We finally come to the crowd in Limbo's castle: a great list of warriors, thinkers, writers, geometers, physicians, and (yes) Islamic writers.

Dante gets put in the company of the great poets. Problem is, they're in hell. Also, Dante's not written enough. The passages in Inferno get curiouser.

Virgil answers Dante's question: Does anyone get out of Inferno? Yes! But maybe not the one soul who matters. Not Virgil, Dante's poetic father.

Virgil leads Dante home--well, at least to Virgil's home turf. The two arrive in Limbo, the place where babies sigh and where people of great merit are suspended in longing. Virgil even also offers a theology for this place. But is it believable? Is Virgil hedging his bets? Or is the poet Dante behind the scenes altering the terms of damnation?

Charon's off at his job. Virgil's gotten suddenly kinder. And Dante? He's not in good shape, standing on the shore of the river that borders hell.

The shore of hell! Here comes Charon and his boat. Here are the damned, waiting to cross. And here are Virgil and Dante, having a spat.

The first bit of hell we see is the hell we've always wanted, a sadist's dream. Except what's being punished? The failure to make up your mind. And maybe the failure of the pilgrim to make up his mind. It’s his first great moment to name a sinner . . . and he doesn’t. He muffs it so bad, centuries of commentators haven’t been able to decide who this reprobate is.

Dante and Virgil arrive at hell's entrance.The words above the opening are cryptic, even perhaps a bit heretical. And Virgil's response is strange. He gives the pilgrim Dante a cheerful or happy glance? Why? In any event, the two of them are on their way. So abandon hope!

Beatrice has answered all of Virgil’s questions . . . and even met him with tears, something that apparently is even more powerful than words. And Virgil has finally bested Dante by giving him purpose and hope, both bound up in desire. The pilgrim needs nothing else to set off across the cosmos.

Virgil and Beatrice are in a battle of words. They must use them right to get what they want--to get Dante on his way across the known universe. In the heat of their argument, their rhetoric breaks down in strange and not fully understandable ways that complicate INFERNO right at its start.

Virgil answers Dante’s hesitancy by calling it what it is “cowardice.” He then sets into a story to explain how he came to find the pilgrim in the dark wood. He tells the story of meeting Beatrice and their rhetorical games, the way she used outright flattery to get him to save the pilgrim.

Our pilgrim, Dante, looked to be on his way across the known universe. But he’s stopped by his doubts. To assuage them, he decides to engage in some rhetorical games with the classical poet Virgil, all in an attempt to figure out if he has permission to walk this path (and perhaps if the poet has permission to write this poem).