Dante's Inferno

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According to Dante Alighieri there are nine circles of hell.

The first circle is the limbo between the vestibule, where the indifferent queue, and the entrance to hell. It is here Minos judges all souls to determines which circles they will receive retribution.

The second circle is the where the lustful reside. Their unending thirst for riches bends their outstretched hands toward unobtainable streams of molten gold.

In the third circle gluttony resides and all the wastes of man rain down through skies of torment and pain. In cruel irony Cerebus, a three-headed dog that guards the entrance to the Underworld, continuously gorges on corpses.

In the fourth circle hatred lords over the avaricious and prodigal where they are collectively punished, and then allowed to punish one another indefinitely.

In the fifth circle the wrathful and sullen dwell in the river Styx under the shadow of the great city of Dis. In the mire Phlegyas delights over all.

Heretics, in the sixth circle, lay trapped in burning coffins and from the great rafters above more are hung on up-side-down crosses of fires.

Violence rules over all in the seventh circle and with it the deceitful, the suicidal, and those who acted out violence in the name of god remain.

Over the great abyss of the eighth circle exists the Malebolge; evil ditches filled with panders, seducers, flatterers, simonists, diviners, astrologers, magicians, barraters, hypocrites, thieves, fraudulent counselors, sowers of scandal and schisms, falsifiers of metals, persons, coins, and words. Bridges connecting the ditch's ridgelines allows the Geryon to traverse past the well of giants and into the last and final circle.

The ninth circle of Coctyus, the frozen plain, contains treachery and fraud is made up those who betrayed kin, country, guests, and benefactors.

And beyond the ninth circle Satan, the center of gravity, reigns.

Images:
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It's an awesome story.

'That most untranslatable of poems' - many who don't speak Italian...
I've read all 3 books in translation, despite the tendency to lapse into 'The Mexican Hat Dance' because of the meter...

It's a good read, even though I need footnotes to get the dirt on who Dante was dissing and grinding an axe for...

I still think that there's a good book about a romantic relationship tying the Circles of Hell to all the various gradients that love goes through.

When I first read it, I thought the Niven/Pournelle version of Inferno was fantastic. In retrospect, it's terrible. The real Inferno I find vaguely entertaining but generally morally offensive (much like the Revelation of John); the other volumes are just plain boring. I could care less which nonentities some sick medieval idiot thought were worthy of eternal whatever.

Can't remember where, but I think they're doing a sequel to the Pournelle/Nivien book (is that the one where Mussolini is in?)

I have seen the movie from 1935.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's about a Roller coaster...

Visceral Games is actually coming out with a video game based on Dante's Inferno. Last I heard it's coming out in February. Should be interesting.