Friday, March 20, 2009

Which Ring?

My friend LJ asked me what the fifth ring of hell was. I've been using that phrase for a couple of years and I honestly don't know where I came up with it. So I looked it up.

The urban dictionary says it's the hell reserved for:
  1. Bad spellers
  2. People who drink decaf coffee...

Tee hee hee...

It's also from Dante's Inferno:

"Wrath and Sullenness (7-8) Like the fourth circle of hell, the fifth circle--presented in Inferno 7 and 8--contains two related groups of sinners. But whereas avarice and prodigality are two distinct sins based on the same principle (an immoderate attitude toward material wealth), wrath and sullenness are basically two forms of a single sin: anger that is expressed (wrath) and anger that is repressed (sullenness). This idea that anger takes various forms is common in ancient and medieval thought. Note how the two groups suffer different punishments appropriate to their type of anger--the wrathful ruthlessly attacking one another and the sullen stewing below the surface of the muddy swamp (Inf. 7.109-26)--even though they are all confined to Styx." http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/circle5.html

I'm not sure I quoted the right ring of hell... Maybe I did. I'll figure it out - now that I know where to find the descriptions of hell.

And how weird is that, since I don't really believe in hell...

1 comment:

  1. Well I guess if you are going to do something bad, you can see which hell it's going to put you in now! Of course, who really has the time to think "How bad do I want to be?"

    ReplyDelete

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