Inferno (Italian for "Hell") is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is an allegory telling of the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering located within the Earth. Allegorically, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul towards God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin. The poem starts on Maundy Thursday in the year 1300. The narrator, Dante himself, is thirty-five years old, and thus "halfway along our life's path" (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita)—half of the Biblical life expectancy of seventy (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate). The poet finds himself lost in a dark wood in front of a mountain, assailed by three beasts (a lion, a lonza , and a she-wolf) he cannot evade. Unable to find the "straight way" (diritta via, also translatable as "right way") to salvation, he is conscious that.. …