Editing Divine Comedy (section)

=== ''Inferno'' ===
[[File:Gustave Doré - Dante Alighieri - Inferno - Plate 9 (Canto III - Charon).jpg|thumb|[[Gustave Doré]]'s engravings illustrated the ''Divine Comedy'' (1861–1868); here [[Charon (mythology)|Charon]] comes to ferry souls across the river [[Acheron]] to Hell.]]
{{Main|Inferno (Dante)}}
The poem begins on the [[Maundy Thursday|night before Good Friday]] in the year 1300, "halfway along our life's path" (''Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita''). Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical lifespan of seventy ([[Psalms]] 89:10<!-- do not change to Ps. 90; in the Vulgate, as specified, the chapter is 89 -->, Vulgate), lost in a dark [[forest|wood]] (understood as sin),<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.abebooks.it/INFERNO-DIVINA-COMMEDIA-ANNOTATA-COMMENTATA-TOMMASO/590245816/bd |title=Inferno, la Divina Commedia annotata e commentata da Tommaso Di Salvo, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1985 |publisher=Abebooks.it |access-date=16 January 2010 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225073127/https://www.abebooks.it/INFERNO-DIVINA-COMMEDIA-ANNOTATA-COMMENTATA-TOMMASO/590245816/bd |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>''Lectura Dantis'', Società dantesca italiana.</ref><ref>Online sources include [http://www.ladante.it/DanteAlighieri/hochfeiler/inferno/naviga/selva.htm] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141111113326/http://www.ladante.it/DanteAlighieri/hochfeiler/inferno/naviga/selva.htm|date=11 November 2014}}, [http://www.operare.net/news.php?id=55] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723233122/http://www.operare.net/news.php?id=55|date=23 July 2011}}, [https://web.archive.org/web/20061113164331/http://www.learnitaly.com/selva.htm] [http://balbruno.altervista.org/index-182.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040223202105/http://balbruno.altervista.org/index-182.html|date=23 February 2004}}, {{cite web |title=Le caratteristiche dell'opera |url=http://www.primocircolopotenza.it/DivinaCommedia/Dante/caratteristiche.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091202062524/http://www.primocircolopotenza.it/DivinaCommedia/Dante/caratteristiche.htm |archive-date=2 December 2009 |access-date=1 December 2009}},    {{Cite web |title=Selva Oscura |url=http://www.ladante.it/DanteAlighieri/hochfeiler/inferno/naviga/selva.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304052503/http://www.ladante.it/DanteAlighieri/hochfeiler/inferno/naviga/selva.htm |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=20 February 2010}}</ref> assailed by beasts (a [[lion]], a [[leopard]], and a [[wolf|she-wolf]]) he cannot evade and unable to find the "straight way" (''diritta via'') to salvation (symbolised by the sun behind the mountain). Conscious that he is ruining himself and that he is falling into a "low place" (''basso loco'') where the sun is silent ('''l sol tace''), Dante is at last rescued by Virgil, and the two of them begin their journey to the underworld. Each sin's punishment in ''Inferno'' is a ''[[contrapasso]]'', a symbolic instance of [[poetic justice]]; for example, in Canto XX, [[Fortune-telling|fortune-tellers]] and [[Divination|soothsayers]] must walk with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because that was what they had tried to do in life:

{{poemquote|they had their faces twisted toward their haunches
and found it necessary to walk backward,
because they could not see ahead of them.
... and since he wanted so to see ahead,
he looks behind and walks a backward path.<ref>''Inferno'', Canto&nbsp;XX, lines 13–15 and 38–39, Mandelbaum translation.</ref>}}

Allegorically, the ''Inferno'' represents the Christian soul seeing sin for what it really is, and the three beasts represent three types of sin: the self-indulgent, the violent, and the malicious.<ref>[[Dorothy L. Sayers]], ''Purgatory'', notes on p.&nbsp;75.</ref> These three types of sin also provide the three main divisions of Dante's Hell: Upper Hell, outside the city of Dis, for the four sins of indulgence ([[lust]], [[gluttony]], [[avarice]], [[anger]]); Circle 7 for the sins of violence against one's neighbor, against oneself, and against God, art, and nature; and Circles 8 and 9 for the sins of fraud and treachery. Added to these are two dissimilar, spiritual categories: Limbo, in Circle 1, contains the [[Virtuous pagan|virtuous pagans]] who were not sinful but were ignorant of Christ, and Circle 6 contains the heretics who contradicted the doctrine and confused the spirit of Christ.<ref>Carlyle-Okey-Wicksteed, ''Divine Comedy'', "Notes to Dante's Inferno".</ref>