“Abandon
all hope you who enter here.” ~Dante Alighieri
I have always been fascinated with reading,
watching and studying religion, mythology and ancient history. Lately I have
been drawn to Dante Alighieri’s poem The
Divine Comedy and in particular the first part Inferno.
If you’ve never read the poem please let
me give you a little background.
In the 14th century not long
before he died, Dante Alighieri wrote an epic three part allegorical poem
titled The Divine Comedy. In Dante’s time you either wrote dramas or comedies.
If you wrote them in Latin they were for the upper class. Those written in
Italian were written for the lower class. Dante chose to write his poem in
Italian so all those that could read would understand. The three parts were
called Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory) and Paridisio (Paradise or Heaven). The poem tells of the human spiritual journey
through hopelessness in order to find the grace of God.
I was most intrigued by Inferno. I was fascinated by the 9
levels of hell that Dante described. Each level covers a wide range of sins and
the worse your sin the lower you are in hell. Dante categorized his personal opinion
of the rank of sins based on how he perceived them in his life. Each sin is
punished based on the influence it had on others causing them to sin as well.
For example, Psychics and Fortune tellers were destined to walk naked with
their heads turned backwards representing their backwards thinking and how they
mislead people in their lives.
What spoke to me most about the poem was
the thought that in order to find peace sometimes you have to hit rock bottom
or lose all hope. This sounds strange but to lose all hope and to hit the
lowest point in your life can lead you to finally search for or journey toward
a better life. It is said that it takes hitting rock bottom before a person can
truly see their plight and decide to change things.
Dante’s Inferno to me shows that losing all hope and starting the journey
to betterment can be dangerous and not all will succeed or survive. That is why
it was at his own peril that he chose to journey to hell. Like many others in
mythology, when a living soul travels to hell you run the risk of never
returning. However it was the only way. His journey through hell showed him that
things in his life could be worse.
I suffer from Bipolar disorder. For most
of my life I had no clue that I had this disorder. It took me hitting a very
low point before I chose to start my journey to a better tomorrow. I felt
hopeless and unsure of my future. My disorder was pushing those that I love
away and I had no tools of improving.
It was hell getting a therapist and
uncovering all my deepest and darkest secrets. I had to talk about my childhood
and things I never wanted to tell anyone. It ripped me apart uncovering each
level of hell I had endured.
Yet it was the only way to maneuver my
way through the Inferno that was my
life.
Though I do not interpret sins the same
way that Dante did, I understand what he must have been feeling or going through
when he wrote the poem.
Abandon all hope you who enter here…the
only way to begin the journey.
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