Dante’s Inferno Cantos 1-3, 21-22, 28, and 34 By: Jacob Tyler and Stetson

Summary: 1-3 Dante, the pilgrim, is lost in some dark woods and is terrified. He wanders around trying to escape the dark woods until he come about an opening with a hill covered in sunlight. He tries to venture up the path of the hill but is stopped by a Leopard, a Lion, and a She-wolf. He knows he cant go up the hill now but is scared to go back into the woods so he cries for help. All of the sudden a man named Virgil appears. Virgil is a member from hell sent by a member of heaven to save Dante. He tells Dante that he will lead him through all of Hell and pass him off to another spirit to take him to heaven. As they set off on this journey Dante gets scared and feels “unworthy” to follow through with this. Virgil helps him diminish his fear by explaining that the Virgin Mary felt sorry for him and told Saint Lucia to come help him. Saint Lucia told Beatrice, because “Dante’s great love for her,” to go down to hell and get Virgil to lead Dante through hell so she could guide him from there to Heaven. Dante is touched and agrees to trust Virgil and follow him. As they enter the vestibule that leads to hell Dante recognizes some of these souls who are tortured by flies and hornets. These souls are not accepted by god into heaven, and also not accepted into hell. These souls are “nowhere.” They then come to a river and see an old boatman who is angered by seeing Dante as a living soul and proclaims he leave, but Virgil explains that he has to pass the river. Suddenly something knocks Dante to the ground and puts him into a strange sedation.

Summary: 21-22 There is a break in our selections and we pick up to where they are walking and looking at a bubbling boiling pitch when suddenly Virgil yells for him to watch out and hide. He hides and they see a black devil come sprinting by them with a sinner he’s hauling with him. He throws the sinner over the bridge into the boiling pitch and lets other devils down there torture him and poke him with pitch forks. Virgil bravely walks across the bridge and faces the devils by himself. They are about to torture him before he tells their leader is has been sent by god and protected by god as well. They let him and Dante through and the leader sends a squad of his devils to escort them to the next bridge. Dante and Virgil have an uneasy feeling about the devils and their saftey but are reassured they wont misbehave. As they depart they give an inappropriate salute to their captain and he salutes back by farting? (is this supposed to be symbolic or something?) He sees many “Grafters” in the pitch and notices that they will barley poke their heads up but as soon as they see the devils they will dive back down under the pitch. They capture one and torture him, and Virgil asks him questions about a certain Italian below the pitch and he agrees to lure them up, but the devils all have to hide. As soon as they turn he dives back into the pitch and the devils go in after him and Virgil and Dante run away.

Summary: 28 and 34 They are in a different part of hell for people who are sowers of scandal and schism. Dante cant explain the blood and gore he endures here. He is told that the italians are soon to meet their terrible ends. And he meets a guy who carries his decapitated head like a lantern. They enter a frozen part of hell and see people burried up to their heads or upside down up to their feet. They see the 3 faced Lucifer burried in the ice also, they explain each of his three mouths chew on one of the 3 worst sinners of all of mankind. Dante explains that him compared to a giant isnt even the same as a giant compared to Lucifer’s arm. Lucifer is huge. He is terrifying. Dante is on Virgil’s back and they start sliding down Lucifer’s hairy body and stop at his thigh area and struggle to climb back up (because they passed the center of the earth). They make it to the center of the earth (Lucifer’s body?) and take a short rest then head down a winding path and eventually see stars. is he in heavan? Or is he back on earth?

Discussion Question Discussion: there are many elements that could serve as a discussion question this week, but at the risk of touching off a gender war, since there is a significant in each of this weeks readings, what do these works say about the role of women in medieval society? How do you thing that role is defined and or perpetuated by the shift in values from the ancient world to the medieval world?

Relation to the Discussion The only two women that it discusses in these selections are Virgin Mary, Saint Lucia, and Beatrice. Virgin Mary shows pity for Dante from heaven which shows that women are viewed as equal and have power in heaven as men do since she instructs someone go helps him. Saint Lucia told Beatrice to do it because of Dantes love for her. Beatrice literally goes to hell and back for him because he loves her so much. She goes to hell to get Virgil to lead Dante through hell so she can take him to heaven since his only path there is blocked by three beasts. This shows Women’s power from heaven again. Him dumping his cowardly feeling after learning this shows the power of man’s love for women in the medieval times also. In the medieval times women had more respect and were treated more equally with more equal rights based on these selections.

Extra thoughts and ideas? Open Discussion