w in the fourth circle and
is called the Styx. In the seventh circle, second round, it emerges as
the red blood stream of Phlegethon. In the very depths of Hell it forms
the frozen lake of Cocytus. The circles of Hell, distant from one
another, decrease in circumference as descent is made--the top circle
being the widest. Galileo estimates that Dante's Hell is about 4,000
miles in depth and as many in breadth at its widest diameter. Its
opening is near the forest at the Fauces Averni, near Cuma, Italy, where
Virgil places the site of the entrance of his Inferno.

Dante's Hell in its moral aspect is Aristotelian. Sins are divided into
three great classes, incontinence, bestiality and malice. Incontinence
is punished in the five upper circles; bestiality and malice in the City
of Dis, lower Hell. More particularly stated, Dante's scheme of
punishment in the underworld, not considering the vestibule of Hell,
where neutrals are confined, is as follows: 1, Limbo; 2, The Circle of
Lust; 3, Gluttony; 4, Avarice and Prodigality; 5, Anger, Rage and Fury;
6, Unbelief and Heresy; 7, Violence; 8, Fraud; 9, Treason.

In regard to this plan of punishment three things are to be noted: (a)
Though generally following the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, here
Dante, in his conception of Limbo, differs from his master. Our poet's
Limbo, wherein are the souls of unbaptized children and others who died
stained with original sin, but without personal grievous guilt, is a
much more severe abode than that of the Angelic Doctor. The latter
teaches that Limbo is a place or a state, not merely of exemption from
suffering and sorrow, but of perfect natural happiness unbroken even by
a knowledge of a higher, a supernatural destiny that has never been
given. Dante's Limbo, on the other hand, represents the souls in sadness
brought about by their constant desire and hope never realizable, of
seeing God. They suffer no pain of sense, but they are baffled in their
endless yearning for the Beatific Vision. To quote Dante:

"There, in so far as I had power to hear,
Were lamentations none, but only sighs
That tremulous made the everlasting air.
And this arose from sorrow without torment,
Which the crowds had, that many were and great,
Of infants and of women and of men.
To me the Master good: 'Thou dost not ask
What spirits these may be, which thou beholdest?
Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,
That they sinned not; and