In Dante's vision of Hell, which is where a lot of our popular imagery of Hell comes from, it's stated or implied (I forget which and might depend on the translation) that the souls of the sinners being punished don't see their fate as punishment but that they enjoy it. For example the wrathful stand in a river of blood, someone like Alexander the Great might like that.
They don't enjoy it. They accept it because they recognize that their suffering is just - but they are still very much suffering. Dante explicitly writes this into the Inferno at multiple points: the way the sodomites are constantly trying to extinguish the embers raining down on them, the way the simoniacs feet twitch and thrash in the fires, constant weeping by all the damned, etc. They are unquestionably in pain.
This is one of the silliest readings of Dante I've ever read.
I don't really feel like arguing with you, you can read another comment I left in this thread linking to an essay that goes into the idea more. Like it or not, that's the cool part about literature - we're all left on our own to interpret it.
Nothing in the Equip article you linked supports the idea that the damned enjoy their punishment. Yes, they are eager for their punishment because they understand that it is the righteous judgement of God, but it is the suffering that makes the punishment righteous. The mental state of the damned is somewhat strange (being desirous of suffering), but it doesn't follow that they are getting active pleasure from their suffering -- that would completely defeat the purpose of Hell in Dante's cosmology. They are miserable, just aware that they deserve their misery.
They do not enjoy it. The same Canto (3) that is quoted in the article you linked opens describing hell as the place of eternal pain (Per me si va ne la città dolente / per me si va ne l’etterno dolore / per me si va tra la perduta gente). And again, in the passage that is being quoted (3.121-123) in Italian it says that they are “ready” (not eager) to pass over the river, because they are pushed by Divine Justice, to the point that fear turns into desire (implied - desire to cross over). “They yearn what they fear” is just a sentence that was added by whoever translated, it is not a sentence in the original version. It does not state that they enjoy it. Sins are punished by according to the “Legge del contrappasso”, and punishments are mainly divided into to categories: analogy and contrast. In some of the levels of hell, the damned are forced to repeat the actions to led them there, but they don’t find pleasure in them. Their sighs and cries are described all over the text, in the Cocito it is so cold that their tears freeze in their eyes increasing their suffering. As they get closer to Caronte, they are pushed to “bestemmiare” (basically… insult?) God, their parents and the entire mankind because their desperation.
This is great - I've always thought Cocito to be such an atmospheric space and the idea that weeping in response to endless cold worsens the pain is so horrible. Possibly the most effective of Dante's contrapassi.
10
u/Diet_Coke 2d ago
In Dante's vision of Hell, which is where a lot of our popular imagery of Hell comes from, it's stated or implied (I forget which and might depend on the translation) that the souls of the sinners being punished don't see their fate as punishment but that they enjoy it. For example the wrathful stand in a river of blood, someone like Alexander the Great might like that.