From Canto V, Dante's The Divine Comedy, Inferno

Let us descend now into the blind world,”

Began the Poet, pallid utterly;

“I will be first, and thou shalt second be.”

And I, who of his colour was aware,
Said:”How shall I come, if thou art afraid,
Who’rt wont to be a comfort to my fears?”

And he to me:”The anguish of the people
Who are below here in my face depicts
That pity which for terror thou hast taken.

Let us go on, for the long way impels us.”
Thus he went in, and thus he made me enter
The foremost circle that surrounds the abyss.

There, as it seemed to me from listening,
Were lamentations none, but only sighs,
That tremble made the everlasting air.

And this arose from sorrow without torment,
Which the crowds had, that many were and great
Of infants and of women and of men.

To me the Master good: “Thou dost not ask
What spirits these, which thou beholdest, are?
Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,

That they sinned not; and if they merit had,
‘Tis not enough, because they had not baptism
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;

And if they were before Christianity,
In the right manner they adored not God;
And among such as these am I myself

For such defects, and not for other guilt,
Lost are we and are only so far punished,

That without hope we live on in desire."

For my podcast, Dialogues with Creators, I asked former English Department colleagues to join me for conversations about works they know well and teach. Cicero Bruce, Professor, spoke with me yesterday about Dante's Inferno. It was fabulous; he is an expert, of course, in many texts but he teaches The Divine Comedy in an elective course. You don't want to miss this one because of his wisdom about teaching as well as the work. 

We read some passages, and I read parts of the above. The phrase I bolded really grabbed me in this section of those pagans in Dante's "Limbo" who lived before Christ and are therefore not allowed into Purgatorio or Paradiso. They do not suffer like the outright, bawdy, rapacious, lying, and greedy sinners of the Christian era do in the lower tiers of the Inferno (including, as some Protestants like to point out, a couple of popes).  

With all the discussion, artistic, theological, and historical, about Christopher Nolan's film version of The Odyssey, I recommend also Russell Moore's article https://www.christianitytoday.com/2026/07/why-christopher-nolan-odyssey-haunts-us-right-now/