DANTES INFERNO The Divine Comedy CANTO I Midway

DANTE’S INFERNO The Divine Comedy

CANTO I • Midway through our life’s journey, I awoke to find myself lost in a dark wood • The Leopard, Lion, and She. Wolf • Virgil and the Greyhound • It is rather by another path that the poet will find the “sunlight” • Dante follows Virgil

CANTO II Only Aeneas and St. Paul have been here before, I’m scared The support Dante has Beatrice Santa Lucia The Virgin Mary

CANTO III The Vestibule Contrapasso The River Acheron Charon A blast of wind

1 ST CIRCLE LIMBO The Virtuous Pagans Virgil is from here No Punishment-only place in Hell where there isn’t except that they know there is a better place. Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan (Dante’s Heroes) Plato, Caesar, Aristotle, Aeneas, Electra and notably-Saladin

2 ND RING Minos- the judge A dark wind The Lustful Helen, Paris, Achilles Dante sees the “lovers” Francesca da Rimini and Paolo “For Pity’s Sake”

3 RD CIRCLE Dante awakens Virgil is getting pissed Cerberus (Fluffy) The Gluttons Ciacco and prophecies

4 TH RING Plutus (Monkey-Chicken) but not in the picture Rolling thunder The Prodigal and Miserly “Why spend, why save” Descent to the 5 th ring and river Styx

RING 5 The Wrathful and Slothful Wrathful tear at and fight each other Slothful are constantly drowning in the mud To the tower

THE RIVER CROSSING At the tower a signal is sent Phlegyas soon comes into sight Philippo Argenti Lesson’s learned To Middle Hell City of Dis Virgil negotiates

CITY OF DIS Help is on the way The Furies Call the Gorgon (Medusa) The blast The descent An opening Into the city Burning Sarcophogi Arch-Heretics

FARINATA A fellow Florentine? Cavalcante de Cavalcante More conversation The Stench of below/lets catch our breath Pope Anastasius the grand pland, we gotta go!

7 TH RING Down the slope Minotaur Ring of the Violent Phlegathon and the Centaurs • violent toward others • Chiron offers help • Nessus takes the poets for a ride

THE DARK WOOD Howling wind? Creepy trees Harpies The naked guy and the dogs Pier Delle Vigne

THE BURNING SANDS Three types • Blasphemers • Userers Into the desert

THE BURNING SANDS Ser Bernetto Latini What is going on here?

THE WATERFALL To the edge

DANTE’S INFERNO Lower Hell

THE POETS AT THE DROPOFF • Virgil takes Dante’s belt and throws it over the cliff – The poets have a seat and Virgil explains that a nearby waterfall is the culmination of the three rivers of Hell and that it pours into the abyss. • Soon Dante hears a flapping sound and Geryon emerges out of the darkness of the pit. • Geryon is another mythical beast that is now the “elevator” to lower Hell. He has the face of a very attractive man and a scorpion’s body. He would lure women up to him and then kill and devour them. • The poets jump on his back and he takes off flying them down to lower hell

ABOVE THE 8 TH RING • As they fly down, Dante gets a view from over the 8 th ring and realizes that it is made up of several subdivisions – These subdivisions are called Malebolgia (pockets of evil). • The poets land at the edge of the 8 th ring and Virgil tells Dante that they are about to enter the ring of Simple Fraud.

THE MALEBOLGIA OF THE 8 TH RING • 8 (a) Panderers (prostitutes and pimps) – These souls make a double line and one is going clockwise the other counterclockwise. • Soon Dante hears a flapping sound and Geryon emerges out of the darkness of the pit. There are demons in the middle and as the souls march in their directions, they are whipped with each step. • The false love that they gave (pleasure) is now mirrored by them receiving pain with each step

8 TH RING • 8 (b) Flatterers – These souls who in life gave false compliments are now forced very pig-like (mirroring gluttons) to crawl around in excrement. – Dante hurries by these as the stench is too great for him to linger very long.

8 TH RING • 8 (c) Simonists (evil churchmen) – Buried upside down in holes on top of each other. The man on top has fire jumping from foot to foot – Dante does climb down into this ring as the site interests him and finds to his surprise that there are several Popes there. • Soothsayers (fortune tellers) – They have their heads twisted on backwards so that they can only look behind them. They are also denied the “site” of Hell in that they cannot see into the future.

8 TH RING • 8 (e) Grafters (con men) – Perhaps the next most famous scene next to Francesca in ring 2 – The Grafters are being boiled in tar (makes you think of what happened to con men who were caught in those days being tarred and feathered). – The are being guarded by devils with pitchforks – The poets are confronted by these devils about being there but truthfully, the devils are really stupid. – They tell the poets that the bridge over this section is broke and they have to go way around to the other side to cross.

8 TH RING • 8 (e) Grafters (con men) – A patrol of devils take them around – Along the way they spot a group of grafters setting on the side and try to catch them. – They catch one and he convinces them to let him go to get his friends. – The poets take this opportunity to escape and leave the ring behind. Virgil lets Dante know they have a time limit.

8 TH RING • 8 (f) Hypocrites – They are encased in lead and have huge weights around them. – As these people were “shifty” in life, they now cannot move anywhere very quickly at all. • Thieves – These “snakes in the grass” are being tormented by serpents. They are in a barren rocky landscape full of snakes that when they strike, the thief bursts into flames and burns to ashes only to reform into a snake and the serpent that bit him turns into a human.

8 TH RING • 8 (h) Decievers (fraud by action) – Souls are in pyres and on fire. Mirrors the Heretics from above • 8 (i) Sowers of Discord (instigators) – These are people that create chaos. Here we find Muhammed who along with the others walk in a circle to find themselves facing a huge devil with a large sword, as they walk up, he cleaves them and off they go to walk and heal until they come back to him and it goes again.

8 TH RING • 8 (j) Falsifiers (general liars- so most of you!!) – It is very hot in this barren place and they are afflicted with every know disease. They suffer from fever and are covered in vomit and diharrhea, most are babbling incoherently.

TOWARD THE 9 TH RING • Again there is a long walk from 8 to 9 to show the difference between simple fraud (where they were) to complex fraud (the last ring). • As the poets walk Dante begins to feel colder. • Soon they hear a low babbling coming from in front of them. • They are approaching the ring of giants. • Anteneas will let them down into the pit of Hell-the 9 th ring.

9 TH RING • Cocytus (complex fraud) • This is a vast frozen lake where it is snowing with the souls frozen in various ways. – Caina - Betrayers of Kin. Francesca’s husband is here. – Antenora – Betrayers of Country- Count Ugolino – Ptolemea – Betrayers of Guests- Archbishop Ruggieri • These last two make one of the grossest sights that Dante sees outside of the mutilations in 8 i. Ugolino is eating Ruggieri’s brains.

9 TH RING • Judecca – Betrayers of Lords. – As the poets make their way to the middle bottom of Hell, Dante beholds Lucifer. – Lucifer is a huge beast frozen at his upper waist, his head is lolling off to the side and he has three faces. Each of them is crying, which is adding to the ice that he is frozen in. His eyes are glazed and Virgil tells Dante that he (Lucifer) is forever lost. – In his mouths are three most evil betrayers in history • Brutus, Cassius and of course Judas

THE GREAT ESCAPE • Virgil tells Dante that time is running short and they must go. • They move up to Lucifer and at his side is a small hole in the ice. Virgil tells Dante to hang on to him and they start to climb down the leg of Satan which is goat-like. • A peculiar happening. • The last cave, mount Purgatory