| Dante's
Inferno |
| Walk
with me, dear reader. You
are not afraid to walk through
Hell, are you? The souls of
the living cannot be tortured
here, yet be warned there are
things that may offend you.
This is an extended outline
of Dante's Inferno. It is a
partly interactive page, mixed
with images and expressions to
enhance the feel for the trip.
Most every key point is
covered here, save for the
details of the sinners which you
will have to read the book for. |
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| You
awaken in a dark forest
with no apparent way out.
There is an unease
in the air and you
attempt to make your way
through the dense woods.
Off in the distance
you see a hill that leads
into a bright and
blinding radience (Heaven).
As you try to climb
it, your path is blocked
by three beasts: a
she-wolf, a lion, and a
leopard. These
represent the three kinds
of sin. You just
about give up hope when
Virgil, master poet,
comes to lead you to
Heaven through the
backdoor, i.e. Hell and
Purgatory. |
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| After
you cross Acheron with the aid of
Charon, the ferry-man, you pass a
region close to Hell where you
see people chasing a flag in
fields of maggots and worms.
While they chase the flying
banner, swarms of hornets and
wasps sting and draw blood from
the souls which is devoured by
the insects on the ground. Here
are the Opportunists, those who
lived not for God or Satan or
good or evil... but for
themselves. Those angels
who chose no sides in the War in
Heaven are damned with the
Opportunists. |
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| You
pass through the gates of
Hell, the warning on the
gates throwing fear into
your heart. Your
guide, Virgil, assures
you that this is not a
warning for you. The
first region you come to
after entering is the
dark realm of Limbo.
The souls of the
vitruous non-Christians
and those born before
Christ are damned, but
not tortured here. Their
only sin was not knowing
Christ, there only
punishment is to never
see Divine Radience.
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| You
pass through Limbo, your
heart heavy. You
wonder what other
punishments lie in store.
You pass down into
the next circle of Hell,
that of the Carnal.
These souls sought
pleasures of the flesh
above pleasures of the
spirit. They are
tossed and thrashed about
in a great tempest, never
resting or knowing peace.
You stop and talk
to a pair of lovers who
tell you their tale of
love and lust. You
begin to feel sad for
them, then you see the
town whore tossing about
in the tempest and
remeber these are evil
souls. |
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Indeed,
evil souls. You
remind yourself that they
are in Hell for a reason.
And accept the fact
that you can believe
precious little of what
they say. The third
circle of Hell is
Gluttoney. These
souls gorged themselves
in life, taking in scared
notions of sustenance,
and produced nothing but
waste. The scenery
is a great garbage dump
of filthy souls piled
about in black snow and
muck. Cerberus, the three-headed
hell-hound, vicously
bites and rips apart
souls painfully that then
reform to undergo the
torture yet again. The
stench of filth and the
sight of the dump nearly
make you lose your
lunch. It is here,
where the Sins of
Incontinence begin to be
most evident. |
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| As
you pass into the fourth
level of Hell, you heard
the groans of great
physical exertion and the
screams of pain. You
climb down and see two
factions of people
opposing each other.
They roll great
boulders between them,
each side getting crushed
by the great stones.
One side shouts
"Why hoard?",
the other shouts "Why
waste?". You
realize that these are
the hoarders and wasters
of money, in the circle
of Greed. Those who
coveted money and
lavishness rather than
the wealth of spiritual
enlightnment. |
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| You
pass Greed and wait for
the ferry to take you
accross the River Styx.
As you and Virgil
cross, you notice that
the river is teeming with
souls of Anger. The
wrathful claw at each
other to keep from
drowning, drowning each
other in the process, and
the sullen are buried in
the muck at the bottom of
the river, their torture
silent. You whack a
few souls away from the
boat to keep it from over-turning.
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| After
a little help from above,
you pass into the inner
Hell of Dis. The
first circle you climb
down into is Heresy.
Those who believed
that their souls died
with their bodies are
punished in a truly
fitting way. They
are confined in open
graves awash with flames,
as you walk by the
screams and anguish of
the damned almost
overwhelm you. You
stop and talk to one soul
who rises from his grave
to tell you how he doesn't
deserve to be here.
Remembering that
these are evil souls, you
take no heed of his words.
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| You
enter the Circle of
Violence and Virgil tells
you that it is broken
into three sections:
Violence against
your neighbor, violence
against yourself, and
violence against God. You
come to the banks of
Phlegethon. |
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| Those
who exercised violence
against their neighbor
are submerged in a river
of boiling blood, those
who try to come out are
shot with arrows by
centaurs on the shore.
You cross carefully
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| into
the second section of
Violence, the Wood of
Suicides. Because
they dishonored their
bodies in life, they are
denied human form in
death. Because they
harmed themselves in life,
they are formed into
unmoving trees that are
abused by harpies and
hell-hounds that tear
them apart and deficate
on them. |
You
pass into the third
section of the Circle of
Violence, the burning .
You see here a
further seperation in
Violence: the
blasphemers, the ursurers,
and the sodomites. On
the vast stretch of
burning sands, the
sodomites wander
aimlessly around in a
rain of fire. The
ursurers are further
punished by crouching,
their backs burned by the
rain, because they wear
the money they usurped
around their necks.
The most offensive
of violences is that
against God, the
blasphemers lay supine on
the burning sands while
being pelted with the
rain of fire. While
leaving the burning
desert, you notice that
the next Circle of your
trip is so far into the
darkness, you cannot see
the groud. Virgil
nods to you and calls
forth Geryon.
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| Geryon
flies you two down the
cavern on his back.
You dismount and
Virgil explains the
layout of Fraud, the
eighth circle of Hell,
while your eyes adjust to
the lack of light. There
are ten distinct sins
covered in Fraud. These
sins are seperated by
walls in the shape of
concentric circles.
You walk across the
bridges over these walls
and look at the souls and
punishments below. |
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| March
in two different
directions in trench. |
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| Simonacs
(evil churchmen) |
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| Buried
upside-down in a hole
with their feet being
licked by flames, other
souls eventually push
them further down into
the hole. |
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| Emersed
in boiling pitch, demons
claw at those who rise
above to breath. |
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| March
about in golden cloaks
lined with lead. |
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| Painfully
rob each other of human
form, causing them to
revert to a serpentine
one. |
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| Engulfed
alone in giant flames
like candle wicks. |
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| Ripped
open with their entrails
spilling out. |
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| Afflicted
with painful, body
mutilating diseases |
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| You
find your way past the
Fradulant and your guide
tells you that there is
one more circle left
before you may pass into
Purgatory and then onto
Paradise. Eagerly
you bound down the slope
onto a great glacier and
last ring, Treachery.
The chill winds
bites into your skin and
you draw your cloak about
you tighter to no avail.
Virgil urges you
forward and you begin to
see human forms buried in
the ice up to their
shoulders, their heads
bowing down to escape the
wind. These are the
traitors to their kin,
they bow in penance for
eternity. Further
you walk, the cold
getting harsher. You
come to another grove of
souls, these are the
traitors to their country.
Those who betrayed
their home for
selfishness are frozen in
the ice up to their heads.
They cannot bow to
avoid the wind, but their
tears run down their face
and freeze on the surface
of the ice. You
stop and witness two
souls in one icey grave,
one gnawing at the head
of the soul who caused
him to be damned with
those who sold out the
people they invited in.
You fear you cannot
withstand the cold much
longer, but Virgil forces
you on. You come,
next, to the traitors to
their guests. They
are frozen up to their
face, their eyes cast
upward toward Heaven and
their tears frozen in the
sockets. The last
of the earthly sinners
are those who betrayed
their masters. Their
cries cannot be heard,
for they are buried fully
under the ice.
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| At
the very bottom of Hell,
in the center of the
glacier, buried up to his
hairy waist, is Satan.
The Lord of Evil is
a twisted monster of his
once-heavenly status as a
Seraphem. His six
wings beat endlessly,
causing the chill wind
throughout Treachery.
He has three heads,
each gnawing on one of
the three greatest
sinners in history:
Brutus, Cassius,
and Judas Isacariot.
Those who betrayed
their benevolent masters
are all damned here
together with the
original traitor, Satan.
Virgil helps you
climb Satan's mangy hide
to a break in the base of
the glacier. You
shiver with afterthoughts
and leave this heirarchy
of torment. You
continue onto Purgatory
and salvation. |
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