Dante's Inferno: Overview and vestibule of Hell The poem starts on Maundy Thursday in the year 1300. The narrator, Dante himself, is thirty-five years old, and thus "halfway along our life's path." The poet finds himself lost in a dark wood in front of a mountain, assailed by three beasts (a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf) he cannot evade. Dante is rescued by the Roman poet Virgil, who claims to have been sent by Beatrice, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in Inferno is a contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice. Such a contrapasso "functions not merely as a form of divine revenge, but rather as the fulfilment of a destiny freely chosen by each soul during his or her life."[3] Dante passes through the gate of Hell, which bears an inscription "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."[4] Before entering Hell completely, Dante and his guide see the Uncommitted, souls of people who in life did nothing, neither for good nor evil; among these Dante recognizes either Pope Celestine V or Pontius Pilate (the text is ambiguous). Mixed with them are outcasts who took no side in the Rebellion of Angels. These souls are neither in Hell nor out of it, but reside on the shores of the Acheron, their punishment to eternally pursue a banner while pursued by wasps and hornets that continually sting them as maggots and other such insects drink their blood and tears. This symbolizes the sting of their conscience and the repugnance of sin.

After passing through the "vestibule," Dante and Virgil reach the ferry that will take them across the river Acheron and to Hell proper. The ferry is piloted by Charon, who does not want to let Dante enter, for he is a living being. Virgil forces Charon to take him. Dante faints and does not wake up until he is on the other side.

The Nine Circles of Hell

First Circle (Limbo) In Limbo reside the unbaptized and the virtuous pagans, who, though not sinful, did not accept Christ. They are not punished in an active sense, but rather grieve only because of their separation from God, without hope of reconciliation. Minos Beyond the first circle, all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin are judged to one of the lower eight circles by the serpentine Minos. Minos initially hinders the poets' passage, until rebuked by Virgil. Minos sentences each soul by wrapping his tail around himself a corresponding number of times.

Second Circle (Lust) In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by lust. Dante condemns these "carnal malefactors"[9] for letting their appetites sway their reason. They are the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. These souls are blown back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow one about needlessly and aimlessly. In this circle, Dante sees Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris, Tristan, and many others who were overcome by sensual love during their life. Dante is told by Francesca da Rimini how she and her husband's brother Paolo Malatesta committed adultery, but then died a violent death, in the name of Love, at the hands of her husband, Giovanni (Gianciotto). Francesca reports that their act of adultery was triggered by reading the adulterous story of Lancelot and Guinevere Third Circle (Gluttony) The Gluttons are forced to lie in a vile slush produced by ceaseless foul, icy rain. The gluttons lie here sightless and heedless of their neighbors, symbolizing the cold, selfish, and empty sensuality of their lives. Just as lust has revealed its true nature in the winds of the previous circle, here the slush reveals the true nature of sensuality – which includes not only overindulgence in food and drink, but also other kinds of addiction.

Fourth Circle (Greed) Those whose attitude toward material goods deviated from the appropriate mean are punished in the fourth circle. Within the ring, two groups of souls push weights along in anger and pain. Each group completes a semicircle before crashing into the other group and turning around to proceed in the opposite direction. The souls condemned to this sort of torturous, eternal jousting match.Virgil explains that these are those of the Avaricious and the Prodigal, who, during their lives, hoarded and squandered, respectively, their money.They include the avaricious or miserly (including many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals"),[15] who hoarded possessions, and the prodigal, who squandered them.

Fifth Circle (Anger) In the swamp-like water of the river Styx, the wrathful fight each other on the surface, and the sullen lie gurgling beneath the water, withdrawn "into a black sulkiness which can find no joy in God or man or the universe."

Sixth Circle (Heresy) In the sixth circle, Heretics are trapped in flaming tombs. Pausing for a moment before the steep descent to the foul-smelling seventh circle, Virgil explains the geography and rationale of Lower Hell, in which violent and malicious sins are punished.

Seventh Circle (Violence) The seventh circle houses the violent. Its entry is guarded by the Minotaur, and it is divided into three rings:  Outer ring: This ring houses the violent against people and property. Sinners are immersed in Phlegethon, a river of boiling blood and fire, to a level commensurate with their sins. The Centaurs, commanded by Chiron and Pholus, patrol the ring, shooting arrows into any sinners who emerge higher out of the river than each is allowed.  Middle ring: In this ring are suicides and profligates. The suicides – the violent against self – are transformed into gnarled thorny bushes and trees and then fed upon by Harpies. They will maintain their bushy form, with their own corpses hanging from the thorny limbs. The other residents of this ring are the profligates, who destroyed their lives by destroying the means by which life is sustained – i.e., money and property.  Inner ring: Here are the violent against God (blasphemers) and the violent against nature (sodomites and, as explained in the sixth circle, usurers). All reside in a desert of flaming sand with fiery flakes raining from the sky, a fate similar to Sodom and Gomorrah. The blasphemers lie on the sand, the usurers sit, and the sodomites wander about in groups.

Eighth Circle (Fraud) The fraudulent – those guilty of deliberate, knowing evil – are located in a circle named Malebolge ("Evil Pockets"). This circle is divided into ten Bolgie, or ditches of stone, with bridges spanning the ditches:  Bolgia 1: Panderers and seducers march in separate lines in opposite directions, whipped by demons. Just as the panderers and seducers used the passions of others to drive them to do their bidding, they are themselves driven by whip-wielding demons to march for all eternity.  Bolgia 2: Flatterers also exploited other people, this time using language. They are steeped in human excrement, which represents the words they produced.  Bolgia 3: Dante now forcefully expresses[37] his condemnation of those who committed simony. Those who committed simony are placed head-first in holes in the rock (resembling baptismal fonts), with flames burning on the soles of their feet.  Bolgia 4: Sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets here have their heads twisted around on their bodies backward, so that they "found it necessary to walk backward, / because they could not see ahead of them."[39] While referring primarily to attempts to see into the future by forbidden means, this also symbolises the twisted nature of magic in general.  Bolgia 5: Corrupt politicians Grafters/(barrators) are immersed in a lake of boiling pitch, which represents the sticky fingers and dark secrets of their corrupt deals. Demons race up the rocks on the side of the pit, grabbing a new soul and tossing him into the blackness. As soon as the sinner comes up for breath, the demons below thrust him back underneath with their prongs.  Bolgia 6: In the sixth Bolgia, the poets find the hypocrites listlessly walking along wearing gilded lead cloaks, which represent the falsity behind the surface appearance of their actions – falsity that weighs them down and makes spiritual progress impossible for them.  Bolgia 7: Two cantos are devoted to the thieves. They are guarded by the centaur Cacus, who has a fire- breathing dragon on his shoulders and snakes covering his equine back. The thieves are pursued and bitten by snakes and lizards. The full horror of the thieves' punishment is revealed gradually: just as they stole other people's substance in life, their very identity becomes subject to theft here,[44] and the snake bites make them undergo various transformations. Vanni Fucci is turned to ashes and resurrected. Agnello is blended with the six-legged reptile that is Cianfa. Buoso exchanges shapes with the four- legged Francesco.  Bolgia 8: Two further cantos are devoted to fraudulent advisers or evil counsellors, who are concealed within individual flames. These are not people who gave false advice, but people who used their position to advise others to engage in fraud. Ulysses and Diomedes are condemned here for the deception of the Trojan Horse. Ulysses tells the tale of his fatal final voyage (Dante's invention) where he left his home and family to sail to the end of the Earth only to have his ship founder near Mount Purgatory.  Bolgia 9: In the ninth Bolgia, a sword-wielding demon hacks at the Sowers of Discord, dividing parts of their bodies as in life they divided others.[48] As they make their rounds the wounds heal, only to have the demon tear apart their bodies again.  Bolgia 10: In the final Bolgia, various sorts of falsifiers (alchemists, counterfeiters, perjurers, and impostors) – who are a "disease" on society – are themselves afflicted with different types of diseases.The Achaean spy Sinon suffers from a burning fever for tricking the Trojans into taking the Trojan Horse into their city; Sinon is here rather than in Bolgia 8 because his advice was false as well as evil. Gianni Schicchi is a 'rabid goblin' for forging the will of Dante's relative Buoso Donati. Myrrha suffers from madness for disguising herself to commit incest with her father King Theias.

Ninth Circle (Treachery) The traitors are distinguished from the "merely" fraudulent in that their acts involve betraying a special relationship of some kind. There are four concentric zones (or "rounds") of traitors. These rounds correspond, in order of seriousness, to betrayal of family ties, betrayal of community ties, betrayal of guests, and betrayal of liege lords. In contrast to the popular image of Hell as fiery, the traitors are frozen in a lake of ice known as Cocytus, with each group encased in ice to progressively greater depths.  Round 1 is named Caïna, after Cain, who killed his brother. Traitors to kindred are here immersed in the ice up to their chins – "the place / where shame can show itself."  Round 2 is named Antenora, after Antenor of Troy, who according to medieval tradition, betrayed his city to the Greeks. Traitors to political entities, such as parties, cities, or countries, are located here and imprisoned in the same way as the traitors in Caïna. Count Ugolino pauses from gnawing on the head of his former partner-in-crime Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini to tell their story.  Round 3 is named Ptolomaea, probably after Ptolemy, son of Abubus, who invited Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to a banquet and then killed them.Traitors to their guests are punished here, lying supine in the ice, which covers them, except for their faces. They are punished more severely than the previous traitors, since the relationship to guests is an entirely voluntary one.Fra Alberigo, who had armed soldiers kill his brother at a banquet. Their bodies on Earth are immediately possessed by a demon, so what seems to be a walking man has reached the stage of being incapable of repentance.  Round 4 is named Judecca, after Judas Iscariot, Biblical betrayer of Christ. Here are the traitors to their lords and benefactors. All of the sinners punished within are completely encapsulated in ice, distorted in all conceivable positions. With no one to talk to here, Dante and Virgil quickly move on to the centre of Hell. In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin (personal treachery against God), is Satan. Satan is described as a giant, terrifying beast with three faces, one red, one black, and one a pale yellow. Satan is waist deep in ice, weeping tears from his six eyes, and beating his six wings as if trying to escape, although the icy wind that emanates only further ensures his imprisonment (as well as that of the others in the ring). Each face has a mouth that chews on a prominent traitor. Brutus and Cassius are feet-first in the left and right mouths respectively, for their involvement in the assassination of Julius Caesar – an act which, to Dante, represented the destruction of a unified Italy and the killing of the man who was divinely appointed to govern the world. In the central, most vicious mouth is Judas Iscariot, the namesake of Round 4 and the betrayer of Jesus. Judas is receiving the most horrifying torture of the three traitors: his head gnawed by Satan's mouth, and his back being forever skinned by Satan's claws. What is seen here is an inverted trinity: Satan is impotent, ignorant, and full of hate, in contrast to the all-powerful, all-knowing, and loving nature of God. The two poets escape Hell by climbing down Satan's ragged fur. They pass through the centre of the earth (with a consequent change in the direction of gravity, causing Dante to at first think they are returning to Hell). The pair emerge in the other hemisphere (described in the Purgatorio) just before dawn on Easter Sunday, beneath a sky studded with stars.