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Dante’s journey through ‘Inferno’ (or Hell) begins just short of Good Friday, on Maundy Thursday. Told from his own perspective, Dante is the main character of the poem.
Dante passes through nine concentric circles of Hell, each worse than the last. Each circle addresses and punishes a particular sin, with a series of characters. Dante is accompanied by a guide, Virgil.
Virgil, a famous Roman poet, represents human reasoning in Dante’s work. Dante admired the historical figure and placing him as his ‘guide’ was an intentional choice as Virgil represented, to Dante, a figure that aspired to greatness.
The nine circles consist of: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Malebolge (or fraud), and Treachery. Each circle contains increasingly severe punishments.
The first circle of Hell, Limbo, is for those who were not baptized or come from non-Christian faiths. Here, Dante meets the unbaptized, those who lived before Christ, Jews of the Old Testament, notable Islamic scholars, and various philosophers (including the ancient Greeks), among other important figures.
In the first circle, the inhabitants aren’t condemned to intense suffering, as they aren’t considered particularly sinful. Instead, their punishment is “living in desire” of salvation, or rather, eternal exclusion from heaven.
The lesson here from Dante, who held a strong Christian worldview, is that faith is essential. Without faith, people will be condemned to an eternal longing for salvation.
Taking out the Christian framework, we can still obtain a number of important lessons from Limbo. Firstly, the importance of garnering a sense of purpose. The inhabitants of Limbo are sentenced to eternal longing for something unattainable and live in a permanent state of emptiness.
Without having the longing to understand or address greater questions of our own purpose, engaging existential questions, we may be left with a void. In some ways, Limbo also highlights the dangers of complacency.
In the second circle of Hell, Lust, there's a perpetual storm with hurricane-like winds. There, Dante identifies important historical figures, such as Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, and Achilles, among many others.
Inhabitants of Lust are souls that engaged in promiscuity and adultery, among other similar sins. The windstorm, uncontrollable and wild, represents the Earthy behavior of those condemned to Lust.
The lesson here from Dante is the danger of the sin of excess. The pleasure that inhabitants of Lust seek is destructive, much like the wind they are condemned to. Therefore, Dante highlights the danger of desire and lack of control.
Through his journey in the second circle of Hell, Dante warns us of impulsive behavior driven by a desire for immediate gratification. In Lust, the inhabitants have no sense of control, lacking stability in all senses. Here, he calls for rationality and controlled impulses.
The third circle of Hell is Gluttony. There, inhabitants live in freezing and filthy conditions with snow, rain, and hail. They are tormented by a three-headed dog named Cerberus, a character inspired by Greek mythology.
Cerberus constantly attacks Gluttony’s inhabitants. They are partially immobile due to the environmental conditions, representing a lack of spiritual alignment due to their overindulgence in pleasures such as food and drink.
In the fourth circle of Hell, Greed, Dante meets the souls of those who accumulated and hoarded excessive wealth in their lives. Greed also includes those who wasted all their wealth.
Dante likely drew inspiration from the myth of Sisyphus, who was condemned by the god to perpetually push a bolder uphill forever. In Greed, those who accumulated excessive wealth push boulders in a fruitless cycle.
Those who wasted away wealth, do the same, except their boulders crash into each other. Here, Dante highlights the nature of the inhabitants’ Earthly behavior; wasteful, frustrating, and pointless existences.
The fifth circle of Hell, Wrath, is for those who expressed both outward anger or allowed anger to perpetually boil inside them. The environment is a dirty, swampy river.
The wrathful (who expressed outward anger or violence) are condemned to eternal battles among each other within the murky river. They are trapped in perpetual rage, much like their Earthly behavior. The sullen (consumed by internal rage that they kept bottled up inside), are suffocating under the water, forever submerged in the river. Their Earthly emotional repression continues eternally.
Dante’s message about uncontrolled anger, whether leading to external violence or emotional paralysis, points to how such behavior is destructive, damaging the soul. This cautions readers to control one’s own emotions and now allow them to fester inside.
The sixth circle of Hell is Heresy, a circle reserved for heretics, or those whose beliefs go against those of the Catholic Church. Their graves are engulfed by flames, condemning them to eternal suffering.
Here, Dante points to heresy’s destruction of the soul and spiritual blindness. Not only were they non-believers, but they led others down their destructive path. Beyond the religious sense, Heresy also highlights the importance of not distorting truth just because it fits your ideology.
It's hard to imagine how the circles can get much worse, but the seventh circle of Hell, Violence, consists of three rings. The outer ring of Violence is for murderers and thugs—those who committed violence against others. They are submerged in a boiling river of blood. The worse their offense, the more submerged they are. The lesson for those in the first ring of Violence is that the punishment for causing harm is eternal, forever damaging the soul. This highlights the moral responsibility we have towards others.
The middle ring of Violence is where those who have committed violence against themselves inhabit. There, they are trees and are gnawed upon by insects. The only thing they are able to express is the pain they feel when gnawed on. Otherwise, they are silenced. The lesson in the middle ring is, from a Christian perspective, the “denial of God’s gift of life.” Inhabitants become trees because they reject their human existence. Removed from the Christian paradigm, this lesson is about how life should be preserved and all forms of self-destruction should be avoided.
The inner ring of Violence is for blasphemers and for those who commit “sins against nature and God.” There are different conditions for each group depending on their level of sin. The lesson of the inner ring is about violating the Christian order and punishing what is considered unnatural.
The eighth circle of hell, Malebolge, refers to various forms of fraud. For Dante, the reason fraud is worse than violence is that it involves manipulation at the expense of others. There are 10 sections in Malebolge, each with specific punishments.
The first is for seducers and panderers, increasingly worsening to falsifiers. The lesson of this circle is that the manipulation and deceit of others cause irreparable harm to one’s soul.
The reason Malebolge is seen as so severe and harmful is that it hurts not only the victim and the soul of the manipulator but also the society at large, disturbing the moral order.
The ninth and final circle of hell, Treachery, is for those who have committed a betrayal of any sort: against people, the nation, or God. Treachery consists of a frozen lake named Cocytus, symbolizing the coldness of betrayal, and is divided into four regions.
Here, Dante warns us of overindulging in physical pleasures in exchange for spiritual emptiness. He calls for moderation and control in fulfilling our Earthly desires.
Each region represents a severity of betrayal. The first is for those who betrayed their family. The second is for those who betrayed their country. The third is for those who betrayed their guests. Dante regards hospitality as a sacred bond. The fourth is for those who betrayed God.
It is in Treachery that, within the frozen lake, lies Satan. Satan is represented as a three-headed monster. Satan, who in Christian rhetoric betrayed God, is eternally trapped in ice.
The lesson in Treachery is that betrayal requires spiritual and emotional isolation. It’s the gravest sin, worse than violence, fraud, or any other, because it is a heartless act, breaking sacred trust. This act requires emotional coldness, inhumanity, and cruelty, according to Dante, and therefore, damages both individuals and society
Sources: (The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages, Harold Bloom) (Dante’s Inferno, Raymond Angelo Belliotti) (Medium) (University of Leeds) (Columbia University) (Catholic Education Resource Center) (The World of Dante)
See also: Exploring unsolved mysteries about hell in the Bible
Iconic Italian writer Dante Alighieri penned his classic text 'Inferno' during the 14th century, the first part of his famed work, 'The Divine Comedy.' In the text, it is Dante himself navigating Hell. The text provokes profound questions of struggle and aspiration. A masterpiece in its own right, Dante's 'Inferno' forces readers to interrogate how we live in our quest to reach enlightenment by reflecting on, in Dante's case, his quest to reach heaven.
Curious about the many levels of hell and their lessons? Click through the gallery to find out more.
Lessons we can learn from Dante's 'Inferno'
Moral lessons from hell
LIFESTYLE Morality
Iconic Italian writer Dante Alighieri penned his classic text 'Inferno' during the 14th century, the first part of his famed work, 'The Divine Comedy.' In the text, it is Dante himself navigating Hell. The text provokes profound questions of struggle and aspiration. A masterpiece in its own right, Dante's 'Inferno' forces readers to interrogate how we live in our quest to reach enlightenment by reflecting on, in Dante's case, his quest to reach heaven.
Curious about the many levels of hell and their lessons? Click through the gallery to find out more.