by Michael J. Mangano

It has been seven centuries since the death of Dante Alighieri, and over those many years much has changed in the world…and possibly even in the netherworld.  One can only imagine what modifications the author would make to some of the Inferno’s cantos if he had the opportunity to edit his magnum opus today…

Canto III:  Sighs, deep wailings and horrible outcries filled the air as we saw a vast multitude of spirits running in great haste and confusion, urged on by furious wasps, hornets and mosquitos that come out at six-thirty in the Catskills.  And I asked, “Master, who are these who suffer so deeply.”  The poet answered, “These are the souls who the demon ferryman Charon refuses to ferry over the river Acheron into Hell proper because they don’t have a Hadescard to pay for the ride.”

Canto VI:  I was in the place appointed for the gluttons, who must spend eternity eating Russian airline food, the more serious sinners being further condemned to eating the accursed meals while wearing earphones and watching “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo.”

Canto VII:  I witnessed millions of grey desks with men in white, short-sleeved, drip-dry shirts and thin striped ties sitting on one side and people writhing in agony on the other side.  “Who are these people?” I asked.  “And what kind of torture are they going through?”  “These are the avaricious,” Virgil answered, “sentenced to an eternity of being audited by the United States Internal Revenue Service…the more serious offenders further tortured by not being allowed to have their accountants present.”

Canto XVI:  Here were the souls of the men distinguished in war.  One of these was Guido Guerra IV, Vicar of Tuscany, who in 1260 led an army against the Sienese.  The other was Sally Alfano, leader of the South Brooklyn Boys, who in 1963 led a gang war against the Flatbush Tigers. At one point Guido and Sally  got into an argument as to who was tougher, the Sienese or the Flatbush Tigers.

Canto XVII:  Virgil sent me to see a class of sinners that were being punished in burning sand – the usurers.  They were sitting, all crunched up, with purses containing great wealth hanging from their necks and tears gushing from their eyes, for the sand on which they were sitting was the sand of Malibu and it was the 1950s and they weren’t being allowed to buy.

Canto XVIII:  We descended into lower Hell, the eighth circle, which is divided into ten chasms, each containing a different class of sinner.  The lying seducers were in the first chasm, which looked remarkably like the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.  Each sinner was condemned to sitting at a table with an agent whose pitches he must listen to for all eternity.  The graver sinners were sitting at booths, flanked by two of these hideous creatures.

Canto XIX:  In the third chasm were the Simonists, those guilty of buying and selling church offices.  There was Pope Nicholas III and Pope Boniface VIII, who were being tortured by spending the hereafter performing the endless, painful task of trying to figure out the back taxes on all of the church’s real estate holdings.

Canto XXVIII:  My guide and I now looked into the ninth chasm, where we saw sowers of scandal, dressed in the hideous attire of the late 1970s, all waiting endlessly on line to get into Studio 54.  There was Curio, who advised Caesar to cross the Rubicon.  He informed us that he keeps telling the guy at the door that he knows Caesar, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

…and one can only imagine why he called it The Divine Comedy.