Dante’s Inferno Canto III Summary and Analysis

Summary
The road to the underworld begins for Dante and Virgil from the gates of Hell with
the inscription, that is well-known even to people who never read the “Divine
Comedy”: “Abandon every hope, who enter here”. There is some more written at
the gate: “Through me the way into the suffering city” is the next.

Then, the story of creation of Hell from Primal Love, Justice and The Highest
Wisdom. Dante is scared and puzzled with the inscription, saying to his guide that
he is afraid to go further and doesn’t understand the words written on the gates.
Virgil explains the inscription to him, but his words are so vague that Dante’s
questions are left unanswered. Though Virgil encourages Dante to go inside
without hesitation, saying that he is under the divine protection and no dangers
of Hell will threaten him. Dante shall leave behind not his hope, but his hesitation,
fulfilling the divine will to go through Hell and see the suffering of people and
other beings who were unfaithful to God.

Regaining his courage, Dante follows Virgil. Inside the gate there is something
resembling an enormous cave, where constant weeping and cries are heard. The
dyssonance of the voices becomes louder and louder, turning into a pure chaos of
pleads, threats, complaints and senseless screams. Dante is horrified to the point
he starts weeping himself. He asks his companion about the people around,
making this noise and Virgil explains that they are in the Ante-Inferno, the place
that isn’t yet Hell.

It is the place for the souls who weren’t brave and proud enough to rebel
against God or weren’t sinful enough to be condemned, but they also were not
committed to God, not pure enough to be ascended to Heaven and they – again –
didn’t sin so much for their sins to be atoned in Purgatory. With the mortal souls
there are the spirits of “coward angels” – those who sided neither with God nor
with Lucifer during his rebellion.
 This neutral souls are still suffering for their ignorance, though their
punishment isn’t so severe as for sinners in Hell itself. The countless crowds of
them are running in circles under the huge banner, tormented by countless
insects that bite them and then drink their blood and tears. Amongst the mass of
people Dante sees the one familiar face, of Pope Celestine V, “the one who made
a great refusal”, stepping out of his position and abandoning his duty.

Dante and Virgil proceed through the crowds of the souls further from the
gates of Hell until they see the new crowds, now standing still along the bank of
the dark river Acheron. They are also weeping and pleading for mercy, but, unlike
the ignorant ones Dante saw before, there is no mercy for them. Dante asks why
are they are gathering along the river, but Virgil explains that he will see the
reason by himself when they come closer.

All the damned souls are waiting in the endless line until the boat of Charon
the Ferryman will take them to the other side of Acheron. Charon mocks the
souls, and enjoys telling them that there is no more hope for anyone here and
they all will suffer forever without any chance of being saved from the tortures.
When Dante and Virgil come to him, Charon is angered by the sight of the living
man and grumpily refuses to take them aboard. Virgil replies that it is the direct
order of God himself and after these words, Charon unwillingly allows them to
board, complaining about it all their way to the opposite side of Acheron.

While they are moving, Dante observes the souls who wait for their turn for
eternity. He poetically compares them to the fallen leaves in autumn, countless
and unable to resist the cold winds that throw them to the ground. When Dante
asks why Charon is so visibly displeased, Virgil explains that no one except the
sinful souls travelled through Acheron before, so it is a violation of the natural
order for Charon. Suddenly, the horrible storm starts and the flash of the blood-
red light makes Dante lose consciousness.

Analysis
 There is a lot of metaphors in Dante’s Inferno Canto 3, and all of them are very
important for understanding the real meaning of events happening in the story. In
Canto 2 we hear that Virgil accuses Dante of cowardice and then repeats this
accusation, though in milder variant, reassuring Dante that there is nothing to
fear until he is under protection of Heaven.

The next thing we see inside the gates of Hell is the punishment for not having
enough bravery to do at least something. We see that Virgil doesn’t even bother
to describe these souls properly, considering them not worthy of his time and
words. So, by forcing himself to pass through the gate Dante starts his road to
Heaven, overcoming his first flaw – lack of determination.

Dante can’t understand the true meaning of the inscription on the gates of Hell
and needs Virgil to explain it to him. Later Virgil says that the souls in Ante-Inferno
aren’t only cowards – they are ones who lost or misused the divine gift of
intellect. Instead of understanding the God’s plan they just ignored it and this is
the second reason they don’t deserve neither Heaven nor Hell. Dante, as we saw
before, is curious, he tries to understand and asks countless questions about
everything he sees. He is shown as worthy to pass further and ready to
understand the divine plan meant for him.

Also, here we see that the role of Virgil becomes more clear: he is the mentor,
who explains anything to Dante. The personality of Virgil can also serve as a
metaphor that opens up further, when the travellers reach Limbo. Virgil is a
Pagan, the one who can’t enter Heaven (and he indeed leaves Dante at its gates,
letting Beatrice guide him).

Still, Virgil is virtuous enough to have the protection of God for himself and
Dante and important enough to be honored with such a task. We see that Virgil
believes in God’s protection so fully, that he immediately argues with Charon,
giving him orders like a superior (while technically the ferryman is right: a living
man inside Hell is a violation of the eternal laws).

Charon the Ferryman is a minor character, but also a very interesting one. We
see him not as a malevolent being (though he likes to remind the damned souls
that there is no mercy for them), but as a worker, who thoroughly does his job.
He looks very humane: grumpy and conservative, Charon wants everything to go
in proper order. He behaves more like an old clerk who has to do an unpleasant
job because of the order of the superior, than like the ominous psychopomp.

Later this theme of the big plan is developed and opened more, while the souls
waiting for the ferry are portrayed as those who fear the divine justice but also
desire it. The inhabitants of Ante-Inferno are shown as miserable and even more
hopeless. When the sinners did at least something to be condemned and still be
the part of the divine plan, the cowards are just forgotten and erased from it:
their existence is meaningless and this makes them suffer even more than any
physical tortures.

When Dante observes the souls waiting in the line, he notices that no one of
them tries to escape or does something more than weeping. They look as devoid
of will as autumn leaves thrown by the wind to the ground, one by one, but this
metaphor has the other sense too: the autumn is natural law.

The leaves have to die and the sinners have to go to Hell. They know it, they
also know that the fate awaiting for them is horrible, but still want to meet it. This
is the visual explanation of one of the lines on the gates of Hell: Hell is Justice, not
just the place of senseless pain. The second comparison of the souls with the
hawks being called by their master only emphasises this idea. The souls aren’t
free: they might have been doing anything they wanted to, while they were alive,
but now it is time to return back where they belong.

Their master is still not Devil (the Devil is just the biggest sinner in the Hell),
but God. God doesn’t hate them, He doesn’t abandon them. He still calls them
back to get the punishment and the souls response. The next reason of creating
the hell, the primal love, may oddly refer to this. The souls that are wait for their
place in Hell look more content than the ones who are left and forgotten in Ante-
Inferno, be they people or angels.

The crimson storm with a blinging blood-red flash that sets Dante unconscious
is just the first of many times Dante faints. The author uses this to emphasise how
unbearable the mere sight of Hell is for the mortal being. Sometimes the weird
and horrifying events will cause him to fall, but sometimes the reason is just the
heartbreaking scenes of suffering sinners.