The correct options are:
- to encourage his readers to lead virtuous lives
- to define and explain the moral order of Christianity
The first part of the Divine Comedy, "Hell" describes how Dante is lost in a dark forest in his middle age and enters a cave at the foot of Mount Zion, near Jerusalem. Three allegorical animals come to him: a panther, a she-wolf and a lion. These animals represent the sins that can attack Dante. The panther represents lust and the city of Florence that has exiled him. The wolf is, according to the commentators, the sin of greed, and beyond this the temporal power of the Pope in Rome. The lion represents the pride, and the power of France, which sought to dominate Italy. Then the author's descent into Hell is narrated, accompanied by the Latin poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid, whom Dante admired, and who in the Middle Ages had a curious fame as a magician. Accompanied by his teacher and guide, he descends to Hell, which is shaped like a cone with the point down and the nine circles he possessed, in which the condemned are subject to punishment, according to the gravity of the sins committed in life. On the doors one can notice: "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate / Whoever enters here, abandon all hope". Then they go to the circle of limbo, where the innocent souls of those who worked well are found, but they did not know the message of Jesus Christ because they were born before him. These souls do not suffer, but they can not participate in Paradise. There he finds a group of five great poets, among whom he is accepted as the sixth.
