Let The Punishment Fit The Crime: An Analysis Of The Landscapes Of The Circles Of Hell

We’ve all heard the saying, “I’m just a pilgrim on a journey home”, eluding to our life as pilgrims on earth journeying home to heaven. But in Dante’s Inferno, he is referred to as the “Pilgrim” journeying through hell and back illustrating sin and its effect on our soul’s journey toward God. Hell is shaped like a funnel with the nine levels circling down to the pit of hell. Said to be formed when Lucifer fell from heaven, he now resides at the bottom of hell with the worst of the worst sinners. Each circle is reserved for those who have committed a specific sin and thus are subject to a deserved punishment.

Before Dante and Virgil go through the gates they come to a place known as “nowhere”. Souls of the dammed go here after they die and are either brought to hell by Charon across the river or stay here because they never explicitly chose good or evil and thus have no blame and no praise. These shades, as the sinners are called, are forced to run naked behind a banner being stung over and over again by wasps and hornets. Because they were unable to choose in life they are forced to furiously chase after something they never attained for eternity. From here, some souls are brought across the River Acheron, or River of Woe, by Charon. They enter into the upper levels of hell where those who have committed passive sins stay.

The first circle of hell is Limbo. This circle is reserved for those who never knew Christ and those who died without having been baptized but never sinned. They receive a passive punishment of eternal life without the possibility of salvation through God. They live comfortably in a castle away from the darkness and physical pain unknown to them that so many are suffering below them. The second circle is for the Lustful, the first shades he seems being physically punished for the sins they committed on earth. Since in life these shades were unable to control their emotions and flesh they are forever controlled by a tremendous storm – similar to how it would be if your life was constantly determined by volatile emotions. They allowed lust to control and direct their life in the mutual destruction of virtue and purity and now have no control of their direction for the rest of time. The third circle of hell resides the Gluttonous. This circle is guarded by a wretched three-headed dog, Cerberus, who has become Appetite with three insatiable throats. He becomes distracted from guarding the entrance when Virgil tempts him by throwing food up to him. The shades, as the sinners are called, are stuck in the mud of filth and muck while vicious dirty rain and hail berate them. In life they over-indulged in lavish food and drink, filling themselves to the brim. This kind of excess can be grotesque in and of itself, leading to waste. For their punishment, they are forced to live in this waste, without fulfillment, that they spent their life accumulating.

The fourth circle is the first time we see two different, yet similar, types of people: The Misers and Prodigals. These were people who were either a penny pincher, the misers, who would have been overly stingy with money or someone who recklessly wastes money, the prodigals – often beyond their means. The guardian of this circle is Plutus, the god of wealth. He shouts gibberish at Dante and Virgil, but Virgil protects Dante. This meaningless gibberish could imply that while wealth and status can protect you on earth, once you die it too becomes meaningless. The shades in the fourth circle of hell are subject to pushing large rocks around aimlessly bumping into one another. They would push stones against one another screaming, “Why hoard?” and “Why waste?”, both trying to defend the two ends of the spectrum they live on. They are stuck forever pushing the larger burdens of a materialistic lifestyle they adapted during their lives. The fifth circle of hell is kept for the Wrathful and the Sullen, those that allowed themselves to anger and hostility to take over their emotions, relationships, and lives. Similar to the River Acheron to enter into the circles of passive sin, this fifth circle is the River Styx that Dante and Virgil must cross, with the help of Phlegyas, to exit the circles of passive sin and enter into the circles of active sin. Along the banks and emerging from the dingy waters of the rivers are the actively wrathful, those who were loud and outspoken, they now fight tooth-and-nail against others along the surface of the mud as they fought in life. The more reservedly angry and gloomy are completely submerged beneath the waters and choke on the mud. Just how in life they pushed down their temper and had to fight for the freedom of peace, they now fight for the freedom to breathe – drowning in what they filled their life with. Before Dante and Virgil enter into the sixth circle of hell they have to pass through the wall surrounding the City of Dis. In the sixth circle lie the heretics, those who have denied the faith in one way or another. Now for eternity, they are encased in burning tombs. They spent their life turning away from the teachings of the Church and God, as punishment they are engulfed in a fire, a metaphor for God’s love, that they cannot escape. Some heretics here believed that pleasure was the ultimate goal of life and there was no true soul, that everything dies with the body. They learn quite the opposite when they experience the physical burning in the fire.

The seventh circle is the first place that Dante and Virgil encounter a circle with multiple

rings. The entire circle houses those who were violent in life, separated by who they committed violence against. The first ring is those who were violent to others in life through war, robbery, murder, etc. Here they are drowning in boiling blood which represents the blood that they shed in life. The second ring is those who were violent against themselves, who committed suicide. They are transformed into trees, reduced to bleeding and weeping, without leaves. It reflects their lack of appreciation of their bodies in life, that they will never be returned to them in hell. The last ring of the seventh circle is further broken into three smaller rings of Blasphemers, Sodomites, and Usurers, all those that were violent against God in life. This ring is a chaotic mess of burning sand, raining fire, and rivers of blood. The Blasphemers lie on their backs in the scorching sand, the Usurers were tightly crouched on the ground, and the Sodomites wander in circles.

The eighth circle is the most intricate and expansive with ten “Evil Pockets” or Bolgia. The first bolgia are the Pimps and Panderers having to run away from horned devils whipping and lashing them, in life they motivated their subjects by threats of violence and now they must endure the violence they enacted. The second bolgia is the Flatterers, submersed in human excrement, living in the filth that represents the words and lies they told throughout life. The third bolgia holds the Simonists, those who traded graces and ecclesiastical offices for money, whom Dante expresses particular dislike for. Buried upside down in large holes carved into the rocks with fire dancing around their feet, these sinners endure a “baptism by fire” with the blaze of their flame proportional to the guilt which they suffer. In the fourth bolgia are the Soothsayers whose heads are turned completely around. In life, they desired to foretell the future, so in death, they are forced to face and walk backward. The fifths evil bolgia holds the Barrators, crooked politicians whose hands were in everyone’s pockets for gain. They spend eternity in a bubbling, boiling vat of pitch which is sticky and dark like the hands and secrets they used in life to steal and corrupt. The sixth bolgia is reserved for the Hypocrites who slowly march in a single file line while wearing long heavy robes, symbolizing what you see on the outside is falsely covering the truth within. The seventh bolgia is a terrible confusion of serpents and sinners – specifically the Thieves. These sinners are continuously being bitten by snakes, turned to ash, and regenerated into a human form again never truly finding a home. In the same way, they stole from those around them in life – they have their bodies stolen over and over again. The eight bolgia is filled with Deceivers who did not personally deceive, instead, they caused others to deceive. As punishment, their souls are contained in flickering flames shaped like tongues to represent their tongues that were used to mislead. In the ninth bolgia, Dante is taken aback by the ghastly sight of mutilated sinners – the Sowers of Scandal and Schism. They walk around in a circle and are cut open by the devil’s sword only to heal and be reopened at each turn. In life, they created rifts and factions in the world and so in hell, they physically suffer what they caused. The final bolgia is for various Falsifiers. Falsifiers of things, persons, money, and words were all diseases in society and thus receive various diseases and deformities in hell.

The final ninth circle of Hell is not a fiery pit of lava as one would think. Rather, it is a frozen lake filled with Traitors. Similar to the eighth circle, the ninth is also further separated into four regions. The first, Caina, are traitors to kin whose bodies are frozen in the ice as their souls are made of ice, the only way Dante says someone could commit such a crime. The second, Antenora, are traitors to homeland who are also encased in the ice but cannot bow their necks like those in Caina. The third, Tolomea, are traitors to guests and associates who lie on their backs facing up as their weeping tears freeze in their eyes. And finally, in the pit of the earth where Lucifer resides are traitors to benefactors. Here the three-headed Lucifer is chewing on the worst sinner of mankind: Judas Iscariot, and Brutus and Cassius. These sinners represent the destruction and betrayal of not only human political power but also Divine power.

The theme of justice is prominent throughout the poem. It is not cruel and unusual punishment used just for the shock factor of their descriptions. Each sin, as we have seen, elicits a punishment that truly does fit the crime they have committed. Contrapasso means “to suffer the opposite” and is seen throughout the poem. Sometimes the sinner becomes the epitome of their sin while some endure the violence of sin they inflicted on others in their life.