On a barren, sandy plain, naked spirits suffer under showers of flakes of fire. Blasphemers lie flat on their backs, sodomites keep moving, and usurers crouch with purses strung from their necks.
Doré
Descending past the Minotaur of Crete, they reach a group of centaurs and travel on past famous killers, into a wood of thorn trees of those who committed suicide.
The three Furies appear on top of the gate to Dis, and try to turn Dante to stone using the face of Medusa. Once allowed in, they meet some of the heretics in their burning tombs.
They descend past Plutus to the circle of misers and spendthrifts rolling boulders around, then down to the Stygian lake of the angry and miserable. They cross the Styx in Phlegyas’ boat.
Gates opened in time of war, entered by Christ in triumph, those of hell in Dante and Milton, separating lovers, and marking the start of an elopement.
First Dante and Virgil have to negotiate the three-headed monster dog Cerberus, guarding Hell, then the stinking mud containing gluttons.
Passing Minos, who directs the dead to the right circle for their sins, they enter the circle for those guilty of lust. There they hear the story of Paolo and Francesca and their violent deaths.
Dante and Virgil enter the first circle of Hell, Limbo, where those who never sinned but weren’t baptised in the Christian faith are confined.
Virgil leads Dante through the gate of Hell, with its inscription ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’. Charon is persuaded to carry them across with the souls of the dead to enter Hell.
Dante is wandering lost in a dark wood, his way out obstructed by wild animals. He asks a man to help, only to discover he’s the ghost of Virgil and they’re on their way to Hell.
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