A Second Journey Through Hell
"Once again upon this world we're bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone," (Dante, I, 1-3). Aware of what must lie ahead, I prayed that I might not be filled with dread. Gathering all my strength and courage, I rose and awaited my trustworthy guide, Virgil, knowing that I was destined to enter into Hell where I would once again be witness to the justice of the Lord. In the distance I could hear the pacing of the lion, the purring of the leopard, and the deep rumbling growl of the She-wolf. My guide soon arrived and, overwhelmed by his presence, I became faint. I awoke gazing up at a familiar sight. I read, "Nothing ere I was made was made to be save things eterne, and I eterne abide; lay down all hope, you that go in by me," (Dante, III, 7-9). I was now certain that I would be entering into the land of the dammed.
This time prepared for what lay ahead, our journey through limbo went by quickly and we soon found ourselves beyond the righteous pagans, past Minos the judge, and amongst the lustful in the second circle of hell. Upon arriving amongst the lustful I was surprised to see the first noticeable change to hell since my last journey. With each century passed came new punishments for new sins. As we walked on past the souls of many lovers led astray by sexual temptations I saw a peculiar sight: Bill Clinton, a former President of the United States of America stood upon a cliff, looking down at a sea of children. The shrieks of troublesome infants echoed off the walls of the circle as one by one Clinton cleaned child after child. Sewn onto his flesh was a crimson "A," the mark of an adulterer. Curious at such an odd punishment, Virgil explained, "during his term in office, Clinton soiled his reputation and disrupted the balance of both his nation and his marriage. By sharing a bed with multiple women and falling victim to his lust, Clinton secured his place in the second circle. Clinton soiled the name of his nation due to his lust and therefore will perpetually clean the soiled results of his lust."
Disgusted both by Clinton's crime and by his punishment, Virgil guided me past the souls of the lustful and into the third circle of hell: the circle of gluttony. Barely able to maneuver along the crowded path through the densely populated circle, I wondered at how many gluttons had arrived since my last visit. As we slowly worked our way through the circle I noticed a highly overweight soul of a Fool with skin as white as chalk and hair and a nose as red as blood. Struggling in the frozen black rain and on a grease-slicked road, the Fool would fall and stand back up only to once again loose his footing on the slime-cover floor. "Who are you poor fool?" I questioned. "McDonald," he squeaked before once again falling. Eager to move beyond the crowded muck, I followed Virgil towards the end of the third circle.
As we descended upon the fourth circle, Virgil reminded me "in life these were so squint of mind as in handling of their wealth to use no moderation," (Dante, VII, 40-43). My attention was drawn to a peculiar sight. From a distance I could see the checkered pattern of a chessboard and hear the gentle scraping of marble against marble as each piece moved from space to space. A man whose soul took the form of an unfit and overweight Fool stood amongst fifteen black and sixteen white chess pieces in the space designated for the black king. I stood in awe, watching as the each piece was expertly guided across the board controlled by none other than the souls of knights.
After a short while the game neared its end. The formidable white king, nearly ten feet in height, approached the fool and swung his scepter towards his head. We watched in disgust as the foolish king broke into hundreds of pieces, opening his mouth and letting out a piercing cry of agony. Slowly the body began to return to its original form, piece by piece. Finally restored to his original state, the powerless fool was returned to his original place and a new game began, showing no hope for a better outcome than the last. The king glanced toward us and I heard him softly mutter the name "Cordelia." At once I recognized the man as King Lear, the most foolish monarch to ever govern England.
I approached Lear, feeling pity for the man who faced such a punishment for his greed and laziness. "Pray tell me sir, what was your sin?" I asked Lear. With my encouragement, the King plunged into a rehearsed confession of all he had done wrong. "I was a selfish man blinded by money and power and will now pay for it for eternity. After ruling the people of England for nearly sixty years I decided that I was prepared to retire and live the rest of my life relaxing alongside my money and my many knights. Had I not been so foolishly blinded by flattery and gallant promises I would not suffer as I do today. My eldest daughters Goneril and Regan showered me with praises, exclaiming, 'Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter; dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty…I profess myself an enemy to all other joys which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness' love.' (Lear, I.1.55-56, 72-76). My youngest and favorite child Cordelia withheld such praises, presenting loyalty and love rather than flattery. I dismissed my poor Cordelia and soon saw my life shatter into hundreds of pieces.
Ignorant of the evil within my eldest daughters, I gauged their love based upon the wealth each was willing to award me after I had divided my kingdom amongst them. In a fit of rage towards Regan I sided with her equally wicked sister, declaring, 'I'll go with thee. Thy fifty doth double five-and-twenty, and thou art twice her love,' (Lear, II.4.258-260). Had I known then that my greed and trust in such disloyal daughters would lead to my death and eternal punishment, I may have been able to salvage my soul. I was wasteful. I wasted my wealth on knights to use like a child's toy and was made a fool when trusting my cruel daughters, so a fool and a child's toy I will be for eternity."
With the words of the Fool echoing in my ears, I returned to Virgil and told the poet that I was ready to continue our journey beyond the fourth circle. We passed through the fifth circle quickly, the ever-reluctant Phlegyas guiding us across the river Styx and beyond the wrathful and slothful. We soon descended further down into the sixth circle where those who committed crimes against the church reside. At once I noticed a great change in the circle of the heretics since my previous tour through hell. A mountain had been erected alongside 'those that find there their fiery burial,' (Dante, X, 7).
Surrounding one spot along the mountainside were hundreds of demons flying and vigorously striking a man barely visible through the chaos. As we neared the mountain we were allowed a clearer look at the man and I recognized him as the heretic and political advisor Niccoló Machiavelli. A cross nearly twenty feet tall and fifteen feet wide weighed down upon the Florentine's shoulders as he slowly crawled up the steep and treacherous mountainside. As Machiavelli began to approach the top he lost his footing and my guide and I watched as he was slowly dragged down the mountainside by his burden. The blood-curling laughter of the demons echoed throughout the cavern. Finally reaching the bottom of the seemingly endless hill, the heretic was attacked on all sides by the taunting fiends until he once again rose and began the ascent.
Only vaguely familiar with Machiavelli's story, I asked my guide, "Pray tell sir, what crime against the church has my fellow Florentine committed?" Virgil responded, "Machiavelli committed one of the greatest crimes a man can commit against the church and therefore is facing the harshest of punishments. In a letter written to Prince Lorenzo Medici Machiavelli advised the monarch of Florence to ignore the commandments and laws of the church in order to gain control over the people. The political advisor thought of man as 'ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers…and greedy for profit,' (Machiavelli, XVII). He justified murder encouraging the Prince stating, 'if, even so, it proves necessary to execute someone, this is to be done only when there is proper justification and manifest reason for it,' (Machiavelli, XVII). The man dismissed the importance of virtue claiming that 'a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous. Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must be prepared not to be virtuous, and to make use of this or not according to need,' (Machiavelli, XV). By encouraging the leader of a nation to ignore the word of God and the laws of the church, Machiavelli led many astray from embracing their true purpose of serving god and abused the sacrifice Christ Jesus bestowed upon his followers. As punishment for his heresy and crimes against Christ, he will for eternity suffer in the same way Jesus suffered, 'carrying his own cross' and 'again and again being struck on the head with a staff,'" (John 19:17, Mark 15:19 NIV).
With one last look at the horrific sight of Machiavelli, we moved on through the sixth level and down through the seventh, traveling across the Phlegethon river and beyond the violent. As we continued on through the eighth circle of hell and crossed the bridges connecting the first four bowges I took in the familiar sights of the tortured fraudulent. We crossed over the fifth bowge and I watched as "a thick pitch boiled down there, spattering the brink with a viscous glue," (Dante, XXI, 17-18).
Amongst the corrupt politicians struggling to stay at surface level I saw another modern politician, none other than George W. Bush, a man who had held office as President of the United States of America for eight long years. Known for harvesting oil across the world at the expense of innocent lives, disrupting international peace, tarnishing the name of his nation, and for deceiving his people throughout his time in office, the corrupt politician struggled alongside those who had come before him but bore an even greater burden than his peers. Along the shore stood an enormous, green, animated statue of a woman with a disgusted grimace upon her face, a torch in one hand, and a brand in the other. As Bush fought to remain at surface level, the woman repeatedly pressed the brand into his forehead, forcing Bush deeper into the pitch. Despite her persistence the brand never stayed longer than a minute. Standing directly above the former president, I stopped, pondering a crime heinous enough to prompt such a punishment as I watched the words "weapon of mass destruction" quickly disappear from his forehead. Aware that it was well past time for me to exit Hell, Virgil urged me forward. As we continued across the bridge I watched as the Statue of Liberty continued stripping Bush of his liberty as he had stripped her nation of theirs.
After struggling through the bowge of the hypocrites and crossing over the final four bowges, we arrived in the most daunting circle of hell. As we entered the ninth circle I gazed out across the lake of ice and saw the traitors "so, wedged in ice to the point at which appear the hues of shame, livid, and with their teeth chattering like storks…their heads bowed toward the ice beneath," (Dante, XXXII, 34-37). In the region of Caïna where the traitors of kin were frozen I heard Edmund, the bastard and youngest son of the Earl of Glouster during the time of Lear calling out for his foolish father. Frozen up to the neck, his eyelids frozen shut, and hidden from view by the body of Glouster, Edmund moaned and begged for help, filled with agonizing pain and hunger.
"His punishment does not seem nearly harsh enough to fit his crime," I observed to Virgil. He responded, "to beg for help from others truly is the greatest torture Edmund could face. The bastard son of Glouster is concealed from the view of all who pass and is completely helpless. During his life Edmund killed mercilessly and betrayed his kin in order to obtain land and power. He was convinced that 'if not by birth, he should have lands by wit,' (Lear, I.2.181). An individualist, Edmund rebelled against the tradition of inheritance and explained, 'wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom, and permit the curiosity of nations to deprive me, for that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines lag of a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base, when my dimensions are well compact, my mind as generous, and my shape as true, as honest madam's issue?' (Lear, 1.2.2-9). Trapped within the ice and blocked from view, Edmund is incapable of gaining an audience to control or control over his own life. Like those all of those in hell, Edmund is facing an atrocious punishment for an atrocious crime."
With these final words we continued on through the ninth circle, anticipating the fast approaching end of hell. We traveled beyond Satan's three heads, and once more descended down his back. We climbed on "till my straining sense glimpsed the bright burden of the heavenly cars through a round hole; by this we climbed, and thence came forth to look once more upon the stars," (Dante, XXXIV, 134-139).