Dante'S "Inferno."

Dante is called the father of Italian literature: before his time the poets of Northern Italy wrote in the Provencal language, which was the dialect spoken chiefly in Southern France. But Dante wrote in Italian, and from his time the Italian became a real language.

His great work is the "Divine Comedy" ("Divine Commedia"), an epic poem consisting of three parts,--"L'Inferno" ("Hell"), "Il Purgatorio" ("Purgatory"), and "Il Paradiso" ("Paradise"). This poem is an allegory conceived in the form of a vision, which was the most popular style of poetry in that age. As a poem, it is of the highest order, and ranks Dante with Homer and Milton. The measure is called terza rima, consisting of three lines (eleven syllables each) so arranged that the first and third rhyme together, the middle one with the first and third of the succeeding triplet. The whole work includes one hundred cantos.

The poem was written during the nineteen years that Dante was an exile from his native city, Florence, under penalty of being burned alive should he ever return.

In the year 1300 Dante supposes himself to be wandering near Jerusalem, and to be favored with means of access to the realms of shadows. He is met by Virgil, who offers to conduct him safely through hell and purgatory; while Beatrice, his "loved one," will conduct him through paradise. During these visitations he meets and talks with those who have been best known for good or evil on the earth, especially in Florence. The allegory has been thus explained:--

Dante is first represented as wandering in a wood (this life): he comes to a mountain (fame), and begins to climb it. First a panther (pleasure), then a lion (ambition), and then a she-wolf (avarice), stand in his path to stay him. The appearance of Virgil (human wisdom) encourages him by telling the poet he has been sent by three ladies, Beatrice (faith), Lucia (grace), and Mercy, to conduct him through the realms of hell (Canto II.). They soon reach a gateway, the gate of hell, over which they find inscribed, "Who enters here leaves hope behind." They pass through, and reach the realm of "the praiseless and the blameless dead,"--the spirits of those not good enough for heaven, not bad enough for hell.

Charon (the old man in Greek mythology, whose duty it was to ferry the souls of the deceased across the river of death,--Styx, or Acheron,--and for which he always received a small coin, which was placed in the mouth of the dead) ferries them across the Acheron to Limbo (Canto III.). Here they meet the spirits of the unbaptized, "blameless of sin," but not members of the Christian Church. Homer, Horace, Ovid, Luccan, are here, and enroll Dante "sixth of the sacred band,"--Virgil being the fifth.

On leaving Limbo he passes with his guide through the seven gates which lead to the inferno,--an enormous, funnel-shaped pit, divided into stages. In the outer or first circle is a vast meadow, in which roam Electra (mother of Dardanus, founder of Troy); Hector (one of the most valiant of the Trojan chiefs who fought against the Greeks at the siege of Troy); AEneas, a Trojan prince, who, when the city was in flames, carried his aged father, Anchises, away on his shoulders, leading his son, his wife following them; and Julius Caesar, the greatest Roman; Camilla and Penthesilea (a queen of the Amazons); Latinus and Junius Brutus, Lucretia, Marcia (Cato's wife), Julia (Pompey's wife), and Cornelia (mother of the Gracchi); and here, "apart retired," they see Saladin, the rival of Richard the Lion-heart; Linos and Orpheus; Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato; Democritos, who ascribed creation to blind chance; Diogenes the cynic; Heraclitos, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Thales, Dioscorides, and Zeno, Cicero and Seneca, Euclid and Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen, Avincen, and Averroes, the Arabian translator and commentator of Aristotle (Canto IV.).

From the first circle they pass to the second, where Minos sits in judgment of those brought before him. He indicates what circle each is to occupy, by a twist of his tail around his body; one twist meaning first circle, two means second, and so on. Here, says the poet, is the hell of carnal and sinful love. Dante recognizes Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, and Helen; Achilles, Paris, Tristan and Lancelot (Canto V.).

The third is a circle of still deeper woe. Here fall in ceaseless showers, hail, black rain, and sleety flaw: the air is cold, and a foul stench rises from the soil. Cerberus, the watch-dog with three heads, is here to prevent the living from entering, and the dead from escaping: this part of the inferno is set apart for gluttons. They pass to the fourth circle, presided over by Plutus, the god of riches, a realm which "hems in all the woe of all the universe." Here are gathered the souls of the avaricious who wasted their talents, or made no right use of their wealth (Canto VI.). Crossing this, they come to the "fifth steep," and see the Stygian lake of inky hue. This circle is a huge bog in which "the miry tribe" flounder, and "gulp the muddy lees." It is the abode of those who put no restraint upon their anger (Canto VII.).

Then comes the city of Dis, where the souls of heretics are "interred in vaults" (Cantos VIII. and IX.). Here Dante recognizes Farinata (a leader of the Ghibel-line faction), and is informed that the Emperor Frederick II. and Cardinal Ubaldim are among the number (Canto X.).

The city of Dis contains the next three circles (Canto XI.), through which Nessus, a celebrated Centaur, conducts them; and here they see the Minotaur and the Centaurs. The first circle of Dis (the sixth) is for those who, by force or fraud, have done violence to man, as Alexander the Great, Dionysius of Syracuse, Attila the Hun, Sextus and Pyrrhus (Canto XII.). The next (the seventh circle) is for those who have done violence to themselves, as suicides: here are the Harpies, and here the souls are transformed to trees (Canto XIII.). The eighth circle is for the souls of those who have done violence to God, as blasphemers and heretics: it is a hell of burning, where it snows flakes of fire; here Dante held converse with Brunetto, his old schoolmaster (Cantos XIV. and XV.).

Having reached the confines of the realms of Dis, the monster Geyron--"that image vile of Fraud appeared"--carries Dante and his guide across a deep chasm into the region of Malebolge, the eighth circle of inferno, which contains ten bolgi, or pits (Canto XVII.). In the first is Jason; the second is for harlots (Canto XVIII.); in the third is Simon Magus, "who prostituted the things of God for gold;" in the fourth, Pope Nicholas III. (Canto XIX.); in the fifth, the heads of the ghosts were reversed; and here were Amphiaraus, famous for his knowledge of futurity; and Tiresias, a celebrated prophet of Thebes; Michael Scott the magician, with all witches and diviners (Canto XX.); in the sixth, Caiaphas, and Annas his father-in-law (Canto XXIII.); in the seventh, robbers of churches, as Vanni Fucci, who robbed the Sacristy of St. James in Pistoia, and charged Vannidella Nona with the crime, for which she suffered death (Canto XXIV.); in the eighth, Ulysses and Diomed, who were punished for the stratagem of the wooden horse at the siege of Troy (Cantos XXVI. and XXVII.); in the ninth, Mahomet and Ali, false prophets "horribly mangled" (Canto XXVIII.); in the tenth, alchemists (Canto XXIX.); coiners and forgers; Potiphar's wife; Simon the Greek, who deluded the Trojans (Canto XXX.); Nimrod, Ephialtes, and Antaeus, with other giants (Canto XXXI.). Antaeus carries the two visitors into the nethermost hell, where Judas and Lucifer are confined. It is a region of thick, ribbed ice; and here they see the frozen river Cocytus (Canto XXXII.).

The last persons the poet sees are Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Julius Caesar (Canto XXXIV.). Dante and Virgil then make their exit on the southern hemisphere. This is done that the poet may visit purgatory, which is imagined by Dante to be a mountain rising from mid-ocean, on the top of which lies paradise. (This synopsis is taken chiefly from "The Readers' Handbook:" Brewer.)