Canto 3

1. Dante’s Inferno Canto 3 Robert Webre November 20, 2007 Canto 3 Dante’s Inferno Robert Webre November 20, 2007

2. Canto 3 The Basics Canto 3 The Basics • Dante and Virgil enter the gates of hell. • Virgil explains the inscription on the gate of hell to Dante. • Dante enters the Gate of Hell with his guide at his side. • Dante weeps as he hears and see the first signs of Hell. • “Here signs and lamentations and loud cries • were echoing across the starless air, • so that, as soon as I set out, I wept.” (lines 22-24) • Dante meets Charon. • Dante faints and then crosses the Acheron. • “and like a whom sleep has seized, I fell.”(136)

3. New Hell Dwellers • Pope Celestine V- Elected pope in July 1294, resigned five months later. Dante does not speak to him, only notices him chasing the banner. • “I saw and recognized the shade of him • who made, through cowardice, the great refusal.” (59-60) • 2. Charon- Ferryman who takes Dante and Virgil across the river Styx to Acheron. Virgil describes Charon in book VI of the Aeneid as “a figure of fright, foul and terrible” and old. • “The demon Charon, with eyes like embers” (Canto 3, 109)

4. Charon Ferryman of the River Styx May be of Virgil and Dante. Found no definite answer. Does make a good depiction though. Styx, etching by Gustave Doré in 1861

5. Gate of Hell This work shows the Gate of Hell as Dante describes it. Above the entrance is the Inscription which ends with “BANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE”(9). William Blake

6. Location and Inhabitants • Dante is in the Ante-inferno. • He has not yet crossed the river Styx. • Sinners in this part have not chosen between good and evil but rather lived with no convictions. • Coward angels are among those punished in the Ante-Inferno. They were “not rebels nor faithful to their god” (38-39). • Punishment- • A banner is wheeled around, and the sinners have to chase it. • The sinners are naked , and stung by horseflies over and over as they run, and their faces are covered in blood.

7. Artwork of Hell