The Divine Comedy (canto IV): Lust

It seems you can get over the river and through the first ring of hell before you are actually judged. Well that's not completely accurate, clearly you have been ajudged to be a somewhat lacking in virtue humanoid, after all you have been condemned to hell. But as of yet you have not been assigned your rightful place in hell. So if you get as far as the borderline between ring one (limbo) and ring two (lust) you will encounter Minos.

Minos will wrap his tail around his body signifying the appropriate circle of the Inferno for you, somewhere between circle two and ring nine. There are no really good explanations nor any manuals that explain how double-sinners are dealt with. It is unclear if you get dual citizenship to two or more rings of hell. I guess it's the mystery which makes it all the more worse.

But enough of these preliminaries, let us get to some crime and punishment. The second circle of hell is reserved for those who have committed sins of lust. Seen in the medieval mind as a betrayal of reason, those who have sin through lust have allowed themselves to be swayed by desire and have had their lives rules by giving into lust. In the second circle it is always light, no darkness to hide you or your sins, hell you might try it again. But the chief punishment here is a gale force wind that pushes the lustful sinner about constantly. Metaphorically the lust blew you about in life and pushed you off the course of reason and purity; therefore, you will be pummeled for eternity by the wrathful winds of the Inferno. The winds are unquenchable, just as were your unbounded lustful desires. Actually, a fairly tame punishment for lust; but a I guess after an eon or two, even a big wind can get really annoying.

Next, I may need to take a divine break from the Inferno, I am about to begin traveling again and distracting myself with other deadly sins. Best to convert our inspection of Dante to an ongoing project. Besides the cards and letters keep coming in wanting a more light-hearted tenor to the blog. I wonder if these folks don't click on enough of my embedded links.

The Divine Comedy (canto III): Limbo

The picture above pictures Dante and his guide Virgil conversing with Ovid, Homer and Horace before the castle of Limbo. Its seems that the first ring of hell (limbo) is not such a bad place. In the Christian view none of the horrific punishments to be dealt out in the subsequent circles of hell can hold a beeswax candle to not being in the presence of the lord. So the first ring of hell is actually quite a nice place environmentally; lots of green fields and a cool seven-sided castle, just no direct contact with the supreme being.

In Limbo we find virtuous pagans, unbaptized babies and everyone who lived and died before the birth of christ.* This includes the pictured philosophers above as well as Julius Caesar, Socrates, Aristotle, even Virgil himself. Apparently even in the 12th century there was a celebrity culture, but at least back then philosophers were valued more highly than NBA players or movie stars.

As far as the Circles of Hell are concerned, Limbo provides the best example of how historical interpretation determines the "truth" of contemporary doctrine. When I was growing up in a nominally catholic tradition, limbo was the place where unbaptized babies went, never to have the chance to enter heaven. Limbo, in this story, was not part of hell but rather some spiritual cul-de-sac. However, as we see in The Divine Comedy, Limbo is clearly in The Inferno but in a very balmy neighborhood, who knew? A few years back the catholic church decided that limbo didn't really exist because it was an "unduly restrictive view of salvation." Apparently the infallible teachings of about thirty or so popes was not exactly spot on and now the whole notion of limbo has been banished to ... well, limbo.

So just to be clear. There is an antechamber (wasps and hornets) to hell, which is not a waiting room because you never get in and the first ring of hell may not actually exist. Does this mean that unwitting new arrivals, jangled by the boat ride with an apparently argumentative Charon, might these newly condemned souls step into the void that once was limbo and plummet out of The Inferno into? Where exactly do you go when you are cast out of hell? Ponder that one until tomorrow.

Next time some real punishment in the Second Ring of Hell - Lust.

*Pondering the statement: everyone who lived and died before the birth of christ. I wondered just how crowded Limbo would be and tried to google an answer to the question: "Approximately how many people lived before Anno Domini?" Not surprisingly this depends on whether you are a old time religion person or an evolutionist. The numbers changed based on how many children families had in 2500 BCE and whether Noah lived to be 900 years old; and then there is the matter of the great flood, the drowning of nine billion and the near extinguishment of the human race. Anyways, Limbo is crowded but I hear they are adding an eighth side to the castle with condos overlooking the second circle of hell (lust), which actually might be a selling point; either that or they are moving the whole thing to Las Vegas and changing its name to City Center basically the same view.

---

photo credit: worldofdante.org

The Divine Comedy (canto II): Rings of Hell

Cartography and cosmology merge and mingle in Dante's Divine Comedy; not to mention allegory, mythology, social critique and farce. The story begins on the eve of Good Friday in 1300, Dante himself is led through the various quarters and precincts of The Inferno by Virgil. The Divine Comedy is both a poetic look at the medieval christian view of heaven and hell, as well as a heavily veiled commentary on the politicians and power brokers of the world circa 1300-1350. It has also been suggested that Dante was depressed, to use our contemporary diagnosis, perhaps even suicidal. The writing of the Divine Comedy was then a literary journey of his own soul back to the light of the divine. Or he was hoping for a screenplay adaptation with up front points.

Hell was apparently found inside the earth and comes divided into nine rings and believe it or not-an antechamber! Sort of a pre-hell. There reside those cherubs who took no sides in the Rebellion of Angels (you remember the revolt against God led by Satan). Apparently, there were a fair number of angels who chose to wait out the conflict to see who won; this is never a good strategy in an allegorical war, in fact, it is the one way to get screwed no matter who wins. So these wishy-washy angels hang out just across the river from hell with the souls of humans who did nothing noteworthy in their lives and have neither good nor evil marks on their personal tabula rasa.

Sin it seems is punished metaphorically in or near the Inferno. The punishment is real, assuming you buy the entire cosmology here but the particular slings and arrows are apportioned by infraction and carry their own significance. In the anteroom of hell, for instance, the hesitant angels and ethical couch potatoes are stung my hornets and wasps which serve as metaphors for the sting of their consciences. It's poetry remember.

Following the waiting room of hell, we encounter another well known image, the river Acheron (not the river Styx that's another waterway of the Inferno) and the boatman Charon to carry the damned to hell or in this case the tourist Dante and his dead poet Virgil. Charon puts up a fiery fuss over taking a live human into hell, but Virgil utters some words of wisdom ("This is not the human you are looking for...) and they are allowed to be ferried cross the mersey or some such.

Next, the first actual ring of hell: Limbo.

The Divine Comedy (canto I)

This post is not a reflection on my life, the presidency of Barack Obama, the state of humanity nor the entropy of the universe. Tis only that once again I have noticed the influx of a certain metaphor into my consciousness; mere happenstance? synchronicity? who knows? However, in the past week or so I have encountered references far outside any explanatory statistical relevance to Dante, the Rings of Hell, Purgatorio and the Divine Comedy. At some point the light bulb went on and I wondered just what I still knew or had long forgotten about this masterwork of 12th century poet Dante Alighieri.

So I danced around the interwebs first focused on the dauntingly inviting "Rings of Hell" and then onto the complete work of The Divine Comedy and Dante himself. Time to share some of what I uncovered. I'm not really sure how far I am will pursue this line of inquiry, we certainly are going to wander through the nine rings of hell, whether we get to seven to ten levels of Purgatory or ultimately to Paradise, well stay tuned.

Let's begin with some general story notes and observations. The Divine Comedy is presented in three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. Basically, those translate to hell, purgatory and heaven. There are many more contemporary literary and social references to The Inferno then there are to either Purgatorio or Paradiso, which has got to say something about our collective darker side. I know I was first drawn to the whole Rings of Hell imagery. Purgatory is so, well, intermediary; sort of a spirtual cul de sac. Paradiso, on the other hand, just never came up in my initial cerebral percolation. Where the hell is some good old fashioned ecstasy when you need it!

(Sorry. I bit distracted there for a moment. Self reflection don't ya know. Meanwhile, back in Hades...)

Speaking of the infamous Rings. Dante viewed hell as a series of ever more vehement levels of sin, depravity and punishment. You will see when we explore those circles in detail that his reflection of medieval european sensibilities was not so far from those that vex our humanoid morality today. Some things just never change, despite the best efforts of the sane and the profane.

Before encountering The Inferno, I would point out that Dante lived roughly seven hundred years ago (approx. 1265-1321), therefore a great deal of what we think we know about him comes from later exegesis of his life and work. Mind you the first biography of Dante was written some two hundred years after his death, so all of what we think we know is influenced by historical writing and commentary. Dante was a poet and scholar of the late Medieval period but our first full biography of his life was written two centuries later in the near full flower of the Renaissance. That being said, an additional five hundred years have not diminished the impact of The Divine Comedy still considered the poetic masterwork of Italian literature. How many "great" authors of today will we be reading in 2709?

One final introductory mote of interest. Dante called his original work Comedy (Commedia), the 'Divine' was not appended until nearly two hundred years after his death. While it would appear on the surface that a major work constructed on the prevailing ecclesiastical themes of heaven and hell would be considered a religious work; in fact, Dante was using the religious metaphor to criticize and ridicule the political and religious figures of his time. The veil of the heaven-purgatory-hell imagery was both a literary vehicle as well as some social protection from the slings and excommunicatory arrows of his satirical targets.

Next time: a few Rings of Hell