Cassius and Brutus are there because Dante wanted him there. If you read it, you’ll find a lot of his contemporaries are there just because he wanted them there. It’s his book, he’ll put whoever he wants in hell.
And it includes loyalty to masters because of the time period. Treachery against masters undermines the feudal system.
I’d really like to read Divine Comedy et al at some point. Has anyone else, and is it worth it? I mean is it interesting or a boring read or what?
BTW Epic, that map is awesome.
From what I understand, the Divine Comedy contains a lot of historical/current events commentary (for its time) within who ends up where and why (edit - like Alice said, basically). Maybe for Dante’s time, the betrayal of Julius Caesar by Brutus and Cassius was one of the most powerful examples, but not as powerful as the betrayal of Jesus by Judas (hence the more severe punishment of Judas by comparison).
It’s been about 10 years since I’ve studied this, so go easy.
And Val, I agree with you but Julius Caesar was a good emporor who kept the people content and didn’t do too much killing apart from in war. They might just be the two worst after Judas, I mean there are three mouths, it makes sense for there to be three people.
The only interesting part’s the Inferno. It’s also probably the easiest to write since I’m sure we can all agree that running forever while being stung by bees and having the blood and puss that appears turn into more bees sucks. In heaven, he’s really vague, since if he were to say that heaven is playing curling all day, which he might enjoy, some people, like me, would say “Fuck it, I’ll just go to hell.” And he passes out in all the important parts. Like “I saw God. But then I fainted, and when I woke up he was gone. And I can’t describe exactly what he was like since I fainted, so you’ll just have to see for yourself.” Purgatory’s meh. It’s somewhere in between.
is this map to scale?
In Dante’s time, the Holy Roman Empire was viewed on par with the Church (Dante actually compared Rome to silver and the Church to bronze). It made sense to put Brutus and Cassius in Satan’s mouth because, just as Judas betrayed the founder of Christianity, those two betrayed the founder of the Roman Empire. Dante may have been twisted, but he thought out his punishments extensively. The idea that he was just damning whomever he disliked is usually overstated.
Yup. 1:666.
God, that was funny.
Okay, Jack’s a good comic and all, but I need to stress that it’s for mature viewing. I’m serious about this one, some of the stuff is very, very graphic.
you know, you’d figure that if Judas betrayed Jesus, then Satan’d be all like “SCORE!” and pat judas on the back… But NOOOO you never hear about the rewards for doing bad things… Oh well, they wrote up the idea of hell so that people wouldnt want to go there… But half the stuff doesnt make sense, so blah.
K, Epic.
By the way, if I remember well, Dante depicted Muhammad, the most sacred prophet of the muslims, in one of the hells. I can’t remember which, but I remember that Dante wrote about Muhammad eternally being consumed by fire and trespassed by a sword. Muslims around the world hate Dante’s work because of this.
There is even a painted wall in some temple in Italy depicting the scene. Some people believe Al Qaeda planned an attack on that site two years ago, but an attack never came out.
And not on Muhammad but still on hell: are the levels in Spawn’s game for SNES the same nine hells from Dante?
I think the point of hell is that souls there are too wrapped up in their own guilt and misery to feel any emotion whatsoever towards any of the other souls. I would assume this goes for Satan as well, who is not so much the ‘lord’, but more the ultimate prisoner, of hell, therefore why would he feel anything towards Judas?
I remember seeing an article in The Onion about “Tenth circle added to rapidly expanding hell.”
Cause Judas did a sin, I mean, if Hell is so evil, then wouldnt sins go rewarded there? I dunno, it just seems like a whole load a hore shit wrote togather by people who wanted to controll the masses a long time ago…
imo, what happens after death is in nearly every way just like a SCI-FI flick like star trek. Reason being: No one fucking knows the truth. Over the years we’ve given lots of life, insight, guesses, and every other idea possible to create this idea of what heaven and hell are all about. Truth is though, JUST LIKE SCI FI… No matter how wrapped up in it you get, and no matter how “believable” you can make the theory, you still dont know. Thats why I wont base my “religeous beliefs” on somthing so flimsy. Lots of people are religeous, and I dont think them bad or un-correct in anyway. I just personally think theres no reason for it. Besides preaching good ideas and actions… But I tell ya, if Christians are right, I guess I’ll be going straight to hell and eternal pain and damnation for not accepting Mon suir Jebus into mah life.
salutes the RPGC group as he travels on a boat heading to hell
Well no. Taking Dante’s Inferno at face value, Hell isn’t a place that Satan has reign over. Hell is a place that God created, and at it’s heart houses Satan, who has no power. Everything there has been explicitly designed by God to make sinners suffer for what they’ve done. Maybe if Satan was in power there then what you say would be correct.
Hell isn’t evil, it’s residents are. Hell is punishment for evil.
Couldn’t have put it better.
Oh well, I still revert back to my original statement of saying its a load of horse poodle. But really nice for sci-fi and fantasy novels.
