Virgil’s mappamundi—or “mappa inferno”—provides us with a closer look at the seventh circle of hell, the one just ahead, the circle of the violent.

Virgil has already given us the schema of force and fraud as the methods of injustice and malice. So here’s force in all its scholastic glory.

Indeed, Virgil reasons scholastically, dividing the seventh circle into parts and divisions, each smaller than the last, all to arrive at a three-part structure of the seventh circle—and a three-part structure of the last of those three parts! It’s a bit confusing, sure; but the Dante-the-poet makes it super clear by offering us two tercets (or six lines) on each of the divisions.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we work through the knots in this piece of Virgil’s explanation of lower hell.

Here’s my English translation of INFERNO, Canto XI, lines 28 - 51:

The first circle is all about the violent—

But because force may be directed at three persons,

The circle is actually constructed and divided into three smaller rings.

Against God, against oneself, and against one’s neighbor

You can commit acts of violence—that is, against them and their possessions,
As you will hear through clear reasoning.

Death by force and ghastly wounds

May be thrust upon one’s neighbors. What’s more, their effects

May be subject to pillaging, arson, and even extortion.

Therefore, when it comes to murderers and those who inflict willful harm,

As well as plunderers and predators,

The first of the smaller rings torments all these in separate sections.

People can lay violent hands on themselves,

And their own effects, and so the second

Smaller ring holds those who repent without any results—

That is, the ones who deprive themselves of your world,

The ones who gamble away and squander their nest eggs,

The ones who weep where they should be happy.

A person can also use force against the deity

When we deny or commit outright blasphemy in the heart,

And also by disrespecting nature and its beneficence.

So the smallest ring seals

With its signet both Sodom and Cahors,

As well as those who get violent against God in their hearts or tongues.