Written by Dante Alighieri, Inferno is one of the three works that make up The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy documents Dante’s travels through Hell (in Inferno), Purgatory (in Purgatorio), and Heaven (in Paradiso). The Divine Comedy helped to establish the roots of what is now the Italian language, as Dante wrote in the Italian vernacular instead of Latin, making his work more accessible to the lower, uneducated classes and establishing a trend of writing in common language.
In Inferno, a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf corner Dante in a dark wood. Dante is unable to find a way to escape these animal assailants, and begins to give up hope. However, Virgil appears and offers to guide Dante away from the danger of the beasts, into the underworld. Virgin and Dante cross the river Acheron and approach the first circle of Hell, Limbo. Limbo houses those who are not sinful, but lived before the birth of Christ, or were never baptized.
Dante recognizes many famous poets and historical figures in Limbo, as documented in the following quotation: “I saw the souls of Socrates and Plato where they stood nearer to him than the rest;” (4. 134). Virgil himself resides in Limbo, and is taking a temporary leave of absence to guide Dante. Souls in Limbo are treated with much more lenience than those in other circles, as they reside in a castle instead of in fiery pits. Virgil leads Dante deeper into hell, and the pair pass through the circles set aside for Incontinence and Heresy, entering the first ring of the seventh circle, violence.
Unlike the previous circles, the seventh is split into three rings: violence against one’s neighbor, violence against oneself, and violence against God. This division puzzles Dante, prompting him to ask Virgil: “But tell me, those up there in the swamp’s slime, those windswept spirits, those the rain beats down, those tongues that jeer when they collide each time, why aren’t the also in this city of rust to suffer, if God holds them in his wrath? ” (11. 71). Virgil explains that certain sins offend God less, and thus are punished accordingly while others carry greater weight.
Dante and Virgil travel through the first ring of the seventh circle, observing such famous tyrants as Alexander the Great and Attila the Hun as they pass. They enter the second ring, into a forest of the souls of those who have committed suicide trapped inside trees. The third ring contains those who were violent against God in their mortal lives: The Blasphemers, the Sodomites, and the Usurers. Virgil leads Dante to a monster that is part human, part snake, and part wolf, and convinces him to take them to the eighth circle of hell, Fraud.
As the narrator and his guide descend into the depths of hell, they notice that the eighth circle is divided into ten ditches, each with their own separate punishments. They progress throughout the ditches conversing with various damned souls, such as Guido da Montefeltro, Mohammed, and Odysseus. Finally, the two make it to the end of the eighth circle and the pair descend down the giants well to the realm of the traitors, the frozen river Cocytus into the region called Caina.
The poets talk to several notorious traitors, such as Camiscion de’Pazzi and Bocca degli Abati, before plunging even deeper towards the center of the earth, where Lucifer resides. The poets encounter Satan, who has three heads, each one chewing a sinner who has betrayed his benefactor. One head holds Brutus, another Cassius, and the third chews Judas Iscariot. At last, Virgil decides that Dante has seen enough of Hell, saying: “But night is rising, it’s time to leave for Hell has nothing more for us to see. ” (34. 68).
The two climb across the Devil himself, and emerge after much traveling into the daylight. Dante’s Inferno is an epic poem chronicling Dante and Virgil’s journey throughout the depths of the underworld, observing every facet of Hell, every level of sin and it’s corresponding punishment. The deeper the poets venture into the Earth, the more heinous the crimes become. Finally, the poets encounter Satan, who himself punishes traitors, whose crimes are considered the most lowly. Dante uses the circles of Hell to discourage his readers from sinning,