History Literature / TheDivineComedy

** At beginning of ''Inferno'', Virgil tells the protagonist about how UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} came to Limbo and took many of the Jews up into Heaven, including Adam. Two-thirds of the way through ''Paradiso'', our protagonist meets Adam as he describes how long he had to wait in Hell before being saved.

* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Virgil often references the time when Christ broke into Hell, shook it to its foundations, and broke out the Jewish dead to take them to Paradise. It was so intense that even into the Eight Circle there's loads of structural damage, but Dante never describes it outside of proxies like Virgil and the rest of the damned.

* HeavensDevils: Virgil trusts the devils of fraud because his paganism has taught him that demons are agents of the gods' justice. The trope is subverted when the Malebranche try to kill Virgil and his ward after lying to them about how to leave their torture-chamber. It's so foolish to think Fallen Angels would act justly that even a damned {{hypocrite}} mocks Virgil for his blunder.

* ArtisticLicenseTraditionalChristianity: Those who betray hospitality have their soul switched out with a demon in Hell while the body continues to function normally. This doesn't make sense considering Dante is basing his theology off Saint Thomas Aquinas, [[http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1051.htm#article1 who went out of his way]] to say angels and demons could not relate to a body in the same way a soul could. Even if a spirit were to ever control a body, Aquinas says they wouldn't be able to do "vital functions" like eating or drinking, something the narrator remembers seeing one of the traitors doing post-possession.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence:

* RiddleForTheAges: It is principally impossible for anyone to learn why only Peter Damian was sent to meet Dante on Saturn, except God. Even the highest angel in Heaven cannot pierce the Deep Mind so deeply to fully understand His reasoning in instances of this kind.

* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: Pope Boniface VII is portrayed as thoroughly corrupt and evil, and even caused someone to get sent to Hell by claiming he controls who goes to Heaven. It's made very clear he will eventually go to Hell (specifically, the area in the 8th circle for Simonists.)

---->''"Just as we did not lift our eyes on high but set our sight on earthly things instead, so justice here impels our eyes toward earth."''

*** The wrathful are plunged into perfect darkness, making them as blind as their anger had made them.
*** The avaricious lie flat on their faces and stare at the Earth all day as punishment for being obsessed with the earthly treasure of wealth.

* UngratefulBastard: Those who betray their lords are in the lowest circle of hell, completely encased in the frozen lake and contorted horribly. The only ones beyond them are Satan, and Judas, Brutus, and Cassius, who Satan is grinding apart.

Each part ("cantica") of the poem is dedicated to one of the three realms, and is in turn subdivided into 33 chapters ("cantos")[[note]]Well, ''Inferno'' actually has 34 cantos so that the poem's total comes out as [[LawOfOneHundred 100]], but Canto I takes place in the world of the living and is technically an introduction to the whole story[[/note]]:

* AuthorFilibuster: ''Purgatorio'''s 6th canto stops the narrative so the author can go on a lengthy tirade. He rails against current political situation in Italy, the apparent lack of interest of the Emperor among the city-states, and even Florence's politico-familial scene (he even admits he is digressing a little bit).

* NumerologicalMotif: ''The Divine Comedy'' as a whole is structured around the number 100. Each section has 33 cantos, with the exception of The Inferno, which has 34; the extra one serves as a general prologue for the entire poem.

** Dante feels quite sad about Paolo and Francesca (a couple in the circle of the Lustful) as well.

* AdaptationDeviation: The vision of Haman's death in ''Purgatorio'' doesn't show him being hanged like in the Literature/BookOfEsther but instead shows the genocidal villain being crucified. This change may be because of the Latin Bible, which Dante would be familiar with, describing the noose as a "crux." While other parts of the text would make it clear to Latin readers that Haman was hanged, this version of Haman's death would be immortalized by Michelangelo on the Art/SistineChapel ceiling, which is only a few feet away from ''The Creation of Adam''.

* DarthWiki/MostAnnoyingSound: InUniverse, the inhabitants of the Third Circle finds Cerberus's incessant barking to be this. While we obviously can't hear it, the poem says that they wish they were deaf.

* ''DarthWiki/MostAnnoyingSound'': InUniverse, the inhabitants of the Third Circle finds Cerberus's incessant barking to be this. While we obviously can't hear it, the poem says that they wish they were deaf.

* MostAnnoyingSound: InUniverse, the inhabitants of the Third Circle finds Cerberus's incessant barking to be this. While we obviously can't hear it, the poem says that they wish they were deaf.

[[folder:Tropes A to F]]
* AbusiveParents: As recounted in ''Purgatorio'', the kings of the Capet family have so chained by greed that they are willing to sell their daughters, with all the affection of pirates haggling over slaves.

* AdaptationalSpeciesChange: At one point they find Nimrod deep in Hell for the crime of creating the Tower Of Babel. He's described as a 30 foot tall [[OurGiantsAreBigger giant]]. In the original story of the Bible there's nothing to indicate he's anything other than a normal-size human.

* AdaptationDeviation: The vision of Haman's death in ''Purgatorio'' doesn't show him being hanged like in the Literature/BookOfEsther, but instead shows the genocidal villain being crucified. This change may be the result of because the Latin Bible, which Dante would be familiar with, describing the noose as a "crux." While other parts of the text would make it clear to Latin readers Haman was hanged, this version of Haman's death would be immortalized by Michelangelo on the Art/SistineChapel ceiling, only a few feet away from ''The Creation of Adam''.
* AfterlifeAngst: The souls of the dead who are about to be taken by Charon across the River Acheron into hell experience this as soon as they find out where they're going—and up until the moment they find out, they're actually glad to be there! In fact, Virgil tells Dante that the shock is an intentional part of their torment!

* AllGaysArePromiscuous: Unlike the lustful men and women of the second circle, the homosexuals in Hell are not grouped in pairs, but travel in large bands, implying that sodomy does not involve the same love that unites man and woman in sexual union.

* AllWomenAreLustful: The Second Circle (lust) has an inordinate amount of female sinners in it, whereas 95+ percent of the inmates of Hell are men.
* TheAlmightyDollar: The fourth circle of Hell has an evil wealth demon/deity named Plutus who tortures "Hoarders and the Wasters".

** Nimrod was a giant hunter who led a global society to build a tower to break into {{Heaven}}. Although he retains all his size and strength in Hell's ninth circle, he is the only person who still speaks the language of that global society, leaving him to only speak and hear babble.

** In the fifth Canto of ''Inferno'', Francesca begins three of her stanzas in a row with the word "Amor." She does this to blame passion for her crimes and to sway Dante by appealing to his love of poetry and romance.

** In the thirteenth Canto of ''Paradiso'', three of the first four stanzas begins with the command "Let him imagine" as Dante tries to get across how beautiful the dance of the starry saints is.

* AncestorVeneration: Some of the souls of the damned in Hell ask Dante to take their stories back to living so that they can be prayed for in this fashion, hoping to escape their fate.

*** Suicides are turned into trees. They can scream, but only when someone or something breaks off a branch that grows back with time.
*** The souls of traitors are frozen in the icy lake of Cocytus, at depths corresponding to the depth of their betrayal. Those at the very bottom, those who swore loyalty to masters and still betrayed them, are completely encased in grotesque positions. This is one of the only punishments so unrelenting that those suffering under it can't even speak.
** In the ''Purgatorio'', the penance for the sin of {{Pride}} is to carry boulders, the weight of which is proportional to the sin's weight. The AuthorAvatar remarks that this punishment is the simplest, and yet quite terrible, and also admits that the Pride circle is where he expects to spend the largest part of his own penance.

* AnnoyingArrows: The centaurs shoot arrows at those damned for violence not to kill them, but only to inflict enough pain to encourage them to stay submerged in boiling blood. JustifiedTrope, since no weapon could kill an immortal soul, whether damned or blessed.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: The stated reason that Cocytus, lowest circle of Hell, is frozen, is that it's cooled by Satan's wings beating as he futilely attempts to free himself. Air movement in itself cannot lower a body's temperature.

%%** At the very entrance of Hell, there is a special place of punishment for people who never took a stand for anything during their lives, and were neither good enough to deserve Heaven (or Purgatory), nor bad enough to end up in the rest of Hell. This also includes the angels who didn't take a side during Lucifer's rebellion against The Lord. These particular sinners are regarded as the {{Butt Monkey}}s of the afterlife. Dante was very passionate about politics, and had a deep contempt for people who just wanted to mind their own business [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder and were ready to change their allegiance whenever it was more convenient]].

* BarredFromTheAfterlife: Those too uncommitted to do good in life technically aren't in Hell (despite being found past its gates), but still suffer for eternity running back and forth indecisively between banners.

* BitchInSheepsClothing: While many of the damned in the 8th circle (fraud) are like this, the hypocrites are probably the best example (they pretended to be good people in life, while really being evil and self serving) and receive an [[CoolAndUnusualPunishment apporpriately symbolic punishment:]] being forced to wear robes which look beautiful but are crushingly heavy and painful to wear.
* BitingTheHandHumor: Showing that this sort of thing is OlderThanTheyThink, many sinners depicted in Hell were still living folks with more authority than he'd have liked over him. The Eight Circle of Hell contained three Popes who were alive during Dante's time, including the current one, and numerous other government officials and nobles[[note]]Fortunately, Pope Boniface VIII was said to have something of a sense of humor, and when one such official complained that "Dante has put me in Hell", he supposedly chuckled a little and said, "sorry, I can't help you, I'm not in charge of Hell". However, this opposition to the Vatican only lasted as long as the White Guelphs - who shared his ideas - held power in Rome, which they only did until 1301. Even so, Boniface would have allowed the poet to remain in Rome, but he left on his own accord.[[/note]].

* BlasphemousPraise: Statius admits he would put off meeting God in paradise another year if it meant getting to meet Virgil while he was alive.
* BlindedByTheLight: The sight of Saint John, whose soul is so bright that it could turn a month of winter into a single day, blinds Dante. He is only so afflicted for about a hundred lines, when his faith in Christ's death and resurrection allows Beatrice to restore his sight via HealingHands.
* {{Blipvert}}: A rapid-fire series of visions (involving a murderous nightingale and a crucified anti-semite) assail Dante at the start of ''Purgatorio'' Canto 17, constantly shattering to show new examples of wrath that rain down into the poet's mind.

* BloodyBowelsOfHell: While Inferno is mostly the more traditional IronicHell, murderers and tyrants are punished by immersion in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood. In the Circle of Gluttony the three-headed dog Cerberus chews on the gluttons. And Judas, Brutus, and Cassius were given the special privilege of being Satan's personal chew toys. And we're not speaking figuratively. He has all three of them in his mouths (yes, plural) and is chewing on them for eternity.
* BloodyHorror: The boiling river in the seventh circle of Hell would be bad enough, but what makes it a really horrific torture for murderers and conquerers is the fact that it's a river of blood. They have to wallow in it, some up to their throat, or else be riddled with arrows and forced into the blood again.
* BlowYouAway: The second circle (lustful) is basically a giant tornado where the inhabitants are blown around for eternity.

** Fortune tellers have their heads turned around backwards.
** Thieves are turned into snakes and have to regain human form by attacking others.

** Falsifiers are ravaged by terrible diseases, with all that comes associated with it: scabs, open sores, pustules, bloated bodies...

* BookEnds: ''Inferno'' Canto 1 begins with Dante admitting that his hope in "the Love Divine / At first in motion set those beauteous things" is weaker than his fear of evil things. 99 cantos later, ''Paradiso'' ends with Dante realizing he doesn't care about his weakness or inability because his "desire and will were moved already—like a wheel revolving uniformly—by the Love that moves the sun and the other stars."

* BrotherSisterIncest: She may try to downplay it, but by having an affair with her husband's brother, Francesca not only damned herself for adultery, but also for incest. Sure, they're in-laws, but if there's anything to take from the poem dismissively describing them as "the two relations," it's that Hell wouldn't see the distinction.
* BrownNote: By the seventh sphere of Heaven, Beatrice claims that the sight of her smile would be so brilliant that Dante would be set ablaze as if hit by lightning. This isn't meant simply to aggrandize Beatrice, but to show how incomprehensibly joyful it is to be united with God. In using this trope, the ''Comedy'' is borrowing from [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek Mythology]] and is adding a core part of Christian mythology continued in the painfully joyful Heaven of ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce''.

* TheCasanova: The first ''bolgia'' in the eighth Circle of Hell is reserved for those panderers and pimps who used deceit to sexually exploit women. Their ranks include [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Jason of the Argonauts]], who abandoned his lovers, Hypsipyle and Medea, once they had sacrificed everything to make his quest achievable.

** Inverted when the souls being rehabilitated on Mount Purgatory recognize the Pilgrim as a living man because he casts a shadow, and marvel at his presence.

* CharacterFilibuster: ''Paradiso'' Canto 6 is the only canto of the ''Comedy'''s hundred to consist of one speech by one character. Specifically, the canto consists of the Blessed Emperor Justinian provide a divine account of the UsefulNotes/RomanEmpire, explain how people can be different in Paradise, and extol the virtue of a man named Romeo in a 142-line monologue.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Beatrice says that only children are innocent among humanity, and that as soon as they mature they become ravenously evil. She goes so far to say that a child will learn to speak intelligently at the same time they first hope to see their mother dead and buried.

** The {{Trope Namer|s}}, if not the {{Trope Codifier}}s, are the nine circles in Inferno, which start from the top with the offenses that least distance man from the Greatest Joy, and gradually get graver and graver until the very bottom of all, which is reserved for direct traitors to God like Lucifer and Judas.

** The Spheres of Paradise appear to follow the same formula as Hell and Purgatory, where Dante first encounters the least exemplary of the place's inhabitants and rises to the most perfect example of those that dwell in this domain. Dante is disturbed by this, since it seems unjust that God would segregate different Saints after they had already reached Paradise, but his guide, Beatrice, handily answers his worries. She explains that Heaven [[SubvertedTrope isn't actually divided into different sections]], it's just that God wanted to show Dante the different aspects of Heaven in a way he could understand. It's made very clear that everyone is equally and perfectly happy in Paradise, with the nun Dante meets in the lowest sphere shrugging off Dante's worries before going back to sing God's praises.

** One of the few major challenges Dante and Virgil find traversing Hell are steep cliff-faces that they have to find their way down. The first time, they hitch a ride on the flying monster Geryon and the second, they convince a chained giant to lower them by its hand.

* CompleteImmortality: Not only God, but all souls are subjected to absolute immortality, no matter if they are in Hell, Purgatory or Paradise. Their mileage varies about this status.

** In the seventh canto of ''Inferno'', the demon Plutus clucks about Satan in a dark mixture of Hebrew and Greek that a damned Roman is able to understand while our Italian protagonist is lost to its meaning. Plutus says more after the initial sentence about Satan, but that first sentence is all that's made available to the audience.

** In the seventh canto of ''Paradiso'', the saint Justinian sings of God in a divine mixture of Hebrew and Latin that said blessed Greek is able to understand while our Italian protagonist is lost to its meaning. Justinian sings more after the first verse, but the rest of the chorus is only made available to the audience through the joy and dance described elsewhere in the Canto.

* ConspicuousConsumption: The fourth circle of Hell is shared by hoarders and wasters, with the wasters continuing their life-long habit of discarding whatever comes to them, only for a hoarder to bring more rocks for them to ravenously discard.

** At the end of ''Paradiso'' Canto 22, Dante looks back at the seven spheres he passed and notes that back in the second canto, he incorrectly argued that the sphere of the Moon must be made of rare and dense matter.
** The six cantos set in the Garden of Eden at the end of ''Purgatorio'' are referenced by Adam as he explains how long its been since his creation.

* CorruptChurch: The second-to-last canto of ''Purgatorio'' is focused on a chariot representing the Church being symbolically attacked and metamorphosed into a group of beasts led by a whore bound to a giant. Point is that the Church had been corrupted from its holy purpose.

* CrossoverCosmology: Although it's a biblical fiction about Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, several creatures and figures from Myth/ClassicalMythology appear in ''Inferno''.

* CryoPrison: The traitors in Judecca, the last ring in the last circle of Hell, are completely entombed under the ice of Lake Cocytus, [[AndIMustScream unable to move or speak]]. Despite their unending resistance, they can never escape.

** In Creator/DorothyLSayers' translation, Arnaut Daniel, who, in the ''Purgatorio'', spoke Provençal rather than the narrative's Italian, now speaks in the Scots language. (However, most, if not all translations choose to explain Dante's historical and cultural references in [[FootnoteFever footnotes or endnotes]].)

* CureYourGays: The seventh terrace of Purgatory features homosexual men sing in harmony with the heterosexual lustful as they all purify their sexualities corrupted by the Fall.
* DamnedByFaintPraise: In an unremarked upon moment of disrespect, Dante starts a conversation with his guide by referring to him as "you who can defeat all things except for those tenacious demons who tried to block us at the entryway," reminding his master of a damning failure in a conversation that has nothing to do with that.

** The final circle of Hell, the most fundamental representation of evil, is first referenced as the "più oscuro" (darkest) circle. When the Ninth Circle finally appears, it is described as a freezing in a "l’etterno rezzo," an eternal shadow.
** DownplayedTrope; in ''Paradiso'', the planets covered by the Earth's shadow have saints defined not by their virtues, but by their deficiencies in life. These saints are those who broke oaths, those too focused on worldly glory, and those too distracted by romance to fully focus on God.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Long after going through the deepest parts of Hell, Dante makes it clear the darkest place he had ever been was one of the terraces of Purgatory. In that penitentiary for the wrathful, darkness reflects judgement blinded by passion and emotion which the sinner must recognize and move away from before moving closer to the Lord.

* DeadUnicornTrope: A typical description of the Inferno would probably mention "demons with pointy sticks torturing sinners chained to the wall." This is a fairly uncommon punishment in ''Inferno'', and is shown directly only a couple of times; sinners are tormented by fire, ice, storms, hounds, snakes, ''etc''.

** In the penultimate canto, Bernard points out all the infants who died and went to Heaven by no merit other than their parent's faith, their circumcision, or their baptism.

* DecompositeCharacter: Cacus is a flame-breathing giant from Greek mythology, which the poet seems to have found just too ludicrous to implement as such in his ''Comedy''. To provide a more sensible character, Cacus is now a damned centaur who doesn't breath fire, because the little dragon who sits on his shoulder takes the role of fire-breather for him.

** The poem begins with its hero trying to climb out of a dark valley one last time, before a terrifying she-wolf causes him to abandon all hope of leaving and turning back into the sun-muted valley. Thank God [[Creator/{{Virgil}} a certain ghost]] arrives to give him a much more exciting way back home.

* TheDevilIsALoser: Lucifer is a weeping giant, trapped waist-deep in a frozen lake, beating his massive wings trying to fly back towards heaven, [[SelfInflictedHell though doing so creates cold gusts of wind which freeze his tears into the ice in a way that just further entraps him]]. Loser indeed.

* DidYouJustFlipOffCthulhu: Only eight circles into Hell does Dante find a sinner so stupid and sinister as to insult the God in control of his eternal torment. This is one of two times one of the damned directly mentions God, and this is the only time a damned dares to blaspheme. Yes, even those damned for blasphemy are sensible enough not to flip off the architect of their eternal grave.

* DirtyCoward: The Opportunists, who aren't allowed into Hell, but are still punished for it anyway. Unlike the rest of the damned, Virgil refuses to acknowledge them and insists they get to the First Circle to talk to some sinners with backbone.

* DownerBeginning: Dante starts off as a middle-aged man lost in the woods with no place in life, unable to get anywhere due to the heinous beasts who block his way. Metaphorically, the beasts represents the sins that plague our hero and the dark forest he's in is suspiciously similar to the forest where suicides spend eternity. It's a good thing Virgil comes in to bring Dante to a better place: Hell.
* TheDreaded: No man can pass the she-wolf, a beast with every hunger whose mere sight can strike all hope from the heart. No one has ever gotten past her and she can corner men on their journey through life so that they will cower until their death. She will remain alive to haunt the world until [[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} the Greyhound]] hunts her into Hell at the end of time.

** Before entering the first terrace, Dante falls asleep and dreams a terrifying eagle grabbed him and flew him into the burning sun. Dante awakens having felt real pain from the sun's heat, now right in front of the gate to Purgatory. It turns out Dante was dreaming of what he was doing while asleep and what he will do in the future: undergoing pain to ascend to [[{{God}} the Eternal Light]].

** After climbing through all seven of the terraces, the poet has a vision of Leah and Rachel, the wives of Jacob from the Literature/BookOfGenesis. Leah is working to collect garlands while Rachel contemplates herself in the mirror, an action which earns not scorn but praise from Leah. Generally, this dream is taken as a sign of the peace between thought and action that comes upon the purgation of sins and unity with God.
* DumbAndDrummer: [[https://books.google.com/books/about/Musical_imagery_in_the_Mastro_Adamo_epis.html?id=mZ6XAQAACAAJ Best identified by Amilcare Iannucci.]] The dull counterfeiter Master Adam may have a disproportioned body that looks like a lute, but when hit, his dropsies make the sound of a drum that expose his lower class, brutish nature, and idiocy to all fooled by his self-excusing lies.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Exceptionally for an epic, the ''Comedy'' ends happily with the protagonist having risen above the darkness of Earth, the torments of Hell, and the fires of Purgatory to fully encounter {{God}}. The last canto is taken up with Dante apologizing for his inability to describe how perfect the Love of God is and using every device he can to praise that One who is Three.

** The decline of humanity is visualized in Inferno by a giant statue of crying old man. The tears are not water, but blood, and they don't come from the statue's eyes, but from its many cracks. Looking at the statue's golden head, you would hardly notice any tears, but as you look down, you would notice it getting more and more unstable as the statue went from silver, to bronze, to iron, and finally to baked clay. From the tears of this crumbling monument comes the four rivers of Hell which lead straight into the frozen lake which traps the traitors of God in the Earth's core.

** The uncommitted souls and fallen uncommitted angels aren't even considered worthy of entering hell, although they're still punished.
** In the fiery desert of the seventh circle, blasphemers and sodomites keep themselves away from the usurers.

** Dis, a Roman name of Hades, is used as a name for Satan, and the city of Lower Hell, with Hell taking imagery from Classical Underworld (though the Elysian Fields section still exists as the First Circle, where the virtuous Pagans aren't punished).
** King Minos, the Classical Judge of the Underworld, is shown as a monstrous Judge of the Damned, with a serpentine tail he wraps around himself.
** At the Fourth Circle of Hell, for Avarice, the God of Wealth Plutus appears, chanting out an apparent prayer to Satan. He may represent Pluto though. In the 1911 film he is referred to as Pluto and shown as a black devil with horns.
* EvilChancellor: 'Evil Counselors' (meaning those who advised others to do evil things) are in the 8th bolgia of the 8th circle. Their punishment is to be trapped within individual tongues of fire.

* EvilIsBurningHot: A large portion of hell is torturously hot, like the fiery sands and the river of blood, and fire is used as aspects of punishments in other areas. It notably averts associating {{Satan}} with [[{{Hellfire}} fire]], as he's trapped in the coldest part of hell.
* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Two circles use cold as part of their punishment:
** The third circle (for gluttons) is constantly bombarded by freezing rain, hail, and snow
** The final circle (for traitors) is a lake frozen by the bitter winds made by Lucifer's wings. Just as betrayal is a calculating and cold evil, the damned here are submerged more and more into the ice depending on how calculated and unfeeling they were in carrying out their crime.
* EvilOverlord: Despotic kings are so common in the world that Solomon is justly be said to be the wisest man alive for managing to maintain monarchy and morality in one man. For a few examples:
** As part of his sick mockery of [[{{God}} the Heavenly Lord]], the Devil is known as the Emperor of Hell due to his leadership of the {{Fallen Angel}}s and his role in causing every suffering. Instead of a castle, he has the darkest pit in the universe; instead of towers, his "castle" surrounded by chained giants; and instead of moats, his home is guarded by ten ditches filled with the soul of every liar in history.

* EvilWillFail: Once someone is in Purgatory, they are destined to reach Heaven, no matter how many serpents and demons try to stop them.

** Traitors to their guests are encased in the frozen lake Cocytus, with only their faces coming out. The intense cold freezes their tears, encrusting their eyes in ice. Any further tears cannot get out and increase pressure on the eyes.

* FanDisservice: All of the sinners (except the hypocrites, who have to wear crushingly heavy robes as punishment) are nude, although this fact is rarely brought up. That said, given they are all trapped in a variety of eternal torments, it would be pretty hard for any but the most twisted people to find that fact erotic. Of special note is Thais, who is presumably a beautiful woman (being a famous courtesan in life), but is [[NauseaFuel covered from head to toe in shit as her punishment.]]

** The second one is Phlegyas[[note]]Phlegyas was a Greek king whose daughter was raped by Apollo. He became so enraged that he burned down a temple dedicated to said god, getting killed by Apollo in retaliation. This, in Dante's mind, was enough to make him a symbol of wrath[[/note]], who ferries Dante and Virgil across the Styx in the fifth circle of Hell.

** The sixth circle punishes heretics by trapping them in giant flaming tombs.
** The third segment of the seventh circle punishes those violent against God by raining fire down upon them. Blasphemers lie on their back as the fires descend upon them, the sodomites run endlessly for fear of burning for centuries, and the usurers, weighed down by gold and crests, desperately try to shake off flames as they sit on the edge of that circle.
** The eighth circle, Malebolge:

Dante called his masterpiece merely ''Comedy'' as a perhaps-ironic nod to its good ending and how it was written in the vernacular; the adjective "Divine" does not refer to the work's religious setting. In fact, but was added later by people -- specifically Creator/GiovanniBoccaccio[[note]]who greatly admired Dante and wrote an early biography of him[[/note]] and Creator/GustaveDore, who famously illustrated the story in the 19th century.

The work is called the ''Comedy'' because it's written in a vernacular style and has a happy ending, which is the original meaning of the word. The adjective "Divine" does not refer to the work's religious setting, but was added later by people -- specifically Creator/GiovanniBoccaccio[[note]]who greatly admired Dante and wrote an early biography of him[[/note]] and Creator/GustaveDore, who famously illustrated the story in the 19th century.

* AdaptationalVillainy: In a deviation from ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', Odysseus/Ulysses testifies that his voyages ended when he arrogantly tricked his men into going on a suicide mission. For that crime not found in his poem of origin (and one found in ''The Achilleid''), as well as for the Trojan Horse, Odysseus is burned forever in a tongue of fire.

* PhysicalHeaven: The first nine levels of Heaven are the planets out to Saturn plus the Moon and the Sun, the "Fixed Stars", and the Primum Mobile (a [[EverythingsBetterWithSpinning spinning thing]] which makes the other planets move, as well as where the angels live. This is averted with the tenth Heaven (Empyrean), where God himself resides and is beyond time and space.

* BalefulPolymorph:
** In the seventh circle of Hell, those who commit suicide are transformed into trees, [[AndIMustScream unable to speak or scream]] unless their branches are broken, making them bleed.
** In the seventh Bolgia in the eighth circle of Hell, thieves are transformed into snakes. To regain their human form, they have to attack and bite their fellow damned ([[RuleOfSymbolism thus stealing their human forms]]), only to be transformed again when they themselves are bitten again by the snakes.

* ActuallyIAmHim: A Roman poet in Purgatory introduces himself by saying how much he adored Creator/{{Virgil}} and his masterpiece, ''Literature/TheAeneid''. Dante can't stop himself from smiling before revealing that his guide is the shade of Virgil himself, prompting the poet to try to kiss Virgil's transparent feet.