The Fifth Circle of Hell: Wrath
Wrath is the fifth circle of Dante's Hell, described in Cantos VII–VIII. It holds the wrathful, and the sullen. The punishment: the wrathful tear at each other on the surface of the Styx. The sullen lie beneath it, choking on mud, gurgling a hymn they cannot finish.
The punishment
The wrathful tear at each other on the surface of the Styx. The sullen lie beneath it, choking on mud, gurgling a hymn they cannot finish.
Open anger stays open forever. Anger that was swallowed stays swallowed — the sullen never get to say the thing they never said.
Who guards it
Phlegyas, the ferryman of the Styx.
Who Dante puts here
Named residents of the fifth circle include:
- Filippo Argenti
The modern read
The circle for the road rager and, in the mud below them, the one who says "it's fine" and then does not speak for four days.
Sending someone to Wrath
The friend who has an enemy at every coffee shop, or the one who is passive-aggressive by trade.
Damnation Vacation sells a numbered, permanent plot in one of Dante's nine circles of Hell. You pay $6.66, pick who it's for, name their cardinal sin in twenty characters or fewer, and choose their circle. They get a public gravestone page with their name on it, their plot number, and a counter tracking how many days they've been down there. Wrath is Circle V, and it has open plots.
Common questions
What is the fifth circle of Hell?
Wrath, described in Cantos VII–VIII of Dante's Inferno. It holds the wrathful, and the sullen, whose punishment is: the wrathful tear at each other on the surface of the Styx. The sullen lie beneath it, choking on mud, gurgling a hymn they cannot finish.
Which circle of Hell is wrath?
The fifth — Circle V of nine.
Who guards the fifth circle?
Phlegyas, the ferryman of the Styx.