INFERNO

Dante Alighieri

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Plot Overview
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Inferno opens on the evening of Good Friday in the year 1300. Traveling through a dark wood,
Dante Alighieri has lost his path and now wanders fearfully through the forest. The sun shines down
on a mountain above him, and he attempts to climb up to it but finds his way blocked by three beasts
—a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. Frightened and helpless, Dante returns to the dark wood. Here
he encounters the ghost of Virgil, the great Roman poet, who has come to guide Dante back to his
path, to the top of the mountain. Virgil says that their path will take them through Hell and that they
will eventually reach Heaven, where Dante’s beloved Beatrice awaits. He adds that it was Beatrice,
along with two other holy women, who, seeing Dante lost in the wood, sent Virgil to guide him.

Virgil leads Dante through the gates of Hell, marked by the haunting inscription “ A B A N D O N A L L
H O P E , Y O U W H O E N T E R H E R E ” (III.7). They enter the outlying region of Hell, the Ante-Inferno,

where the souls who in life could not commit to either good or evil now must run in a futile chase
after a blank banner, day after day, while hornets bite them and worms lap their blood. Dante
witnesses their suffering with repugnance and pity. The ferryman Charon then takes him and his
guide across the river Acheron, the real border of Hell. The First Circle of Hell, Limbo, houses
pagans, including Virgil and many of the other great writers and poets of antiquity, who died without
knowing of Christ. After meeting Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, Dante continues into the Second Circle of
Hell, reserved for the sin of Lust. At the border of the Second Circle, the monster Minos lurks,
assigning condemned souls to their punishments. He curls his tail around himself a certain number
of times, indicating the number of the circle to which the soul must go. Inside the Second Circle,
Dante watches as the souls of the Lustful swirl about in a terrible storm; Dante meets Francesca,
who tells him the story of her doomed love affair with Paolo da Rimini, her husband’s brother; the
relationship has landed both in Hell.

In the Third Circle of Hell, the Gluttonous must lie in mud and endure a rain of filth and excrement. In
the Fourth Circle, the Avaricious and the Prodigal are made to charge at one another with giant
boulders. The Fifth Circle of Hell contains the river Styx, a swampy, fetid cesspool in which the
Wrathful spend eternity struggling with one another; the Sullen lie bound beneath the Styx’s waters,
choking on the mud. Dante glimpses Filippo Argenti, a former political enemy of his, and watches in
delight as other souls tear the man to pieces.

Virgil and Dante next proceed to the walls of the city of Dis, a city contained within the larger region
of Hell. The demons who guard the gates refuse to open them for Virgil, and an angelic messenger
arrives from Heaven to force the gates open before Dante. The Sixth Circle of Hell houses the
Heretics, and there Dante encounters a rival political leader named Farinata. A deep valley leads
into the First Ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell, where those who were violent toward others spend
eternity in a river of boiling blood. Virgil and Dante meet a group of Centaurs, creatures who are half
man, half horse. One of them, Nessus, takes them into the Second Ring of the Seventh Circle of
Hell, where they encounter those who were violent toward themselves (the Suicides). These souls
must endure eternity in the form of trees. Dante there speaks with Pier della Vigna. Going deeper
into the Seventh Circle of Hell, the travelers find those who were violent toward God (the
Blasphemers); Dante meets his old patron, Brunetto Latini, walking among the souls of those who
were violent toward Nature (the Sodomites) on a desert of burning sand. They also encounter the
Usurers, those who were violent toward Art.

The monster Geryon transports Virgil and Dante across a great abyss to the Eighth Circle of Hell,
known as Malebolge, or “evil pockets” (or “pouches”); the term refers to the circle’s division into
various pockets separated by great folds of earth. In the First Pouch, the Panderers and the
Seducers receive lashings from whips; in the second, the Flatterers must lie in a river of human
feces. The Simoniacs in the Third Pouch hang upside down in baptismal fonts while their feet burn
with fire. In the Fourth Pouch are the Astrologists or Diviners, forced to walk with their heads on
backward, a sight that moves Dante to great pity. In the Fifth Pouch, the Barrators (those who
accepted bribes) steep in pitch while demons tear them apart. The Hypocrites in the Sixth Pouch
must forever walk in circles, wearing heavy robes made of lead. Caiphas, the priest who confirmed
Jesus’ death sentence, lies crucified on the ground; the other sinners tread on him as they walk. In
the horrifying Seventh Pouch, the Thieves sit trapped in a pit of vipers, becoming vipers themselves
when bitten; to regain their form, they must bite another thief in turn.

In the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell, Dante speaks to Ulysses, the great hero of Homer’s
epics, now doomed to an eternity among those guilty of Spiritual Theft (the False Counselors) for his
role in executing the ruse of the Trojan Horse. In the Ninth Pouch, the souls of Sowers of Scandal
and Schism walk in a circle, constantly afflicted by wounds that open and close repeatedly. In the
Tenth Pouch, the Falsifiers suffer from horrible plagues and diseases.
Virgil and Dante proceed to the Ninth Circle of Hell through the Giants’ Well, which leads to a
massive drop to Cocytus, a great frozen lake. The giant Antaeus picks Virgil and Dante up and sets
them down at the bottom of the well, in the lowest region of Hell. In Caina, the First Ring of the Ninth
Circle of Hell, those who betrayed their kin stand frozen up to their necks in the lake’s ice. In
Antenora, the Second Ring, those who betrayed their country and party stand frozen up to their
heads; here Dante meets Count Ugolino, who spends eternity gnawing on the head of the man who
imprisoned him in life. In Ptolomea, the Third Ring, those who betrayed their guests spend eternity
lying on their backs in the frozen lake, their tears making blocks of ice over their eyes. Dante next
follows Virgil into Judecca, the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell and the lowest depth. Here,
those who betrayed their benefactors spend eternity in complete icy submersion.

A huge, mist-shrouded form lurks ahead, and Dante approaches it. It is the three-headed giant
Lucifer, plunged waist-deep into the ice. His body pierces the center of the Earth, where he fell when
God hurled him down from Heaven. Each of Lucifer’s mouths chews one of history’s three greatest
sinners: Judas, the betrayer of Christ, and Cassius and Brutus, the betrayers of Julius Caesar. Virgil
leads Dante on a climb down Lucifer’s massive form, holding on to his frozen tufts of hair.
Eventually, the poets reach the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and travel from there out of Hell and
back onto Earth. They emerge from Hell on Easter morning, just before sunrise.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, the author chronicles the journey of three places: the Inferno,
Purgatory and Paradise. In each of these scenarios, it is mythical characters, famous people for their
actions, or acquaintances.

His journey begins when he finds himself lost in a dark jungle. Gives you three animals: the leopard,
lion and wolf, which, according to scholars can mean respectively incontinence, violence and fraud.
At this point it is rescued by Virgil, Roman poet, who greatly admired Dante. Virgil guides Dante
through the paths of Hell and Purgatory, to find Beatrice, the muse of the author.

Before entering into Hell itself, there was the lobby, a place where people who were in life found
themselves undecided about good and evil, so they had no hope of salvation or death.

The book divides Hell into regions that are called circles. Each circle presents a kind of sin. The
more the inner circle, the greater the sin, and therefore with greater severity index.

The first round houses people who have committed no sin worthy of punishment, but did not believe
in God. The place called Limbo, and there are characters like Homer, Heraclitus and Self Virgil.

The second circle is what comprises the lustful as Cleopatra, Achilles and Helen. Suffered from
being shaken by the wind.
In the third round were punished who committed the sin of gluttony, with sleet and snow. Were
dipped in mud.

When Dante and Virgil reach the fourth round are those punished for being greedy or spend too
much. There they found priests, clergy, popes and cardinals.

The next round, the fifth, contained punished that bore the sins of hatred and feeling resentful. In this
circle were punished souls plunged into the lake, which Dante crossed.

After crossing the lake, reached the gates of the city of Dis (Devil). Were prevented from entering by
some demons. But an angel appears and opens the gates.

Then enter the sixth circle. At this site, are the culprits for heresy. They were tortured with fire in their
graves.

The seventh circle shows subdivisions. The first subdivision has those guilty of violence against
others, who commit sins like murder. The second level is for those who have done worse for himself
with, like suicide. The third contained the sinners of blasphemy, which would be violence against
God. Soon after came the fourth and fifth subdivision. All areas of the seventh round had terrible
punishments. Some characters of this circle are: Attila Lano and Brunetto Latino.

The eighth round opened in chapter eighteen, with origin of sexual sins and ends in chapter thirty
with sins of falsification. In this circle can also be observed several other sins such as theft, magic
and intrigue. There are ten kinds of sins found in this circle.

The ninth and last circle of Hell, punish the traitors. There are four types of treachery described, that
is the worst betrayal of the good. In this place were punished Judas, Brutus and Cassius.

After passing through these places, Dante and Virgil, through the center of the earth and reach the
other side. On the other side had a mountain that contained the Purgatory.

In Purgatory were people who committed sins but repent in life. Suffer punishment, but in the end
would be saved.

Before the Purgatory itself was a place where people who were left to regret it only in death, others
have become just too lazy at the end of life. They had to stay there for a certain period of time and
then begin their purge.

At the entrance of Purgatory was an angel who put seven "P" s in each person's forehead,
symbolizing the seven deadly sins for which it should be separated to reach Paradise.

Purgatory then gives your organization so that the most serious sins are next to bottom and the
lighter sins are near the summit of the mountain. The sins punished in Purgatory are pride, envy,
anger, sloth, avarice and its opposite, gluttony and lust.

Dante and Virgil follow up to the mountaintop. From that point, Beatrice becomes Dante's guide, and
Virgil back to Limbo. After the baptism of Dante, goes to Paradise.
Paradise also features your organization. They are in total nine heavens. Each sky also presents
certain groups of people. The fifth heaven, for example, is home to the martyrs, the sixth, the
righteous. Dante and Beatrice continue until the last level, where he seeks to see God. But the glory
of God obscures the view of Dante and thus ends his adventure.

The book in general presents the difference between good and evil. Evaluates sins, giving some
gravity to every one. Makes clear that only with reason, found in Virgil, you can not get to heaven.
Note also that Dante creates another "heaven" for God, putting up a system described by Ptolemy.