The First Circle: Limbo and the Noble Castle

Dante awakens to a heavy thunder and finds himself on the verge of the abysmal valley. Virgil leads him into the first circle, Limbo, where the only lamentations are sighs arising from sorrow without torment. Here dwell the virtuous pagans and unbaptized infants who lived before Christianity or without baptism. They are not punished but live in desire without hope. Virgil himself resides here. Dante sees a fire overcoming a hemisphere of darkness, and approaches a noble castle surrounded by seven walls and a fair rivulet. Within, he meets the great poets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan, who welcome him as one of their own. They enter the castle and see the mighty spirits of antiquity: Electra, Hector, Aeneas, Caesar, Camilla, and the philosophers Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and many others. This encounter establishes the dignity of classical virtue and reason, while also showing its ultimate limitation: without faith, even the noblest souls cannot attain salvation.