• occupied by pagans, unbaptized

• occupants didn't necessarily sin, but didn't have a relationship with Christ, therefore were sent to HELL

• occupied by those overcome by lust, unable to resist their appetites

• punishment of an endless violent storm

• occupants are tortured by icy mud, Cerberus, who eats the damned, and icy hail/rain

• the mud also smells putrid, which adds to the torment of the 3rd circle

• overzealous, greedy people go here

• reserved for people who hoard/spend too much money or hoard material things

• inhabitants push heavy weights back and forth at each other, eternal battle, kind of competitive sisyphus punishment

• wrathful are punished by fighting each other on the surface of the muddy river Styx, forced to physically injure each other

• slothful are under the river unable to come up for air due to being too lazy

• heretics spend all eternity burning in crypts

• heretics are entombed and unable to move around due to straying purposefully from Christianity

• three rings for occupants

• first ring for violence against neighbors (warmakers, tyrants, murderers), immersed in boiling blood

• second ring for violence against self (suicide victims [damb...harsh]), turned into thorny trees and fed upon by harpies, will NOT be corporally resurrected due to destroying their bodies by their own hands

• third ring for violence against God, art, and nature, sufferers placed on scorching sand and suffer like Sodom and Gomorrah

• ten ditches called bolges (bolgia singular)

• 1st: panderers/seducers, march while being whipped by demons for eternity

• 2nd: flatterers, steeped in poopoo and fight amongst each other

• 3rd: simoniacs, placed headfirst into holes, feets get burned

• 4th: sorcerers, heads twisted around and forced to walk backwards for eternity, blinded by tears

• 5th: barrators, immersed in lake of boiling pitch to symbolize the effects of their sticky fingers from political events

• 6th: hypocrites, roped to weights and walk narrow and endless tracks, ropes are gilded to look like cool/respectable things, but reveals that their weight due to hypocrisy is overbearing

• 7th: thieves, pursued by snakes and reptiles for eternity

• 8th: fraudulent/evil advisors, people set on fire but free to move around...on fire

• 9th: sowers of discord, hacked and mutilated by giant demon for all eternity

• 10th: falsifiers, all afflicted with various diseases/viruses, symbolizing the effects of falsifying things

• icy lake, concentric circles based on who you treacheried against

• opposite to the average idea of hell being hot, instead being cold due to complete disregard of humanity/God, therefore you get no warmth only cold

• circle 1: caina, allowed to have heads out and allowed to bow heads against the wind, treachery against family

• circle 2: antenora, treachery against own country, can have head free, but cannot bend neck

• circle 3: ptolemaea, traitor to guests, lay supine while tears freeze so you cannot even weep

• circle 4: judecca, traitors to their lords, completely submerged in ice and contorted into violently uncomfy positions

• symbolism of sin, stray from God

• "threescore and ten," Dante's midlife crisis realizing that if he continues in the dark wood, he will die and go to hell

• Mt. of Joy, only way to get closer to God is by rejecting his sin

• Dante sees the sun, and realized that he could still be saved (hopefully)

• Virgil = Jesus figure, trying to save Dante from hell by offering a new relationship with God through him

• Easter Season, time of resurrection, Dante gets a second chance through Jesus' death

• She-Wolf symbolizes Dante's inability to control himself, like a man who loves sin

• Creatures there to hold him back from salvation like Satan

• long, narrow path Dante must take leads to heaven while it's easy to go to hell

• Dante is joyous to submit to Virgil thinking he will do all the work, kind of like how someone finds joy in their relationship with Jesus, but might first believe that they won't face persecution, narcissistic

• Animals = Dante's punishment for sinning, Israelites were to face them WITHOUT God's protection, so Dante would face the animals without God (the sun)

• whole setting = Dante getting second chance because the stars aligned and God allowed him a second chance

• angel with gleaming sword and keys is like garden of eden, maybe Eden became purgatory after humanity betrayed God's trust

plunk notes

• DWOE: sin, occult forbidden knowledge, trees = knowledge and Dante chose to see his own knowledge over God's

  • easy to be lost

  • devil/evil happens in forest, hidden

  • hansel/gretel, little red riding hood

• 70 (7 = covenant with God, therefore 70 is a completion age)

  • 7: 4+3

    • 3 = trinity

    • 4 = worldly things, NSEW, four seasons, connected with earth

    • world of man and spiritual world of God, together = 7, covenant, no end to a covenant

  • covenant = promise that cannot be broken/never ends (more likely never ends)

  • marriage = contract (govt, can be broken), or covenant (unison forever)

  • 7 * 10 = 70, BIG Bible nmber

    • psalm of Moses: the years of our life are seventy... you can add to this number by doing xyz things

    • seventy men in the sanhedrin, court of israel

  • 10 = perfection in many aspects

• TRUE way: going to God, towards salvation, setting up a perfect universe for him to be like god (thru the process of going thru hell)

• Good Friday, going into hell, but when he comes back out, it will be Sunday, making Dante "perfect" and more Godlike

• animals = sin: lust, pride, greed: jeremiah 5:6

• mount of Joy: finding God/reason/light, but Dante can't just go straight to heaven