How Many Hells? And Why? (Hell part 4)

The lore of Dungeons and Dragons, and that of Pathfinder as well, assumes that there are nine levels of Hell: Avernus, Dis, Minauros, Phegethos, Stygia, Malebolge, Maladomini, Cania, and Nessus. But why Nine, and why those names? *None of what I am about to relate in any way reflects my perspectives, I'm just telling you the story and how it affected Hell in D&D.

Well, for the Nine, blame it on fanfic. Sort of. In the 14th century, Florentine philosopher, statesman, and poet Dante Alighieri wrote a three part epic poem called the Divine Comedy, in which he combined Aristotle's ideas of ethics with Christian ideas of sin and virtue. The section that most concerns us here is the Inferno, in which the author himself is supposedly taken on a tour of Hell by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. Many of the important people of Dante's day, as well as earlier luminaries, are assigned various places in this Hell, according to their perceived sins, making this both a religious piece and a powerfully political one.

It is of note that he actually creates 10 sections to Hell, if one includes the Vestibule, the area just beyond the gate with that famous phrase "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here." In the Vestibule, the undecided are imprisoned. Any who did not choose between good and evil, the fallen angels that took no part in the war in Heaven, those who cared only for themselves but committed no other great sin. All those people run through endless mists chasing an elusive banner that represents their shifting self interest, never to catch it. All the while, they are naked and vulnerable, running on maggots and worms, stung by wasps and hornets.

Beyond the River Acheron, reached via Charon's ferry, is the first circle. (Obviously he uses a great deal of Greco-Roman mythology in his story as well, unsurprising for an Italian poet.) Oddly, the first circle, Limbo, is not a place of pumishment. Instead, it's a kind of lesser Heaven, reserved for virtuous pagans and those who never had the chance to accept Salvation in the form of Christ. This includes anyone unbaptized, and thus innocent children.

Next up is the second Circle, the circle of Lust. One must pass the serpentine judge of the damned, Minos (also from Greco-Roman myth) and be assigned their place. This hell, full of those who let carnal desire tempt them to wrong action, punishes those within by bashing them to and fro in an eternal storm, a symbol of how being a slave to lust is in life. Howling winds are mentioned...which actually sounds more like D&D's Pandemonium, but I digress.

The third Circle is Gluttony, guarded by Cerberus. The damned here are pelted with putrid freezing rain as they lie in the mud while the great hound slices the flesh from them with his claws. It's worth mentioning that Gluttony here applies to overconsumption and addiction in all form, not just food.

4th, we got the Circle of Greed. It's guarded by Plutus, (called Pluto, but not the same guy as Hades, except when he is) a Roman god of wealth. Interestingly, wasting money and goods is punished as much as hoarding it, here. The two groups are forced to fight each other by pushing huge weights (sometimes depicted as money bags) back and forth.

Up next, the 5th. The Circle of Wrath is literally the whole river Styx. Basically, the folks here punish themselves. If you were actively wrathful and violent, you keep hurting yourself and others. If you were passive aggressive, you just sink beneath the slime of the river and brood.

All the circles up till now were considered sins of Incontinence: the inability to control ones baser urges. They were less awful than those to come, from Dante's (and Aristotle's) perspective.

One crosses the Styx, if they can, on a skiff piloted by Phlegyas, an ancient Lapith king. On the other side, the City of Dis, which is surrounded by the marshy Styx, and itself surrounds all the lower circles. The walls are guarded by fallen angels, the Furies and Medusa accost those caught outside. But Dis isn't a circle, it just contains them.

The 6th Circle is that of Heresy. Yup, the sin of questioning or disagreeing with Church doctrine is worse than Lust, Gluttony, Greed, or Wrath. If you get sent here, you spend eternity trapped in a flaming tomb. The people being punished for this even include popes, which is kind of odd, considering Popes are supposed to be infallible when speaking in their office.

The next circle, the 7th, is the circle of violence. Here, it basically covers those who do violence on purpose. It's subdivided into three rings. Tyrants and murderers are boiled in blood and fire and shot with arrows by centaurs. The next ring is the Wood of Suicides. Those who do violence against themselves are turned into trees, fed on by harpies, and don't even get to be bodily resurrected at judgement day . They stay trees. The final ring is appreantly violence against God, Nature, and Art, in order: Blasphemers are stretched out lying on burning sand, Sodomites are running screaming across the sand, and Usurers (people who loan money for high interest) are huddled crying. Note that this is Dante and his era, and not my perspective, although I kind of agree about Usury.

Weirdly, in this Christian tale, someone is being punished for Blasphemy against Jupiter...

To get down to the 8th circle, you fly on Geryon's back (I assume you could also jump, but it would really hurt) . Here's how Dante describes him: "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 8th Circle is called Malebolge, or "evil ditches', and is the hell of Fraud. It has 10 divisions, all for different kinds of folks who deceive and are corrupt. Lying for ones own gain seems to have been a bit frowned upon. This I can get behind.

To get to the final circle, you have to get past all the giants from the bible and Greco-Roman myth. Again, interestingly, the Greco-Roman giants are being punished for opposing the Greco-Roman gods...not the Christian one.

Anyway, the deepesst circle is all about Treachery. It's called Cocytus, and is the frozen hell where traitors are punished. It ranks the treachery interestingly: If you only betrayed your family, you get to have your head out of the ice and can duck down to avoid some of the wind. If you betrrayed your city or country, you had your head out of the ice, but couldn't get out of the wind. If you betrayed a guest, thus breaking hospitality, you lie in the ice with your tears freezing your eyes open. If you betrayed your Lord, ie the person to whom you had sworn fealty, then you were entirely encased with ice, and held in a contorted position.

In the very center of the very bottom is the Devil, here called Dis. He has three mouths: one chews on Brutus who betrayed Caesar. Another chews on Longinus, who killed Jesus. The middle and worst chews on Judas, who betrayed Jesus. An interesting perspective. This is getting long, so I think I'll tackle the names of the layers in D&D and where they come from, along with their rulers, maybe, next time.