fellow-citizen, Giovanni Villani, that our knowledge concerning
many of the personages mentioned in the Poem is derived.

In respect to the theology and general doctrine of the Poem, the
Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is the main source from
which Dante himself drew.


Of editions of the Divina Commedia in Italian, either that of
Andreoli, or of Bianchi, or of Fraticelli, each in one volume,
may be recommended to the beginner. Scartazzini's edition in
three volumes is the best, in spite of some serious defects, for
the deeper student.


HELL.

CANTO I. Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill
which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he
turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into
the eternal world.


Midway upon the road of our life I found myself within a dark
wood, for the right way had been missed. Ah! how hard a thing it
is to tell what this wild and rough and dense wood was, which in
thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that death is little
more. But in order to treat of the good that there I found, I
will tell of the other things that I have seen there. I cannot
well recount how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that