The following are photographic interpretations and recitations of passages of the Great Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, Volume 1: Inferno:

The first series is from Canto III. In it, Dante the Pilgrim and his guide, Virgil, come to that place of all nightmares, the darkness behind all light, the Tartarus of old: Hell.

I saw these words spelled out in somber colors
Inscribed along the ledge above a gate;
"Master," I said, "these words I see are cruel."

He answered me, speaking with experience:
"Now here you must leave all distrust behind;
let all your cowardice die on this spot.

We are at the place where earlier I said
You could expect to see the suffering race
Of souls who lost the good of intellect."

Placing his hand on mine, smiling at me
In such a way that I was reassured,
He led me in, into those mysteries.

Here sighs and cries and shrieks of lamentation
Echoed throughout the starless air of Hell;
At first these sounds resounding made me weep:

Tongues confused, a language strained in anguish
With cadences of anger, shrill outcries
And raucous groans that joined with sounds of hands,

Raising a whirling storm that turns itself
Forever through that air of endless black,
Like grains of sand swirling when a whirlwind blows.

And I, in the midst of all this circling horror,
Began, "Teacher, what are these sounds I hear?
What souls are these so overwhelmed by grief?"

And he to me: "This wretched state of being
Is the fate of those sad souls who lived a life
But lived it with no blame and with no praise.

They are mixed with that repulsive choir of angels
Neither faithful nor unfaithful to their God,
Who undecided stood but for themselves.

Heaven, to keep it beauty, cast them out,
but even Hell itself would not receive them,
For fear the damned might glory over them."

And I, "Master, what torments do they suffer
That force them to lament so bitterly?"
He answered: "I will tell you in few words:

These wretches have no hope of truly dying,
And this blind life they lead is so abject
It makes them envy every other fate.

The world will not record their having been there;
Heaven's mercy and its justice turn from them.
Let's not discuss them; look and pass them by."

When I recognized a few of them,
I saw the shade of the one who must have been
The coward who had made the great refusal.

At once I understood, and I was sure
This was that sect of evil souls who were
Hateful to God and His enemies.

These wretches, who had never truly lived,
Went naked, and were strung and strung again
By the hornets and the wasps that encircled them

And made their faces run with blood in streaks;
Their blood, mixed with their tears, dripped to their feet,
And disgusting maggots collected in the puss.

The selected reading is lines 1-78, Canto III, Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno by Dante Alighieri, Penguin Classics, 2003, Indiana University.

Just as grandly as he opens this adventure, the mysterious waking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the three hell-beasts that block the Pilgrim's path, Virgil's introduction, and the descent through the Gates and into Hell itself, Dante ends it with the most momentous meeting of all: the Pilgrim with the Devil. The following is lines 1-21 of Canto XXIV, Inferno.

My master said, "closer to us, so now
Look ahead and see if you can make him out."

A far-off windmill turning its huge sails
When a thick fog begins to settle in,
Or when the light of day begins to fade,

That is what I thought I saw appearing,
And the gusts of wind it stirred made me shrink back
Behind my guide, my only means of cover.

Down here, I stood on soul fixed under ice
(I tremble as I put into verse);
to me they looked like straws worked into glass.

Some lying flat, some perpendicular,
Either with their heads up or their feet,
And some bent head to foot, shaped like a bow.

When we had moved far enough along the way
That my master thought the time had come to show me
The creature who once was so beautiful,

He stepped aside, stopping me, announced: