English Flashcards
Beatrice
One of the blessed in Heaven, Beatrice aids Dante’s journey by asking an angel to find Virgil and bid him guide Dante through Hell.
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini
A pair of lovers condemned to the Second Circle of Hell for an adulterous love affair that they began after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere.
Farinata
A Ghibelline political leader from Dante’s era who resides among the Heretics in the Sixth Circle of Hell.
Ulysses
The great hero of the Homeric epics The Iliad and the The Odyssey. Ulysses was a bold and cunning man who is now imprisoned in the Eighth Pouch of the Eighth Circle of Hell among those guilty of Spiritual Theft. Ulysses in the Inferno is ambitious, passionate, and manipulative. Although king of Ithaca, Ulysses in life wants nothing to do with the people there, including his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus, and he abandons everyone to sail westward until he reaches the end of the world. There, he hopes to “learn / of every human vice, and human worth.”
Ugolino
A traitor condemned to the Second Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell. Ugolino gnaws on the head of another damned traitor, Archbishop Ruggieri. When Ruggieri imprisoned Ugolino and his sons, denying them food, Ugolino was driven to eat the corpses of his starved sons.
Cato
Cato was a Roman political figure. In Purgatorio, Dante casts Cato as the guardian of the entrance to Purgatory, suggesting that, as a non-Christian, Cato wasn’t held accountable to Christian beliefs against suicide. Cato urges loitering souls to get on with their purgatorial journey.
Casella
Casella is a musician friend of Dante’s. He sings him a soothing song upon arriving in Purgatory.
Brunetto Latin
Distinguished scholar, beloved friend, and advisor to Dante.
Satan
Also called Lucifer, Dis, and Beelzebub, he is the “Emperor of Hell.”
