A Modern Twist On An Age Old Story
At the age of thirty-five, Dante realizes that he is lost in the dark wood of worldliness, ignorance, and sin.
He tries to escape by climbing a sunlit mountain—an ascent which may signify his quest for enlightenment, or, less likely, his hopes for a better life through philosophy or even a successful career.
His advance is blocked by three beasts which represent evil tendencies: the leopard (lust), the lion (pride), and the wolf (avarice).
As Dante is being driven back down the mountain he meets the shade of Virgil, his ideal poet.
This representative of reason—blurred and dim from long silence, both in the world and in Dante's consideration—declares that the only route of escape is back down through Hell.
That is, one must comprehend evil before one can master it. He also foretells the coming of a world redeemer, a Hound which will drive the wolf of covetousness back into Hell.
Virgil offers to lead Dante through Hell and Purgatory, after which "a soul more worthy" than he would become his guide, for Virgil is not permitted into Heaven. Dante accepts, and they set off on the journey.
Thus begins this journey which is at once personal—a voyage of discovery and revelation for the sake of Dante's salvation— and universal— a moral and spiritual education for all men and women.
THE 9 CIRCLES OF HELL
Earth's surface — the Dark WoodVestibule The inscription above the open Gate of Hell is made especially ominous by the repetition of the words, "Through me," three times. The Vestibule of Hell houses those who were lukewarm in life, neither good nor bad, contributing nothing to human life.
River Acheron
The river Acheron ("joyless") flows between the Vestibule and Hell proper. The banks of Acheron are crowded with souls waiting to be ferried across by Charon, the classical boatman.Circle I, Limbo
Limbo was invented by the early Church fathers to serve as the abode of two groups: the unbaptized children and the virtuous patriarchs of the Old Testament. Dante takes the radical step of adding to these infants and ancient Hebrews a third group, the virtuous pagans. In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the first circle is reserved for: Actresses and Strippers Who “Dated” Billy Bob Thornton; Title Card Designers Who Eschew the Minuscule; ASCs who Recreate the Prom-Dance-Shot from Carrie.
The sins of Circles II through V are in the general category of incontinence (uncontrolled appetite)(as distinct from those of violence and fraud, in lower circles).
Circle II, Carnal Sinners
Illicit lovers in life, Paolo and Francesca [Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta are punished together in hell for their adultery: Francesca was married to Paolo's brother, Gianciotto ("Crippled John"). Francesca's shade tells Dante that her husband is destined for punishment in Caina--the infernal realm of familial betrayal named after Cain, who killed his brother Abel (Genesis 4:8)--for murdering her and Paolo. Francesca was the aunt of Guido Novello da Polenta, Dante's host in Ravenna during the last years of the poet's life (1318-21). She was married (c. 1275) for political reasons to Gianciotto of the powerful Malatesta family, rulers of Rimini. Dante may have actually met Paolo in Florence (where Paolo was capitano del popolo--a political role assigned to citizens of other cities--in 1282), not long before he and Francesca were killed by Gianciotto.)] are condemned to an eternity of exactly what they would hope for—floating on the wind in each other's arms.
In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the second circle is reserved for: Cast and Crew of Charlie’s Angels and Charlie’s Angels II; Actresses Who Lie about Their Birthdates.Circle III, Gluttons
Gluttony, the second sin of incontinence, has none of the potential charm of lust. It makes beasts of men, deprives them completely of their individuality, and is punished by eternal groveling in mire and filth. Whereas lust has the possibility of companionship, here each is alone in his degradation, cold and miserable.
Circle IV, Prodigal and Avaricious
Plutus, the classical god of wealth, guards those who loved money, and their insubstantiality. He appears as a personification of the prodigal and avaricious, who always hunger for more than they are entitled to. Rolling huge weights in a futile, incomplete shifting of substance back and forth, they demonstrate how in life they hindered the operation of Fortune, an angellic intelligence whose purpose is to circulate goods among people and power among nations. These sinners prevented the flow of goods by hoarding or squandering, and their just contrapasso is to parody the complete circle which they never fostered in life. On the surface are muddy figures furiously attacking each other, while the more sullen ones, those who kept their wrath bottled up inside themselves, are sunk beneath the surface in filthy slime.PLUTUS
In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the fourth circle is reserved for: Has-Been Comics Who Believe They Can Act; Washed-up Actors Starring in Comedies.Circle V, Wrathful and Sullen
Wrath and sullenness are basically two forms of a single sin: anger that is expressed (wrath) and anger that is repressed (sullenness). This idea that anger takes various forms is common in ancient and medieval thought. Note how the two groups suffer different punishments appropriate to their type of anger--the wrathful ruthlessly attacking one another and the sullen stewing below the surface of the muddy swamp (Inf. 7.109-26)--even though they are all confined to Styx.
William Blake's Wrathful and SullenIn The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the fifth circle is reserved for:Comics Who Apologize.Phlegyas [ In a fit of rage, Phlegyas set fire to the temple of Apollo because the god had raped his daughter. Apollo promptly slew him. Phlegyas, whose own father was Mars (god of war), appears in Virgil's underworld as an admonition against showing contempt for the gods (Aen.6.618-20) ], personification of anger and fury, races across the water in his skiff in order to ferry the next wrathful soul to its place in Styx. The travellers now confront a great wall which encloses the city of Dis, marking the boundary between upper and lower Hell. The sinners they have seen so far have been guilty of sins of incontinence, lack of restraint on their passions, but the sins of those below are more significant and permanent. Just within the walls, in the sixth circle, they will meet the heretics, who are not merely impulsive like the sinners above, but evilly disposed.
Marsh of StyxWalls of Dis
Just within the walls, in the sixth circle, they will meet the heretics, who are not merely impulsive like the sinners above, but evilly disposed.
Circle VI, Heretics
The sin of heresy is the only sin punished in Hell which is specifically Christian. All others are potential moral failings for any human.Dante opts for the most generic conception of heresy--the denial of the soul's immortality (Inf.10.15)--perhaps in deference to spiritual and philosophical positions of specific characters he wishes to feature here, or perhaps for the opportunity to present an especially effective form of contrapasso: heretical souls eternally tormented in fiery tombs.
In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the sixth circle is reserved for: Writer-Directors.
River PhlegethonLiterally a "river of fire" (Aen. 6.550-1), Phlegethon is the name Dante gives to the river of hot blood that serves as the first ring of circle 7: spillers of blood themselves, violent offenders against others are submerged in the river to a level corresponding to their guilt. Dante does not identify the river--described in detail in Inferno 12.46-54 and 12.100-39--until the travelers have crossed it (Dante on the back of Nessus) and passed through the forest of the suicides. Now they approach a red stream flowing out from the inner circumference of the forest across the plain of sand (Inf. 14.76-84). After Virgil explains the common source of all the rivers in hell, Dante still fails to realize--without further explanation--that the red stream in fact connects to the broader river of blood that he previously crossed, now identified as the Phlegethon (Inf.14.121-35).Circle VII, Violent
The circle of violence is subdivided into three rounds, comprising those who do harm to others, to themselves and to God. The first contains assassins, thieves and tyrants; the second contains the suicides; the third contains blasphemers, sodomites and usurers. While blasphemers are clearly appropriate, the other two deserve some explanation: sodomites do violence against Nature, God's minister; usurers do violence to human industry, the offspring of Nature.
The Minotaur, a bull-man who appears on this broken slope (Inf. 12.11-15), is most likely a guardian and symbol of the entire circle of violence.
Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos of Crete, lusted after a beautiful white bull and asked Daedalus to construct a "fake cow" (Inf. 12.13) in which she could enter to induce the bull to mate with her; Daedalus obliged and the Minotaur was conceived. Minos wisely had Daedalus build an elaborate labyrinth to conceal and contain this monstrosity. To punish the Athenians, who had killed his son, Minos supplied the Minotaur with an annual sacrificial offering of seven Athenian boys and seven Athenian girls. When Ariadne (the Minotaur's half-sister: Inf. 12.20) fell in love with one of these boys (Theseus, Duke of Athens: Inf. 12.16-18), the two of them devised a plan to slay the Minotaur: Theseus entered the labyrinth with a sword and a ball of thread, which he unwound as he proceeded toward the center; having slain the Minotaur, Theseus was thus able to retrace his steps and escape the labyrinth.The Centaur
The Centaur [The Centaurs--men from the waist up with lower bodies of horses--guard the first ring of circle 7, a river of blood in which the shades of murderers and bandits are immersed to varying depths. Armed with bows and arrows, thousands of Centaurs patrol the bank of the river, using their weapons to keep the souls at their allotted depth (Inf. 12.73-5). In classical mythology, the Centaurs are perhaps best known for their uncouth, violent behavior: guests at a wedding, they attempted--their lust incited by wine--to carry off the bride and other women; a fierce battle ensued, described by Ovid in all its gory detail (Met. 12.210-535), in which the horse-men suffered the heaviest losses. Two of the three Centaurs who approach Dante and Virgil fully earned this negative reputation. Pholus, whom Virgil describes as "full of rage" (Inf. 12.72), was one of the combatants at the wedding. Nessus, selected to carry Dante across the river in hell, was killed by Hercules--with a poisoned arrow--for his attempted rape of the hero's beautiful wife, Deianira, after Hercules had entrusted the Centaur to carry her across a river (Nessus avenged his own death: he gave his blood-soaked shirt to Deianira as a "love-charm," which she--not knowing the shirt was poisoned--later gave to Hercules when she doubted his love [Inf. 12.67-9].) Chiron, the leader of the Centaurs, enjoyed a more favorable reputation as the wise tutor of both Hercules and Achilles (Inf. 12.71)] portray the sin of their circle to an extreme degree.
Ring 1 Against Others
The sinners, guilty of violent, bloody acts, fulfill the law of contrapasso by their immersion in a river of boiling blood, the seriousness of their sin dictating how deeply in it they are sunk. Yet the sinners themselves are much less prominent in this canto than their guards, the Centaurs. These half-human, half-animal creatures are appropriate to the bestial nature of the sinners they guard, yet they are depicted with grace and dignity.
Ring 2 Against Themselves
SUICIDE
The dark, thorny wood is home to despairing souls who, having separated themselves from their bodies before the time designated by God, now live in sub-human bodies for eternity. It is fitting that, having destroyed their corporeal selves by using a mobility and freedom unknown to plant life, they should now be clothed in that lower form.
Ring 3 Against God, Natureand ArtThe lowest round of the seventh circle consists of a sandy plain rained upon by eternal fire, clearly signifying the wrath of the God the sinners defied. In one of three categories, all the sinners here went against the divine plan for human existence. Those who were violent against God himself, the blasphemers, lie prostrate, facing the Heaven they scorned. The sodomites, who sinned against God's child, Nature, run ceaselessly, driven by the restlessness of their passion in life. The usurers, sinners against art or industry, God's grandchild, crouch forever over their moneybags.
In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the seventh circle is reserved for:Cast of Friends; Producers and “Writers” of Charlie’s Angels and Charlie’s Angels II; Program Directors at Fox.The beast Geryon to carries them down to the eighth circle. He was a giant with three bodies who possibly ruled Spain, fed the flesh of his guests to his sheep, and was slain by Hercules. Dante's particular creation undoubtedly derives from Revelation 9:7-11 and to Pliny's description of a beast called a Mantichora, which had the face of a man, body of a lion, and tail with a scorpion-like sting (Historia Naturalis, viii, 30).
Circle VIII
Circle VIII, the circle of simple fraud or malice, Malebolge, is divided into ten bolgia, or pockets. Its iron-colored stone leaves no doubt that the sinners we find in the next thirteen cantos are prisoners of their own twisted, morally insensitive devices. Malebolge—evil pouches or pockets —is composed of ten concentric ditches or bolgias, with ridges across them like spokes of a wheel.
This circle is shaped like a great stone amphitheater with a series of stone bridges leading towards a central well over ten concentric ridges or "bolge". Each "bolgia" holds a group of sinners - the first, pimps and seducers are chivvied by horned demons in opposite directions; in the second, flatterers wallow in excrement (figure to the left shows bolge 1 and 2; that on the right depicts 5);the third contains corrupt ecclesiastics, including at least one pope, who are plunged upside down into something resembling a baptismal font, while their feet are "baptized" with flames. False prophets and soothsayers , with their heads twisted completely around, trudge through the fourth. At the fifth, reside the "Malebranche", a group of antic devils, who playfully toss grafters and public swindlers into boiling pitch (Dante's use of grotesque comedy); the sixth holds the hypocrites, who shuffle in single file, weeping from the weary weight of their lead-lined cloaks. In the seventh bolgia, thieves and reptiles (resembling snakes and dragons) merge and remerge; deceivers burn in flames in the eighth; in the ninth, are the sowers of discord, horribly mutilated by a demon with a sword. The tenth, and last bolgia contains the falsifiers who lie stricken with horrible diseases.
Circle VIII, Malebolge, FraudulentBolgia 1, Pimps and SeducersA file of pimps is circling one way and another file of seducers the other, driven by horned demons— horns being the traditional icon of adultery.
Bolgia 2, Flatterers
Dante's disgust with the flatterers in the second bolgia is reflected in the briefness with which he talks to them as a pilgrim, or describes them here as a poet.Crossing from Malebolge to the central pit—a well at the bottom of which lies Cocytus, the ninth circle—Dante seems to see a city in the distance (21-22). As he comes closer he sees that what he took for towers are in fact giants, visible above the rim of the well from the waist up. Only a few of the giants are specifically named. Ephialtes and Briareus were prominent at Phlegra, when the giants threatened the gods. The giants are personifications of pride, and in this they are exceeded only by Satan himself, whom they attend eternally. These are stupendous quantities of nearly unstoppable evil, able to challenge the rulers of creation. Indeed, the enormity these giants and their potential influence is represented by our inability to measure their physical size, or to get a full view of them at any single moment. After their various unsuccessful attempts at assuming ultimate power, they stand impotent and defeated. In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the eighth circle is reserved for: Actors who run for political office, their wives, their ex-wives; Anyone connected in any way whatsoever with "Reality" Television.Bolgia 3, Simonists
The sin of simony, the trafficking in sacred things.The very first words of the canto are an invective against Simon Magus, the magician after whom the sin is named. The sinners are upside down, symbolizing the perverse nature of their sin, and since they have specifically betrayed God's trust—even more than man's, which is secondary—they are burned by the fire of God's anger on the soles of the feet.Bolgia 4, DivinersWhile the stars might have some influence on human dispositions, he holds, such effects were minor and certainly unpredictable.
Bolgia 5, Grafters
The grafters are sunk in boiling pitch, corresponding to the dark, secretive atmosphere in which they used to do their dirty work. The way they scheme and cheat in the attempt to outwit and evade their tormentors is also a continuation of their previous behavior. When the demons—the Malebanche— appear, the sinners duck down below the surface.
Bolgia 6, Hypocrites
Dante observes a line of weeping sinners, clothed in golden cloaks lined with lead. Two of these hypocrites identify themselves as Jovial Friars. the shade of Caiaphas (a hearing was organized by Caiaphas and others in which Jesus was accused of blasphemy. ), crucified and transfixed by three stakes to the floor, so that every sinner here must tread on him. The image is clear: he bears the weight of all the world's hypocrisy, as Christ voluntarily bore the pain of the world's sin.
The Jovial Friars reveal that the travellers have to climb up a rockslide in order to go on, and Virgil realizes that Malacoda lied to him about the bridges over the sixth bolgia, all of which were destroyed in the great earthquake at the moment of Christ's death.
Bolgia 7, Thieves
The travelers complete a difficult ascent up the ruins of the fallen bridge. From the bridge over the seventh bolgia they hear confused sounds from below, and at Dante's request Virgil leads him down into the pit. Here serpents coil about the sinners, binding their hands behind them and knotting themselves through the loins. The analogy is clear: thieves are like serpents or reptiles, and their hands, which are the usual agents of their thievery, are here bound. Dante sees a serpent fly toward a sinner and pierce the jugular vein, at which the sinner bursts into flame, collapses to ashes, and takes shape once more (96-104). Again, just as thieves take away the property of their victims, so they themselves repeatedly undergo disintegration throughout eternity. the sin of thievery utilizes human powers in the service of brute material possession.Bolgia 8, Deceivers
The deceivers or evil counselors are those who in life used their glibness and eloquence to mislead others. Because they possessed and misused higher human capacities than those of previous sinners, such as the thieves of the preceding canto, they have sinned more severely and are placed deeper in Hell. The sinners are wrapped in tongues of fire, which conceal them just as in life their speech concealed their thought.
Bolgia 9, Sowers of Scandal and Schism
The sowers of scandal and schism are divided into three categories: sowers of religious discord, political discord, and discord between kinsmen. All are appropriately hacked to pieces by a demon with a bloody sword, reconstituted, then hacked to pieces again and again for eternity.Bolgia 10, Falsifiers The tenth bolgia is filled with a confusion of falsifiers. The ones described fall into four categories: falsifiers of metals (alchemists), of persons (impersonators), of coin (counterfeiters), of words (liars). All suffer from diseases which change their appearance, just as they themselves tried to change the appearance of things and events in the world. Unlike all other sinners in Hell, the falsifiers are tortured from within themselves, rather than from without. The alchemists afflicted with leprosy, so the impersonators are mad, the counterfeiters have dropsy, and the liars have a fever which makes them smell. These sinners, who falsified nature, themselves, money or language, have basically corrupted their own souls, which are diseased for eternity.Circle IX, Cocytus, Traitors Cocytus [ Dante calls circle 9, a frozen lake, Cocytus (from Greek, meaning "to lament"). One of the rivers in the classical underworld, Cocytus is described by Virgil as a dark, deep pool of water that encircles a forest and into which pours sand spewed from a torrid whirlpool (Aen. 6.131-2; 6.296-7; 6.323). In the Vulgate (the Latin Bible), Cocytus designates the valley (or torrent) of death that receives the wicked, even--and especially--those who have prospered in the world (Job 21:33)], the lake thus formed, is divided into four concentric sections. Caïna, named for Cain, contains traitors to kindred; Antenora, named for the Trojan Antenor, contains traitors to country or party; Ptolomea, probably named for Ptolomy, a captain of Jericho, contains traitors to guests; Judecca, named for Judas, contains traitors to benefactors.The river flowing from the fissure in the Old Man of Crete (Canto XIV), into Malebolge (Canto XVIII), now freezes in a circular plain at the bottom of Hell. The metaphor is clear, for the heart of the traitor was the coldest heart of all.
Circle IX, the circle of complex fraud or malice, is divided into four regions. In the first three sections the sinners are buried in the ice up to their necks, while in the last they are completely submerged. In Caïna, the traitors to kin are permitted to lower their faces, letting them not only conceal their identities, but also shield themselves somewhat from the cold wind and prevent their tears from freezing their eyelids shut. In Antenora, where the treacheries have been against the public welfare and thus are more serious than the private treacheries of Caïna, the sinners' necks are held firmly in the ice and they cannot lower their heads. In Ptolomea, where the sinners violated a chosen friendship—as distinct from an inherited bond of family and country—treachery is punished even more severely, with the head bent uncomfortably back. Finally in Judecca, where the traitors to benefactors have in essence defied the entire structure of human relations, nothing is visible above the ice. Caïna Caina is named after the biblical Cain (first child of Adam and Eve), who slew his brother Abel out of envy after God showed appreciation for Abel's sacrificial offering but not Cain's (Genesis 4:1-17); condemned to a vagabond existence, Cain later built a city (named after his son, Henoch) that for certain Christian theologians--notably Augustine (City of God, book 15)--represented the evils of the earthly city.AntenoraAntenora, is named for the Trojan prince Antenor. Dante places in this region those who betrayed their political party or their homeland.Ptolomea
In the third zone of circle 9 suffer those who betrayed friends or guests. Ptolomea is named after one or both of the following: Ptolemy, the captain of Jericho, honored his father-in-law, the high priest Simon Maccabee, and two of Simon's sons with a great feast and then murdered them (1 Maccabees 16:11-17); Ptolemy XII, brother of Cleopatra, arranged that the Roman general Pompey--seeking refuge following his defeat at the battle of Pharsalia (48 B.C.E.)--be murdered as soon as he stepped ashore. Dante displays his abhorrence of such crimes by devising a special rule for those who betray their guests: their souls descend immediately to hell and their living bodies are possessed by demons when they commit these acts (Inf. 33.121-6).
Treachery to guests and friends is punished by having one's soul sent down to Ptolomea while one's body remains in the world. In order to acommodate the two kinds of treachery, they must be buried at the unmarked boundary between Antenora and Ptolomea. To deceive a traitor was not only permissible, but admirable, and those who had betrayed their guests or friends certainly had no claim to humane treatment.Judecca
The traitors buried under the ice in this final section, Judecca, are entirely out of communication with humanity, and we never even know who they are. Only the greatest traitor of all—the rebellious angel Lucifer—and the three souls he crunches in his jaws, are identifiable.
Judecca, named after the apostle who betrayed Jesus (Judas Iscariot), is the innermost zone of the ninth and final circle of hell. The term also hints at a manifestation of Christian prejudice--which Dante certainly shares--against Judaism and Jews in the Middle Ages: it alludes to the names--Iudeca, Judaica--for the area within certain cities (e.g., Venice) where Jews were forced to live, apart from the Christian population. Together with Judas in this region of hell are others who, by betraying their masters or benefactors, committed crimes with great historical and societal consequences. Completely covered by the ice--like "straw in glass"--the shades are locked in various postures with no mobility or sound whatsoever (Inf. 34.10-15).SATANCast down from Heaven for rebelling against God, Lucifer (Satan, Dis, Beelzebub) is fixed for eternity with his upper body protruding into Hell. Like the seraphim of Isaiah 6:2, and the four beasts around God's throne in Revelation 4:8, he has six wings, a pair beneath each face. From the wings under the face of hatred proceeds the wind of fraud or malice; from the pair under the face of ignorance comes the wind of violence; and from the pair under the face of impotence comes the wind of incontinence. Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ, is chewed by the red face of hatred. As he sold Christ for silver, he is even worse than the simonists, and receives an analogous, although more severe, punishment, his head is stuck into one of Satan's jaws with his legs outside. Brutus and Cassius, betrayers of the Empire through their assassination of Julius Caesar, are only slightly less abominable, and are placed in the black face of ignorance and the whitish yellow face of impotence, with their heads out.Without stopping to rest, they pursue a winding path toward the earth's surface, and just before dawn on Easter Sunday they emerge again to see the stars. In The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell (9HH), the ninth circle is reserved for: Michael Ovitz and Vince Gallo.
Exit From Hell
Outside of Hell
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