Canto III is the third chapter in Inferno in Dante’s The Divine Comedy. In this section, Dante reaches the gate of Hell and begins his journey through it. The signs on the gate reads “All hope abandon ye who ente
Inferno
Charon striking the souls into the boat
r here”.
Lamentations and moans pierced his ears as Dante slowly walked into Hell. Accompanying him is his Master. When Dante ask why do those souls lament so loudly, his master replied that those who go to hell have sinned on earth. They have escaped life through death but now ever even death cannot let them escape from hell.
“And after it there came so long a train
Of people, that I ne'er would have believed
That ever Death so many had undone”
Connection to The Waste Land[]
Perhaps Eliot is implying there’s no
Crowd on London Bridge
need for us to died to go hell, the city-life alone is a living hell itself. The old men (The Seven Old Men) walking in circle and the crowd that flocks over London Bridge are similar to the long train of souls waiting to be wiped onton Charon’s boat and send to the nether world.