Dante's Theme

The most significant excerpt of the Inferno is what is inscribed above the Gates of Dis: “Through me you enter into the city of woes, through me you enter into eternal pain, through me you enter the population of loss. Justice moved my high maker, in power divine, wisdom supreme, love primal. No things were before me not eternal; eternal I remain. Abandon all hope, you who enter here” (III, 1-7). In this one quotation, Dante the poet set up the fact that his version of hell was created by justice and love and that each individual in hell was put in a particular level based on love and justice. Each level is full of sinners bound by similar transgressions. Many levels are formed by those who love something other than God to much, still there are other levels formed by the absence of love. The less love there is involved in the sin, the lower in hell the individual who committed the sin will be. Also, it is colder in the bottom levels of hell because God’s love diminishes the further down into hell one goes. Justice created Dante’s hell in the sense that every individual there had freewill to choose their actions and what they love. The punishments that their souls now reap were sown in the choices they made in human life. The excerpt over the Gates of Dis set up the whole theme for the poem—the love that the sinners had for something other than God and the justice that they deserve for their misplaced love.