Divina Commedia di Dante: Inferno — Résumé 🇺🇸 English
Midway through life, the narrator finds himself lost in a dark and terrifying forest after wandering off the straight path. Overwhelmed by sleepiness and fear, he reaches the base of a hill bathed in morning sunlight, where his terror finally begins to subside. Recovering his strength, he attempts to climb the lonely slope, but his path is repeatedly blocked by three fierce beasts. First, a swift leopard with a spotted skin appears, followed immediately by a proud and raging lion that causes the air to tremble. Finally, an emaciated she wolf burdened with countless desires confronts him, filling him with such dread that he loses all hope of reaching the summit and is driven back down into a dark place where the sun is silent.
As he retreats into the shadows, a figure appears whose voice seems faint from long silence. Crying out for mercy, the narrator discovers the entity is an ancient shade who reveals he was once a man from Mantua, born under Julius and living under Augustus, and famed as the poet who sang of the Trojan hero Aeneas. Recognizing this savior as Virgil, the master and author whose style he has emulated, the narrator begs for help against the terrifying beast that makes his veins and pulses tremble.
Virgil explains that anyone wishing to escape this wild place must take another route, because the vicious she wolf slays all who cross her path and remains endlessly unsatisfied until a hound arrives to drive her back into hell. Offering to act as his guide, Virgil proposes to lead him through an eternal place where he will hear desperate cries, witness ancient spirits suffering the second death, and see those who are content within the fire. Virgil adds that another soul more worthy will eventually take over the guidance to the blessed realms, since Virgil himself rebelled against the emperor reigning above. Pleading to be led away from this evil and worse, the narrator asks Virgil to guide him onward, and the poet sets out with the narrator following closely behind.