The story opens with Dante experiencing a mid-life crisis. Kind of. When describing his mid-life crisis, he uses ambiguous pronouns, saying "our life’s way." More on that later. Basically, he has strayed from his path and finds himself lost in a dark wood. Creepy.

Yeah, it’s so creepy that "death could hardly be more severe!" (Yes, exclamation point included.) Foreshadowing, anyone?

Dante is confused about how he got into such a no-man’s land. He was "full of sleep" when he strayed from the true path. Now he’s at the bottom of some hill.

Dante’s gaze wanders up the hill and he finds the summit all beautifully lit up like Christmas lights by the sun, a real contrast to the dark wood he’s stuck in. Predictably, his heart lifts at this sight.

We learn he’s just endured a "night of sorrow." In an elaborate metaphor, Dante compares himself to a shipwrecked swimmer who has just found land and, safe on the beach, turns back to look at the frightening waves. In Dante’s fancy language, he’s just endured "the pass / that never has let any man survive."

Wearily, our hero starts climbing the hill (towards the light), but lo and behold suddenly a sinister beast appears to block his way. Actually, it’s just a leopard.

Dante backs away from the big, bad leopard. He notices that day has dawned and that lifts his spirits a little.

Until he’s faced with a ferocious lion. And then a hungry she-wolf.

Dante screams and runs back down the hill.

At the bottom of the hill, Dante runs into a ghost. He promptly crumples into a fetal position and begs for mercy.

But this is a gabby ghost. The ghost starts talking about where he’s from (Mantua), when he was born (during Emperor Augustus’ reign), and what he was (a poet).

Dante suddenly isn't so scared anymore. In fact, he recognizes the ghost.

It’s the famous Roman poet Virgil, who is Dante’s inspiration and all-time favorite idol.

Dante says something like: "I’ve totally read everything you wrote and when I write I try to be just like you. So could you please make that scary wolf-thingy go away?" (But in more formal epic-like speak.)

Virgil is all stern and says, in his wise listen-to-me-or-else way, that Dante must take another path because the she-wolf is always hungry (she’ll eat you) and always interested in sex (she’ll fornicate with you). But never fear, in the end the good Greyhound will come and kill her and send her back to Hell and restore Italy to its rightful glory.

Translation: the she-wolf is a symbol of greed, the defining quality of Florence, at least to Dante. The Greyhound symbolizes Italy’s redeemer, though scholars can’t decide exactly whom it represents. So, basically, the Greyhound will come and kill the greed of Florence and everything will be good again.

Virgil’s point? Hey, Dante, you should entrust your life to me while I take you on a journey through Hell and Purgatory and maybe even Heaven (if you’re worthy).

Predictably, Dante agrees.

And so the adventure begins.

Like all good conversations, the one between Dante and Virgil has apparently lasted all day. Seriously. The sun is setting and Dante mentally fortifies himself for the upcoming night. (Picture an internal pep talk, complete with the you-can-do-it coaching.)

To give him courage and virtue and whatnot, Dante invokes the Muses.

But he’s still afraid and doubtful of his own abilities. So he asks Virgil in a long, convoluted way why he was chosen for this journey. This includes comparing himself to "he who fathered Sylvius" (meaning Aeneas, from Virgil’s Aeneid) and the "Chosen Vessel" (meaning St. Peter), both of whom traveled in a divine realm (Underworld and Heaven).Dante claims that he’s not nearly as great or heroic as these figures. So, "why me?" he asks.

Virgil understands that Dante’s "soul has been assailed by cowardice" and so explains why he (Virgil) was chosen for this task in order to calm Dante’s fears.

Virgil’s tells the story of how he came to be here with Dane. Let's jump back into that story:

Virgil's soul is hanging out in Limbo (more on this later) when a lady with really pretty eyes appears and

asks him to help out her lost "friend." (She overheard news of her "friend’s" trouble in Heaven.) She says she wants Virgil's help because he has a silver tongue or "persuasive word".

This lady calls herself Beatrice, and Virgil learns that she’s doing this out of "Love" (yes, with a capital "L") for Dante.

Virgil is curious as to why Beatrice came all the way down to Hell (from her boudoir in Heaven) just to tell him this. Beatrice responds that God has arranged it so that the misery of Hell cannot affect her.

And the orders for Virgil don't come from just Beatrice. The Virgin Mary herself is so upset by Dante’s predicament that she cried buckets for him and then sent for her very best friend, St. Lucia, to carry her message. Beatrice, even though she loves Dante, cannot possibly do anything for him since she’s a woman, so she brings the message down to the decidedly male Virgil.

She makes a big deal about Virgil’s wonderful way with words and cries.

Smitten, Virgil rushes off and finds Dante just in time to rescue him from the big, bad wolf.

Virgil's story ends.

Dante’s chest swells with gratitude and he demonstrates his own way with words by comparing himself to drooping flowers that straighten out once touched by sunlight.

In fact, he’s so pumped up now that he has a mind-melding moment with Virgil. Observe: "A single will fills both of us."

And with that, our emboldened heroes strike out to conquer the world. Or Hell.

Dante and Virgil stop to look in awe at the Hellgate, on which encouraging words like "ABANDON EVERY HOPE, [YOU] WHO ENTER HERE" appear.

There is more to the inscription, which describes the origins of Hell – how it was made by "Justice," "the Highest Wisdom," and "Primal Love."

Dante tells Virgil he doesn’t understand the inscription.

Virgil, in his sage way, doesn’t really answer Dante’s question, but tells him to be brave. He also describes Hell’s sinners as people who have "lost the good of the intellect." (This is a good place to stick a big bright sticky note because this is an Important Concept.)

Dante’s first impression of Hell: it’s noisy. It’s full of "strange utterances, horrible pronouncements, / accents of anger, words of suffering, / and voices shrill and faint, and beating hands…"

Horrified, Dante asks Virgil who these people are that scream so loudly.

Virgil explains that they’re neutrals, people who failed to choose either good or evil in their lifetimes and so are condemned to exist in a place that is neither really Heaven nor Hell. It’s called Limbo. The "coward

angels" are here too – those that sided with neither God nor Lucifer in the great battle that created the Devil.

When Dante repeats his question, Virgil (slightly peeved) answers shortly:

These sinners have "no hope in death" and their entire existence is driven by envy for any other kind of existence…even one in the true circles of Hell. Virgil says this so quickly and tersely that he implies that these sinners aren’t even worth wasting many words over.

While sightseeing, Dante notices the neutrals’ punishment: various insects sting their naked bodies, irritating them and making them run around in big circles under a long banner.</LI<

Dante is blown away by the sheer number of them; in other words, there are a LOT of neutrals.

Among the horde, Dante recognizes the one "who made […] the great refusal." Scholars have interpreted this sinner as Pope Celestine V, who abdicated his papal seat just five months after taking office. This paved the way for the election of Pope Boniface VIII, whom Dante hates with a passion. (

Dante observes a big crowd of people gathering on the banks of a big river and asks Virgil why they seem so eager to cross the river.

Our wise man tells Dante to quiet down; he’ll find out why when they actually get there. "There" being the banks of the river Acheron, one of the five rivers of the Greek Underworld.

When they do get there, Virgil doesn’t even get the chance to explain before an old man with a long white beard comes up to them and basically says, "No chance the two of you are getting on my boat. Only dead people allowed." This guy is Charon, the ferryman that takes people across the river.

Then Virgil gets all up in Charon’s face and one-ups him with "God sent us, so let us through." Or something like that.

So Charon is forced to ferry them across, but he’s pouty and sullen about it.

Dante, in poet mode, compares all the dead souls gathering on the riverbanks to falling leaves in autumn and later to hunting falcons returning to their masters when called. Dante is big on metaphors.

Virgil explains that only sinners ever have to undertake this crossing.

All of a sudden, an earthquake hits, complete with a tornado and a "blood-red light."

Dante loses consciousness.

Dante wakes up to find himself at the edge of a great dark valley, in which he cannot see anything. (Yes, they crossed the Acheron while Dante was unconscious.)

Virgil says "Let’s go." But he’s really pale.

Dante mistakes Virgil's paleness for fear and balks. But Virgil explains that his alabaster complexion does not

indicate fear, but rather sympathy for his neighbors. Because this is his home in Hell – Limbo.

Here, the sinners sigh as well, but not nearly as loudly or painfully as the neutrals.

The inhabitants of this circle of Hell are those who had no control over their salvation: they were either not baptized at birth or born before the coming of Christ. Thus, they don’t suffer as much as other sinners; they only feel the absence of God’s love as a constant ache. Otherwise, they frolic in their pretty fields.

(We know what you’re thinking: this is Hell? But trust us, it gets much worse.)

Saddened by these sinners’ plight, Dante earnestly asks Virgil whether or not anyone is allowed to leave this place (and presumably enter Heaven) if they are good people.

Kindly Virgil answers yes; in fact, he saw it happen. With his own eyes, he saw Christ enter Limbo and take Old Testament worthies like Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, and Rachel into his all-forgiving arms and transport them up to Heaven. (Trivial Pursuit tidbit: this was called the Harrowing of Hell.)

Suddenly, Dante sees a fire break up the darkness. The fire is the glow of a luminous castle and men are there.

To answer Dante’s inevitable question, Virgil introduces the men as his best buddies, fellow poets like Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan.

Virgil chats with his friends for a little while before they notice Dante and invite him in. Dante is ecstatic at being "sixth among such intellects."

This circle enters the shining palace and its countless flowering courtyards and gardens. Inside, they encounter a bunch of Greek and Roman heroes like Hector, Aeneas, Caesar, Socrates, Plato, and many more.

When they’ve had their fill of reciting poems, Dante and Virgil take their leave.

Every step forward brings them into darker and darker territory.

As they descend into the second circle of Hell, Dante notes that it’s a little smaller than the first circle. (This is because Hell is shaped like a funnel, with each successive circle shrinking a little.)

There, the huge bull-like judge Minos appears, looming over a great crowd, out of which each individual steps forward to have his say.

Dante explains that Minos judges where all sinners go by twining his tail into coils. The number of coils determines which circle the sinner goes into.

The very ugly Minos pauses his perpetual dissing of sinners long enough to warn Dante and Virgil to be careful whom they trust.

Virgil shoots back with a "God protects us" line, but we can see right through him. He’s as scared as Dante.

On that note, they come to the edge of a cliff and see a hurricane-strength whirlwind buffeting the souls of the Lustful (promiscuous, impulsive).

Dante compares them to birds like starlings, cranes, and doves because of their helplessness against the wind and because of the cacophonous cries they emit.

Virgil, trying to show off, names a bunch of the souls trapped there: Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen of Troy, Paris, Tristan…

Star-struck by such names, Dante feels sorry for them and calls out to a couple, wanting to talk to them.

They approach and the female soul speaks. She’s really polite and talks in a highfalutin’ style, as if she’s stuck in the rhetoric of courtly love. She thanks Dante for being so kind as to speak nicely to her, then tells her story.

She’s Francesca da Rimini, an Italian (from Ravenna) and, in terms of blood, something like a princess. During her life, she was forced into a loveless political marriage with a guy called Gianciotto Malatesta. However, she fell in love with her husband’s younger brother Paolo and had an affair with him. When Gianciotto discovered their adultery, he killed them both. (Yes, he’s in a deeper level of Hell, Francesca tells us.)

Dante is so moved by the unfairness of it all that he starts crying. He tends to do this a lot. And he asks how exactly she fell in love.

Francesca says that one sunny day, she and Paolo were innocently reading a book. But not just any book. This one portrayed the knight Lancelot being hopelessly smitten by Queen Guinevere. When they get to the part where Lancelot kisses Arthur’s queen, Paolo and Francesca followed suit and shared a passionate kiss. We know it’s passionate because "all his body trembled" and on that day they "read no more."

Francesca blames the book for her sin, calling it a Gallehault (the character in Arthurian legend who encourages Lancelot in his forbidden affair with Guinevere).

As Francesca concludes her story, her soul mate Paolo bawls his eyes out.

Dante, the deepest fibers of his soul stirred to the extreme by their tragic story, passes out, as if dead.

Dante awakens and finds himself surrounded by new sufferers. Thus, he concludes he’s in a new circle of Hell.

Now for a weather report: it’s raining. Correction: it always rains in the third circle, where the Gluttonous dwell. Not pure water, either, but filthy polluted stinky rain and hailstones. The earth itself reeks.

The sinners here are so traumatized by this rain that they turn back and forth, trying unsuccessfully to keep some part of their body clean and dry.

Above these writhing sinners looms Cerberus, the gigantic three-headed guard dog of the Underworld. He snarls at the pilgrims as they approach.

Unfazed, Virgil picks up handfuls of stinking mud and hurls them straight into Cerberus’s jaws. The dog actually eats it and, in the meantime, grows quiet. Get it? Cerberus is a glutton too.

As Dante and Virgil tour this circle of gluttons, none of the sinners pay attention to them, except one who sits up and demands that Dante recognize him. The sinner knows that Dante is a Florentine (someone from Florence).

Dante, being a poet, gracefully asks the glutton to remind him of his name.

The sinner suddenly isn’t so free with his words. He introduces himself as Ciacco (also a Florentine), names his sin as gluttony, and then clams up.

Dante doesn’t seem at all interested in Ciacco’s life, saying only that Ciacco’s suffering moves him to tears. Then he changes the subject to the future of Florence.

So Ciacco goes into prophet mode. (Of course, what he "foresees" is history by the time Dante writes the Inferno.)

In very cryptic language, Ciacco presages political strife between the Blacks and Whites (see "In A Nutshell" for more on this). First the Whites will win a battle and drive the Blacks out. But then the Blacks will return with the help of the hated Pope Boniface VIII and crush the Whites, eventually driving many of them into exile, including Dante. Ciacco sees the two parties ignoring reason in favor of "envy, pride, and avariciousness."

On that note, Dante continues interrogating Ciacco, naming a bunch of famous Florentines and asking where he can find them now. Ciacco answers that they’re all in Hell, so Dante will see them later.

To top off his speech, Ciacco requests that Dante make his name famous in the living world. Then he falls silent. With that, Ciacco lowers himself into obscurity.

Virgil interjects with some prophesying of his own. He states that Ciacco will not rise again until Judgment Day.

Dante inquires if these sinners’ punishments will get better or worse after Judgment Day.

In his convoluted way, Virgil answers with "worse," because then the sinners’ bodies will be reunited with their souls and it won’t be just their souls that are suffering.

Our two heroes ponder this sad fact as they walk towards the next circle. Along the way, they meet Plutus, whom we’ll learn more about in the next canto.

This canto opens with Plutus crying out unintelligibly to Satan as Dante and Virgil sally by. Although Dante shows signs of fear, Virgil reassures him that the demon has no power to stop them.

When our pilgrims pass Plutus, he falls to the ground like sails that suddenly lack wind to propel them forward.

Then he does it again, comparing the sinners’ movements to the waves breaking around the mouth of Charybdis, a famous mythological whirlpool.

So what are the sinners actually doing? Pushing heavy wheels of weights around in a big endless circle.

The Avaricious (greedy people) and Prodigal (reckless spenders) are punished together, divided up into two groups, one for each half of the circle. When they meet at the midpoint pushing their weights, they cry insults to each other: "’Why do you hoard?’ ‘Why do you squander?’" Imagine a square dance where every time you pass your partner, you shout, "Why are you so uncoordinated?"

Dante, with his eagle eyes, notices that some of the sinners are tonsured (have shaven heads) and wonders if they were clergy while alive. He asks Virgil, who confirms his suspicions. Another strike against the Church.

Dante hopes to recognize some faces amongst these sinners, but Virgil undercuts this wish because "the undiscerning life that made them filthy / now renders them unrecognizable." In other words, they’re dirty. So dirty that filth has crusted over their true identities.

Virgil, fully atop his soapbox now, sermonizes that this punishment is no more than what these sinners deserve for squandering and hoarding what Fortune gave them. Now, all the gold in the world cannot save them.

Dante interrupts the story to go on a totally unrelated tangent. He asks Virgil to expound on what Fortune is.

Now Virgil is in his element and gives a long speech, explaining that Fortune is God’s manager of all material goods and that She shifts these assets between nations and peoples in ways that man can neither understand nor predict. Even though people curse her, She is deaf to their insults and goes about her work blissfully.

When Virgil has talked himself out, they move on since it’s getting late.

Our two heroes find a stream of black water, which leads down through ever drearier fields and finally drains into the nasty swamp of the Styx. (Which means that black stream was the river Styx – Underworld river #2, if you’ve been counting.)

Now in the fifth circle, Dante witnesses muddy figures of sinners getting sincerely down and dirty. These mud-fighters are earnestly trying to rip each other’s throats out. So it should come as no surprise that these sinners are the Wrathful.

Virgil, just as mesmerized as Dante, adds a helpful tidbit of information: beneath this lovely sludge is another group of sinners, the Sullen.

Resentfully silent in life, the Sullen now are forced to recite hymns while submerged in this mud, so that their words come out only as gurgles.

Thoroughly disgusted by these "swallowers of slime," Dante and Virgil trudge onwards until they come to the base of a tower.

Belatedly, Dante tells us that this tower – something like a lighthouse – has been guiding them towards itself for a while.

As they approach it, Dante notices another flame flickering in the distance. He asks Virgil why.

Trying to cultivate his air of mystery, Virgil tells Dante to look harder. Dante does and goes "I see it! It’s a boat!"

The boatman gruffly stops them. He, like Charon, has issues with Dante's alive-ness. By the way, his name is Phlegyas. Try to say that five times fast.

Virgil puts him in his place, Phlegyas pouts, and they board the boat, which promptly sinks a little under Dante's weight. (Live people are heavier than dead ones.) Thankfully, it doesn’t stop them from crossing the Styx.

While on the boat, Dante leans down towards the river and asks one of the mud-encrusted sinners: "Who are you, who have become so ugly?" Seriously.

When the sinner gives an ambiguous answer, Dante becomes infuriated and curses him. Which is…well…different from his usual responses to sinners, like crying or fainting.

When the sinner reaches out towards the boat (presumably in a gesture of longing), Virgil pushes him back into the river.

Then in another switch of personality, Virgil joyously hugs and kisses Dante.

Why? Dante is making Virgil proud by feeling righteously indignant enough to not sympathize with sinners and instead to rage at them.

He continues, using his prophesying skills to predict that before reaching the far shore, Dante will see a sight that justifies his insult to the sinner.

A bunch of muddy sinners attack the same guy Dante did, crying, "At Filippo Argenti!" At which point Filippo goes crazy and starts biting himself.

Having filled his meanness quota for the day, Virgil turns into Mr. Explain-Everything again, telling Dante they are approaching the city of Dis.

Dante catches sight of it on the horizon and is struck by how red everything is.

Yes, red. Apparently, this comes from the eternal flame that burns within the city, signaling that it is within lower (worse) Hell. So says Virgil. In other words, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

When they arrive at the gates of the city, they find a thousand enraged sinners trying to bar Dante from getting through. Because of his alive-ness.

To recap, we’ve got a thousand angry sinners waving their pitchforks around and spitting at Dante. So Virgil "makes a sign" to fend them off and has a private chat with them.

Dante can’t hear what they’re saying. Probably because he’s freaked out by the mad sinners and wants to go home.

The citizens of Dis agree to open their gates, but only for Virgil. The live guy has to go back.

Dante freaks out at the thought of having to go back on his own, so much so that he tells the reader directly about his fears.

Then he begs Virgil to come back with him if these sinners are so intent on blocking their way.

Virgil, his ego puffed up now, scoffs at Dante’s words and says he’ll take care of it.

So while he does the fast talking, Dante wrings his hands with indecision.

And then the crucial moment: the gates slam shut in Virgil’s face and he’s forced to make the slow shameful walk back to Dante. Virgil failed? (Hmm, Important Passage!)

Virgil rants at the sinners, but reassures Dante that he will win against them.

He tells Dante that this has happened before at the entrance of Hell (when Christ harrowed Hell) and that an angel is now descending to help them. Thank goodness.