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166-585: The Acheron also features prominently in Greek mythology , where it is often depicted as the entrance to the Greek Underworld where souls must be ferried across by Charon (although some later sources, such as Roman poets, assign this role to the river Styx ). Ancient Greek mythology saw the Acheron, sometimes known as the "river of woe", as one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld . The name

332-561: A Black Guelph from the prominent Adimari family. Little is known about Argenti, although Giovanni Boccaccio describes an incident in which he lost his temper; early commentators state that Argenti's brother seized some of Dante's property after his exile from Florence. Just as Argenti enabled the seizing of Dante's property, he himself is "seized" by all the other wrathful souls. When Dante responds "In weeping and in grieving, accursed spirit, may you long remain," Virgil blesses him with words used to describe Christ himself ( Luke 11:27). In

498-484: A Guelph who was the father of Dante's friend and fellow poet, Guido Cavalcanti . The political affiliation of these two men allows for a further discussion of Florentine politics. In response to a question from Dante about the "prophecy" he has received, Farinata explains that what the souls in Hell know of life on earth comes from seeing the future, not from any observation of the present. Consequently, when "the portal of

664-427: A genre of ancient Greek folklore , today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology . These stories concern the ancient Greek religion 's view of the origin and nature of the world ; the lives and activities of deities , heroes , and mythological creatures ; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study

830-569: A heraldic device emblazoned on a leather purse around his neck ("On these their streaming eyes appeared to feast"). The coats of arms indicate that they came from prominent Florentine families; they indicate the presence of Catello di Rosso Gianfigliazzi , Ciappo Ubriachi , the Paduan Reginaldo degli Scrovegni (who predicts that his fellow Paduan Vitaliano di Iacopo Vitaliani will join him here), and Giovanni di Buiamonte . Dante then rejoins Virgil and, both mounted atop Geryon's back,

996-579: A pederastic light . Alexandrian poets at first, then more generally literary mythographers in the early Roman Empire, often re-adapted stories of Greek mythological characters in this fashion. The achievement of epic poetry was to create story-cycles and, as a result, to develop a new sense of mythological chronology. Thus, Greek mythology unfolds as a phase in the development of the world and of humans. While self-contradictions in these stories make an absolute timeline impossible, an approximate chronology may be discerned. The resulting mythological "history of

1162-677: A Christian moralizing perspective. The discovery of the Mycenaean civilization by the German amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the nineteenth century, and the discovery of the Minoan civilization in Crete by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in the twentieth century, helped to explain many existing questions about Homer's epics and provided archaeological evidence for many of

1328-618: A Christian, Dante adds Circle 1 (Limbo) to Upper Hell and Circle 6 (Heresy) to Lower Hell, making 9 Circles in total; incorporating the Vestibule of the Futile, this leads to Hell containing 10 main divisions. This "9+1=10" structure is also found within the Purgatorio and Paradiso . Lower Hell is further subdivided: Circle 7 (Violence) is divided into three rings, Circle 8 (Fraud) is divided into ten bolge , and Circle 9 (Treachery)

1494-663: A Florentine contemporary identified as Ciacco , which means 'hog'. A character with the same nickname later appears in The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio , where his gluttonous behaviour is clearly portrayed. Ciacco speaks to Dante regarding strife in Florence between the "White" and "Black" Guelphs , which developed after the Guelph/Ghibelline strife ended with the complete defeat of the Ghibellines. In

1660-567: A city. Among the Giants, Virgil identifies Nimrod (who tried to build the Tower of Babel ; he shouts out the unintelligible Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi ); Ephialtes (who with his brother Otus tried to storm Olympus during the Gigantomachy ; he has his arms chained up) and Briareus (who Dante claimed had challenged the gods); and Tityos and Typhon , who insulted Jupiter. Also here

1826-585: A collection of epic poems , starts with the events leading up to the war: Eris and the golden apple of Kallisti , the Judgement of Paris , the abduction of Helen , the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis . To recover Helen, the Greeks launched a great expedition under the overall command of Menelaus 's brother, Agamemnon, king of Argos, or Mycenae , but the Trojans refused to return Helen. The Iliad , which

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1992-492: A combination of their name and epithets , that identify them by these distinctions from other manifestations of themselves (e.g., Apollo Musagetes is " Apollo , [as] leader of the Muses "). Alternatively, the epithet may identify a particular and localized aspect of the god, sometimes thought to be already ancient during the classical epoch of Greece. Most gods were associated with specific aspects of life. For example, Aphrodite

2158-525: A convenient framework into which to fit their own courtly and chivalric ideals. Twelfth-century authors, such as Benoît de Sainte-Maure ( Roman de Troie [Romance of Troy, 1154–60]) and Joseph of Exeter ( De Bello Troiano [On the Trojan War, 1183]) describe the war while rewriting the standard version they found in Dictys and Dares . They thus follow Horace 's advice and Virgil's example: they rewrite

2324-489: A flat disk afloat on the river of Oceanus and overlooked by a hemispherical sky with sun, moon, and stars. The Sun ( Helios ) traversed the heavens as a charioteer and sailed around the Earth in a golden bowl at night. Sun, earth, heaven, rivers, and winds could be addressed in prayers and called to witness oaths. Natural fissures were popularly regarded as entrances to the subterranean house of Hades and his predecessors, home of

2490-558: A god "greater than he", Zeus swallowed her. She was already pregnant with Athena , however, and she burst forth from his head—fully-grown and dressed for war. The earliest Greek thought about poetry considered the theogonies to be the prototypical poetic genre—the prototypical mythos —and imputed almost magical powers to it. Orpheus , the archetypal poet, also was the archetypal singer of theogonies, which he uses to calm seas and storms in Apollonius' Argonautica , and to move

2656-513: A limited number of gods, who were the focus of large pan-Hellenic cults. It was, however, common for individual regions and villages to devote their own cults to minor gods. Many cities also honored the more well-known gods with unusual local rites and associated strange myths with them that were unknown elsewhere. During the heroic age, the cult of heroes (or demigods) supplemented that of the gods. "The origins of humanity [were] ascribed to various figures, including Zeus and Prometheus ." Bridging

2822-524: A literal sense, this reflects the fact that souls in Hell are eternally fixed in the state they have chosen, but allegorically, it reflects Dante's beginning awareness of his own sin. In the distance, Dante perceives high towers that resemble fiery red mosques . Virgil informs him that they are approaching the City of Dis . Dis, itself surrounded by the Stygian marsh, contains Lower Hell within its walls. Dis

2988-405: A musical contest with Apollo . Ian Morris considers Prometheus' adventures as "a place between the history of the gods and that of man." An anonymous papyrus fragment, dated to the third century, vividly portrays Dionysus ' punishment of the king of Thrace , Lycurgus , whose recognition of the new god came too late, resulting in horrific penalties that extended into the afterlife. The story of

3154-458: A number of local legends became attached. The story of Medea , in particular, caught the imagination of the tragic poets. In between the Argo and the Trojan War, there was a generation known chiefly for its horrific crimes. This includes the doings of Atreus and Thyestes at Argos. Behind the myth of the house of Atreus (one of the two principal heroic dynasties with the house of Labdacus ) lies

3320-435: A poem of Troy instead of telling something completely new. Inferno (Dante) Inferno ( Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno] ; Italian for ' Hell ') is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri 's 14th-century narrative poem The Divine Comedy . It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso . The Inferno describes the journey of a fictionalised version of Dante himself through Hell , guided by

3486-507: A spirit to every aspect of nature. Eventually, these vague spirits assumed human forms and entered the local mythology as gods. When tribes from the north of the Balkan Peninsula invaded, they brought with them a new pantheon of gods, based on conquest, force, prowess in battle, and violent heroism. Other older gods of the agricultural world fused with those of the more powerful invaders or else faded into insignificance. After

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3652-406: A wand, and rebukes those who opposed Dante. Allegorically, this reveals the fact that the poem is beginning to deal with sins that philosophy and humanism cannot fully understand. Virgil also mentions to Dante how Erichtho sent him to the lowest circle of Hell to bring back a spirit from there. In the sixth circle, heretics , such as Epicurus and his followers (who say "the soul dies with

3818-611: Is Antaeus , who did not join in the rebellion against the Olympian gods and therefore is not chained. At Virgil's persuasion, Antaeus takes the poets in his large palm and lowers them gently to the final level of Hell. At the base of the well, Dante finds himself within a large frozen lake: Cocytus , the Ninth Circle of Hell. Trapped in the ice, each according to his guilt, are punished sinners guilty of treachery against those with whom they had special relationships. The lake of ice

3984-491: Is a "monster with the general shape of a wyvern but with the tail of a scorpion , hairy arms, a gaudily-marked reptilian body, and the face of a just and honest man". The pleasant human face on this grotesque body evokes the insincere fraudster whose intentions "behind the face" are all monstrous, cold-blooded, and stinging with poison. Dante now finds himself in the Eighth Circle, called Malebolge ("Evil ditches"):

4150-660: Is a stream named the Dry Acheron in Canterbury, New Zealand. The Eocene turtle genus Acherontemys of the Roslyn Formation in North America was named in reference to the Acheron mythos. In Honkai Star Rail , a character within the story nicknames herself after the river Acheron. Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks , and

4316-726: Is also the father of Ascalaphus by either Orphne or Gorgyra . The river called Acheron with the nearby ruins of the Necromanteion (oratory of the dead) is found near Parga on the mainland of Greece opposite Corfu . Another branch of Acheron was believed to surface at the Acherusian cape (now Karadeniz Ereğli in Turkey ) and was seen by the Argonauts according to Apollonius of Rhodes . Greeks who settled in Italy identified

4482-410: Is divided into four concentric rings (or "rounds") of traitors corresponding, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests, and betrayal of lords . This is in contrast to the popular image of Hell as fiery; as Ciardi writes, "The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of

4648-630: Is divided into four regions. Thus, Hell contains 24 divisions in total. Dante awakens to find that he has crossed the Acheron, and Virgil leads him to the first circle of the abyss, Limbo , where Virgil himself resides. The first circle contains the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans , who, although not sinful enough to warrant damnation, did not accept Christ. Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "After those who refused choice come those without opportunity of choice. They could not, that is, choose Christ; they could, and did, choose human virtue, and for that they have their reward." Limbo shares many characteristics with

4814-442: Is guarded by a figure Dante names as Pluto : this is Plutus , the deity of wealth in classical mythology. Although the two are often conflated, he is a distinct figure from Pluto (Dis), the classical ruler of the underworld. At the start of Canto VII, he menaces Virgil and Dante with the cryptic phrase Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe , but Virgil protects Dante from him. Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from

4980-409: Is intending to commit it. Suddenly, two spirits – Gianni Schicchi de' Cavalcanti and Myrrha , both punished as Imposters (Falsifiers of Persons) – run rabid through the pit. Schicchi sinks his teeth into the neck of an alchemist, Capocchio, and drags him away like prey. Griffolino explains how Myrrha disguised herself to commit incest with her father King Cinyras , while Schicchi impersonated

5146-531: Is less condemnable than malice or bestiality, and therefore these sinners are located in four circles of Upper Hell (Circles 2–5). These sinners endure lesser torments than do those consigned to Lower Hell, located within the walls of the City of Dis , for committing acts of violence and fraud – the latter of which involves, as Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "abuse of the specifically human faculty of reason". The deeper levels are organized into one circle for violence (Circle 7) and two circles for fraud (Circles 8 and 9). As

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5312-497: Is of uncertain etymology. Most classical accounts, including Pausanias (10.28) and later Dante 's Inferno (3.78), portray the Acheron as the entrance to the Underworld and depict Charon ferrying the souls of the dead across it. Ancient Greek literary sources such as Pindar , Aeschylus , Euripides , Plato , and Callimachus also place Charon on the Acheron. Roman poets, including Propertius , Ovid , and Statius , name

5478-475: Is one of the names of Pluto , the classical king of the underworld, in addition to being the name of the realm. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels . Virgil is unable to convince them to let Dante and him enter. Dante is threatened by the Furies (consisting of Alecto , Megaera , and Tisiphone ) and Medusa . An angel sent from Heaven secures entry for the poets, opening the gate by touching it with

5644-461: Is portrayed as a sacrificer, mentioned as a founder of altars, and imagined as a voracious eater himself; it is in this role that he appears in comedy. While his tragic end provided much material for tragedy— Heracles is regarded by Thalia Papadopoulou as "a play of great significance in examination of other Euripidean dramas." In art and literature, Heracles was represented as an enormously strong man of moderate height; his characteristic weapon

5810-449: Is rebuked by Virgil. As a result of his shame and repentance, Dante is forgiven by his guide. Sayers remarks that the descent through Malebolge "began with the sale of the sexual relationship, and went on to the sale of Church and State; now, the very money is itself corrupted, every affirmation has become perjury, and every identity a lie" so that every aspect of social interaction has been progressively destroyed. Dante and Virgil approach

5976-402: Is required to confess all of their sins to Minos, after which Minos sentences each soul to its torment by wrapping his tail around himself a number of times corresponding to the circle of Hell to which the soul must go. The role of Minos here is a combination of his classical role as condemner and unjust judge of the underworld and the role of classical Rhadamanthus , interrogator and confessor of

6142-619: Is set in the tenth year of the war, tells of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles, who was the finest Greek warrior, and the consequent deaths in battle of Achilles' beloved comrade Patroclus and Priam 's eldest son, Hector . After Hector's death, the Trojans were joined by two exotic allies, Penthesilea , queen of the Amazons , and Memnon , king of the Ethiopians and son of the dawn-goddess, Eos . Achilles killed both of these, but Paris then managed to kill Achilles with an arrow in

6308-471: Is so willed there where is power to do / That which is willed"), referring to the fact that Dante is on his journey on divine grounds. The wailing and blasphemy of the damned souls entering Charon's boat contrast with the joyful singing of the blessed souls arriving by ferry in the Purgatorio . The passage across the Acheron, however, is undescribed, since Dante faints and does not awaken until they reach

6474-669: Is structurally based on the ideas of Aristotle , but with "certain Christian symbolisms, exceptions, and misconstructions of Aristotle's text", and a further supplement from Cicero's De Officiis . Virgil reminds Dante (the character) of "Those pages where the Ethics tells of three / Conditions contrary to Heaven's will and rule / Incontinence, vice, and brute bestiality". Cicero, for his part, had divided sins between violence and fraud . By conflating Cicero's violence with Aristotle's bestiality, and his fraud with malice or vice, Dante

6640-528: Is that "the Greek gods are persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts." Regardless of their underlying forms, the Ancient Greek gods have many fantastic abilities; most significantly, the gods are not affected by disease and can be wounded only under highly unusual circumstances. The Greeks considered immortality as the distinctive characteristic of their gods; this immortality, as well as unfading youth,

6806-752: The Iliad and the Odyssey . Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod , the Theogony and the Works and Days , contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns , in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle , in lyric poems , in

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6972-586: The Nicomachean Ethics and the Physics of Aristotle , with medieval interpretations. Virgil asserts that there are only two legitimate sources of wealth: natural resources ("Nature") and human labor and activity ("Art"). Usury , to be punished in the next circle, is therefore an offence against both; it is a kind of blasphemy, since it is an act of violence against Art, which is the child of Nature, and Nature derives from God. Virgil then indicates

7138-639: The Amazons ), King Latinus and his daughter, Lavinia , Lucius Junius Brutus (who overthrew Tarquin to found the Roman Republic ), Lucretia , Julia , Marcia , and Cornelia Africana . Dante also sees Saladin , a Muslim military leader known for his battle against the Crusaders , as well as his generous, chivalrous, and merciful conduct. Dante next encounters a group of philosophers, including Aristotle with Socrates and Plato at his side, as well as Democritus , "Diogenes" (either Diogenes

7304-529: The Asphodel Meadows , and thus, the guiltless damned are punished by living in a deficient form of Heaven. Without baptism ("the portal of the faith that you embrace") they lacked the hope for something greater than rational minds can conceive. When Dante asked if anyone has ever left Limbo, Virgil states that he saw Jesus ("a Mighty One") descend into Limbo and take Adam , Abel , Noah , Moses , Abraham , David , Rachel , and others (see Limbo of

7470-589: The Chimera and Medusa . Bellerophon's adventures are commonplace types, similar to the adventures of Heracles and Theseus. Sending a hero to his presumed death is also a recurrent theme of this early heroic tradition, used in the cases of Perseus and Bellerophon. The only surviving Hellenistic epic, the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes (epic poet, scholar, and director of the Library of Alexandria ) tells

7636-476: The Derveni Papyrus now proves that at least in the fifth-century BC a theogonic-cosmogonic poem of Orpheus was in existence. The first philosophical cosmologists reacted against, or sometimes built upon, popular mythical conceptions that had existed in the Greek world for some time. Some of these popular conceptions can be gleaned from the poetry of Homer and Hesiod. In Homer, the Earth was viewed as

7802-520: The Geometric period from c.  900 BC to c.  800 BC onward. In fact, literary and archaeological sources integrate, sometimes mutually supportive and sometimes in conflict; however, in many cases, the existence of this corpus of data is an indication that many elements of Greek mythology have strong factual and historical roots. Mythical narration plays an important role in nearly every genre of Greek literature. Nevertheless,

7968-539: The Hellenistic and Roman ages was primarily composed as a literary rather than cultic exercise. Nevertheless, it contains many important details that would otherwise be lost. This category includes the works of: Prose writers from the same periods who make reference to myths include Apuleius , Petronius , Lollianus , and Heliodorus . Two other important non-poetical sources are the Fabulae and Astronomica of

8134-534: The Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. The poem begins on the night of Maundy Thursday on March 24 (or April 7), 1300, shortly before the dawn of Good Friday . The narrator, Dante himself, is 35 years old, and thus "midway in the journey of our life" ( Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita ) – half of the biblical lifespan of 70 ( Psalm 89:10 in the Vulgate ; numbered as Psalm 90 :10 in

8300-525: The Inferno. Dante and Virgil leave Limbo and enter the Second Circle – the first of the circles of Incontinence – where the punishments of Hell proper begin. It is described as "a part where no thing gleams". They find their way hindered by the serpentine Minos , who judges all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin to one of the lower circles. At this point in Inferno, every soul

8466-553: The King James Bible ). The poet finds himself lost in a dark wood ( selva oscura ), astray from the "straight way" ( diritta via , also translatable as 'right way') of salvation. He sets out to climb directly up a small mountain, but his way is blocked by three beasts he cannot evade: a lonza (usually rendered as ' leopard ' or ' leopon '), a leone ( lion ), and a lupa ( she-wolf ). The three beasts, taken from Jeremiah 5:6, are thought to symbolize

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8632-598: The Parthenon depicting the sack of Troy); this artistic preference for themes deriving from the Trojan Cycle indicates its importance to the Ancient Greek civilization. The same mythological cycle also inspired a series of posterior European literary writings. For instance, Trojan Medieval European writers, unacquainted with Homer at first hand, found in the Troy legend a rich source of heroic and romantic storytelling and

8798-692: The Peloponnesian kingdoms of Mycenae , Sparta and Argos , claiming, according to legend, a right to rule them through their ancestor. Their rise to dominance is frequently called the " Dorian invasion ". The Lydian and later the Macedonian kings, as rulers of the same rank, also became Heracleidae. Other members of this earliest generation of heroes such as Perseus, Deucalion , Theseus and Bellerophon , have many traits in common with Heracles. Like him, their exploits are solitary, fantastic and border on fairy tale , as they slay monsters such as

8964-589: The Roman culture because of the story of Aeneas , a Trojan hero whose journey from Troy led to the founding of the city that would one day become Rome, as recounted in Virgil's Aeneid (Book II of Virgil's Aeneid contains the best-known account of the sack of Troy). Finally there are two pseudo-chronicles written in Latin that passed under the names of Dictys Cretensis and Dares Phrygius . The Trojan War cycle ,

9130-487: The ancient Roman poet Virgil . In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the "realm   [...] of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen". As an allegory , the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God , with

9296-495: The Acheron by Charon in order to enter the Underworld. The Suda describes the river as "a place of healing, not a place of punishment, cleansing and purging the sins of humans". According to later traditions, Acheron had been a son of Helios and either Gaia or Demeter , who was turned into the Underworld river bearing his name after he refreshed the Titans with drink during their contest with Zeus . By this myth, Acheron

9462-443: The Acherusian lake into which Acheron flowed with Lake Avernus . Plato in his Phaedo identified Acheron as the second greatest river in the world, excelled only by Oceanus . He claimed that Acheron flowed in the opposite direction from Oceanus beneath the earth under desert places. The word is also occasionally used as a synecdoche for Hades itself. Virgil mentions Acheron with the other infernal rivers in his description of

9628-473: The Ancient Greek pantheon, poets composed the Homeric Hymns (a group of thirty-three songs). Gregory Nagy (1992) regards "the larger Homeric Hymns as simple preludes (compared with Theogony ), each of which invokes one god." The gods of Greek mythology are described as having essentially corporeal but ideal bodies. According to Walter Burkert , the defining characteristic of Greek anthropomorphism

9794-608: The Central Well, at the bottom of which lies the Ninth and final Circle of Hell. The classical and biblical Giants – who perhaps symbolize pride and other spiritual flaws lying behind acts of treachery – stand perpetual guard inside the well-pit, their legs embedded in the banks of the Ninth Circle while their upper halves rise above the rim and are visible from the Malebolge. Dante initially mistakes them for great towers of

9960-516: The Cynic or Diogenes of Apollonia ), Anaxagoras , Thales , Empedocles , Heraclitus , and "Zeno" (either Zeno of Elea or Zeno of Citium ). He sees the scientist Dioscorides , the mythical Greek poets Orpheus and Linus , and Roman statesmen Marcus Tullius Cicero and Seneca . Dante sees the Alexandrian geometer Euclid and Ptolemy , the Alexandrian astronomer and geographer, as well as

10126-624: The Florentines. He also identifies other sodomites, including Priscian , Francesco d'Accorso , and Bishop Andrea de' Mozzi . The Poets begin to hear the waterfall that plunges over the Great Cliff into the Eighth Circle when three shades break from their company and greet them. They are Iacopo Rusticucci , Guido Guerra, and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi – all Florentines much admired by Dante. Rusticucci blames his "savage wife" for his torments. The sinners ask for news of Florence, and Dante laments

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10292-563: The Ghibellines of Romagna , asking for news of his country. Dante replies with a tragic summary of the current state of the cities of Romagna. Guido then recounts his life: he advised Pope Boniface VIII to offer a false amnesty to the Colonna family , who, in 1297, had walled themselves inside the castle of Palestrina in the Lateran. When the Colonna accepted the terms and left the castle,

10458-610: The Greek leaders (including the wanderings of Odysseus and Aeneas (the Aeneid ), and the murder of Agamemnon) were told in two epics, the Returns (the lost Nostoi ) and Homer's Odyssey . The Trojan cycle also includes the adventures of the children of the Trojan generation (e.g., Orestes and Telemachus ). The Trojan War provided a variety of themes and became a main source of inspiration for Ancient Greek artists (e.g. metopes on

10624-421: The Greek world and noted the stories they heard, supplied numerous local myths and legends, often giving little-known alternative versions. Herodotus in particular, searched the various traditions he encountered and found the historical or mythological roots in the confrontation between Greece and the East. Herodotus attempted to reconcile origins and the blending of differing cultural concepts. The poetry of

10790-442: The Olympians, the Greeks worshipped various gods of the countryside, the satyr-god Pan , Nymphs (spirits of rivers), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were spirits of the trees), Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods, Satyrs , and others. In addition, there were the dark powers of the underworld, such as the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives. In order to honor

10956-405: The Patriarchs ) into his all-forgiving arms and transport them to Heaven as the first human souls to be saved. The event, known as the Harrowing of Hell , supposedly occurred around AD 33 or 34. Dante encounters the poets Homer , Horace , Ovid , and Lucan , who include him in their number and make him "sixth in that high company". They reach the base of a great Castle – the dwelling place of

11122-413: The Pope razed it to the ground and left them without a refuge. Guido describes how St. Francis , founder of the Franciscan order, came to take his soul to Heaven, only to have a demon assert prior claim. Although Boniface had absolved Guido in advance for his evil advice, the demon points out the invalidity: absolution requires contrition , and a man cannot be contrite for a sin at the same time that he

11288-441: The Roman writer styled as Pseudo- Hyginus , the Imagines of Philostratus the Elder and Philostratus the Younger , and the Descriptions of Callistratus . Finally, several Byzantine Greek writers provide important details of myth, much derived from earlier now lost Greek works. These preservers of myth include Arnobius , Hesychius , the author of the Suda , John Tzetzes , and Eustathius . They often treat mythology from

11454-464: The Trojan cycle, as well as the adventures of Heracles. These visual representations of myths are important for two reasons. Firstly, many Greek myths are attested on vases earlier than in literary sources: of the twelve labors of Heracles, for example, only the Cerberus adventure occurs in a contemporary literary text. Secondly, visual sources sometimes represent myths or mythical scenes that are not attested in any extant literary source. In some cases,

11620-432: The Violent. Dante and Virgil descend a jumble of rocks that had once formed a cliff to reach the Seventh Circle from the Sixth Circle, having first to evade the Minotaur ( L'infamia di Creti , "the infamy of Crete ", line 12); at the sight of them, the Minotaur gnaws his flesh. Virgil assures the monster that Dante is not its hated enemy, Theseus . This causes the Minotaur to charge them as Dante and Virgil swiftly enter

11786-450: The adulterous affair. The English poet John Keats , in his sonnet "On a Dream", imagines what Dante does not write, the point of view of Paolo: ... But to that second circle of sad hell, Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw, Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form I floated with, about that melancholy storm. As he did at

11952-456: The age when gods lived alone and the age when divine interference in human affairs was limited was a transitional age in which gods and mortals moved together. These were the early days of the world when the groups mingled more freely than they did later. Most of these tales were later told by Ovid's Metamorphoses and they are often divided into two thematic groups: tales of love, and tales of punishment. Tales of love often involve incest, or

12118-640: The appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"), who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal , who squandered them. The hoarders and spendthrifts joust , using great weights as weapons that they push with their chests: Here, too, I saw a nation of lost souls,   far more than were above: they strained their chests   against enormous weights, and with mad howls rolled them at one another. Then in haste   they rolled them back, one party shouting out:   "Why do you hoard?" and

12284-481: The appropriation or invention of some important cultural artifact, as when Prometheus steals fire from the gods, when Tantalus steals nectar and ambrosia from Zeus' table and gives it to his subjects—revealing to them the secrets of the gods, when Prometheus or Lycaon invents sacrifice, when Demeter teaches agriculture and the Mysteries to Triptolemus , or when Marsyas invents the aulos and enters into

12450-681: The army of the dead." Another important difference between the hero cult and the cult of gods is that the hero becomes the centre of local group identity. The monumental events of Heracles are regarded as the dawn of the age of heroes. To the Heroic Age are also ascribed three great events: the Argonautic expedition, the Theban Cycle , and the Trojan War . Some scholars believe that behind Heracles' complicated mythology there

12616-454: The arrival of Dionysus to establish his cult in Thrace was also the subject of an Aeschylean trilogy. In another tragedy, Euripides' The Bacchae , the king of Thebes , Pentheus , is punished by Dionysus, because he disrespected the god and spied on his Maenads , the female worshippers of the god. In another story, based on an old folktale-motif, and echoing a similar theme, Demeter

12782-471: The basis for the collection; however, the "Library" discusses events that occurred long after his death, hence the name Pseudo-Apollodorus. Among the earliest literary sources are Homer 's two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey . Other poets completed the Epic Cycle , but these later and lesser poems now are lost almost entirely. Despite their traditional name, the Homeric Hymns have no direct connection with Homer. The oldest are choral hymns from

12948-409: The beginnings of the universe in human language. The most widely accepted version at the time, although a philosophical account of the beginning of things, is reported by Hesiod , in his Theogony . He begins with Chaos , a yawning nothingness. Next comes Gaia (Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all", and then Tartarus , "in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth", and Eros (Love), "fairest among

13114-553: The body") are trapped in flaming tombs. Dante holds discourse with a pair of Epicurian Florentines in one of the tombs: Farinata degli Uberti , a famous Ghibelline leader (following the Battle of Montaperti in September 1260, Farinata strongly protested the proposed destruction of Florence at the meeting of the victorious Ghibellines; he died in 1264 and was posthumously condemned for heresy in 1283); and Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti ,

13280-641: The boiling rivulet, Dante and Virgil progress across the burning plain. They pass a roving group of Sodomites, and Dante, to his surprise, recognizes Brunetto Latini . Dante addresses Brunetto with deep and sorrowful affection, "paying him the highest tribute offered to any sinner in the Inferno ", thus refuting suggestions that Dante only placed his enemies in Hell. Dante has great respect for Brunetto and feels spiritual indebtedness to him and his works ("you taught me how man makes himself eternal; / and while I live, my gratitude for that / must always be apparent in my words"); Brunetto prophesies Dante's bad treatment by

13446-553: The bottom, the sullen hatreds lie gurgling, unable even to express themselves for the rage that chokes them". As the last circle of Incontinence, the "savage self-frustration" of the Fifth Circle marks the end of "that which had its tender and romantic beginnings in the dalliance of indulged passion". Phlegyas reluctantly transports Dante and Virgil across the Styx in his skiff . On the way they are accosted by Filippo Argenti ,

13612-512: The composition of the story of the Argonauts is earlier than Odyssey , which shows familiarity with the exploits of Jason (the wandering of Odysseus may have been partly founded on it). In ancient times, the expedition was regarded as a historical fact, an incident in the opening up of the Black Sea to Greek commerce and colonization. It was also extremely popular, forming a cycle to which

13778-451: The concept and ritual. The age in which the heroes lived is known as the Heroic age . The epic and genealogical poetry created cycles of stories clustered around particular heroes or events and established the family relationships between the heroes of different stories; they thus arranged the stories in sequence. According to Ken Dowden (1992), "there is even a saga effect: We can follow

13944-400: The culture, arts, and literature of Western civilization and remains part of Western heritage and language. Poets and artists from ancient times to the present have derived inspiration from Greek mythology and have discovered contemporary significance and relevance in the themes. Greek mythology is known today primarily from Greek literature and representations on visual media dating from

14110-560: The current state of the city. At the top of the falls, at Virgil's order, Dante removes a cord from about his waist and Virgil drops it over the edge; as if in answer, a large, distorted shape swims up through the filthy air of the abyss. The creature is Geryon , the Monster of Fraud; Virgil announces that they must fly down from the cliff on the monster's back. Dante goes alone to examine the Usurers: he does not recognize them, but each has

14276-547: The dead Buoso Donati to dictate a will giving himself several profitable bequests. Dante then encounters Master Adam of Brescia, one of the Counterfeiters (Falsifiers of Money): for manufacturing Florentine florins of 21 (rather than 24) carat gold , he was burned at the stake in 1281. He is punished by a loathsome dropsy -like disease, which gives him a bloated stomach , prevents him from moving, and an eternal, unbearable thirst . Master Adam points out two sinners of

14442-518: The dead. Influences from other cultures always afforded new themes. According to Classical-era mythology, after the overthrow of the Titans, the new pantheon of gods and goddesses was confirmed. Among the principal Greek gods were the Olympians, residing on Mount Olympus under the eye of Zeus. (The limitation of their number to twelve seems to have been a comparatively modern idea.) Besides

14608-462: The deathless gods". Without male assistance, Gaia gave birth to Uranus (the Sky) who then fertilized her. From that union were born first the Titans —six males: Coeus , Crius , Cronus , Hyperion , Iapetus , and Oceanus ; and six females: Mnemosyne , Phoebe , Rhea , Theia , Themis , and Tethys . After Cronus was born, Gaia and Uranus decreed no more Titans were to be born. They were followed by

14774-473: The decoration of votive gifts and many other artifacts. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth century BC depict scenes from the Epic Cycle as well as the adventures of Heracles . In the succeeding Archaic , Classical , and Hellenistic periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has had an extensive influence on

14940-568: The divine-focused Theogony and Homeric Hymns in both size and popularity. Under the influence of Homer the "hero cult" leads to a restructuring in spiritual life, expressed in the separation of the realm of the gods from the realm of the dead (heroes), of the Chthonic from the Olympian. In the Works and Days , Hesiod makes use of a scheme of Four Ages of Man (or Races): Golden, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. These races or ages are separate creations of

15106-480: The earlier part of the so-called Lyric age . Hesiod , a possible contemporary with Homer, offers in his Theogony ( Origin of the Gods ) the fullest account of the earliest Greek myths, dealing with the creation of the world, the origin of the gods, Titans , and Giants , as well as elaborate genealogies, folktales, and aetiological myths. Hesiod's Works and Days , a didactic poem about farming life, also includes

15272-459: The end of Canto III, Dante – overcome by pity and anguish – describes his swoon: "I fainted, as if I had met my death. / And then I fell as a dead body falls". In the third circle, the gluttonous wallow in a vile, putrid slush produced by a ceaseless, foul, icy rain – "a great storm of putrefaction" – as punishment for subjecting their reason to a voracious appetite. Cerberus (described as il gran vermo , literally 'the great worm', line 22),

15438-476: The evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson (1975) has argued. The earlier inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula were an agricultural people who, using animism , assigned

15604-405: The fates of some families in successive generations." After the rise of the hero cult, gods and heroes constitute the sacral sphere and are invoked together in oaths and prayers which are addressed to them. Burkert (2002) notes that "the roster of heroes, again in contrast to the gods, is never given fixed and final form. Great gods are no longer born, but new heroes can always be raised up from

15770-509: The first known representation of a myth in geometric art predates its first known representation in late archaic poetry, by several centuries. In the Archaic ( c.  750  – c.  500 BC ), Classical ( c.  480 –323 BC), and Hellenistic (323–146 BC) periods, Homeric and various other mythological scenes appear, supplementing the existing literary evidence. Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate

15936-549: The first of several political prophecies in the Inferno , Ciacco "predicts" the expulsion of the White Guelphs (Dante's party) from Florence by the Black Guelphs, aided by Pope Boniface VIII , which marked the start of Dante's long exile from the city . These events occurred in 1302, prior to when the poem was written but in the future at Easter time of 1300, the time in which the poem is set. The Fourth Circle

16102-757: The fourth class, the Perjurers (Falsifiers of Words). These are Potiphar's wife (punished for her false accusation of Joseph in Genesis 39:7–19 ) and Sinon , the Achaean spy who lied to the Trojans to convince them to take the Trojan Horse into their city ( Aeneid II, 57–194); Sinon is here rather than in Bolgia 8 because his advice was false as well as evil. Both suffer from a burning fever . Master Adam and Sinon exchange abuse, which Dante watches until he

16268-428: The future has been shut", it will no longer be possible for them to know anything. Farinata explains that also crammed within the tomb are Emperor Frederick II , commonly reputed to be an Epicurean, and Ottaviano degli Ubaldini , whom Dante refers to as il Cardinale . Dante reads an inscription on one of the tombs indicating it belongs to Pope Anastasius II – although some modern scholars hold that Dante erred in

16434-472: The gods, the Golden Age belonging to the reign of Cronos, the subsequent races to the creation of Zeus . The presence of evil was explained by the myth of Pandora , when all of the best of human capabilities, save hope, had been spilled out of her overturned jar. In Metamorphoses , Ovid follows Hesiod's concept of the four ages. "Myths of origin" or " creation myths " represent an attempt to explain

16600-527: The grafters, an unidentified Navarrese (identified by early commentators as Ciampolo ), is seized by the demons, and Virgil questions him. The sinner speaks of his fellow grafters, Friar Gomita (a corrupt friar in Gallura eventually hanged by Nino Visconti – see Purgatorio VIII – for accepting bribes to let prisoners escape) and Michele Zanche (a corrupt Vicar of Logodoro under King Enzo of Sardinia ). He offers to lure some of his fellow sufferers into

16766-503: The hands of the demons, and when his plan is accepted he escapes back into the pitch. Alichino and Calcabrina start a brawl in mid-air and fall into the pitch themselves, and Barbariccia organizes a rescue party. Dante and Virgil take advantage of the confusion to slip away. Vanni hurls an obscenity at God and the serpents swarm over him. The centaur Cacus arrives to punish him; he has a fire-breathing dragon on his shoulders and snakes covering his equine back. (In Roman mythology, Cacus,

16932-541: The heel. Achilles' heel was the only part of his body which was not invulnerable to damage by human weaponry. Before they could take Troy, the Greeks had to steal from the citadel the wooden image of Pallas Athena (the Palladium ). Finally, with Athena's help, they built the Trojan Horse . Despite the warnings of Priam's daughter Cassandra , the Trojans were persuaded by Sinon , a Greek who feigned desertion, to take

17098-729: The highest social prestige through his appointment as official ancestor of the Dorian kings. This probably served as a legitimation for the Dorian migrations into the Peloponnese . Hyllus , the eponymous hero of one Dorian phyle , became the son of Heracles and one of the Heracleidae or Heraclids (the numerous descendants of Heracles, especially the descendants of Hyllus —other Heracleidae included Macaria , Lamos, Manto , Bianor , Tlepolemus , and Telephus ). These Heraclids conquered

17264-420: The horse inside the walls of Troy as an offering to Athena; the priest Laocoon, who tried to have the horse destroyed, was killed by sea-serpents. At night the Greek fleet returned, and the Greeks from the horse opened the gates of Troy. In the total sack that followed, Priam and his remaining sons were slaughtered; the Trojan women passed into slavery in various cities of Greece. The adventurous homeward voyages of

17430-405: The ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God's love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice." This final, deepest level of hell is reserved for traitors, betrayers and oathbreakers (its most famous inmate is Judas Iscariot ). In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing

17596-495: The latter of whom is mentioned in Inferno XXX.44) first appears as a man, but exchanges forms with Francesco de' Cavalcanti, who bites Buoso in the form of a four-footed serpent. Puccio Sciancato remains unchanged for the time being. Consider well the seed that gave you birth: you were not made to live your lives as brutes, but to be followers of worth and knowledge. Dante is approached by Guido da Montefeltro , head of

17762-400: The least heinous of the sins and its punishment is the most benign within Hell proper. The "ruined slope" in this circle is thought to be a reference to the earthquake that occurred after the death of Christ. In this circle, Dante sees Semiramis , Dido , Cleopatra , Helen of Troy , Paris , Achilles , Tristan , and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life. Due to

17928-576: The middle of the Archaic period, myths about relationships between male gods and male heroes became more and more frequent, indicating the parallel development of pedagogic pederasty ( παιδικὸς ἔρως , eros paidikos ), thought to have been introduced around 630 BC. By the end of the fifth-century  BC, poets had assigned at least one eromenos , an adolescent boy who was their sexual companion, to every important god except Ares and many legendary figures. Previously existing myths, such as those of Achilles and Patroclus , also then were cast in

18094-428: The monstrous three-headed beast of Hell, ravenously guards the gluttons lying in the freezing mire, mauling and flaying them with his claws as they howl like dogs. Virgil obtains safe passage past the monster by filling its three mouths with mud. Dorothy L. Sayers writes that "the surrender to sin which began with mutual indulgence leads by an imperceptible degradation to solitary self-indulgence". The gluttons grovel in

18260-493: The monstrous, fire-breathing son of Vulcan , was killed by Hercules for raiding the hero's cattle; in Aeneid VIII, 193–267, Virgil did not describe him as a centaur). Dante then meets five noble thieves of Florence and observes their various transformations. Agnello Brunelleschi, in human form, is merged with the six-legged serpent that is Cianfa Donati. A figure named Buoso (perhaps either Buoso degli Abati or Buoso Donati,

18426-401: The mud by themselves, sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives. Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality – which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction. In this circle, Dante converses with

18592-577: The myth of the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to retrieve the Golden Fleece from the mythical land of Colchis . In the Argonautica , Jason is impelled on his quest by king Pelias , who receives a prophecy that a man with one sandal would be his nemesis . Jason loses a sandal in a river, arrives at the court of Pelias, and the epic is set in motion. Nearly every member of the next generation of heroes, as well as Heracles, went with Jason in

18758-479: The mythological details about gods and heroes. The evidence about myths and rituals at Mycenaean and Minoan sites is entirely monumental, as the Linear B script (an ancient form of Greek found in both Crete and mainland Greece) was used mainly to record inventories, although certain names of gods and heroes have been tentatively identified. Geometric designs on pottery of the eighth-century  BC depict scenes from

18924-530: The myths of Prometheus , Pandora , and the Five Ages . The poet advises on the best way to succeed in a dangerous world, rendered yet more dangerous by its gods. Lyrical poets often took their subjects from myth, but their treatment became gradually less narrative and more allusive. Greek lyric poets, including Pindar , Bacchylides and Simonides , and bucolic poets such as Theocritus and Bion , relate individual mythological incidents. Additionally, myth

19090-440: The myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of mythmaking itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer 's epic poems ,

19256-443: The nature of Fortune , who raises nations to greatness and later plunges them into poverty, as she shifts, "those empty goods from nation unto nation, clan to clan". This speech fills what would otherwise be a gap in the poem, since both groups are so absorbed in their activity that Virgil tells Dante that it would be pointless to try to speak to them – indeed, they have lost their individuality and been rendered "unrecognizable". In

19422-492: The one-eyed Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires or Hundred-Handed Ones, who were both thrown into Tartarus by Uranus. This made Gaia furious. Cronus ("the wily, youngest and most terrible of Gaia 's children") was convinced by Gaia to castrate his father. He did this and became the ruler of the Titans with his sister-wife, Rhea, as his consort, and the other Titans became his court. A motif of father-against-son conflict

19588-473: The only general mythographical handbook to survive from Greek antiquity was the Library of Pseudo-Apollodorus. This work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends. Apollodorus of Athens lived from c.  180 BC to c.  125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed

19754-609: The opportunists who were for neither good nor evil, but instead were merely concerned with themselves. Among these Dante recognizes a figure who made the " great refusal ", implied to be Pope Celestine V , whose "cowardice (in selfish terror for his own welfare) served as the door through which so much evil entered the Church". Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels . These souls are forever unclassified; they are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on

19920-433: The other side. Virgil proceeds to guide Dante through the nine circles of Hell. The circles are concentric , representing a gradual increase in wickedness , and culminating at the centre of the earth, where Satan is held in bondage. The sinners of each circle are punished for eternity in a fashion fitting their crimes: each punishment is a contrapasso , a symbolic instance of poetic justice . For example, later in

20086-478: The other: "Why do you waste?" Relating this sin of incontinence to the two that preceded it (lust and gluttony), Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "Mutual indulgence has already declined into selfish appetite; now, that appetite becomes aware of the incompatible and equally selfish appetites of other people. Indifference becomes mutual antagonism, imaged here by the antagonism between hoarding and squandering." The contrast between these two groups leads Virgil to discourse on

20252-675: The physicians Hippocrates and Galen . He also encounters Avicenna , a Persian polymath, and Averroes , a medieval Andalusian polymath known for his commentaries on Aristotle's works. Dante and Virgil depart from the four other poets and continue their journey. Although Dante implies that all virtuous non-Christians find themselves here, he later encounters two ( Cato of Utica and Statius ) in Purgatory and two ( Trajan and Ripheus ) in Heaven. In Purgatorio XXII, Virgil names several additional inhabitants of Limbo who were not mentioned in

20418-676: The poem, Dante and Virgil encounter fortune-tellers who must walk forward with their heads on backward, unable to see what is ahead, because they tried to see the future through forbidden means. Such a contrapasso "functions not merely as a form of divine revenge , but rather as the fulfilment of a destiny freely chosen by each soul during his or her life". People who sinned, but prayed for forgiveness before their deaths are found not in Hell but in Purgatory , where they labour to become free of their sins. Those in Hell are people who tried to justify their sins and are unrepentant. Dante's Hell

20584-522: The poet obtained three major categories of sin, as symbolized by the three beasts that Dante encounters in Canto I: these are Incontinence , Violence/Bestiality, and Fraud/Malice. Sinners punished for incontinence (also known as wantonness) – the lustful, the gluttonous, the hoarders and wasters, and the wrathful and sullen – all demonstrated weakness in controlling their appetites, desires, and natural urges; according to Aristotle's Ethics , incontinence

20750-720: The presence of so many rulers among the lustful, the fifth Canto of Inferno has been called the "canto of the queens". Dante comes across Francesca da Rimini , who married the deformed Giovanni Malatesta (also known as "Gianciotto") for political purposes but fell in love with his younger brother Paolo Malatesta ; the two began to carry on an adulterous affair. Sometime between 1283 and 1286, Giovanni surprised them together in Francesca's bedroom and violently stabbed them both to death. Francesca explains: Love, which in gentlest hearts will soonest bloom   seized my lover with passion for that sweet body   from which I

20916-459: The problem of the devolution of power and of the mode of accession to sovereignty. The twins Atreus and Thyestes with their descendants played the leading role in the tragedy of the devolution of power in Mycenae. The Theban Cycle deals with events associated especially with Cadmus , the city's founder, and later with the doings of Laius and Oedipus at Thebes; a series of stories that lead to

21082-495: The realms of the afterlife, and doubts his own capability to undertake such a passage (Inf. 2.10-36). Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription ending with the phrase " Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate ", most frequently translated as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here". Dante and his guide hear the anguished screams of the Uncommitted. These are the souls of people who in life took no sides;

21248-589: The river as the Styx , perhaps following the geography of Virgil 's underworld in the Aeneid , where Charon is associated with both rivers. The Homeric poems describe the Acheron as a river of Hades , into which Cocytus and Phlegethon both flowed. The Roman poet Virgil called the Acheron the principal river of Tartarus , from which the Styx and the Cocytus both sprang. The newly dead would be ferried across

21414-510: The seduction or rape of a mortal woman by a male god, resulting in heroic offspring. The stories generally suggest that relationships between gods and mortals are something to avoid; even consenting relationships rarely have happy endings. In a few cases, a female divinity mates with a mortal man, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite , where the goddess lies with Anchises to produce Aeneas . The second type (tales of punishment) involves

21580-519: The seventh circle. Virgil explains the presence of shattered stones around them: they resulted from the great earthquake that shook the earth at the moment of Christ's death ( Matthew 27:51), at the time of the Harrowing of Hell. Ruins resulting from the same shock were previously seen at the beginning of Upper Hell (the entrance of the Second Circle , Canto V). Protected by the powers of

21746-593: The ship Argo to fetch the Golden Fleece. This generation also included Theseus , who went to Crete to slay the Minotaur ; Atalanta , the female heroine, and Meleager , who once had an epic cycle of his own to rival the Iliad and Odyssey . Pindar , Apollonius and the Bibliotheca endeavor to give full lists of the Argonauts. Although Apollonius wrote his poem in the 3rd century BC,

21912-479: The shores of the Acheron . Naked and futile, they race around through the mist in eternal pursuit of an elusive, wavering banner (symbolic of their pursuit of ever-shifting self-interest ) while relentlessly chased by swarms of wasps and hornets , who continually sting them. Loathsome maggots and worms at the sinners' feet drink the putrid mixture of blood, pus, and tears that flows down their bodies, symbolizing

22078-483: The society while the beliefs were held. After they ceased to become religious beliefs, few would have known the rites and rituals. Allusions often existed, however, to aspects that were quite public. Images existed on pottery and religious artwork that were interpreted and more likely, misinterpreted in many diverse myths and tales. A few fragments of these works survive in quotations by Neoplatonist philosophers and recently unearthed papyrus scraps. One of these scraps,

22244-494: The sting of their guilty conscience and the repugnance of sin. This may also be seen as a reflection of the spiritual stagnation in which they lived. After passing through the vestibule, Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon , who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil forces Charon to take him by declaring, Vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole ("It

22410-615: The stone, which had been sitting in Cronus's stomach all this time. Zeus then challenged Cronus to war for the kingship of the gods. At last, with the help of the Cyclopes (whom Zeus freed from Tartarus), Zeus and his siblings were victorious, while Cronus and the Titans were hurled down to imprisonment in Tartarus . Zeus was plagued by the same concern, and after a prophecy that the offspring of his first wife, Metis , would give birth to

22576-406: The stony hearts of the underworld gods in his descent to Hades . When Hermes invents the lyre in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes , the first thing he does is sing about the birth of the gods. Hesiod's Theogony is not only the fullest surviving account of the gods but also the fullest surviving account of the archaic poet's function, with its long preliminary invocation to the Muses . Theogony also

22742-529: The story of the adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere in the Old French romance Lancelot du Lac . Francesca says, "Galeotto fu 'l libro e chi lo scrisse" . The word Galeotto means ' pander ', but is also the Italian term for Gallehaut , who acted as an intermediary between Lancelot and Guinevere, encouraging them on to love. John Ciardi renders line 137 as "That book, and he who wrote it,

22908-506: The sun is silent ( l sol tace ). However, Dante is rescued by a figure who announces that he was born sub Iulio (i.e., in the time of Julius Caesar ) and lived under Augustus : it is the shade of the Roman poet Virgil , author of the Aeneid , a Latin epic which also featured a journey through the underworld . On the evening of Good Friday, Dante hesitates as he follows Virgil; Virgil explains that he has been sent by Beatrice ,

23074-474: The swampy, stinking waters of the river Styx – the Fifth Circle – the actively wrathful fight each other viciously on the surface of the slime, while the sullen (the passively wrathful) lie beneath the water, withdrawn, "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe". At the surface of the foul Stygian marsh, Dorothy L. Sayers writes, "the active hatreds rend and snarl at one another; at

23240-512: The symbol of Divine Love. Beatrice had been moved to aid Dante by the Virgin Mary (symbolic of compassion) and Saint Lucia (symbolic of illuminating Grace). Rachel , symbolic of the contemplative life, also appears in the heavenly scene recounted by Virgil. The two of them then begin their journey to the underworld . Feeling uncertain of his worthiness for the journey, Dante reflects on the paths of Aeneas and Paul, who were granted access to

23406-473: The tale known to us through tragedy (e.g. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex ) and later mythological accounts. Greek mythology culminates in the Trojan War, fought between Greece and Troy , and its aftermath. In Homer's works, such as the Iliad , the chief stories have already taken shape and substance, and individual themes were elaborated later, especially in Greek drama. The Trojan War also elicited great interest in

23572-454: The ten ditches. Dorothy L. Sayers writes that the Malebolge is "the image of the City in corruption: the progressive disintegration of every social relationship, personal and public. Sexuality, ecclesiastical and civil office, language, ownership, counsel, authority, psychic influence, and material interdependence – all the media of the community's interchange are perverted and falsified". One of

23738-430: The terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow needlessly and aimlessly: "as the lovers drifted into self-indulgence and were carried away by their passions, so now they drift for ever. The bright, voluptuous sin is now seen as it is – a howling darkness of helpless discomfort." Since lust involves mutual indulgence and is not, therefore, completely self-centered, Dante deems it

23904-480: The three kinds of sin that bring the unrepentant soul into one of the three major divisions of Hell. According to John Ciardi , these are incontinence (the she-wolf); violence and bestiality (the lion); and fraud and malice (the leopard). It is now dawn of Good Friday , April 8, with the sun rising in Aries . The beasts drive him back despairing into the darkness of error, a "lower place" ( basso loco ) where

24070-750: The time through his unexplained awareness of the stars' positions. The "Wain", the Great Bear , now lies in the northwest over Caurus (the northwest wind). The constellation Pisces (the Fish) is just appearing over the horizon: it is the zodiacal sign preceding Aries (the Ram). Canto I notes that the sun is in Aries, and since the twelve zodiac signs rise at two-hour intervals, it must now be about two hours prior to sunrise: 4:00   a.m. on Holy Saturday , April 9. The Seventh Circle, divided into three rings, houses

24236-537: The two begin their descent from the great cliff in the Eighth Circle: the Hell of the Fraudulent and Malicious. Geryon, the winged monster who allows Dante and Virgil to descend a vast cliff to reach the Eighth Circle, was traditionally represented as a giant with three heads and three conjoined bodies. Dante's Geryon, meanwhile, is an image of fraud, combining human, bestial, and reptilian elements: Geryon

24402-492: The ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is the Devil , referred to by Virgil as Dis (the Roman god of the underworld; the name "Dis" was often used for Pluto in antiquity, such as in Virgil's Aeneid ). The arch-traitor, Lucifer was once held by God to be fairest of the angels before his pride led him to rebel against God, resulting in his expulsion from Heaven. Lucifer is a giant, terrifying beast trapped waist-deep in

24568-473: The underworld in Book VI of the Aeneid . In Book VII, line 312 he gives to Juno the famous saying, flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo : 'If I cannot bend the will of Heaven, I shall move Hell.' The same words were used by Sigmund Freud as the dedicatory motto for his seminal book The Interpretation of Dreams , figuring Acheron as psychological underworld beneath the conscious mind. The Acheron

24734-508: The underworld. This mandatory confession makes it so every soul verbalizes and sanctions their own ranking amongst the condemned since these confessions are the sole grounds for their placement in hell. Dante is not forced to make this confession; instead, Virgil rebukes Minos, and he and Dante continue on. In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust . These "carnal malefactors" are condemned for allowing their appetites to sway their reason. These souls are buffeted back and forth by

24900-535: The upper half of the Hell of the Fraudulent and Malicious. The Eighth Circle is a large funnel of stone shaped like an amphitheatre around which run a series of ten deep, narrow, concentric ditches or trenches called bolge (singular: bolgia ). Within these ditches are punished those guilty of Simple Fraud. From the foot of the Great Cliff to the Well (which forms the neck of the funnel) are large spurs of rock, like umbrella ribs or spokes, which serve as bridges over

25066-514: The verse mentioning Anastasius ( "Anastasio papa guardo, / lo qual trasse Fotin de la via dritta" , lines 8–9), confusing the pope with the Byzantine emperor of the time, Anastasius I . Pausing for a moment before the steep descent to the foul-smelling seventh circle, Virgil explains the geography and rationale of Lower Hell, in which the sins of violence (or bestiality) and fraud (or malice) are punished. In his explanation, Virgil refers to

25232-577: The war of the Seven against Thebes and the eventual pillage of that city at the hands of the Epigoni . (It is not known whether the Seven figured in early epic.) As far as Oedipus is concerned, early epic accounts seem to have him continuing to rule at Thebes after the revelation that Iokaste was his mother, and subsequently marrying a second wife who becomes the mother of his children—markedly different from

25398-605: The wisest men of antiquity – surrounded by seven gates, and a flowing brook. After passing through the seven gates, the group comes to an exquisite green meadow and Dante encounters the inhabitants of the Citadel. These include figures associated with the Trojans and their descendants (the Romans): Electra (mother of Troy's founder Dardanus ), Hector , Aeneas , Julius Caesar in his role as Roman general ("in his armor, falcon-eyed"), Camilla , Penthesilea (Queen of

25564-538: The works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth century BC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age , and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias . Aside from this narrative deposit in ancient Greek literature , pictorial representations of gods, heroes, and mythic episodes featured prominently in ancient vase paintings and

25730-434: The world" may be divided into three or four broader periods: While the age of gods often has been of more interest to contemporary students of myth, the Greek authors of the archaic and classical eras had a clear preference for the age of heroes, establishing a chronology and record of human accomplishments after the questions of how the world came into being were explained. For example, the heroic Iliad and Odyssey dwarfed

25896-400: Was a pander." Inspired by Dante, author Giovanni Boccaccio invoked the name Prencipe Galeotto in the alternative title to The Decameron , a 14th-century collection of novellas. Ultimately, Francesca never makes a full confession to Dante. Rather than admit to her and Paolo's sins, the very reasons they reside in this circle of hell, she consistently takes an erroneously passive role in

26062-598: Was central to classical Athenian drama . The tragic playwrights Aeschylus , Sophocles , and Euripides took most of their plots from myths of the age of heroes and the Trojan War. Many of the great tragic stories (e.g. Agamemnon and his children, Oedipus , Jason , Medea , etc.) took on their classic form in these tragedies. The comic playwright Aristophanes also used myths, in The Birds and The Frogs . Historians Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus , and geographers Pausanias and Strabo , who traveled throughout

26228-478: Was insured by the constant use of nectar and ambrosia , by which the divine blood was renewed in their veins. Each god descends from his or her own genealogy, pursues differing interests, has a certain area of expertise, and is governed by a unique personality; however, these descriptions arise from a multiplicity of archaic local variants, which do not always agree with one another. When these gods are called upon in poetry, prayer, or cult, they are referred to by

26394-592: Was probably a real man, perhaps a chieftain-vassal of the kingdom of Argos . Some scholars suggest the story of Heracles is an allegory for the sun's yearly passage through the twelve constellations of the zodiac. Others point to earlier myths from other cultures, showing the story of Heracles as a local adaptation of hero myths already well established. Traditionally, Heracles was the son of Zeus and Alcmene , granddaughter of Perseus . His fantastic solitary exploits, with their many folk-tale themes, provided much material for popular legend. According to Burkert (2002), "He

26560-511: Was repeated when Cronus was confronted by his son, Zeus . Because Cronus had betrayed his father, he feared that his offspring would do the same, and so each time Rhea gave birth, he snatched up the child and ate it. Rhea hated this and tricked him by hiding Zeus and wrapping a stone in a baby's blanket, which Cronus ate. When Zeus was full-grown, he fed Cronus a drugged drink which caused him to vomit, throwing up Rhea's other children, including Poseidon , Hades , Hestia , Demeter , and Hera , and

26726-591: Was searching for her daughter, Persephone , having taken the form of an old woman called Doso, and received a hospitable welcome from Celeus , the King of Eleusis in Attica . As a gift to Celeus, because of his hospitality, Demeter planned to make his son Demophon a god, but she was unable to complete the ritual because his mother Metanira walked in and saw her son in the fire and screamed in fright, which angered Demeter, who lamented that foolish mortals do not understand

26892-575: Was sometimes referred to as a lake or swamp in Greek literature, as in Aristophanes ' The Frogs and Euripides ' Alcestis . In Dante 's Inferno , the Acheron river forms the border of Hell . Following Greek mythology, Charon ferries souls across this river to Hell. Those who were neutral in life sit on the banks. Acheron Lake in Antarctica is named after the mythical river. Several ships have been named HMS Acheron . There

27058-522: Was the bow but frequently also the club. Vase paintings demonstrate the unparalleled popularity of Heracles, his fight with the lion being depicted many hundreds of times. Heracles also entered Etruscan and Roman mythology and cult, and the exclamation "mehercule" became as familiar to the Romans as "Herakleis" was to the Greeks. In Italy he was worshipped as a god of merchants and traders, although others also prayed to him for his characteristic gifts of good luck or rescue from danger. Heracles attained

27224-431: Was the goddess of love and beauty, Ares was the god of war, Hades the ruler of the underworld, and Athena the goddess of wisdom and courage. Some gods, such as Apollo and Dionysus , revealed complex personalities and mixtures of functions, while others, such as Hestia (literally "hearth") and Helios (literally "sun"), were little more than personifications. The most impressive temples tended to be dedicated to

27390-450: Was the subject of many lost poems, including those attributed to Orpheus, Musaeus , Epimenides , Abaris , and other legendary seers, which were used in private ritual purifications and mystery-rites . There are indications that Plato was familiar with some version of the Orphic theogony. A silence would have been expected about religious rites and beliefs, however, and that nature of the culture would not have been reported by members of

27556-443: Was torn unshriven to my doom. Love, which permits no loved one not to love,   took me so strongly with delight in him   that we are one in Hell, as we were above. Love led us to one death. In the depths of Hell    Caïna waits for him who took our lives ."   This was the piteous tale they stopped to tell. Francesca further reports that she and Paolo yielded to their love when reading

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