The Inferno of Dante Alighieri is one of the most recognizable classics of Western literature and theology. It tells of a poet’s journey into the depths of Hell, guided by the imperial laureate of human reason, Vergil. A worthy escort: he did confirm messianic prophecy in his Fourth Eclogue, nay? But’s that’s not [the] reason, for too few know that Dante’s grand scheme of the afterlife was merely a rearrangement of Vergil’s own concept, detailed in Book Six of the Aeneid. Its namesake hero harrowed Hell long before any Christian could “borrow” the myth and frighten generations of schoolchildren. 

Nine hundred and one Latin hexameters inspired a hundred cantos of Italian terza rima. My purpose is to reestablish this connection with an English translation of Aeneid VI into Dante’s own meter and rhyme. What modern ignorance of the classics has estranged shall be reunited through the power of poetry, and open people’s eyes to the unity and relativism of mythology, philosophy and religion, and what our present imaginations owe to antiquity’s tales.