National Epics
By Kate Milner Rabb
The Divine Comedy - The Hell
The Hell conceived by Dante was made by the falling of Lucifer to the centre of the earth. It was directly under Jerusalem. The earth, displaced by Lucifer’s fall, made the Mount of Purgatory, which was the antipodes of Jerusalem.
The unbarred entrance gate, over which stands the inscription, “Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here,” leads into a Vestibule, or Ante-Hell, a dark plain separated from Hell proper by the river Acheron. Hell proper then falls into three great divisions for the punishment of the sins of Incontinence, Bestiality, and Malice, which are punished in nine circles, each circle sub-divided. Circle One is the Limbo of the Unbaptized. Circles Two, Three, Four, and Five are reserved for the punishment of the sins of Incontinence, Lasciviousness, Gluttony, Avarice with Prodigality, and Anger with Melancholy. In Circle Six is punished the sin of Bestiality, under which fall Infidelity and Heresiarchy, Bestiality having here its Italian meaning of folly. In Circles Seven and Eight is punished Malice, subdivided into Violence and Fraud. There are three divisions of Violence,–the Violent against their neighbors (Tyrants, Murderers, etc.); the Violent against themselves (Suicides); and the violent against God (Blasphemers, etc.); and ten divisions of Circle Eight,–Fraud, i.e., Seducers, Flatterers, Simoniacs, Soothsayers, Barrators, Hypocrites, Thieves, False Counsellors, Schismatics, and Forgers and Falsifiers. Below these ten pits yawns the well of the giants, above which the giants tower so that half their persons is visible. Within this well in Circle Nine is Cocytus, a lake of ice divided into four belts,–Caina, Antenora, Ptolemaea, and Judecca, where are punished, respectively, the Betrayers of their kindred, of their country, of their friends and guests, and of their benefactors. At the bottom of the pit is Lucifer, half above the ice and half below it, the centre of his body being the centre of gravity.
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