[Thunder] They had arrived at the Gates of Hell.

Carved into the rock above the menacing entrance, barely legible in the gloom, was a fearsome inscription.

[Thunder] Narrator as Dante: Through me the way into the suffering city, through me the way to the eternal pain, through me the way that runs among the lost.

Abandon all hope-- you who enter here.

♪ [Distant people screaming] ♪ Bruscagli: Inferno is a timeless place.

Nothing changes.

People don't move around.

There is not even the physical possibility of realizing the passing of time because it's a place of absolute darkness and absolute, total desperation.

[Distant screaming continues] Narrator: In the dark and turbid air, they could just make out the dismal forms of a vast multitude of anguished souls circling endlessly.

They were the defeated shades of the uncommitted, Virgil explained to his terrified companion, those who had lived without praise or disgrace or conviction of any kind, and who were now barred alike from Heaven and the depths of Hell.

Beyond these miserable shades, an even larger horde of souls pressed against the bank of a great river-- the river Acheron.

[Boat creaking] Narrator as Dante: And here, advancing toward us in a boat, an aged man--his hair was white with years-- was shouting: "Woe to you, "corrupted souls!

"Forget your hope "of ever seeing Heaven: "I come to lead you "to the other shore, "to the eternal dark, "to fire and frost.

"And you "approaching there, "you living soul, "keep well away from these-- they are the dead."

♪