Dante's Inferno - A Summary of the Circles of Hell

Dante's Divine Comedy is a journey through the afterlife of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise.

The Journey begins with Dante lost in a dark wood. The poet Virgil down through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, guides his only escape.

This epic poem tracks that amazing journey through the afterlife. Dante first enters the afterlife through the gate of Hell.

The Gate of Hell - Cowards who refused to take a stand for or against God

Forever running and getting stung by wasps.

Circle one - Limbo

Virtuous pagans, Virgil, Plato. Unfulfilled desire and hopelessness.

Circle two - The lustful

Francesa and Paolo. Cleopatra. Eternally being swirled in wind.

Circle three - The gluttons

Guarded by the three-headed dog, Cerberus. Eating slime and muck.

Circle four - The prodigal and the miserly

Hoarders and wasters pushing an enormous stone against each other.

Circle five - The wrathful and the sullen

Thrashing and bodies torn apart in dark filthy water.

Circle six - The heretics

Living in smoking tombs.

Circle seven - The violent, the suicides, the blasphemers, the sodomites, the usurers

A river of boiling blood guarded by Centaurs. Souls become a forest of suffering trees, others torn apart by dogs, rain of fire, mutilation.

Circle eight - Fraudulent, pimps, seducers, flatterers, simonists, sorcerers, corrupt politicians, sewers of division, falsifiers, alchemists, thieves

Eternally walking and tormented. Living in excrement. Stuffed into holes. Heads turned backwards. Boiling tar. Lead capes. Snakes. Flames.

Circle nine - Sinners against family, betrayers, traitors against country

Encased in ice. Home of Satan. Cannibalism. Judas being eternally chewed by Lucifer.