While physical life is transitory, the notion of the immortality of the soul is central to Christianity. Before Dante wrote the Divine Comedy, the afterlife residence of the soul was speculative and enigmatic. Dante filled this void by creating a detailed and gruesome depiction of Hell in which sinners are punished for the crimes they commit against the Christian God. Dante models his perception of Hell from Aeneas' journey to Dis in Book VI of Virgil's epic poem, The Aeneid. Although Dante draws his tale from Virgil's writings on the Underworld, it is only a basis upon which he adapts and develops. Both poems are populated by figures from ancient Greek and Roman mythology and share similar structure and imagery for the exploration of the Underworld by living protagonists. The poems differ in intent with The Inferno focusing on Dante's journey of self-discovery, searching for a Christian concept of the Underworld, while the intent of the Aeneid was to glorify and celebrate the history of Rome and the importance of destiny. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay While there are countless parallels in Dante and Aeneas' journeys to the Underworld, they follow divergent trajectories that set the tone for the Underworld created. Aeneas learns in a dream that he will have to travel to the Underworld and visit his father before a homeland for his people can be established in Italy. Venus, his mother goddess, and the Sibyl, prophetess of Apollo, guide Aeneas on his journey. In book VI of the Aeneid, Virgil uses the Underworld to trace the history of Rome to the heroes of the Trojan War. Unlike Aeneas, Dante enters the path to Hell halfway through his life, lost in a personal crisis and uncertain of the spiritual path to follow. At the beginning of Canto I, Virgil is sent by God to escort him through the halls of the Underworld, so that he can find his way back. “Because I had lost the path that does not deviate. Ah, it's difficult to say what it was, that wild, dense and difficult forest, which even at the memory renews my fear" (Inferno I, 4-6). Dante is setting the stage for a more harrowing journey into the Underworld in which his character will have to survive. Dante freely borrows imagery, structure, and architecture of the Underworld from Virgil. The Aeneid served as the model for Dante's masterpiece, and Dante acknowledges this by choosing Virgil as his guide through the Underworld. Dante and Aeneas both must cross the River Styx to enter Hell and are ferried over by Charon. Virgil, in the Aeneid, writes: “Charon is the squalid ferryman... his white hair is thick, matted on his chin; his eyes are staring fires, a filthy cloak hangs on his shoulders in a knot.” (Aeneid VI, 396-398). Dante's description of Charon is similar: "And behold, advancing towards us, in a boat, an elderly man, whose hair was white with age, shouted: Woe to you, corrupt souls!". (Hell III, 82-84). Virgil created a lower, more horrific level of the Underworld known as Dis, guarded by one of the mythological Furies. Parallels can be seen in Dante's Inferno, where the fallen angels, the three Furies and Medusa guard his city of Dis. They are the darkest regions of Hell and include circles six through nine. Virgil had also referred to an underworld of nine circles, but unlike Dante, he does not develop the concept into a rigid system where sinners are separated into nine circles depending on the severity of their sin, with the wicked sent into circles deeper with more severe punishments. In both epics there is a significant distinction in the desire ofshadows of communicating with the living. When Aeneas crosses the Fields of Mourning and recognizes Dido, he calls out to her, crying with sympathy, and she responds by retreating into the depths of the forest. In the Inferno, however, Dante develops the concept that the shadows diminish, interested in communicating as he ventures into the deepest circles. In Canto XXXII, Dante accidentally hits the shadow's head with his foot and, after an exchange of verbal replies, the shadow refuses to reveal his identity. The shadow's refusal to reveal his identity exposes his shame at residing in the first ring of the ninth circle of hell, home of kin traitors. In the Inferno, Dante's alteration of Virgil's ideas about how the living interact with shadows dramatically influences the pilgrim and readers' experience of Dante. The structural difference in the protagonists' encounters with the shadows is the result of Dante's conflictual approach. In the Inferno Dante endows himself with the power to touch shadows, while at a certain point in Virgil's story it is shown that Aeneas is unable to embrace his father's shadow. “Three times he tried to throw his arms around Anchises; and three times the shadow escaped from that vain window." (Aeneid VI, 924-926). By adding the physical aspect to encounters, Dante creates a more realistic and personal underworld. Realism increases the impression that Dante as a pilgrim is in real danger. In a later scene in Canto XXXII, Boca refuses to reveal his identity and Dante responds by inflicting pain on him. “So I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and said: you have to name yourself, otherwise you won't have a single hair left up here.” (Hell XXXII, 97-99). Dante's ability to physically interact with shadows makes the Underworld tangible. Dante, a mere mortal, inflicts further suffering on a soul, which is already punished in one of the deepest circles of Hell. The differences in the two concepts of Limbo's Underworld reflect a fundamental difference in religious philosophy between the paganism of Virgil's Rome and the medieval Christianity of Dante. The first stop for all souls in Virgil's Underworld is Limbo. There souls wait to cross the River Styx and those whose bodies are not buried must wander for a hundred years before Charon, the ferryman, brings their souls to "begin the path to the waters of the Tartar Acheron." (Aeneid VI 390-391). Nothing is more cruel and harmful to a Trojan warrior than to die without an honorable burial. In Dante's Underworld the first stop is not Limbo, but the Ante-Hell and the Neutral. Ante-Hell is where souls who have not made a conscious moral decision are housed because they do not constitute acceptance in either Heaven or Hell, and Neutral is where angels who side with neither God nor Satin are located . Dante wrote: "The heavens, so that their beauty may not be diminished, have driven them away, nor will the deep Hell welcome them; even the wicked cannot boast of them." (Inferno III 40-42) Limbo in Dante's Underworld is the first ring of Hell after a soul has crossed the River Styx. In Limbo reside all the unbaptized, including the virtuous and moral pagans born before the First Coming. These souls did not sin, but Dante's point of view was Christian and according to Christian theology those who were not baptized were damned to Hell and could not enter heaven. Virgil resided in this region along with other great Greek and Roman philosophers, poets and heroes. Dante had sympathy for these sinners and created a first circle where the punishment was milder. Dante writes: “There was no louder cry than the visions that made the eternal air tremble. The sighs were born from a pain without torment." (Dante IV 26-28). The different descriptions of Limbo by Dante and Virgil demonstrate the.