High school Inferno

13 years along the journey of my life , I found myself in a poorly lit hallway, for I had strayed from the highlighted path on the map. I wandered down this hallway for a good long while and was beginning to lose all hope of ever finding salvation, when suddenly I found myself near the gym entrance. My heart leaped! However, as I was approaching the door, three juniors showed up and stopped me . They scared me so much with their intimidation that I turned back and continued wandering the lonely halls. Again I was losing hope, but then my luck changed for as I was wandering down the hallway I saw a familiar face…the boy I was to be shadowing for the day! I waved to him and called, “Are you the one whose name is that of the author of the Aeneid?” He waved back and replied “indeed, it is I Virgil , I guess you are my shadow for the day, correct?” “Yes, so Ill just follow you wherever you go then?” I asked. “Yes… that’s the bell for first period, lets get going” He said, I began following him, and thus my journey began. We came upon first period in room A134 : English, The teacher Mr. Charon was welcoming the students when suddenly he stopped me and asked Virgil “what is this boy doing here? He is too young to be in high school”. “He is with me for the day, it is willed by Mrs. Beatrice that he should be here” Virgil replied, “Oh, alright then, welcome.” he said. Before I entered I saw a poster that read: “Abandon Hope Ye Who Enter Here” . I entered the classroom and took a seat. Among the students I met were boy’s named Aristotle , Horace , Homer , Ovid , Saladin , and Plato , The class itself was learning about La Divina Commedia and they were in limbo, the circle for virtuous pagans, just before hell proper. The place of peaceful despair. Forty-five minutes later, the bell rang and we were off to second period.

Second period was in room B200 and was Italian with Mr. Minos . We had no real trouble in that class. In there, I met a girl named Cleopatra , a girl named Helen , and a boy named Paris . Curiosity got the best of me when I saw a boy and girl making out, Virgil said it was ok to ask who they were, so I whispered “who are you two?” They answered rather angrily “Francesca and Paolo” Sensing their anger, I asked no more and left them where they had left off. Again the bell rang and off we were to third period, history (room B203) . They were learning about the conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire , specifically the Guelph-Ghibelline conflict , in this particular class I met a kid I recognized, his name was Ciacco , he was particularly chubby. I called out to him “Hey Ciacco, remember me?” “Hey Eric, how’s middle school?” he replied I said, “its good, how’s high school?” He answered me “It’s really difficult but—“ he was interrupted by the teacher Ms. Cerberus , I quickly shut up, she snarled at me a little, and then went back to teaching. Then the bell rang.

Off we were sped off to 4th period, we were about to get there when the teacher Mr. Plutus stopped us at the doorway and said “ Mr. Lucifer contacted me, he wants to talk with you.” Virgil, with a word silenced him …“Ok”. We entered the classroom. (classroom B204 ) I took a seat, I didn’t have any time to talk to anybody, but I did see a bunch of kids with a lot of “Bling” or gold chains and other objects that made them look wealthy. The class was comparative religion and they were learning about the concept of the afterlife in Christianity, specifically Hell . BRRRRNNNGGG! Tthat was the bell for lunch. We got up and wandered the hallways for a while until we came upon a hallway known as Styx , so named for its disproportionate amount fights that took place there. At that particular moment we walked in on a large fight with a group of kids ganging up on a boy named Filippo Argenti . He had apparently done something really bad,and as the fight was beginning to escalate the hallway began to clog. To mine and Virgil’s luck a boy named Phleygas came up and showed us a way around the fight. However, the bell for 5th period had already rung by the time we made it around the fight and we were far from the class we needed to be in (C206) , and by the time we got there, the teacher and her student teacher (Mrs. Tisiphone and Ms. Medusa ) had locked the door and wouldn’t let us in. So Virgil knocked on the door, but no one answered. He began to get worried, I again began losing hope, but then by chance we came upon a security guard , “ This boy is shadowing me for the day and I need to get into class” Virgil said “Who allowed him to be here” said the security guard “ It was willed by the Vice Principal Mrs. Beatrice” Virgil said. “Alright ill write you a pass, but you have to be more prompt next time” said the security guard “Thank you” said Virgil. This time the security guard knocked on the door, Mrs. Tisiphone answered, he whispered in her ear and she let us in.
The class was creative writing. We had just walked in on the class learning about terza rima rhyme scheme , tercets , and hendecasyllable form . In there I saw many reading a variety of religious texts, namely, Dianetics , the Tao Te Ching , the Zend Avesta , and the Vedas one’s name was Farinata Degli Uberti . Then the bell rang again and off we went to 6th period: Band Class (room G 107) . In the class there three levels , the top level was blood red (on the floor), and had Phlegethon sprawled across it. The next level had what seemed to be a forest of stands , music everywhere, and the bottom floor was painted a beige color reminiscent of sand . On each level there were a variety of students, a few students were punching each other lightly . One’s name was Alexander the great , he was sitting on the top and Dionysius was also sitting there. On the second floor, there were a few emo kids (you could tell by the tight pants, black clothing, haircuts etc.) and then, on the bottom level I saw two boys holding hands, one’s name was Brunetto Latini , and he was my friend in middle school, the teaches were Mr. Minotaur , Mr.Nessus , and Mr. Chiron . I didn’t get a chance to talk to him before the bell rang and we were off to 7th period: Gym.

As we were walking down a bunch of juniors stopped us. They had the markings of the Malebranche (a local gang). They introduced themselves “ Hey, we are part of the Malebranche gang, our names are Malacoda , Rubicante , and Barbariccia , this hallways under construction…you have to go somewhere else we will show you the other way to the gym .” “Alright” said Virgil. So we began following them when suddenly they ran away and we realized we were lost. They had tricked us. The color was draining from my face when suddenly a teacher who was walking the hallways who’s name was Mr. Geryon came up to us and asked “What are you two doing wandering the halls” “ We were misled by a few boys, they said the hallway to the gym was under construction” Virgil said, “ Well, they were lying, come on I’ll lead you to the gym” Mr. Geryon said “Thank you sir” Virgil said, so we followed him to the gym . In a twist of fate, he also turned out to be the gym teacher. He told us “Today there are about ten different groups hanging out due to open gym, feel free to join any.” And so he left us to travel around the gym, we decided first to go on the stage to check out what was going on up there, they were watching television, on the television were a bunch of politicians pandering to the public because of the upcoming election . The politicians name was Jason , a student I saw in there was Venedico Caccianemico . Next we moved on to the first section of the gym here we found two people playing with a birdy, one of them left the game to talk to the teacher “Oh most wonderful teacher, I’ve done what I was supposed to. You’re looking mighty fine today, can you please change my grade to an A?” Mr. Geryon said “I will take no flattery , your grade remains the same.”

We moved on to the second group of students these students were talking in private, I saw some money going to one of the students. This boy I later learned was nicknamed “Pope” Nicholas III , he was known as the school’s spiritual leader, of course he used simony to get there, but no one really knows about that, I got a little chance to talk to him, and he insulted Boniface VIII and Clement V who he knew were his sucessors as simonists themselves. Then we moved on. We reached the third segment of the gym, on this set of bleachers I saw a guy and a girl using one of those fortune tellers made out of paper , I learned that the boy’s name was Tiresias (who was actually transgender) and the girl was name Manto. We proceeded on and found that no one was really playing any sports, but people were separated into different groups. Next we came upon the politicians of the school, namely the school’s president ( Ciampolo) and vice president , who we saw talking with the Malebranche we saw before. Apparently they were bribing the Malebranche to do some unwholesome dealings against their competitors. We decided we shouldn’t go after them, gangs are dangerous after all. Then we came to a group of kids who were telling the people around them to stop laying around doing nothing and get up and play some sports, I found this hypocritical as they themselves were not moving either .
Then, we came upon a boy who was searching what appeared to be another’s backpack, he was taking the other students iPod , we called out to stop him, but he gave us fig fingers , and we stopped. We proceeded on and found one boy named Ulysses advising another named Diomedes into doing something . Apparently he was saying that it was a good thing to do, but from what I could tell this was not the case, he was telling him to pick a fight with a kid named Troy . I remembered that I was just shadowing and couldn’t really do anything about it, so we trudged on. We came upon of people trying to stir things up, schismatic , I didn’t learn any of their names. Finally we came upon a girl named Potiphar handing over a bootlegged copy of a DVD to a boy . Right as we saw this the bell rang for the final period of the day: Calculus with Mr. Lucifer and but to get there we had to go past the basketball team, they were all quite large , among them were Nimrod , and Antaeus , Antaeus said he’d lead us down to 8th period because that’s where he was going, so finally, the last period, by far the scariest, as one had once said “equations are the devil’s sentences” in their we saw boys named Brutus Cassius and Judas and others. We took our seats, we saw Brutus and Cassius conspiring , and they shouted out in the middle of the class (which by the way was freezing, and there was a leak because it was the basement, and surprisingly the leak was almost frozen over, like a mini Cocytus ) “Julius is cheating on my test” both did, and then Judas did the same thing except he ratted out a boy named Jesus (pronounced hey-zeus) the boy was extremely embarrassed, and both received a zero on the test, which looked brutally hard. Finally, the bell rang and Virgil and I left the classroom. When we got outside of the high school he told me “I hoped you enjoyed high school, this is what it’s going to be like, you think you’re ready?” “Yeah” I replied, and then my mom came to pick me up. I parted ways with Virgil as I entered the car, and as we drove away I thought “next year” and thus ends my journey through the inferno that is high-school
footnotes
1. First line is eleven syllables long, like the original poems hendecasyllable format
2.three juniors are the three beasts that stop Dante from leaving the dark wood, in the original they are a panther a she wolf, and a lion
3.Dante addresses Virgil as the author of the Aeneid when the two first meet.
4.Virgil- shade that leads Dante through hell and purgatory, also wrote the Aeneid
5.Shadow = shade in reverse, instead of virgil being the shade( a spirit) Eric is the figurative shade as he is shadowing virgil for the day
6. A134: First Circle and Number of Cantos in the inferno
7.Charon is the boatman who crosses the river Acheron, he first is angry that dante is there but when virgil tells him of the divine nature he allows him to cross
8. Beatrice, Dante’s great love, and in la commedia the reason he journeys through hell and purgatory, she acts as guide in paradise
9. “Abandon Hope ye who enter here”- one of the most famous lines of the poem, it is on the gate before entering hell
10.Aristotle- Famous Philosopher
11.Horace- Roman Lyric Poet
12.Homer- Greek Poet, Wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey
13. Ovid – Poet known best for his work the metamorphoses
14. Saladin- General of the muslim armies during the crusades
15. Plato – Famous Philosopher
viii-xiii are all in limbo, the first circle of hell
16.La Divina Commedia- otherwise known as Dante’s Divine comedy, it is the three part story of Dante’s journey through hell purgatory and heaven, The Divine part was added almost 300 years after it was written, even though it is called a comedy it has very serious subject matter
17. B200- Second circle, hell proper, those who were lustful suffer in terrible winds blowing back and forth
18. Minos- Judge Before hell proper, circles tail around his body the number of the circle you go to, he then uses his tail to take you and throw you down there, king of crete (historically), Dante’s minos is a creature of hell
19. Cleopatra- famous Egyptian queen, was known for her beauty
20. Helen of Troy- Wife of Agamemnon, largely responsible for the Trojan war
21. Paris- Paris was a man who was asked by the gods, Athena, Hera and Aphrodite who was the most beautiful (due to the apple of discord thrown by Eris) each offer him something, he chooses Aphrodite after she promises him the most beautiful women in the world, who is Helen of troy, he thusly instigates the Trojan war, he is also responsible for the death of Achilles
22. Francesca and Paolo- Two lovers, fell in love while reading the Arthurian legend of guinevere and lancelot, were killed by her husband Giovanni da rimini
23. B203- Third circle of hell, gluttons are punished in this circle by being pelted with rain and hail while laying in mud and a nasty slush
24. there was a war between the papacy and the holy roman empire about the pope, the papacy believed the pope was divine while the holy roman empire believed that no man was of divine creation and could not just be christened as one, eventually split into the potestant and catholic sects of christianity
25.Guelphs and Ghibellines were two opposing parties in the above conflict, Dante was a White guelph and took part in the battle of campaldino
26.Ciacco (literally translates to Hog, most likely a nickname) was a friend of Dante’s and appears in the third circle of hell, he talks about Florentines and the fate of Florence
27.Cerberus- Three headed dog of greek mythology, guards the third circle in dante’s work
28.Plutus- a demon in the fourth circle, utters the line “pape satan aleppe” which is gibberish, virgil utters a word and sends him reeling, he is most likely a reference to pluto
29. B204- Fourth circle, where the avaricious are punished as well as the prodigal, the sinners push weights against each other once the weights smash the process starts all over again
30. Denotes the fact that the sinners in this circle are concerned with worldly goods, thus “bling” is a representation of that
31. the story is a reworking of the inferno, dante’s version of hell
32. the river styx, in greek mythology, the river to the underworld, in Dante’s work it is the circle for the wrathful, in this circle the wrathful fight and tear at each other, this is where the sins of incontinence (paganism, lust, gluttony, avarice, and wrath)ends the first four are also later in the poem referred to as excessive or misdirected love Which in Dante’s Work is where all sins and virtues derive
33.Filipo Argenti –A contemporary of Dante’s was an affiliate of the black party of the guelphs
34.Phleygas – ferryman for the river styx, in the original work he takes Dante across to the city of dis
35. B206- the 6th circle of hell (city of dis), the circle for heretics, sufferers in this circle are stuffed in burning coffins, it should be noted that in this circle the reader learns that shades of hell can only see the future and not the present, so when the final judgement comes they wont see anything
36. Tisiphone- one of the three furies, the other two being alecto and megaera, the furies torture sinners, in the original work she and the other furies threaten Dante and Virgil
37. Medusa – the most famous of the gorgons, she was said to be so hideous one look at her and you would turn to stone, made this way as punishment for sleeping with zeus by hera, the gorgons also threaten Dante and Virgil
38.security guard= angel from god who was sent to get dante and virgil into dis
39.Terza Rima Rhyme Scheme, ABA, BCB CDC… the rhyme scheme used in the divine comedy
40Tercets are three line stanzas which is how terza rima work hendecasyllable- each line is eleven syllables long
41 Dianetics- the “holy text” of scientology
42. Tao Te Ching- The Taoist holy text
43.Zend Avesta – Zoroastrian holy text
44.Vedas – Hindu Holy texts
45.Farinata degli Uberti – A contemporary of Dante’s, a ghibelline
46 G107- 7th circle of hell, the circle for the violent, separated into three segments for the three types of violence (violence towards others, violence towards self, violence towards god, violence against nature,and violence against order ( blasphemers, sodomites and usurers essentially)) the first segment is guarded by centaurs and the sinners are submerged in a river of blood known as phlegethon, the second segment is the suicide woods and is where sinners are put in trees that are eternally picked by harpies, the final segment is for sodomites blasphemers, and usurers, these sinners are punished in a hail of fire while on burning hot sand
48. Three Levels- The 7th Circle is cut up into the three segments
49.Phlegethon-River of blood where sinners are submerged
50. Forest of Stands – Suicide Forest
51.Beige Sandlike- the burning sands of the last third of the 7th circle
52.Punching Each Other Lightly – Violence towards others
53.Alexander the Great – The famous king of the Macedonians who went on a large scale conquest of the Arabian peninsula
54.Dionysius – also known as Dionysius the Elder or Dionysius I was the tyrant of Syracuse, waged war against carthage
55.Emo kids – Short for emotional, subgenre of music, emo kids have an outward appearance as depressed. Thusly they could represent the suicides, as the suicides are depressed
56. Brunetto Latini – a well known homosexual, he was greatly respected by Dante, was a famous Italian philosopher and intellectual
57. Minotaur – Mythical creature, born of a woman and a bull, was half man and half bull, lived in the labyrinth created by daedulus, he is encountered by dante outside the 7th circle
58.Nessus- A centaur that helps dante cross the phlegethon
60. Chiron – Lead centaur, tells nessus to get dante and virgil across the river
61.Malebranche – Literally translates to “evil claws” in the story are a group of demons in the 6th bolgia of the 8th circle, they fool dante and virgil into believing that the bridge to the next bolgia is broken and leads them to the correct one, they actually mislead dante and virgil into getting lost
62. Malacoda – Leader of the malebranche
63Rubicante – Another malebranche
64.Barbariccia – A Third Malebranche
65.Parallels the original work in that the pathway has been broken or is not available and the malebranche will lead them to the real place
66.Geryon - A scary demon with the head of a man and body reminiscent of a griffin and a dragon amalgam, takes virgil and dante down to the eighth circle because the drop between the seventh and eighth circles is too great to traverse alone
67.Geryon takes the main characters to the eighth circle, mr geryon leads the boys to 7th period
68.8th circle aka the Malebolge (literally translates to evil pockets) is set up in ten bolgias or pockets each sin representing another aspect of fraud, the punishments are listed below
69. Panderers (pimps) and seducers are punished in the first bolgia- in the circle the sinners are condemned to march by demons, they are eternally whipped
70. Jason – famously known for his adventures with the Argonauts to get the golden fleece, he seduced medea and she in turn took revenge on him
71.venedico caccianemico- A man who sold his own sister
72.Flatterers are punished in the 2nd bolgia sitting in a pool of excrement
73Pope Nicholas III- a pope who greatly strengthened the papacy in rome was known for excessive nepotism in dantes work condemned to the third bolgia for simony
74.Simony- using money to get positions of power in the chuch, in the circle the sinners are put head first into holes in a rock and their feet are burned eternally, somewhat of an inverse baptism
75.Pope Boniface VIII – another pope, predicted by Nicholas to burn for simony
76.Pope Clement V – Pope known for his suppression of the templars, moved the roman curia to Avignon
77False Prophets and Sorcerers are punished in the 4th bolgia their punishment is their heads are turned 180 degrees so their tears run down their backs, the irony being they could see ahead but now they can only look back
78tiresias – known as the blind prophet, once was climbing a mountain and found two snakes mating, he killed them and was made into a women, approximately seven years later he found two more snakes mating and killed them and became a man. He then found zeus and hera arguing on who enjoyed sex better (zeus said women, hera said men) tiresias sided with zeus, hera became so angry that she blinded him, but zeus gave him the power of foresight
79. Barrators (corrupt politicians) are punished in this circle they are submersed in a lake of boiling tar, and are poked and skinned by the malebranche on occasion
80. Malebranche are in the 5th bolgia
81Hypocrites are punished in the 6th bolgia, they walk slowly in leaden cloaks that are gold gilded
82Thieves are punished in the 7th bolgia, they are bitten by snakes, become snakes bite humans, then become human and the humans become snakes, guarded by the centaur cacus
83. the renaissance equivalent of the middle finger, you put your thumbs in between your middle and ring finger, one of the thieves curses god and gives the fig fingers in his anger and is attacked by more snakes
84. Ulysses- Otherwise known as odysseus, famous as the hero of homer’s epic the odyssey, punished alongside diomedes in a double flame, also fought in the Trojan war, is in hell because of his role as a false advisor ditto for diomedes
85.Diomedes – hero of the Trojan war
86False advisors are punished in the 8th bolgia they are encased in individual flames, (with the exception of diomedes and Ulysses who share a double flame)
87.Troy – represents the city of troy which was the battlefield of the Trojan war and the focus of the iliad
88.Schismatics are punished in this bolgia, walk in a circle and are cut up by a demon with a sword, once it heals they get sliced again Muhammad and ali are punished in this circle and fra dolcino
89. Potiphar- the woman who seduced joseph and got joseph in very much trouble
90. Alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impersonators are punished in this circle, and are afflicted with horrible disease (such as leprosy)
91. Lucifer – Once the brightest light of all, waged war against god, and was damned to eternity in hell, in dante’s work he is portrayed as a creature with three faces, gnawing on the three biggest betrayers in dante’s eyes(brutus, cassius, and judas) he has 6 large wings that make the center of hell so cold
92Circle of giants before the final circle of hell
93. nimrod -helped with the construction of the tower of babel, can not speak any coherent language
94. Antaeus- helps dante and virgil into the final circle
95.Stephen Colbert said this quote
96.Brutus – betrayed by Julius Caesar and took part in his assassination eaten by one of lucifers heads
97.Cassius – betrayed Julius Caesar took part in his assassination eaten by one of lucifers heads
98.Judas – Betrayed jesus is being gnawed on by Lucifer
99.Conspiring the assassination of Julius caesar
100. final circle is the frozen lake cocytus, separated into four sections (caina , antenora, ptolomea, and judecca, named after betrayers, and different types of betrayal namely, betraying kindred, betrayal of political entities , betrayal of guests, and betrayer of lords and benefactors) based on where you are in the circle you are submerged deeper in the ice until you are completely under it
101.Julius Caesar – first emperor of rome, stabbed to death in the forum by senators
102. Jesus Christ – son of god, betrayed by judas for 20 silver coins was crucified and resurrected