Suffering in Dante\'s Inferno

Dante

It's early fourteenth century and Dante is traveling along life's path and finds himself in a dark wood being accosted by a leopard, a she-wolf and a lion. He is having difficulty finding his path and is only at last rescued by Virgil, a Roman poet. However, Virgil's rescue of Dante is one that Dante may not wish to have happen, since now they have to travel through the underworld and visit Hell. What is really ironic about Dante's journey is that in traveling to Hell he has to pass through a series of circles symbolizing other worlds. These worlds are where people who die will go to receive punishment for their sins in this life. The punishments they find in these different worlds (or levels) of Hell are meted out to fit the crime, the sinners are meant to suffer in equal portion to the committed sins.

An example of equal suffering to equal sin comes to Dante even before he and Virgil have even entered Hell. On the outskirts of Hell is a no man's land. This is where all those people who never took a stand in life end up. They did no evil, but neither did they do any good. It was also the place where those angels who had not taken a stand for good or for evil before the world was created are banished to. In other words, they pursued only their own self-interest. For following their own motives they were punished by wasps and hornets who sting and bite them. The sting and bites of the insects most likely symbolizes the sting and bite of the individual conscience.

Once Virgil and Dante cross the river Acheron they are in Hell. Hell is set up in 9 circles, each one more punishing than the other, and each one contains certain types of sinners. Once again the punishments doled out in each circle are punishments that fit the sins committed. The circles are also categorized based on different types of sins. The first five circles will cause suffering along the same line as the self-indulgent sinner, circles 6 and 7 are for those people who committed violence against others or themselves, and the last two circles leading to Satan are for malicious sins. Each circle progressively contains more suffering than the one preceding it.

The first circle contains all those who did not accept Christ, but were righteous in their conduct. Their suffering is the lack of hope that they have to continually experience. The lack of hope means that they cannot enter into heaven but have to live without the spirit of Christ.

The second circle is for those sinners who committed lustful sins. The suffering they have to endure for time and eternity is that they are blown by the wind, here and fro, with no hope of any respite, much like how lust affects their physical bodies, the wind affects their spiritual ones.

The third circle contains those souls who were gluttonous in real life. Their suffering is to have to lie in a slimy waste created by an icy cold rain. The fourth circle is for two types of sinners. One type are those people who were stingy and those who hoarded their possessions and the other type were those that totally wasted their possessions. Many consider the suffering found in the fourth circle to be the most ironic. Each group has to push heavy weights until they meet someone from the other group, they then yell at each other "why do you squander" or "why do you hoard?"

The fifth circle is for those sinners who were angry in real life. They must suffer with the knowledge that they can find no joy in anything. The sinners in this circle are held captive in the river Styx and are constantly fighting against each other, still sporting their everlasting anger.

The suffering for sinners in circles 6 and 7 are based on the sins of heresy and violence. Ironically enough, the heretic is confined to a burning tomb while the violent sinners in circle 7 have three degrees of punishment and suffering. The first degree is for people who committed violence against people or animals and these sinners have to suffer through eternity being immersed in a boiling river. The second degree if for sinners who have committed violence against themselves, and they are suffering by being a thorny bush or tree which are fed on by Harpies. The final degree is for those who are blasphemers and sodomites. They have to suffer through eternity confined to a flaming desert with flakes of fire constantly falling on them.