The Inferno and the purgatory are the first and second part of italian poet dante alighieri's (1265-1321) poem 'the Divine Comedy' (divina comedia), which chronicles Dante's journey to God, and is made up of the Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise). The plot of the Divine Comedy is thus very simple: it is the narrative of Dante's journey towards redemption.

Dante's Purgatory is a lofty island-mountain, the only land in the southern Hemisphere, at the antipodes of jerusalem. On the lower irregular slopes are the souls whose penitence has, for some reason, been delayed in life and whose purgation is now delayed. Above that is the base of Purgatory proper, the place of active purgation, which consists of seven level terraces surrounding the mountain and rising one above another, connected by stairways in the rock.

On these terraces the seven deadly sins are purged by penance from the souls that have been beset by them. On the summit of the mountain is the Garden of Eden, or Earthly Paradise, from which the purged souls ascend to Heaven.

In the Inferno, Dante starts on ground level and works his way downward; he goes all the way through the earth and Hell and ends up at the base of the mountain of Purgatory on the other side. The Inferno is generally thought to be the best and most interesting part. God is almost totally absent, and Dante, not excessively constrained by piety, feels free to make Hell colorful and lively, which is not necessarily the case in the Paradiso.

The Inferno begins when Dante, in the middle of his life, is lost in a metaphorical dark wood ­ that is, sin. He sees a sunlit hill but it unable to climb it because three wild beasts frighten him back (these symbolize different sins). Fortunately he then meets the spirit of the Roman epic poet Virgil, who says that he has been sent by Beatrice to lead him to salvation. (Beatrice was the spirit of a woman Dante loved very much, who had died years before.)First Dante and Virgil go through the space outside Hell in the underworld, where the neutral spirits, who were neither good nor bad, are left to bewail their fate ­ neither Heaven nor Hell will accept them. Then they come to the Acheron, an infernal river, where the boatman Charon ferries the damned souls into Hell.

An earthquake leaves Dante unconscious, and when he wakes up they are in the first circle of Hell, Limbo. In Limbo there are the virtuous non-jesus christ: ancient Greek and Roman heroes, philosophers, and so forth.

They passed to the second circle, where the demon Minos judged the sinners and assigned them their place in Hell. In the second circle the lustful were punished by having their spirits blown about by an unceasing wind.then the third circle, where the gluttons were punished. The third circle also contains prostitutes, flatterers, fortunetellers and barrators. the Gluttonous must lie in mud and endure a rain of filth and excrement. this is probably the circle the line in yes refers to, because yes is about prostitution (of the self).

In the fourth circle they had to pass the demon Plutus, who praised Satan. There the avaricious and the prodigal rolled weights around in opposite directions, berating each other for their sins. They came to the Styx, the fifth circle, where the wrathful and the sullen were tormented.the Sullen lie bound beneath the Styx's waters, choking and drowning in the mud. this too could be the circle yes refers to, because the line talks about drowing.

They then came to the walls of the city of Dis, but the fallen angels inside barred their way. Fortunately a messenger from heaven came to their aid and opened the gates, then left.

The sixth circle held heretics, who were imprisoned in red-hot sepulchers.

They came to a stinking valley. Taking a moment to get used to the stench, Virgil explained to Dante the structure of Hell. It was cone shaped and was made up of increasingly tight circles. In Dis they would see the punishments of the violent, the fraudulent, and traitors.

In the first ring of the seventh circle they passed the Minotaur and met a group of centaurs, who shot the sinners who tried to escape with their arrows. The first ring was made up of the violent against others: tyrants and murderers.

In the second ring they found a black forest full of twisted trees. These were suicides. They were interrupted by two souls dashing through the forest, chased by black hounds. These were those who had been violent to their own possessions: those who had squandered their goods.

In the third ring there were the violent against God: blasphemers, sodomites, and usurers.

Virgil called up the monster Geryon, who symbolized fraud, from the eighth circle, while Dante spoke with some usurers. Geryon took Dante and Virgil down to the eigth circle on a terrifying ride. The eigth circle was Malebolge, and was formed of ten different enclosures in which different kinds of fraud were punished.

Moving on to the ninth circle, Dante was frightened by a loud bugle blast. What he thought was a city with towers turned out to be a number of giants, including Nimrod and those who had rebelled against the Olympians. A comparatively blameless giant helped Dante and Virgil into the pit of the ninth circle.richey edwards HAS (OR: HAD) A TATTOO OF THE SCHEME OF THE NINTH CIRCLE ON HIS LEFT ARM.

In the first ring of the ninth circle, Dante saw sinners frozen into ice (the circle was a frozen lake). These were traitors against their kin.

The second ring, where sinners were deeper in the ice, held those who betrayed their parties and their homelands.

Dante spoke with some other sinners in the third ring, who had assassinated their guests.

In the fourth ring, traitors against their benefactors were totally covered in ice.

Finally, at the bottom of Hell, Dante saw the gigantic figure of Lucifer, who ground up Judas, Brutus, and Cassius in his three mouths. Virgil and Dante climbed on Lucifer all the way through the center of the earth and to the other side, where they finally emerged in the southern hemisphere.you can read the original italian text and english translations of the divina comedia here.