Maybe you’ve heard the expression ‘the Ninth Circle of Hell’
used to describe an excruciating week at the office, a brutal exam or a particularly
acrimonious divorce — hyperbolically, one hopes.
The Origin of the Expression
Over six hundred years ago, an Italian named Dante Alighieri
wrote an epic poem entitled Divine Comedy.
Inferno (Italian for ‘hell’) is the first
part of the three-part poem, and it’s from Dante’s allegorical exploration of
hell that the concept of the nine circles comes. Hell is depicted as a series
of concentric circles representing a gradual increase in wickedness — and
corresponding torment — that have their culmination at the very centre, where
Satan is held in bondage.
The Ninth Circle of Hell is reserved for the treacherous:
Cain, who killed his brother, is there in Dante’s poem, along with Mordred,
murderer of King Arthur, Brutus and Cassius, traitors to Julius Caesar, and
Judas Iscariot, betrayer of the Lord himself. Judas is charmingly pictured
being gnawed at by Satan, Satan’s claws skinning his back, in perpetual agony
for eternity.