More on Dante

Hello all so if anyone like Dante as much as me they found my previous post sites fun! However, i am now posting an assignment I had to write on assigning literary characters to hell. I had a lot of fun with it but don't take it too seriously! Enjoy! ;)

“I God’s faithful apprentice do hereby assign you to the ____ level of hell!”

Many will tell you that God’s justice is perfect, and I would have to agree with that. However, I am also hear to tell you that she doesn’t do it all on her own. Oh no she has help in the form of me. I am God’s apprentice, but not apprentice in the way that some day I’m going to get her job. It’s more I’m her helper for all eternity. The way that sounds I may seem like I do not like my job, or that I think it tedious. Honestly that could not be further from the truth. I truly enjoy my work. It is my job to assign all of the wrong doers of the earth to a level in hell or purgatory should I deem them able to go to purgatory that is. While this isn’t the most pleasant of undertakings I pride myself on knowing exactly where God would put them, had she the time. However, don’t think she is slacking off; she approves everyone of my decisions. You may have heard of our nine levels of hell from the poet Dante Alighieri? He did a good job of retelling the phenomenon that he was aloud to witness. It is only a shame that some don’t take the time out to listen to what he had to say about sin being the perversion of the souls ability to love and God being the only answer. There is another man, who is currently residing on Earth with a quite a few years left, that put it well, “the journey into hell is a descent into the dark negative caverns of the human soul. Its deadly passions and sins hold the soul captive and lost to its real life inactivity.” That Father Collins is a smart man; he has place up in paradise on one of their nine spheres. But back to my story. I’m going to tell you about a few of the many characters I’ve had come across my desk. Sometimes deciding where I ought to assign them can be quite difficult. Truly the state of humanity can be quite unimaginable with horrors that are committed there.


The first I will tell you about is the hero Achilles. You may be wondering what has earned him a place in hell as he is usually spoken of as a hero. Well he did a number of things along the way and during his heroic era that had put him in hell, and I had quite a time deciding what level to throw him in. I mean you’ve got a hero, but at the same time he steals women, has sexual relations outside of marriage, and he defiles the bodies of his enemies. Sadly those outweigh the heroic deeds and have earned him a place in Lucifer’s den. So where did I begin when it came to this hero? Well I first looked at the fact that he had stopped fighting in the war. This could be looked upon as a fraudulent act against his country; however, technically it was not his country he was fighting for. It finally came down to the fact that he killed a man and had the body dragged brutally through the streets. This violence shown towards another man had me come to the conclusion that he should be sentenced to the seventh level of hell. To be more specific Achilles was sentenced to the second ring of the seventh circle of hell which is reserved for those who are violent against others. He shall forever rot in a pool of bubbling and boiling blood. Stamping his paper work with a red level 7, I filed it away for God’s final approval.


Moving on from Achilles we have a man also commonly known amongst the Greeks, and that is Agamemnon. After I tell you where I had to put him, just wait till I get to his wife (what a piece of work that one was). However, we begin with the fate of Agamemnon. Agamemnon of course sacrificed his young daughter. But before I get there a few of his other crimes were violence towards others in the act of war, as well as having intercourse outside of the bounds of matrimony. But of course it is his worst sin of all that landed him in the otter bowels of hell. If it was not bad enough to kill his own flesh and blood he also did it as a sacrifice to another God. No one but the almighty should be worshipped. The simple fact that he worshipped other Gods would put him into the Inferno, but sacrificing his daughter is what led to his placement in the ninth level. It is treacherous indeed to murder one’s child. There is never a reason for that. Therefore Agamemnon is sentenced to the first ring of the ninth circle of hell in the city of Caina (after Cain who slew Abel). Here he will be frozen to his head for all of eternity. His paperwork received the red level 9 stamp, and was sent off for final approval.


Alright as promised the infamous Clytamnestra’s place amongst the inferno. She had so many misgivings and horrible crimes it is difficult to say where she might go. First of course is the fact that she was living in sin against her husband. Her boyfriend, Aegisthus, is currently in residence of level two, for the lustful. While it is understandable that she was angered and distraught over the death of her daughter, which in no way pardons her for the pre-mediated death of her husband. However, her husband was not blood kin to her, so in fact she is not fated as badly as he. For she only rots away in level seven of hell for hr acts of violence. However, due to the nature of the problem I recommended she be put into the third ring as not only was she violent in her murderous plans for her husband, but she tried to make her husband appear as though he found himself higher then God. By making him do these she was in fact herself insulting to God. Therefore I find her guilty of violence and stamped her with a level 7.


Finally out of that family is the son. Now I know that according to legend the son was forgiven and the furies stopped chasing him, but in the real world he is being punished. You cannot kill a member of your family and go unpunished. In heaven and hell there is no “a life for a life.” You take a life and you are going down. Young Orestes killed his mother and there is no turning back from that. Therefore he resides in the depths of the ninth level of hell, alongside his father. While he is frozen in the first circle with his father they cannot see each other or gain any comfort from the others presence. His file is also stamped with a red level 9.


Moving on from that family we come to another infamous man from the Greeks. That would be Oedipus Rex. What would you do with a man that killed his father, and then married his mother? It is difficult indeed for him because while warned in his youth, he still did it. However he has also repented his wrong doings and therefore I debated where to put him. It is true that he unknowingly killed his father and this would either earn him a seventh level spot for violence to others, or a spot in the ninth level for treachery to kin. But what I looked at was that he did not know what he was doing. He did marry and bed his mother; however, he did not know that is what he was doing. In fact he had a very loving relationship with her as his wife. Now she could not handle what she had done and took her own life, so sadly she is in the seventh circle for committing suicide. But going back to Oedipus, I again had a difficult time placing him as he was repentant for what he had done. He even punished himself by gouging out his eyes. It was not his job to decide on his own punishment though. I decided to recommend him to the second level of hell for those who sins are of the lustful nature. However, this was rejected and he is in the ninth circle for sins against one’s kin. While he tried to seek redemption it was never for the one true God and so justice has been served. Now I put away the file with and X through the level 2 assignment and a larger red level 9 stamp next to it.


Finally on my list is the infamous Don Quixote and Sancho Plaza, but I shall begin with the first. Don Quixote was a hard one to judge because at first he set out only to help those in need. He believed himself to be a chivalrous knight and tried to protect those in need. However, he was easily beguiled and ended up leaving many in harms way, however unintended. Don Quixote also lies to Sancho Plaza to get him to come along with him in the first place, by telling him that he will make him the governor of an isle. He also hurts and endangers many citizens along his presumable knighthood quest. Because of all of his fraudulent lies to his country and the people in it, I recommended him for the ninth circle of hell. His file yields the level 9 stamp and he currently resides in Antenora, which is the second ring of the ninth circle.


Don Quixote’s faithful friend Sancho Plaza was a hard one to place. While he lied to his benefactor Don Quixote at one point, the majority of his time was spent trying to atone for all of Don Quixote’s bad deeds. Because Sancho Plaza ties so hard to make up for the bad things his master had done, I recommended that he be sent to the Ante-Inferno or Purgatory because he did not consciously live a good or bad life. He has been stamped as questionable and is currently awaiting a decision.


As I began to tell you I have quite an important job as God’s right hand woman. Deciding where to place the men and women that comes across my desk can be a difficult job. Trust me I have all the files to remember each and every one. My filing cabinet goes on for eternity (not an exaggeration). So I set about telling you this as a warning. Do not think that what you have done will not come back to haunt you just because you occasionally repent. There are things you do in life that you must atone for when you come across my desk. So next time you think of killing your mother, brother, father, etc., or you want to leap into that pre-marital sex bed, or you go to lie about something you think is small, just remember I am up here waiting with my stamp pad, ready to send you to the bowels of hell. Thank you and have a holy life!


Copyright © Nicole Schiavoni 2008