Henry Francis Cary 
Dante’s Inferno 

Inferno is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno tells the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the realm of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen. As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. The story begins with the narrator (here, the poet) being lost in a dark wood where he is attacked by three beasts which he cannot escape. He is rescued by Virgil, who is sent by Beatrice (Dante’s ideal woman). Together, they begin the journey into the nine Circles of Hell.