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Inferno (Italian: [iɱˈfɛrno]; Italian for 'Hell') is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century narrative poem The Divine Comedy, followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno describes the journey of a fictionalised version of Dante himself through Hell , guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil .
Inferno depicts a vision of hell divided into nine concentric circles, each home to souls guilty of a particular class of sin. [3] Led by his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, Dante enters the first circle of hell in Inferno 's Canto IV. The first circle is Limbo, the resting place of souls who "never sinned" but whose "merit falls far short". [4]
The long quotation from Dante's Inferno that prefaces T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is part of a speech by one of the damned in Dante's Hell. The epigraph to E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime quotes Scott Joplin's instructions to those who play his music, "Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast."
Dante gazes at Mount Purgatory in an allegorical portrait by Agnolo Bronzino, painted c. 1530. The Divine Comedy is composed of 14,233 lines that are divided into three cantiche (singular cantica) – Inferno (), Purgatorio (), and Paradiso () – each consisting of 33 cantos (Italian plural canti).
Its most common use is in response to an affirmative statement, for example "I saw Mrs. Smith exercising, I swear!" to which the response given would be something like, "Yeah right, and cows fly". Other variations slightly fallen into disuse include cuando las ranas crien pelo ("when frogs grow hair") and cuando San Juan agache el dedo ("when ...
Inferno depicts a vision of hell divided into nine concentric circles, each home to souls guilty of a particular class of sin. [2] Led by his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, Dante enters the second circle of hell in Inferno 's Canto V. Before entering the circle proper they encounter Minos, the mythological king of the Minoan civilization.
Dante speaks to Pope Nicholas III, committed to the Inferno for his simony, in Gustave Doré's 1861 wood engraving (portrait of the Third Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell) In the 14th century, Dante Alighieri depicted the punishment of many "clergymen, and popes and cardinals" in hell for being avaricious or miserly. [14]
"Raphèl mai amècche zabì almi" is a verse from Dante's Inferno, XXXI.67. The verse is shouted out by Nimrod , one of the giants who guard the Ninth Circle of Hell. The line, whose literal meaning is uncertain (it is usually left untranslated as well), is usually interpreted as a sign of the confusion of the languages caused by the fall of ...