Dante’s Inferno: A Summary of the Circles of Hell

Dante Divine Comedy it is a journey through the beyond of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

The journey begins with Dante lost in a dark forest. His only escape is through hell, purgatory, and heaven, guided by the poet Virgilio.

This epic poem traces that amazing journey through the afterlife. Dante first enters the afterlife through the gate of hell.

Hell’s gate – Cowards who refused to take sides for or against God.

Always running around and getting stung by wasps.

A circle – Limbo

Virtuous heathens, Virgil, Plato. Desire unsatisfied and hopeless.

Circle two – the lustful

French and Paolo. Cleopatra Eternally being swirled in the wind.

Circle three – The gluttons

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

Circular oven – The Prodigal and the Miser

Hoarders and spenders push a huge stone against each other.

Circle five – The irate and the sullen

Blows and shattered bodies in dirty dark water.

Circle six – The heretics

Living in smoking graves.

Circle seven – The violent, the suicidal, the blasphemers, the sodomites, the usurers

A river of boiling blood guarded by centaurs. Souls become a forest of suffering trees, others torn to pieces by dogs, rain of fire, mutilations.

Circle eight – Fraudulent, pimps, seducers, sycophants, simonists, sorcerers, corrupt politicians, sewers of division, counterfeiters, alchemists, thieves

Eternally walking and tormented. Living in excrement. Fill in holes. Heads turned back. Boiling tar. Lead layers. Flame snakes.

Circle nine – Sinners against family, traitors, traitors against country

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