Introduction

'Midway along the journey of our life I found myself within a darkened wood, for the straight way was lost.' On the eve of Easter 1300 Dante, at thirty-five, has lost his way in a forest; the Roman poet Virgil comes to lead him down through the nine circles of Hell and up the seven terraces of Purgatory, and then Beatrice raises him through the nine heavens until he beholds 'the Love that moves the sun and the other stars'. The poem's hundred cantos and more than fourteen thousand lines are written in interlocking three-line stanzas. In Hell are the tragic lovers Francesca and Paolo, Count Ugolino in the tower of hunger, and Ulysses on his last voyage. An encyclopaedia of the Middle Ages and one of the greatest works of Western literature, we publish it in three volumes.