110 Fun Facts About Divine Comedy

Which Rodin sculpture, first called 'The Poet', crowns a bronze doorway inspired by Dante's Inferno?

The Thinker. On The Gates of Hell the seated figure looks down on the damned, and the Rodin Museum describes him as Dante pondering his poem; shown alone from 1888, he outgrew the doors he was made for.

Which of these medieval figures was still alive when Dante finished the Divine Comedy?

Marco Polo. The Venetian outlived Dante by more than two years; his own book, dictated to a fellow prisoner in Genoa in the 1290s, was already circulating in manuscript while the Comedy was being written.

In which language, rather than Latin, did Dante write the Divine Comedy?

Tuscan. A serious poem was expected to be in Latin, and Dante's choice of the everyday speech of his own region did much to make it the basis of standard Italian.

Who first attached the adjective 'Divine' to Dante's Comedy, in a treatise written in the 1350s?

Giovanni Boccaccio. Dante's own title was simply Comedìa; his admirer's adjective caught on, but it became a fixed part of the title only after it appeared on a printed title page some two centuries later.

Why did Dante call a poem that opens in Hell a 'comedy'?

It ends happily. In Dante's day a comedy was simply a story that starts in trouble and ends well, told in everyday language instead of tragedy's lofty style; his runs from Hell to Heaven in the common tongue.

What is the name of the interlocking rhyme scheme that Dante devised for the Divine Comedy?

Terza rima rhymes the middle line of each three-line stanza with the outer lines of the next (ABA BCB CDC), so every stanza hands the poem on. Shelley borrowed the scheme for 'Ode to the West Wind'.

What does Virgil represent allegorically as Dante's guide through Hell and most of Purgatory?

Human reason: Virgil can show Dante what sin is and how to climb free of it, but reason alone cannot reach God. So he vanishes at the top of Purgatory, and another guide leads the way into Heaven.

Which saint, famed for his devotion to the Virgin Mary, guides Dante through the final cantos of Paradiso?

Bernard of Clairvaux: Dante turns to ask his guide a question and finds an old man standing in her place. Bernard's prayer to the Virgin then wins him the poem's last vision, a direct sight of God.

Which woman, ten years dead in 1300, leads Dante through Heaven in the Divine Comedy?

Beatrice: Dante says he fell in love with her when both were nine. After her death in 1290 he vowed to write of her what had never been written of any woman, a promise the Comedy keeps.

Which word closes all three parts of the Divine Comedy?

Stelle (stars): Dante climbs out of Hell to see them again, leaves Purgatory ready to rise to them, and finishes the whole poem on the Love that moves the stars.

Which three beasts drive Dante back as he tries to climb out of the dark wood?

Leopard, lion and she-wolf: the she-wolf forces Dante back down into the dark, and there the shade of Virgil appears. He says she lets no one pass, so the only way out is the long road through Hell.

What is the term for the symbolic poetic justice by which each sin in the Inferno is punished?

Contrapasso makes each punishment mirror or invert its sin. Fortune-tellers who tried to see ahead in life, for instance, walk forever with their heads twisted backwards.

Which phrase ends the inscription on the gate of Hell?

'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here' closes nine lines in which the gate speaks for itself. The surprise comes just before: Hell, it says, was made by divine power, the highest wisdom and 'primal love'.

Who at first refuses to take Dante across the river Acheron because he is still alive?

Charon backs down when Virgil says the journey is willed in Heaven. Dante took the scene from Virgil's own Aeneid, where the same ferryman balks at carrying the living Aeneas.

Which pope is usually identified as the soul who made 'the great refusal', seen among the neutrals in Hell's vestibule?

Celestine V was an elderly hermit who resigned the papacy after five months in 1294. Dante never names the soul, but that abdication cleared the way for his great enemy, Boniface VIII.

In Limbo, which four poets welcome Dante as 'sixth in that high company' alongside Virgil?

Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan welcome Virgil home and take Dante into their circle. The poem crowns Homer 'sovereign poet', yet Dante had never read him: he knew no Greek, and the epics had not been translated.

In Dante's Hell, which monster shows each soul its circle by coiling his tail around himself?

Minos hears each soul confess, then wraps his tail around himself once for every circle it must drop. The tail is Dante's own touch: in the Aeneid the same judge decides by shaking an urn.

Which pair of lovers, killed by her husband, does Dante meet among the lustful in Canto V?

Paolo and Francesca fell in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, and Francesca blames the book as their go-between. Her tale moves Dante so much that he faints.

Which guardian of the gluttons does Virgil quiet by throwing fistfuls of earth into its jaws?

Cerberus is drugged with a honey cake in the Aeneid, but Dante's Virgil just scoops up dirt and flings it down the three-headed dog's throats. It gulps the filth like any hungry dog and lets them pass.

Which monster of fraud carries Dante and Virgil down the great cliff into the Eighth Circle?

Geryon has the face of an honest man, a serpent's patterned body and a scorpion's sting in his tail: fraud made visible. Virgil sits behind Dante on the ride down to shield him from that tail.

What is the name of the Eighth Circle of Dante's Hell, ten concentric ditches for the fraudulent?

Malebolge holds ten kinds of fraud, and Dante ranks all of them below murder. His reason: fraud is a peculiarly human vice, a misuse of the mind, so it offends God more than violence does.

Which pope, planted head-first among the simoniacs, mistakes Dante for Boniface VIII arriving early?

Nicholas III, stuck upside down in a hole with his feet on fire, thinks the next pope due there has come early. Each new simoniac pope, he explains, rams the last one deeper into the rock.

Which hero, sharing a flame with Diomedes in Dante's Hell, tells of a final voyage past the Pillars of Hercules?

Ulysses' last voyage is Dante's own invention. The hero talks his ageing crew into sailing beyond the known world in pursuit of 'virtue and knowledge', and the sea closes over them all.

Which count is found gnawing the skull of Archbishop Ruggieri, who starved him in a tower?

Ugolino, a count of Pisa, was locked in a tower with two sons and two grandsons. The keys were thrown into the Arno, and in Dante's telling he watched the others starve before he died himself.

What is the Ninth Circle of Dante's Hell, the home of the traitors?

A lake of solid ice: Cocytus is kept frozen by the wind from Satan's beating wings, and the traitors are locked into it. At the very bottom of Hell, Dante's worst sinners freeze rather than burn.

Which unchained giant lowers Dante and Virgil in his palm to the bottom of Hell?

Antaeus took no part in the giants' war on the gods. Virgil wins his help with flattery and an offer: Dante is still alive, he says, and can restore the giant's fame on earth.

Which innermost zone of Dante's Hell holds those who betrayed their lords and benefactors?

Judecca is named for Judas Iscariot. For Dante no sin is worse than betraying a benefactor, and of the sinners Satan chews Judas suffers most: head-first in the jaws, with the skin clawed from his back.

Which river of boiling blood punishes murderers and tyrants in the Seventh Circle, patrolled by centaurs?

Phlegethon holds each sinner at a depth that matches the blood he shed: tyrants stand in it up to their eyebrows, lesser killers only to their feet. Centaurs shoot at any who rise higher than their sentence.

Which beloved teacher of Dante's does he meet, to his surprise, among the sodomites on the burning sand?

Brunetto Latini and Dante walk on together like master and pupil, Dante keeping his head bowed in respect. Brunetto's one request before he runs off is that his book, the Treasure, be remembered.

Into what are the souls of suicides transformed in Dante's Hell?

Gnarled, thorny trees: the suicides threw their bodies away, so they are denied a human shape. They can speak only when a branch is broken and bleeds, and at the Last Judgement their corpses will hang from their own boughs.

Where does Dante locate Mount Purgatory?

On an island in the Southern Hemisphere: when Satan fell from Heaven, the land there fled north in fear and the sea closed over it. Perhaps, Virgil adds, the earth he displaced was thrust up behind him as the mountain.

What crowns the summit of Mount Purgatory?

The Earthly Paradise is the Garden of Eden. Dante sets it on the summit so that souls finish their climb where Adam and Eve began, innocent again.

Which pagan Roman stands guard at the shore of Purgatory?

Cato of Utica was a pagan who killed himself rather than live under Julius Caesar, yet Dante makes him guardian of the saved. He died for liberty, and freedom from sin is what every soul on the mountain is seeking.

What does the angel at Peter's Gate carve seven times on Dante's forehead with his sword?

The letter P is usually read as peccatum, Latin for sin: one for each of the seven deadly sins. An angel's wing brushes one away as Dante leaves each terrace, and the climb gets easier every time.

Which Roman poet joins Dante and Virgil in Purgatory after an earthquake marks his release?

Statius says Virgil made him both a poet and a Christian. He compares his master to a man walking at night with a lantern held behind him: it lit the way for those who followed and left Virgil himself in the dark.

In Purgatory, Sordello embraces Virgil on hearing the name of which city, home to both?

Mantua: the bare name of their city makes two strangers embrace. The sight sends Dante into a long tirade against the Italy of his own day, where people shut inside one city wall gnaw at each other.

Which phrase, applied to Dante's early poetry by Bonagiunta on the terrace of gluttony, named a poetic movement?

Dolce stil novo, the 'sweet new style', is praise Dante puts in the mouth of a rival: Bonagiunta belonged to the older school, and he admits that a 'knot' held him and his masters back from writing this way.

Which murdered woman of Siena tells Dante 'Siena made me, Maremma unmade me'?

Pia de' Tolomei is the name early commentators gave the woman the poem calls only 'la Pia', said to have been killed on her husband's orders. All she asks is that Dante remember her, once he has rested from his long journey.

On which day of the Christian calendar do Dante and Virgil climb out of Hell and reach the shore of Purgatory?

Easter Sunday: Dante goes down into Hell on Good Friday and comes back up under the open sky just before dawn on Easter morning, so his journey follows the pattern of Christ's death and resurrection.

In the Earth-centred heavens of the Paradiso, which sphere does Dante reach fourth?

The Sun: in the old Earth-centred order it counts as the fourth planet. Dante fills it with the wise, and has a Dominican there praise St Francis while a Franciscan praises St Dominic, though the two orders were rivals on earth.

In which sphere of Heaven does Dante meet Emperor Justinian?

Mercury holds souls who did good partly for the sake of fame. Justinian introduces himself there with 'Caesar I was, and am Justinian': the title belonged to earth, and in Heaven only the man remains.

Which crusader ancestor of Dante's foretells his exile and charges him to write what he has seen?

Cacciaguida, Dante's great-great-grandfather, died on crusade. He warns that exile will teach Dante how salty another man's bread tastes, then tells him to write down everything he has seen and 'let them scratch where it itches'.

Into what shape do the souls of the just rulers on Jupiter finally arrange themselves?

A giant imperial eagle: the souls first spell out, letter by letter, a Latin command to love justice. The final M then grows a head and wings, and the eagle speaks for all of them in one voice, saying 'I', not 'we'.

Which two pagans astonish Dante by appearing among the just rulers in Heaven?

Trajan and Ripheus: a legend said a pope's prayers brought the emperor Trajan back to life just long enough to believe. Ripheus, a minor Trojan from the Aeneid, is there to show that nobody can guess whom God will save.

Which three apostles examine Dante on faith, hope and love in the sphere of the Fixed Stars?

Peter, James and John test Dante like a student at an oral exam: Peter on faith, James on hope, John on love. He stares so hard at John's light that he goes blind, and gets his sight back only when he has passed.

Under which constellation does Dante say he was born, the one from which he looks back on the seven spheres?

Gemini: Dante thanks its stars for whatever talent he has. Then he looks back down through all seven planets to the Earth, and smiles at how small and shabby it looks from up there.

What enormous flower, its petals the enthroned souls of the faithful, does Dante see in the Empyrean?

A rose: the blessed fill its white petals tier upon tier, and angels fly in and out of it like bees visiting a flower, carrying peace and love between the souls and God.

Which Florentine painter drew more than ninety illustrations for the Divine Comedy, among them the 'Map of Hell'?

Botticelli set out to give every canto its own full-page picture. He never finished: 92 drawings survive, and only four of them, the Map of Hell among them, were ever fully coloured.

Which political faction was Dante part of when he was exiled from Florence in 1302?

The White Guelphs wanted Florence free of papal control. While Dante was in Rome pleading the city's case, the Black Guelphs seized power with French help and condemned him, and he never saw Florence again.

In which city did Dante spend his last years and die, still in exile?

Ravenna never gave him back. When a pope let Florence come for the body in 1519, the friars guarding it had hidden the bones inside a wall, and the grand tomb Florence later built for him has never held him.

Which American poet produced the first American translation of the whole Divine Comedy, published in 1867?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lost his wife in 1861, when her dress caught fire. He turned to Dante for comfort in his grief, and the translation grew out of those years.

A Spanish priest argued in 1919 that the Divine Comedy echoes older accounts of whose ascent through the heavens?

Muhammad: Miguel Asín Palacios, a priest and scholar of Arabic, pointed to tales of the Prophet's journey to heaven. One had been put into Latin just before Dante was born, and whether he ever read it has been argued over ever since.

What was Dante's likely baptismal name?

Durante: 'Dante' is its familiar short form. He was baptised in Florence's Baptistery and, in exile, wrote of his hope to be crowned a poet at that same font one day, a homecoming that never came.

At the gates of the city of Dis, which monster do the Furies summon to stop Dante going further?

Medusa is called for with the cry that she will turn Dante to stone. Virgil spins him round and covers his eyes with his own hands, and Dante stops to tell readers to look for the meaning beneath the veil of his verses.

Which Ghibelline leader does Dante meet in a flaming tomb among the heretics of the Sixth Circle?

Farinata degli Uberti rises from his burning tomb as if he held Hell itself in contempt. He had led the army that defeated Florence, yet when his victorious allies voted to raze the city, he alone stood up and stopped them.

Which troubadour carries his own severed head like a lantern among the sowers of discord?

Bertran de Born is said to have set the young prince Henry against his father, Henry II of England. Because he parted father and son, he tells Dante, his own head is parted from his body.

What are the demons called that guard the boiling pitch of the corrupt politicians in the Eighth Circle?

The Malebranche, or 'Evil Claws', hook any sinner who surfaces from the pitch. Dante gave the devils comic names such as Bad Dog and Curly Beard, which commentators read as jabs at real officials of his day.

Which two Romans does Satan chew in his jaws at the very bottom of Dante's Hell?

Brutus and Cassius dangle head-down from Satan's side mouths for murdering Julius Caesar. Dante saw the Roman Empire as part of God's plan for the world, so killing its founder was treason of the worst kind.

Which musician friend does Dante recognise among the newly arrived souls at the shore of Purgatory?

Casella is only a shade, so Dante's arms pass through him three times when he tries to hug his friend. He then sings one of Dante's own poems so sweetly that the souls forget to climb, until they are scolded on their way.

Atop Mount Purgatory, Dante drinks from which river to have his good memories restored?

Eunoë is Dante's own invention, a twin to the classical Lethe that flows from the same spring. Lethe washes away the memory of sin, Eunoë brings back the memory of every good deed, and only then is he ready for Heaven.

Which thriller writer sent Robert Langdon chasing clues from Dante's poem in the 2013 novel Inferno?

Dan Brown made Inferno the fourth Robert Langdon thriller, after The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol; it opens with Langdon waking in a Florence hospital with no memory of the last few days.

Which Latin epic by Virgil, Dante's guide in the Inferno, also sends its hero down into the underworld?

The Aeneid also lent Dante its monsters: the fire-breathing cattle raider Cacus turns up in the Inferno remade as a centaur with a dragon on his shoulders.

Which biblical figure does Satan chew head-first in his central mouth at the bottom of Dante's Inferno?

Judas Iscariot has his head inside the middle mouth while Satan's claws flay his back; the two traitors in the side mouths hang the other way up, feet first.

Whose Arthurian love story are the doomed lovers of Inferno Canto V reading when they yield to passion?

Lancelot and Guinevere's adultery is the tale they are reading, and the woman blames the book itself, likening it to Gallehaut, the go-between who brought that couple together.

Which conqueror, branded the scourge on earth, boils in blood among the tyrants of Dante's Inferno?

Attila, king of the Huns, stands in the deepest stretch of the river with the worst tyrants, while centaurs shoot arrows at any soul who rises further out of the blood than allowed.

Which monster, the hated enemy of Theseus, guards the way down into Dante's Seventh Circle?

The Minotaur gnaws his own flesh at the sight of the poets; when Virgil taunts him with his old enemy he staggers about in blind rage, and the two slip past into the circle below.

Which woman-faced birds feed on the souls of the suicides in the Seventh Circle of Dante's Inferno?

Harpies tear at the suicides, and their wounds are these souls' only voice: Dante learns that the suicides can speak only while they are broken and bleeding.

Which young scientist lectured in Florence in 1588 on the shape, location and size of Dante's Inferno?

Galileo Galilei was invited by the Florentine Academy to work out a rigorous model of Dante's Hell, some twenty years before he first turned a telescope on the Moon.

In the 2010 video game Dante's Inferno, the poet is reimagined as which kind of warrior?

A Templar knight from the Crusades is the game's Dante, who fights his way down through the circles to rescue the woman he loves from Lucifer himself.

The six great wings of Satan in Dante's Inferno are shaped like those of which creature?

A bat is the model: Satan keeps the six wings he had as an angel, but they are dark and futile now, and the wind they raise only holds him faster in his prison.

Climbing down Satan's shaggy body, Dante and Virgil flip round and climb upward on reaching which point?

The centre of the Earth is also the centre of gravity, so down becomes up there, and a confused Dante thinks Virgil is leading him straight back into Hell.

Which biblical figure, blamed for the Tower of Babel, bellows gibberish as a giant in Dante's Inferno?

Nimrod's only line is a string of nonsense that nobody can understand: a fitting fate for the man Dante blames for the confusion of languages after Babel.

Which traitorous son of King Arthur is punished among the betrayers of kin in Dante's Inferno?

Mordred is pointed out there beside real Italian noblemen who murdered their own brothers and cousins, so legend and local scandal share one punishment.

Which sultan, famed for chivalry toward the Crusaders, does Dante place among the virtuous in Limbo?

Saladin fought the Crusaders, yet Dante honours his generous and merciful conduct by placing him near the heroes of Troy and Rome instead of among the tormented.

Which Greek philosopher does Dante see in Limbo with Socrates and Plato standing at his side?

Aristotle mattered most to Dante: the layout of Hell rests on his Ethics, which judges weakness of will less harshly than malice.

Which Greek hero, deserter of Medea, is whipped by horned demons among the seducers of Dante's Inferno?

Jason won the Golden Fleece with Medea's help and then left her for another bride; Virgil adds that he had earlier walked out on Hypsipyle, alone and pregnant, on Lemnos.

Which legendary founder and first queen of Carthage is among the lustful in Dante's Inferno?

Dido is one of several rulers in that crowd, with Cleopatra and Semiramis, which is why the fifth canto has been nicknamed the canto of the queens.

Which poet opened The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock with lines spoken by a sinner in Dante's Inferno?

T. S. Eliot borrowed the words of Guido da Montefeltro, a military leader damned for the cunning advice he once gave Pope Boniface VIII.

Which creator of the sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey translated Dante's Inferno for Penguin in 1949?

Dorothy Sayers saw her Hell become a best-seller whose first 50,000 copies quickly sold out; she died with the final volume two-thirds done, and Barbara Reynolds finished it.

Which composer made a comic opera of Gianni Schicchi, an impersonator punished in Dante's Inferno?

Giacomo Puccini built a one-act comedy on the trick Dante mentions: Schicchi posed as the dead Buoso Donati and dictated a will in his own favour.

Which high priest, who urged that Jesus die for the public good, lies crucified in Dante's Inferno?

Caiaphas is pinned to the path with three stakes, placed so that every other sinner in that ditch has to walk across him.

Which saint comes for the friar Guido da Montefeltro's soul in the Inferno, only to lose it to a demon?

Francis of Assisi is beaten by a demon's logic: the pope had absolved Guido in advance, but nobody can repent of a sin while still intending to commit it.

Which French artist is best known for wood-engravings illustrating the Bible and Dante's Divine Comedy?

Gustave Doré usually supplied only the drawings: at the height of his career some 40 block-cutters were employed to carve his designs into the wooden printing blocks.

Which French Romantic painter made his Paris Salon debut with The Barque of Dante?

Eugène Delacroix finished his picture of the poets crossing a marsh in Hell only days before the Salon, and the French state bought it for 2,000 francs.

With what signal does a demon squad set off marching at the end of Canto XXI of Dante's Inferno?

A fart serves as the bugle call, a burst of black comedy in the cantos where a gang of demons escorts the poets past the corrupt officials.

Which gold coin did Master Adam counterfeit, the crime that put him in Dante's Inferno?

The florin was Florence's own gold coin, and Master Adam struck his at 21 carats instead of 24, a fraud for which he was burned at the stake in 1281.

Whose wife, the false accuser of Joseph in Genesis, burns with fever among the liars of Dante's Inferno?

Potiphar's wife lies beside Sinon, the Greek who talked Troy into taking in the wooden horse, so a Bible story and a classical one share the same fever.

Which Theban prophet, changed into a woman for seven years, is among the soothsayers in Dante's Inferno?

Tiresias struck two mating snakes with his staff and became a woman, and Dante sets his daughter Manto, another Theban seer, in the same procession.

With what does a messenger from Heaven open the barred gate of the city of Dis in Dante's Inferno?

A wand is all it takes: the fallen angels had refused to let Virgil in, but the gate opens at a touch and the messenger rebukes those who barred the way.

Which circle of Dante's Hell is home to Virgil himself, with the unbaptised and the virtuous pagans?

The first circle is Limbo, where nobody is tortured: its souls did not sin but lacked baptism, so they live on in a kind of deficient Heaven.

What tosses the lustful back and forth without rest in the Second Circle of Dante's Hell?

An endless storm is their punishment because these lovers let passion carry them away in life; Dante counts lust the least grave of the sins punished in Hell proper.

What falls without end on the gluttons of Dante's Third Circle, turning the ground to putrid slush?

Foul, icy rain beats on the gluttons as they lie in the mire, each alone and blind to the others: an image of the cold, selfish emptiness of a life given to appetite.

What do the hoarders and spendthrifts of Dante's Fourth Circle shove at each other with their chests?

Great weights are rolled together like a joust, each side howling at the other for hoarding or for wasting; among the hoarders Dante sees many popes and cardinals.

Which ancient figure of wealth guards the Fourth Circle of Dante's Hell, shouting a garbled cry to Satan?

Plutus, the Greek god of wealth, is easy to confuse with Pluto, ruler of the underworld, and Dante's own spelling blurs the two; Virgil shields Dante from his menaces.

Which river of the underworld spreads into the stinking marsh of the Fifth Circle in Dante's Hell?

The Styx is a battleground in Dante: the wrathful tear at one another on its slimy surface while the poets are ferried across toward the red towers of Dis.

Which sinners lie beneath the marsh of Dante's Fifth Circle while the wrathful fight on its surface?

The sullen lie gurgling at the bottom, choked by a rage they never let out: anger turned inward, punished out of sight beneath the open kind.

Which Greek philosopher, who taught that the soul dies with the body, is among Dante's heretics?

Epicurus and his followers lie in flaming tombs, and two Florentines are shut in with them, one of them the father of Dante's friend the poet Guido Cavalcanti.

Which sin links the tyrants, suicides and blasphemers in the three rings of Dante's Seventh Circle?

Violence is sorted by its target: one ring for murderers and tyrants, one for those who destroyed themselves, and one for offenders against God, nature and art.

What drifts slowly down onto the blasphemers lying on the barren plain of Dante's Seventh Circle?

Flakes of flame fall on them without pause, an image drawn from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the blasphemers must lie flat beneath it while others in the ring run or crouch.

Which sinners of Dante's Seventh Circle crouch weeping, purses with family crests hung round their necks?

Usurers offend against both of the honest roots of wealth that Virgil names, nature and labour, which is why moneylenders sit with blasphemers instead of misers.

How are the fortune-tellers of Dante's Eighth Circle punished for trying to see into the future?

Heads twisted backwards force them to walk in reverse for ever, blinded by their own tears, and Dante's pity at the sight earns him a sharp rebuke from Virgil.

In what are the flatterers of Dante's Eighth Circle plunged, an image of their false praise in life?

Excrement fills the second ditch of that circle, where the flatterers whimper and beat themselves with their own palms, sunk in what their honeyed words were really worth.

What must the hypocrites of Dante's Eighth Circle wear as they trudge slowly round their ditch for ever?

Gilded cloaks of lead, cut like monks' habits, dazzle on the outside and crush the wearer within: a holy show hiding the heavy burden of deceit.

Which sinners of Dante's Eighth Circle are bound and bitten by serpents and even trade shapes with them?

Thieves took what belonged to others, so in this ditch even their own identity can be stolen: one man and a six-legged serpent melt into a single creature.

Which part of the simoniacs, planted upside down in holes in Dante's Eighth Circle, is kept burning?

Their soles burn hotter or cooler in proportion to their guilt, and the stone holes mock baptismal fonts, since these churchmen sold what was holy.

After which biblical murderer did Dante name the zone of his Hell for betrayers of their own kin?

Cain killed his brother in the first murder of Genesis, so the zone is called Caina; the souls held there may at least lower their faces against the wind.

Which Trojan, said to have betrayed his city, names Dante's zone for traitors to their country?

Antenor lends his name to Antenora, where those who sold out a city or a party are fixed in the ice with only their heads free; Dante kicks one of them hard in the face as he passes.

Whom did the sinners of Ptolomea betray, in the zone of Dante's Hell where tears seal the eyes shut?

Their guests were the victims: one friar there had his own kinsmen murdered at a banquet, and the poem lets such a soul drop into Hell early while a demon runs its living body.

What classical name does Dante give the Ninth Circle, the pit at the very bottom of his Hell?

Cocytus was the river of wailing in Greek myth; Dante makes it the last stop of all and divides it into four zones for four kinds of betrayal.

Which boatman ferries Dante and Virgil across the marsh of the Fifth Circle toward the city of Dis?

Phlegyas takes them in his skiff with bad grace, and on the way the boat is accosted by a furious Florentine, whom Dante sends off with a curse.