“Dante’s Inferno” authored by Dante Alighieri is a 14th-century narrative poem describing the journey of a fictionalized version of Dante himself through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of Western literature. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth.
The Second Circle of Hell, as imagined by Dante, is for punishment of the lustful. This is where those who committed adultery or were overcome by passion are punished by forever being whirled about, out of control, in a dark, stormy wind. The infernal storm “sweeps and drives the souls with its blast: it whirls them, lashing them with punishment”. These are the souls that made reason slave to appetite.
The Third Circle is where the Gluttons are punished. This is where those who gorged on food, drink, and pleasure are punished by being mired in filthy muck and eternally battered by cold and dirty hail, rain, and snow. Gluttony, like all sins of incontinence (lack of self-control), subjects reason to desire; in this case desire is a voracious appetite. The souls trapped here howl like dogs – they are slunk in slime, the image of their excess.
The Fourth Circle is reserved for the Greedy. These are those who hoarded or squandered their money. There are two groups here, the Miserly and the Prodigal. The Miserly hoarded possessions and the Prodigals were spendthrifts that squandered them. Their punishment is to constantly fight with one another using great weights as weapons that they push with their chests.
The Fifth Circle of Hell contain the Wrathful souls mired in the slime. In a rage, they constantly tear and mangle each other while the Slothful (the passively wrathful) lie beneath the water, withdrawn, “into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe”.
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