On Good Friday 1300 AD, in Dante's thirty-fifth year, he goes astray from the straight road into the Dark Wood of Error. Seeing the Sun (Divine Illumination) lighting the Mount of Joy in the Distance, he attempts to climb up the mountainside but is blocked by three beasts of worldliness: the Leopard of Malice and Fraud, the Lion of Violence and Ambition, and the She-Wolf of Incontinence. When his hope is nearly lost, the shade of …showed first 75 words of 2431 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2431 total…vain attempt to free himself from the grip of the ice. He has three hideous faces (a mockery of the Holy Trinity) and chews a sinner in each of his mouths - Judas, Cassius, and Brutus. To exit Hell, the Poets climb down Satan's hairy flanks until they pass over the center of gravity and emerge at the Mount of Purgatory on the other side of the world to finally gaze at the stars.