The Divine Comedy. Hell by Dante Alighieri. Short summary

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Dante goes to Hell. His guide through the nine circles of the underworld is the ghost of the poet Virgil. The heroes descend to the very bottom of Hell, from where they emerge to the surface of the earth through a well.

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Lost in a dense forest, Dante encounters the ghost of Virgil. The poet’s shadow informs him that he has appeared to the hero at the request of Dante’s late lover Beatrice. Virgil becomes the man’s guide to the afterlife, which consists of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

Virgil and Dante descend into the underworld. Here the heroes must pass through eight circles of Hell in order to reach the ninth circle, the bottom of the universe. As they move toward the center of Hell, the heroes encounter sinners forced to endure terrible torment for their earthly crimes. At the same time, the closer Dante and the poet get to the icy bottom of the underworld, the more terrible and sophisticated the torture, and the heavier the sin committed by man.

The last ninth circle represents the icy lake into which the souls of the traitors were frozen. In its center stood the three-faced Lucifer, tearing Judas, Brutus, and Cassius with his claws. Here in the ninth circle was the well through which the heroes had risen to the surface