The Poem

Papacy vs Holy Roman Empire

Papal claimed authority over government.

HRE said only church

Wanted Italy united into one central state

Giant funnel-like hole created when Satan was cast from H heaven

Increasingly..

Hateful

Spiteful

Offensive

Murderous

Traitorous

Punishments

At the age of 35

1300 (Jubilee) on Good Friday

Leopard

But I am not like Aeneis and St. Paul before him

Waving banners with nothing on them around

Those who didn’t use intellect or were uncommitted

(worms eat their blood and tears)

Fallen angels

(Pope Celestine)

Acheron

river of sorrow

Ferryman to hell proper- tells Dante to leave because his boat can’t handle it and (still has hope for salvation)

(limbo)-Virtuous pagans, those born before Christianity, unbaptized,

Figures of honor (create their own envisioned afterlife)-Homer, Ovid, Horace, Lucan group salutes Dante as one of theirs.

Philosophers- Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Aristotle…

Castle with Seven walls and Moats

Second circle

(lustful)

Minos hears souls confess sins and wraps tail around him to cast the damned.

Meets Paolo and Francesca

Tossed and whirled by the winds of passion. Cleopatra, Dido, Helen, Tristan…

Third Circle

(Gluttons)

Mud and mire guarded by Cerberus-three headed dog Meets Ciacco (the hog)-with negative prophecies about the fate of Florence-defeat and expulsion of one party.

Plutus

(wealth of God and riches)-as descending to circle 4

Fourth Circle

(Hoarders and Wasters)

Move giant boulders around at one another saying ”why do you hoard?’’ "why do you waste?’…

Fountain of strange, dark water…

Marsh to River Styx (river of hate)

Separates upper from middle rings

Wrathful

Open and Violent Hatred

Accosted by Filipo Argenti

Fight and battle one another (striking and biting)

More souls under water making bubbles with their cries

Sullen

lives are sullen-choke on own rage

Phlegius

Ferryman to Dys

Site of poets anger, enter boat

City of Dys

Violent

Strike out at each other

Filipo Argenti

NO LONGER feels pity

Delay for help

Virgil cannot move forward (human reason isn’t enough to transcend)

Furies

(Greek mythology).. Snake haired females…

Virgil hides Dante’s eyes from Medusa

Circle Six

(Violence and Heretics)

Thousands in Burning tombs

Ferinata Uberti (ghibbilene enemy)

Cavalcante di cavalcanti-Father of friend Guido

Descent into deep valley with Minotaur

Centaur-Virgil seeks guidance to cross Dante ..

Volunteers Nesses

Circle Seven

(Violence)

against..

Neighbors, murderers, and the makers of war

Selves-suicides

God, Art, and Nature

Phlegathon

Boiling blood

Where those violent against neighbors, tyrants, and war-makers reside,

Depth of river according to sin.

Sinners shot with arrow and brought back to proper depth.

Second Round

(suicides)

Pier Della Vigna

      Judgement day:

Bodies will remain suspended on the trees that took their owners

Third round

Capaneous

(blasphemer)

Blasphemers, Sadomites, and usurers

 Brunetto Latini-asks for them not to stop walking so he won’t have to sit in the fire for 100 years.

Prophecy about coming exhile

Dante expresses love for his teacher

Only a few scholars can be mentioned and all were accused of sodomy.

Political allusions to famous Guelphs.

Dante is becoming numb to sins and sinners.

Geryon

(symbol of fraud)

Face of man, body half reptile, half hairy beast with scorpion stinger.

Circle 8

(10 Chasms/ditches/pouches)

Panderers

Used others to serve their own purposes.

Walking in both directions and lashed by whips

Benedico Cachelenico-brought sister to serve desires of the marquee…

Jason- and Medea-seduce, impregnate, and leave.

 Flatterers

Channel of excrement and sewage

Allexio del luca, Theas-a whore

Simonists

Used position in church to sell things for personal, financial gain

Upside down in baptismal fonts with souls of feet on fire Pope Nicolas III who mistakes Dante for Boniface

Fortune Tellers and Diviners

Sinners of Graft

Hypocrites

religious men damned to walk endlessly in a circle wearing glittering leaden robes

Caiaphas crucified on ground and all other sinners must step on him to pass.

Two jovial friars tell the way to the seventh pouch where

Thieves

Have their hands cut off and spend eternity with vipers that transform them into serpents by biting them

They must bite another sinner to take back a human form.

Evil Counselors

Sowers of discord

Mutilated bodies

Mohammed and Ali walking in a circle

wounds knit only to be opened again…

Falsifiers

Ninth Circle

Giant Frozen Lake-Cacytus

Sinners are stuck

Dante believes he sees towers but these end up being the giants

Anteis-takes on palm and places at the bottom of well

First Round

Caina

Frozen up to their necks in ice

Second Round

Antineura

Frozen closer to heads

Dante Kicks Traitor in head and Traitor won’t tell name and Dante treats him savagely

Story of Count Aquillino gnawing the head and neck Archbishop Rugieri and his treatment of him in the upperworld

Third Round

Ptolemeia

Traitors to guests

Soul begs him to take the ice visors formed from tears out of eyes

Dante promises to do so but after hearing story refuses.

Fourth Round

Final pit of hell

Traitors to Masters fixed in ice.

Satan, three heads, each of which is chewing a traitor-Judas, Brutus, and cassias