Dante’s Inferno begins in the Easter season, the setting for an allegory of spiritual awakening. The poet realizes with a start that he has strayed from the True Way into the Dark Wood of Error. He’s lost. He lifts his eyes and sees the first light of the sunrise glowing on a little hill ahead, the Mount of Joy. Strengthened by the vision, he sets out at once to climb directly up the Mount, but almost immediately finds his way blocked by the Three Beasts of Worldliness. These beasts drive him back despairing into the darkness of error. But just as all seems lost, a figure appears to him, who
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