Through thirty-four cantos, Dante travels through the nine rings of Hell, guided by the ever-wise Virgil. He has viewed those lukewarm souls outside the gates of Hell. Also, he has seen the virtuous pagans in Limbo alongside the lustful, gluttons, avaricious, wrathful, heretics, violent, fraudulent, and traitorous. Among the sinners, he has witnessed their punishments and seen the destruction that their earthly actions have heaped upon them in the afterlife. Finally, he has come to the end of his journey through Hell. Having passed Satan, the lowest sinner in Hell, Virgil leads Dante towards the other side of the center of the earth, the side that leads to Purgatory.
I thought the very last few lines of Inferno incredibly interesting. "Upon this hidden path my guide and I / entered, to go back to the world of light, / and without any care to rest at ease, / He first and I behind, we climbed so high / that through a small round opening I saw / some of the turning beauties of the sky. / And we came out to see, once more, the stars," (34.133-139). So, after everything that he has experienced in Hell, the first thing that Dante notes upon entering the outside world is the stars. Not even while lost in the wood could Dante see the stars up above him. The only heavenly light that he could see were rays of the sun from behind the hill he was attempting to scale. Now though, he is again under the light and blessing of Heaven. Now that he has passed through the trials of Hell, he can once again move under the grace of God and pursue the glory of Paradise.
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