Observations placeholder
Dante - Inferno [overview]
Identifier
007279
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Almost the entire book of the Inferno is about Dante's allegorical descent into Hell to see what it was like, so the extracts I have provided are but a small selection.
I also think, however, that the book was based on actual spiritual experiences in his depressed state, he combined what he saw with what he interpreted it to be.
A description of the experience
Dante – The Divine Comedy INFERNO I
CANTO XI
'My Son, within the circle of stone'
He then began, 'there are three smaller circles
Of graduated size, like those you are leaving
All of them are filled with accursed spirits
But so that later you have only to look at them
I will explain now how and why they are here
The object of all malice, which earns heaven's hatred,
Is injury; every object of that kind
Causes distress to others by force or fraud
And because fraud is an evil peculiar to men
It displeases God the more, and therefore the fraudulent
Are placed beneath and greater pain assails them
The first circle in given over to the violent,
But as force may be against three persons
The circle is construed in three distinct rings
Force may be used against God, one's self or one's neighbour
And against what belongs to each of them
As you will hear openly explained
..................
Violent death and wounds which cause pain
May be given to a neighbour; while as to his belongings
There is wrecking, arson and destructive extortion
So homicide and those who use violence wrongly
Wreckers and robbers, are all of them tormented
In the first ring and in distinct troops.
A man can lay violent hands on himself
And on his goods; and therefore the second ring
Is properly for the profitless repentance
Of those who deprive themselves of the world
Gamble away and waste their property
And weep in circumstances which should make them happy
..................................
Fraud, by which every conscience is bitten,
A man may practise on a person who trusts him
Or upon one who has no confidence in him
This latter mode cuts only the bond of love
Which nature of itself establishes
And so there are, lodged in the second circle
Hypocrisy, flatterers, and those who delude,
Falsity, thieving and simony,
Pimps, trouble makers and all such like scum
In the other mode, the love that is forgotten
Is not only what is natural, but what is added
By the creation of particular obligations;
So, in the smaller circle, at the centre
Of the universe, which is the seat of Dis
Every traitor is for ever consumed