Dante's Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Study Questions
1. What is the temperature like in Region ii?

2. What does Dante find in the lake beneath him?

3. What is Region ii called?

4. In Canto XXXII what is one of the shades eating that causes Dante horror?

5. One of the shades would not tell his name. How is Dante able to learn his name?

6. What is unusual about the tears of the shades in Region i?

7. Whose sin is more severe: traitors to country or traitors to kin?

8. What about the location of that sin in Hell enables one to know the answer to question 7?

9. Where does the land of Caina get its name?

10. Bocca tells Dante the names of others in the region. What does this tell you about Bocca’s repentance?

Answers
1. The temperature in Region ii is extremely cold.

2. Dante finds the heads and faces of shades in the lake beneath him.

3. Region ii is called Antenora.

4. One of the shades in the region is eating the man beside him.

5. Another shade calls the name of the shade unknown to Dante and Dante is able to learn the shade’s name.

6. The tears of the shades in Region i are frozen.

7. The sin of being unfaithful to one’s kin is not as severe as the sin of being unfaithful to one’s country.

8. One would know that being unfaithful to one’s country is more severe than being unfaithful to one’s kin since the prior sin is located lower in Hell.

9. The land of Caina gets its name from Cain, who killed his brother Abel; their story is in Genesis.

10. Bocca has not repented of his sin of being a traitor; he continues to betray those who are here in Hell by revealing their name.