No one should go without reading this book. It is a journey through Dante's version of Hell. It is a classic and death. Not a favorite subject for most of us, but this book must be read!
“'Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate!'=> 'Abandon all hope, you who enter!'"”
The warning sign -- in somber colors -- atop the gate of Hell“Midway upon the journey of our lifeI found myself within a forest dark,For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
Dante“. . . One day, for pleasure,We read of Lancelot, by love constrained:Alone, suspecting nothing, at our leisure.. . .And so was he who wrote it; that day we read. . .No further. . . .”
Francesca speaks these lines in Canto V when she tells Dante the story of her love affair with Paolo, her husband’s brother, for which they are now both condemned to the tempest of the Second Circle of Hell (V.112–124).“I did not open them—for to be rudeTo such a one as him was courtesy.”
Dante speaks these lines in reference to a promise, in Canto XXXIII, to open Fra Alberigo’s eyes for him (XXXIII.146–147).“To get back up to the shining world from thereMy guide and I went into that hidden tunnel;Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”
Dante. These concluding words of Inferno describe Dante and Virgil’s climb out of the underworld and back to the surface of the Earth (XXXIV.134–140).“"Canst thou be Virgil? thou that fount of splendour Whence poured so wide a stream of lordly speech?" Said I, and bowed my awe-struck head in wonder;”
Dante when first meeting Virgil“Now, Muses, now, high Genius, do your part! And Memory, faithful scrivener to the eyes, Here show thy virtue, noble as thou art!”
Dante in Canto II (paying homage to similar lines in both Homer's and Virgil's epics)“ch'i' non averei creduto che more tanta n'avesse disfatta: I had not thought Death had undone so many.”
Dante upon entering the gates of Hell, Canto 3.56-57“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vitami ritrovai per una selva oscurache la diritta via era smarrita. (When I had journeyed half our life's way,I found myself within a shadowed forest,for I had lost the path that does not stray.)”
Dante , Canto 1.1-3
