Summary

Dante and Virgil arrive at the gate of hell. Above the gate, there is an
inscription on the lintel. The inscription says that this is the way to the city of
desolation and eternal sorrow. It says that God, moved by justice, made the gate
and tells all those who pass through it to abandon all hope. Virgil comforts the
scared Dante and tells him not to fear.
As they enter hell, Dante hears shrieks, shouts, screams, and lamentations
filling the air. He asks Virgil who these suffering people are, and Virgil replies that
they are people who were neither good nor evil in life. Together with the angels who
sided with neither God nor Satan in their war, they dwell here at the edge of hell,
rejected by both heaven and hell.
Dante sees these neutral souls, who committed neither to evil nor to good,
chasing after a blank banner. They are naked and continually stung by wasps and
hornets until they bleed. Worms consume the blood and tears they shed. Dante and
Virgil then come to a river, with a crowd of people waiting at the riverbank. Virgil
identifies the river as Acheron and as they approach, an old man named Charon
comes near with a boat, to ferry souls across the river into hell.
Charon tells the souls waiting by the river to despair and not hope for
heaven. When he sees Dante, he tells him to leave, refusing to ferry across a living
man. He tells Dante that this is not his path. But Virgil tells Charon that it is God's
will for Dante to pass through hell while living. Charon relents, and begins rounding
up the souls due for hell, whom Dante observes chattering with fear and cursing
their fortune.
Virgil tells Dante that these souls are all the people who have died under
God's wrath, and that it is thus good that Charon told Dante this is not his path, as
good souls do not come this way. Suddenly, there is a great earthquake, and Dante
is so terrified that he faints.

Analysis
The inscription's warning defines hell as a place of hopeless suffering and
punishment, but nonetheless created out of divine justice. Dante, though, does
have hope and is miraculously able to go through hell while still a living, earthly
soul.
Being pious is more than a matter of simply not sinning. As these noncommittal souls show, one must actively practice virtue and side oneself with God.
The neutral souls receive a fitting punishment in hell: since they backed no
clear side, they follow a banner that is blank, supporting no clear leader, and run
back and forth with no direction. The idea of a fitting punishment is a crucial
component of Dante's sense of divine justice, whereby punishment completes and
perfects sin. Charon is a character from pagan mythology whom Dante incorporates
into his Christian hell.
Charon is confused by Dante's transgressing the boundary between the
worlds of the living and the dead. Virgil convinces him to ferry Dante across the
river, though, using only the power of his words, thereby relating the facts of God's
will just as Dante is relating the details of hell.

Virgil hints that Dante is a good soul, but still has a long way to go (literally
and figuratively) in becoming a truly virtuous, pious person. At this early stage in his
journey, Dante is still easily susceptible to fear at the instruments of God's justice.