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Dante's Inferno Punishments, Part III
by Lore Sjöberg
The Sodomites
Sodomites have to run around the same burning plane on which the
blasphemers are lying down. I imagine some of you were expecting something
more intricate in terms of buttsex castigation, but what can you do? Dante
wrote in a time before Jim Carrey movies. Anyhow, Dante makes a big deal
out of how the Sodomites, being able to run free in the flaming burning
hell-rain, have a better deal than the blasphemers. This is called
"compassionate conservatism." D
The Usurers
This is an often-overlooked sin: the sin of charging interest. Dante
describes this area as being less populated than some of the others,
but that's before Parker Brother made all of us who have been the banker
in Monopoly into degraded, fetid mortgage-issuing degenerates. Which
means that we're going to end up on the same field as the sodomites
and the blasphemers, only we have to crouch instead of running or lying
down. Kind of bland, but there you go. C-
The Panderers and the Seducers
Here we leave behind weird Italian definitions of violence and move
into good old fraud. At the head of the line are the panderers and
seducers, which I think indicates those who got other people laid
and those who got themselves laid. These sexual tag teams are punished
being made to march by horned demons with huge whips from the covers
of heavy metal albums. Which albums in turn helped get people laid,
so we've got a self-sustaining ecology here. Sort of. B
The Flatterers
Here we start to see Dante reusing some of his motifs. Whereas the
sullen were sunk in slime, the flatterers are sunk in excrement. Which
proves that maybe you should say nothing at all even if you CAN say
something nice. Sincere love of humanity seems to be the safest bet,
but let's be realistic here. C+
The Simoniacs
This is not a term for people who attend "Simon and Simon" fan
conventions, but rather the selling of church offices. I didn't even know
that was an option. Well, aside from The Church of Universal Life, but I
figure Dante's problems with the Church of Universal Life wouldn't stop
there. Anyhow, simoniacs get their feet lit on fire, whatever. There's a
Pope in this section. Dante had all sorts of Popes in Hell. It's, like,
Pope Central. C
Next week: Miss Cleo Goes to Hell!
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