The Afterlife
European imaginations of hell are often embodied by imagery of destruction, fire, and darkness. Virgil, a poet who composed The Aeneid describes hell as a:
...vast cave deep in the gaping, jagged rock, shielded well by a dusky lake and shadowed grove / over it no bird on earth could make its way unscathed, such poisonous vapors steamed up from its dark throat to cloud the arching sky.– The Aeneid, page 23
The description of Virgil's version of hell follows in line with the traditional European understanding of the landscape - the gaping, jagged rock, dusky lake, shadowed grove, and dark sky point to Hell being a place of gloominess, devastation, and misery.
Furthermore, The Aeneid describes the harrowing accounts of torture and torments that individuals undergo for committing crimes such as fraud, murder, and incest. Examples of such tortures were of souls begging for a ferry ride, helplessly, since "no spirits may be conveyed across the horrendous banks and hoarse, roaring flood until their bones are burried," as well as souls in the depths, presumably chained and enslaved "with the savage crack of the lash, grating creak of iron, clank of dragging chains," and souls "held back from even touching food, s" (30) This was later used as a framework in Dante's Inferno, as we will see.
Similarly, the Hebrew Bible's rendition of the underworld holds a similar concept to that of Virgil's in Greek mythology with the notion of the Sheol. The Sheol was a prison-like place of darkness where souls abided in silence and forgetfulness, and it was often reserved for the wicked and impious.
The landscape in the Sheol is also characterized by fire and darkness, with "the burning river of fire" (The Bible, page 38), in which men and women are sunken at different levels depending on their crimes, as well as "the pits great in depth...the abyss has no end, for beyond [it] follows what lies beneath it" (The Bible, page 39), where the dead are forced to lump together to beg for forgiveness.
This rendition of hell also incorporates different types of punishments to the souls, associated with different sins made in mortal life. For example, the crowd of burning men and women standing within the burning river of fire are sunken up to different lengths according to the severity of their actions:
[The ones sunk up to their knees] are the ones who, when they came forth from church, busined themselves in unsuitable conversations. But the ones who have been sunk up to the navel are those who, after they had received the body and blood of Christ, went and fornicated and did not stop in their sinning until they died. And the ones sunk up to the lips are those who slandered each other when they gathered in the church of God. And the ones sunk up to their eyebrows were those who conspired with one another, plotting evil against their neighbor– Hebrew Bible, page 38
Additional punishments distributed can be seen in the table below:
| Action | Punishment |
|---|---|
| Those who place no hope in the Lord as a helper | Sent to the eternal depth of the pits crying for mercy from the Lord |
| Those who are prebysters but did not fulfill his ministry well | Seized by the throat by angels of Tartarus, holding in their hands an iron implement with three hooks that pierce the entrails of the soul |
| Those who are inequitous | Four angels submerge the soul to his knees in a river of fire and strike him with stones and wound his face, not allowing him to cry for mercy |
| Deacons who eat the offerings, fornicate, and do no right in the sight of God | Souls are submerged in the river of fire with worms pouring out of his mouth and nostrils |
| Those who read God's word to others but do not follow it | Angels slice off one's lips and tongue |
| Those who demand interest upon interest | Devoured by worms in a river |
| Those who diminish the word of God by not paying attention and acting as if his entities mean nothing | Forced to gnaw on your own tongue |
| Sorcerers responsible for deceptive magic | Placed in a pit in which through every tormet flows |
| Fornicaters and cheaters | Placed in a pit to experience torments forever |
| Girls who lose their virginity without their parents' knowledge | Draped in black garments and four angles hold one's hands in flaming chains |
| Those who take advantage and harm orphans, widows, and the poor | Extremities sawed off and placed naked in ice and snow, where they are devoured by worms |
| Those who break fast before proper time | Hung over water and food but not allowed to consume them |
| Those who commit to adulterers, instead of their own spouses | Strung up by eyebrows and hair |
| Those who committed the "wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah" | Covered in dust and appearance looks like Blood |
| Pagans who give alms but do not recognize God | Blinded and placed in a pit |
| Those who had abortions, and the men they had sex with | Beasts tear upon these souls, and they are subjected to the worst torture by the angels |
| Those who renounced during baptism | Wrapped in clothes of burning sulfur, strangled by dragons, while angels strike them down |
| Those who did not confess | Tossed into a pit and forgotten |
| Those who refuted Christs' resurrection | Left in the cold with a 2 headed sleepless worm that gnashes its teeth |
The best imagination of hell, however, is from the early 14th century work by Dante, The Divine Comedy. In the first book, The Inferno, Dante describes the chronicle of his journey through hell, in which he describes it as a deep funnel with circular tiers and bounded at the bottom by a frozen lake known Cocytus in which a 3 faced Satan resides. Similarly to Virgil and The Bible's rendition of hell, Dante's is full of suffering, anger, negativity, and darkness. Upon entering the gates of hell, one will experience:
Sighs and groans and plaintive wailing...diverse tongues, horrible dialects, words of agony, accents of anger...– Inferno, page 142
Next, entering the "filthy fen," he witnesses:
...people caked with mud in that lagoon, all of them naked and fierce. They struck one another not only with their hands, but their heads and bodies and feet, tearing each other to pieces with their teeth.– Inferno, page 147
Dante then describes the "boiling blood", "forest of suicides", and "trapped under ice":
River of blood, draws near, within boils whoever did injury to others by violence... Foliage was not green, but dark in color, the branches were not smooth but gnarled and tangled. There were no apple trees, but only thorns with poison... All shades were completely trapped in ie; their shapes glimmered through like straws in a glass. This is the place where you must arm yourself with fortitude...– Inferno
Clearly, Dante's imaginings of hell follow the same formula as first described -- the description of sighs, groans, plaintive wailing, cannibalistic destruction of each others' flesh, river of blood that boils those who have violently harmed others, the forest of trees with only thorns of poison, and the figures completely trapped in ice all point to how each circle is encompassed by suffering, retribution, and misery.
The more comprehensive figure below delves deeper into Dante's description of the 9 circles of hell, each circle complete with a punishment fit for the sin:
| Circle of Hell | Description |
|---|---|
| Circle 1: Limbo |
|
| Circle 2: Lust |
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| Circle 3: Gluttony |
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| Circle 4: Greed |
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| Circle 4: Anger |
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| Circle 6: Heresy |
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| Circle 7: Violence |
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| Circle 8: Fraud |
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| Circle 9: Treachery |
|
Characters and Monstrous Entities of Hell
Monsters in European depictions of hell often have the purpose of punishing wretched souls. While few are of human-like appearance and monstrous in nature, many of these characters are a combinatory system of different animal or body parts.
The Aeneid
Hecate, Queen of Heaven and Hell
Virgil depics Hecate as a priestess with attendants that do her bidding.
The Throng of Monsters
"Centuars, mongrel Scyllas, part women, part beasts, and part hundred-handed Briareus
and the savage Hydra of lerna, that hissing horror, the Chimaera armed with torches - Gorgons, Harpies
and triple bodied geryon, his great ghost" (page 24). These monsters roam around hell, picking at the
souls who are stuck there.
Inferno
Charon
Charon, who also appears in The Aeneid, takes on a more sinister persona in the Inferno.
Similarly to in The Aeneid, he ferries souls across a river; however, here, he is a demon "with eyes like hot coals...beat[ing]
his oar on whoever lags behind" (Inferno, 145).
The Minotaur
The Minotaur witnesses punishments in the Boiling Blood; he is "like a bull who breaks loose at th emoment when
he has received the killing blow, who cannot walk, but staggers here and there" (Inferno, 150).
Harpies
The Harpies reside in the Forest of Suicides, "who chased the Trojans from the Strophades wiith sad announcements of their impending doom [and they] make laments upon the trees,"
(Inferno, 155).
They are partially human and partially bird, with "broad wings, aand necks and faces like humans, and feet with claws, and their great bellies sport feathers" (Inferno, 155).
Conclusions
All in all, each depiction of hell carries the same core elements of punishment, darkness and fire, and monstrous entities that torment the souls. While Dante's Inferno is most definitely the most structured and nuanced afterlife with each circle of sin, it draws upon The Aeneid, which, along with the Hebrew Bible also contain elements to create a landscape that is both terrifying and anxiety-inducing.
Citations:
- Examples from The Penguin Book of Hell
- Excerpts from Dante’s Inferno
- Lecture 9/10/2020: From Hell