Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard.
Where anything goes.
-//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7
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Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard. Where anything goes. -//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7 |
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Monday, March 22, 2004 Decided to switch on the air-conditioner and the lights, in the heat of the afternoon (bloody afternoon!), to improve the working environment. Did it work? Well, I haven't a clue, since I was as unproductive as usual, but I did finish reading Dante's Inferno. I repeat my suggestion, unless you're looking out for the original Italian script, don't bother reading it ... just read the Idiot's Guide to Hell for Dummies, or better yet, go and commit a crime (your choice) and get yourself killed, so you can experience it first hand. My recommendation ... write a really lousy poem, which is a crime against art, and will guarantee that you be sentenced to meet one of the dullest and most uninspiring author/poets around. Anyway, since most of you are lazy enough (read, hardworking only to a moderate degree) to avoid any text as long as the Inferno (and that's only the first of three books of Dante's Commedia!), I hereby present to you a quick summary of where you're going in the afterlife. Ho hum. See you there soon! You all come back now, you hear? The titles come directly from the book I'm reading, however, all the comments, more sexed-up than allegations of weapons of mass destruction, are all original and by me, so enjoy. Canto I "Dark Woods" - If you have an even worse sense of direction than Hibiki Ryouga, you'll probably end up here long before your time is up, like Dante Alighieri, for instance. Big ferocious beasts prevent you from escaping once you blunder in here. Canto II "Entrance" - Abandon hope, all ye who enter here. How corny ... well, it's probably the original source of the statement but it's got so overused no one really cares anymore. Canto III "Fore-Hell" - The crochety old boatman Charon sends you over the river Acheron (hmm ... the coiners of mythology ran out of inspiration, apparently) into hell. Somehow, he is able to move boatloads full of dead people all by himself. Methinks you don't weigh much once you are dead. Canto IV "First Circle (Limbo)" - Your crime : Being a goody-goody, and not a devout, religious crusader. In other words, being an absolute angel on earth ... without getting baptised. And you get sent to hell for that? God must have a pretty vindictive streak, because you'll find nice people like Adam, Noah and Moses here in this part of hell. You wander about aimlessly and hopelessly, with nothing to do except exchange gossip with the occasional passing poet (headed for a deeper part of Hell, hopefully). Canto V "Second Circle" - Your crime : Being lusty, and knowingly defiling the sanctity of marriage or virginity. Although, in this case the sin has the consent of both parties, otherwise it would be a crime of violence. You are blown about by heavy winds that pull you ever further away from your loved ones, and you'll probably fly smack into twits like Paris prince of Troy and Helen whatsherface (Launcha Thousandships?) in the process. Canto VI "Third Circle" - Your crime : Being gluttonous, and taking more than you deserve. Again, in this case, it assumes that you were just plain greedy and didn't have to commit any crimes to get what you wanted. You are thrown into a pit filled with sludge in a place that rains eternally. Cerberus lives here and takes a nibble out of the occasional sinner when he's ornery. You'll probably find Nero, or maybe Imelda Marcos here (P.S. You don't actually have to die to go to hell ... if your crime is nasty enough the devils book a place for you in advance). Canto VII "Fourth Circle" - Your crime : Being avaricious, and unwilling to be generous or to help others. You're given a big boulder and told to roll it a set distance, after which you'll be let off. The catch? Hell is round, apparently, so you'll never actually reach the end of your course. Furthermore, there's a sinner just like you on the opposite side of hell, also rolling a boulder, in the opposite direction as you, so you'll eventually crash into each other and start cursing and scolding each other because you're both too selfish and stupid to cooperate. See Ebenezer Scrooge and Thomas Gradgrind here, I suppose. Canto VIII " Fifth Circle" - Your crime : Being wrathful and hateful of your neighbour, or that stupid kid from down the road, or your first cousin twice removed's pet chihuahua. Again, however, with the disclaimer that you don't actually do anything, you're just full of resentment. You get thrown into a pit of mud with other people like you, and with such pleasant company one finds it no problem to make excellent friends. Okay, but hell isn't exactly a pleasant place, and after a while you all get fed up and decide to beat each other up for fun, for art, and for plain old human expression. You'll probably find political analysts like William Safire and all those disgruntled people who write letters of complaint to the Forum page here. Canto IX-XI "Sixth Circle (City of Dis)" - Your crime : Being an atheist, defying the church and refusing to believe in heaven and hell. What this means is that you are stuck face-first into a pit of hot sand so that you can get a taste of hell for yourself first-hand, and you're guaranteed never to forget the experience ... largely because you'll be stuck there until Reckoning. Oddly enough, there are a lot of popes here, probably the odd person who got elected to the papacy without believing whole-heartedly in the words of God and the Bible. Canto XII : "Seventh Circle, Ring One" - Your crime : Being violent to as many people as you can, essentially being a bully and a tyrant and a really nasty person. You are submerged up to your eyes in a boiling river of blood, so that you can get a taste of what you've been dealing out to others. Apparently, however, some sinners seem to enjoy this very much and treat it like a warm bubble bath. If you try to escape from the seventh circle (which is basically about violent sins) you're shot at by centaurs who haul your rotting carcass back where it belongs. Meet nasty people from history like Attila the Hun, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and Lyndon B. Johnson here. Canto XIII : "Seventh Circle, Ring Two" - Your crime : Being violent, not to anybody else, but to yourself. That means that even if you're an utter saint in life if you happen to kill yourself it's straight to hell you go. You're transformed into a tree full of prickly thorns, leafless and growthless, and your bodies in life are strung up and hung from your branches so you can spend eternity contemplating what you gave up. Once in a while, harpies will come along and tear at your branches just to make you feel miserable. An added punishment here too, as once in a while crazy kids who've been too free in life with their money and morals are chased through the brambly forests by huge wild boards who proceed to dig out their internal organs. You'll find a wide variety of figures here, from Vincent van Gogh to Mishima Yukio to Leslie Cheung and maybe Chen Shui-bian. Canto XIV : "Seventh Circle, Ring Three (Part One)" - Your crime : Being violent to God, commiting acts of blasphemy like bombing churches, tearing down holy items to sell for scrap and the like. You're doomed to wander forever on a beach of blazing sand, while flames rain down upon you so that you get an even tan. If you're daring and naughty enough, demons will chuck you on your back or on your belly over the sand so that you can't dodge the falling fire or dash about to avoid burning your feet. You'll find infidels like the Saracens or Abu Bakar Bashir here. Canto XV : 'Seventh Circle, Ring Three (Part Two)" - Your crime : Being violent to nature by doing all kinds of nasty things that go against the natural order of things, like walking on your hands or writing with your feet, for instance. If you're homosexual or bisexual or asexual or otherwise not heterosexual you'll end up here, where you'll be forced to hug other people just like you. Forever. That should teach you to complain that you can't enjoy free sex back up on earth. Again, another popular section of hell with a wide assortment of people such as Oedipus Rex, Tchaikovsky, Michael Jackson and Anwar Ibrahim. Canto XVI-XVII : "Seventh Circle, Ring Three (Part Three)" - Your crime : Being violent to art (oh, that Dante!) by utilising others' need for your own personal gain, through moneylending, pawnbroking, and operating multinational corporations. For craving wealth and fame so much in life, you're given a big sack which you wear around your neck and is full of all the riches you enjoyed in life. It's too bad, however, that none of it is accepted as currency in hell. The bag is even custom-designed to feature your own name, initials or company logo on it so everyone knows just which sinner it is. Many sinners big and small enjoy this torment, such as Shylock and Barnabas, Baron Rothschild and Bill Gates. Canto XVIII : "Eighth Circle (Malebolge), Pouch One and Two" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about love, using your cunning wit and dazzling charm to flatter and seduce people. For craving all manner of human charm in life, you're punished to endure the nasty side of humans, having to wallow up to your nose in all manner of human excretions and bodily fluids. The eighth circle is all about fraud and lying, so if you're untruthful in life you'll probably end up here. Maybe you'll meet people who used their charm for nasty ends like James Bond or Mata Hari here, or alternately you might meet cronyists like Leonid Brezhnev and Suharto. Canto XIX : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Three" - Your crime : Being fradulent about your abilities as a religious leader, misusing God for your personal gain, correctly known as Simony. For acting so holier-than-thou and oppressing others, sinners are stacked one on top of the other in a huge pile so they can squash the daylights out of each other. Not surprisingly, there are all manner of popes, cardinals and archbishops here, although I profess I don't know much about the workings of the church and therefore don't have any good examples right now. Canto XX : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Four" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about predicting and divining the future, deluding others for fun and laughter. Since you're obviously too stupid to realise that it's impossible to predict the future, your head is screwed around to face your back so that you can reflect, in a way, on your past misdeeds. You'll find people who think they can second-guess what God ordains, ranging from economic analysts like John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman to all those low-life girls who find joy in stripping themselves down to appear in the Streats weather report. Canto XXI-XXII : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Five" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about documents and records, abusing your power to modify them for personal gain. Essentially, being corrupt. You're thrown into a huge pit of boiling lava where you are slowly char-broiled to perfection. Occasionally, every now and then a devil will flip you over with a large metal trident to ensure that you are cooked evenly, more fairly than you have ever been in your dealings in life. There are plenty of political and business figures who reside here, although some of those most quickly to come to mind are characters like Maximillian Robespierre and Richard Nixon. Canto XXIII : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Six" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about how to act, and then behaving in another way, basically, being hypocritical and not practicing what you preach. Since you aren't disciplined enough to follow your own laws, hell lands a hand by having them manifest as a heavy lead cowl which you have to wear as you wander about aimlessly. Sure, people have all been hypocritical at some point in their lives but here you'll most likely find Bill Clinton and NMP Steve Chia. Canto XXIV-XXV : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Seven" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about property rights, misappropriating everything by just taking whatever you want. If you've ever stolen anything in life it's here that you end up, swimming in a pit full of snakes who enjoy coiling round your throat and strangling you, or injecting you with a poison that dissolves you from within, reducing you to ashes which reform again like a phoenix being reborn so that you can enjoy another round of suffering. If you're a particularly nasty thief, a really gross thing happens to you where a snake slithers up to you and attaches itself to your body, growing into you and causing you to grow into it so that as retribution you lose everything you call your own, your humanity. In my opinion, probably the nastiest part of hell. And the only thing good about it is that all those petty thieves are all going to land up there. Serves you right for being scum in life. Canto XXVI-XXVII : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Eight" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about your advice to others, deliberately misleading them for personal profit. For those who aren't smart enough to give proper advice in the first place, they are sentenced to stand in the middle of a fire to meditate, so that maybe something intelligent can be burned into them. If you're stupid and someone asks for your advice, you had better shut up or end up in here with idiots like John Foster Dulles and Condoleezza Rice. Canto XXVIII ; "Eighth Circle, Pouch Nine" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about the nature of religion, leading people astray from the rightful path to God. For trying to divide religion, retribution is delivered by having your body torn in half, and letting your entrails hang down to your knees. Despite that, however, your body magically heals, only to be torn apart in a different fashion like a child's frustrated attempt at origami. Apparently, the Prophet Mohammed, among others, is here according to Dante,so that should teach you something about religious tolerance during his time. Canto XXIX-XXX : "Eighth Circle, Pouch Ten" - Your crime : Being fraudulent about facts, changing truths and amending issues to suit your own purposes, as well as other cases of forgery such as counterfeiting and alchemy. You're thrown into a pit full of other damned folks like yourself, where you wallow in your misery, your bones and sinews all shattered by the constant battering of bodies and your body all covered in scabs as other sinners dig repeatedly into your flesh. Of course, history is full of records of other people ... people who enjoy changing history to their own advantage, so it would be no surprise to find unsavoury characters like Jules Michelet and Josef Stalin here. Canto XXXI-XXXIV : "Ninth Circle (Pit of Hell)" - Your crime : Betrayal, by far (according to Dante) the worst sin of all. The ninth circle of hell is basically a huge lake of frozen ice filled with the damned, trapped and immobile in its wake. The pit is surrounded by the Titans from Greek and Roman mythology, banished to hell for their evil ways, who enjoy taking sinners destined for the ninth circle and punting them into the ice as hard as they can, like darts. Other varieties of torment here include being trapped in unusual ways, such as with the head first into the ice, or with your body bent into a bow (as in bow and arrow, not bow tie!). As usual, the circumstances of your entrapment usually reflect the nature of your sin ... if you betrayed a relative, for example, you'll be frozen back to back with someone whom you're most likely to despise. At the very centre of hell stands Lucifer, not exactly the lord of hell but rather the greatest sinner of all, trapped in the ice as a three-headed hairy demon with big pointy teeth, in each mouth chewing the body of one of the vilest traitors, Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ, and Brutus and Cassius, betrayers of Julius Caesar. I'm of the opinion that Dante started running out of inspiration somewhere near the end, because after all those innovative torments it was kind of disappointing when the last level of hell just had people ... well ... frozen. The notion of Satan is rather innovative for its time, as one who is punished rather than as a punisher (e.g. Mephistopheles in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus) but apparently the exit to Hell is found by clambering into the ice, down Lucifer's legs ... and mysteriously appearing in Purgatory? Um. Yeah right. Needless to say, I shan't be reading Purgatorio, the second in Dante's Commedia. I picked the Inferno up largely out of personal interest, and although I found the notions expressed within to be original and interesting, the language in which they were presented, or rather, the language in which the translator chose to present them was rather bland and uninspired. I've had just about enough of Virgil's bossy, know-it-all attitude, as well as Dante's own constant alternation between lavish flattery and resounding condemnation. There isn't any reason why an author shouldn't self-insert in any piece of work they write ... as long as they can do it well without coming off as arrogant snobs who abuse the powers of authorship to confer all forms of superiority upon themselves! Ah well, perhaps that was just the writing style at the time ... in which case I've made the right decision by choosing not to read any more of it. I hope you enjoyed reading my rather disastrously abridged summary of what Dante's Inferno is all about, and if you wish to pick it up to read it yourself, then all luck to you that you will enjoy yourself. I had my fun while it lasted, and I guess that even if it wasn't that great a text, it was still worth knowing after all. (P.S. Dante, don't worry ... you'll get your chance to have your revenge on me soon enough!) posted by Charlotte | 3:42 pm
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Disclaimer : The Slayers and Filia Ul Copt and all images thereof are the property of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own any of them, although if I had a choice I would want Filia ... ~//n_n\\7 |
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