The Inferno - A Vision of Hell

I had a dream. A very disturbing one. What follows is what I saw. I should have never read The Divine Comedy. What I saw is completely from there. I know that because I have read it many times. I never thought until today that it would haunt me like this. This is a book I'll never read again until I get over this dream/vision. Read on

Abandon All hope,
Ye who enter here
Once you come inside,
Your souls will disappear

Nine circles in all exist
Each with their story to tell
Come and I will show you all
As we descend into Hell

The first circle is Limbo
The home of the virtuous dead
Accept Christ they would not, and so
Heaven did not count their head

The second circle is for the lusty
Blown about by a violent storm
Francesca and Paolo are with the pack
Who in life did not reform

The third circle is for the gluttons
They with insatiable appetite
Rain and hail fall hard on them
As Cerberus watches in delight

The fourth circle is for the materialistic
The hoarders and who squandered well
The weights they push up against each other
Timed by Plutus' mindful bell

The fifth circle is for the wrath-consumed
In the dark Stygian water they are fixed
The agressors ravage each other forever
While the slothful gurgle forever in the Styx

The sixth circle is for the Heretics
Wrapped in violent, flaming tombs
The rejectors of God are forever punish
In the brightly burning catacombs

The seventh circle houses the violent
Divided into three dark rings
Let us go and visit them each
And hear the song each one sings

The first ring is guarded by centaurs
For those who opressed their fellow man
The Phlegethon consumes them to their measure of sin
Its blood boiling for time's entire span

The second ring is for the suicides
Who live as gnarled bushes and trees
In life they sought relief from pain
In death, they are relieved to bleed

The final ring is for the blasphemers and usurers
Who are kept company by sodomites
They reside in a desert of flaming sand
While the sky rains fire with all its might

The next circle is for the fraudulent
The ones who knowingly did harm
Their habitat is divided into ten stone ditches
When we look, try and keep your calm

The first stone block emanates pain
As we see people in two lines
Panderes and Seducers are whipped by demons
As their wounds multiply by nines

The second bolgia houses the flatterers
They who survived spewing lies
They are steeped in excrement forever
And feasted on by a million flies

The third rock is home to the simons
Bribers who paid The Church for their deed
Head first they stand buried in the rock
While a fire dances on the soles of their feet

The fourth ditch is for the false prophets
Whose heads are twisted down their backs
And the fifth is for the barrators who are punished
With boiling tar snce they did honesty lack

The sixth bolgia is the one with Hypocrites
Ambling around with heavy lead cloaks
And the seventh bolgia traps the thieves
Chased by snakes and by hellfire soaked

Bolgia eight is for the fraudulent advisor
Who are now encased in private flames
Bolgia nine is for the sowers of discord
A demon cuts up their bodies over and over again

The ninth circle is the icy pit
Reserved especially for traitors
Sub-zero temperatures torment the inmates
Those twisted and vile berators

Four zones adorn the icy pit
Each group at a different depth
Watching their plight so miserable and painful
Even a fiend like me broke down and wept

Caina is the first zone of four
For traitors to their kith and kin
Immersed in ice upto their necks they are
Measure for measure of their sin

Atenora is the name of zone two
For traitors of political entity
Unbendable necks, blocked by ice
Because they were consumed by their enimity

The third zone bears the name Ptolomaea
The traitors of guests have a lot to fear
The are buried upto their eyes in ice
And the cold freezes their every tear

Judecca is the final zone of all
It is for those betraying their master
The people here are buried completely in ice
Misshapen as though they were melted plaster

At the end of Judecca, I saw a dark figure
Huge and grotesque, yet captivating
Awe and disgust came in wave after wave
Between them, I kept fluctuating

He sat at the center of his dwelling place
Buried waist-deep in the ice
Six eyes, six wings and three heads I saw
Each representing a different vice

His wings beat hard and furiously fast
As he tries to escape his prison
But the harder he tries the more cold it becomes
Pushing him further into oblivion

His three heads chew three different persons
As his tears mix sickeningly with their blood
The Yellow chews Brutus, the Black chews Cassius
While the Red chews Judas; as they bleed a flood

The vision I saw has left me shaken
And chilled me to my very bone
I stood there scared, amazed and helpless
Worst of all, I stood there alone