”)

• Who are some of the characters/types of people Aeneas encounters in the Underworld?

• What are some of the punishments?

BACKGROUND ON DANTE ALIGHIERI

• 1265-1321

• Born in Florence, Italy

• Met and fell in love with Beatrice as a child

• She died before a disagreement could be resolved

• Dante never got over her, includes her in his writings including later parts of The Divine Comedy

• Incredible political unrest

• Several civil wars in Florence

• Believed Church should only have spiritual role in the lives of the people (separate from political role)

• Sentenced to die by political enemies (Black Guelphs) while in exile

• Wrote The Divine Comedy in the last years of his life

THE DIVINE COMEDY

• Purposes:

• Political

• Wanted to punish people he opposed

• Not funny ha-ha

• Happy ending (starting with Hell and ending with Heaven)

• Written in the vernacular (usually seen with comedies)

• Epic poem

• Medieval allegorical vision of the afterlife

• Three parts, 33 Cantos with a Canto to introduce each (total 100):

• Inferno (Hell)

• Purgatorio (Purgatory)

• Paradiso (Heaven)

• Virgil then Beatrice guide Dante

CANTO 1: THE DARK WOOD OF ERROR

• Read handout for Canto 1 (lines 1-60)

• Answer the following question:

1. Dante says in line 12 of Canto 1 that he has wandered from the “True Way.” If the “Dark Wood of Error” is a symbol of worldliness, what does the True Way represent? On an allegorical level, what might the three animals that try to force Dante back into the Dark Wood represent?

CANTO 3: THE VESTIBULE OF HELL• The Opportunists

• “Neither for good nor evil but only for themselves”

• Uncommitted one way or another; never chose sides in Rebellion of Angels

• Reside on shores of Acheron (not in Hell or outside of it)

• Punishment:

• race around chasing a banner that flows through dirty air

• chased by wasps and hornets that sting them constantly and draw blood and puss

• worms and maggots feast on sores

• Took no sides so no real consistent location

• Always changing direction (chasing banner)

• Choose no lighted path so much run around in dark

• Stinging bugs mirror guilty conscience

• Moral filth = physical filth

• New souls gathered by Charon

• Inscription:

“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.”

Circle One: LimboInhabitants: non-Christians and unbaptized pagans 

Punishment: eternity in an inferior form of Heaven

Circle Two: Lust

Punishment: blown violently back and forth by strong winds, preventing them to find peace and rest

Inhabitants: those ruled by physical desire

CANTO 5: THE CARNAL

• Read handout for Canto 5

• Answer the following questions:1. In Canto 5, lines 82-87, Dante compares Paolo and

Francesca to doves. Why do you suppose Dante uses such a sympathetic image for the lovers?

2. By including details about Paolo and Francesca’s reading, what attitude do you think Dante is expressing toward courtly-love poetry?

3. Why are the following allusions important? Why does Dante include fictional characters as well as real people?• Dido, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris, and Tristan

Circle Three: Gluttony

Punishment: forced to lie in a vile slush that is produced by never-ending icy rain

Inhabitants: excessive indulgers (eating/drinking)

Circle Four: Greed

Punishment: the two groups joust, using as weapons great weights which they push with their chests

Inhabitants: those who hoarded possessions and those who lavishly spent

Circle Five: Wrath

Inhabitants: the angry and sullen

Punishment: the wrathful fight each other on the surface of the river Styx and the sullen gurgle beneath the surface

Circle Six: Heresy

Inhabitants: those who doubted or denied the Christian faith

Punishment: condemned to eternity in flaming tombs

Circle Seven: Violent

3. Inner ring: violent against God and nature (blasphemers and sodomites)

• Punishment: reside in a desert of burning sand and rain falling from the sky

1. Outer ring: violent against others/property• Punishment: sunk into a river of boiling

blood and fire

2. Middle ring: violent against self (suicides)

• Punishment: turned into trees and bushes which are fed upon by harpies

Circle Eight: FraudBolgia 1: panderers and seducers

• Punishment: whipped by demonsBolgia 2: flatterers

• Punishment: submerged in human excrement

Bolgia 3: simony (the making of profit out of sacred things)• Punishment: buried head-first with flames burning their feet

Bolgia 4: sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets• Punishment: have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward

Bolgia 5: corrupt politicians• Punishment: immersed in a lake of boiling pitch

Bolgia 6: hypocrites• Punishment: apathetically walk along wearing gold-plated lead cloaks

Bolgia 7: thieves• Punishment: bitten and transformed by snakes and lizards

Bolgia 8: evil counselors and advisers• Punishment: individually covered in fire

Bolgia 9:  divisive individuals (start drama)• Punishment: sword-wielding demon cuts them into pieces

Bolgia 10: alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impostors• Punishment: afflicted with different diseases

Circle Nine: Treachery

Round 1: named Caïna, after Cain, who killed his own brother; traitors to kindred

• Punishment:  immersed in the ice up to their chins with heads bent forward

Round 2: named Antenora, after Antenor of Troy, who betrayed his city to the Greeks; traitors to political entities

• Punishment: immersed in the ice up to their chins

Round 3:  named Ptolomaea, after Ptolemy, who invited father- and brothers-in-law to a banquet and then killed them; traitors to their guests

• Punishment: lying on backs, fully covered in ice except their faces

Round 4: named Judecca, after Judas Iscariot, Biblical betrayer of Christ; traitors to their lords and benefactors

• Punishment: completely covered in ice

Circle Nine, Center of Earth: Satan

Satan, half submerged in ice, gnaws on Brutus, Cassius, and Judas with his three mouths

CANTO 34: COMPOUND FRAUD, THE TREACHEROUS TO THEIR MASTERS, AND

SATAN

• Read the handout for Canto 34

• Answer the following questions:1. In Canto 34, why does Dante regard Judas, Brutus, and

Cassius as the worst sinners of all? How does Judas’s sin differ from that of Brutus and Cassius?

2. In what way could Satan’s three faces be explained as symbols?

EXTENSION QUESTIONS:

• Dante ranks human sins by his placement of different sinner in Hell. Does their punishment fit their crimes? Explain.

• Honors:• What importance does Dante place on reason? What generalization can you make

about Dante’s view of reason? Use evidence in the poem to make your generalization.

• In his introduction to the Inferno, Archibald T. MacAllister states that Dante believed “that the mind must be moved in order to grasp what the senses present to it; therefore he combines sight, sound, hearing, smell and touch with fear, pity, anger, horror and other appropriate emotions to involve his reader to the point of seeming actually to experience his situations and not merely to read about them.” Do you agree that Dante’s use of images effectively draws readers into his story and makes them feel strong emotions? Explain, using specific examples from the selection.