Canto 1                      

In Dante’s Inferno, Dante wanders lost in the woods. He sees the Mountain of Purgatory, but a lion, wolf, and leopard block his path. The Roman poet, Virgil, arrives to guide him to the mountain, but they must go through the nine rings of Hell first. This is reinterpreted as a journey through the Twin Towers on 9/11, and the journey down is here toward Paradise (the light.) Here, Dante is 9/11 hero, Welles Crowther, and Virgil is Phillipe Petit, who walked on a tightrope between the towers. Beatrice, Dante’s muse, is The Statue of Liberty. Welles was an equities trader on the 104th floor of South Tower. He found the one operable staircase and rescued between 10 and 20 people. He was known as “The Man in the Red Bandana.” He also played lacrosse and hockey at B.U., and he was a volunteer fireman as a teen. His father discovered after his death that he had filled out an application with the Fire Department.

Canto 2

Compare to Dante’s Canto 34 in the Ninth and final Circle of Hell in Dante is here Canto 2 in the Ninth Square (as the towers are square.) The opening inscription on the gates of Hell is here reinterpreted. Satan chomps three villains from history – Judas, Brutus, and Cassius - all in a frozen lake, but here Satan and the five are villains from 9/11 (and five are over in North Tower, as they hit that,) and the frozen lake is the air conditioning with its coolant. Dante has each circle populated by sinners who are punished for sins, but here only the evil doers are sinners; the victims here are blameless.

Canto 3

This translates to Dante’s eighth circle, but there is no reinterpretation of events there. Welles, guided by Petite, rescue victims in South Tower. The “evil bird” is American Airlines Flight 11 (Evil only because it has been hijacked.) Floor 78 in The South Tower had 200 people waiting for the elevators to arrive. Flight 77 crashed directly into them, causing the worst event of violence of the day.

Canto 4

Still the eighth square. In The Inferno, this circle is composed of 10 canyons called The Evil Pouches, that the two have to cross. In The North Tower, these are the collapsed stairwells. Boiling tar, a punishment, here is burning fuel falling down from the destroyed planes. None of The Inferno’s sins transfer here, yet rash choices are accounted for with compassion and understanding. 

Canto 5

This is equivalent to The Inferno’s Seventh Circle of Hell, where Harpies (Greek mythological spirits with heads of women and bodies of birds, who punish sinners, now transformed into trees) are transposed into helicopters, who “torment” trapped people. The torment is that they cannot land on the roofs due to heat and smoke.

Canto 6

This loosely corresponds to Dante’s Canto 6. The Epicureans, who like life’s simple pleasures, are here office workers who simply want to live. The shouting voice from a sepulchre is here, the head of security in The North Tower, who rallied evacuees with a bullhorn. The waterfall in Dante is jet fuel pouring down the stairwell, and this was a true tale. People perished in elevators also. The minotaur becomes the head villain, and the gorgon is a fireball.

Canto 7

Comparable to The Inferno’s fifth circle of Hell. Phlygeas, the angry ferrymen who ferries souls across The River Styx to the City of Dis, is now a helicopter pilot who cannot pick up survivors. The Furies, who rip apart sinners for their wrath, are taken up by the terrorists. While there are no sinners in this poem, some fill in for those roles, such as the sullen man.

Canto 8

Like The Inferno’s fourth circle, but not much is redirected here, except for the people crashing into each other (here evacuees descending,) and those in who have to roll wheels to atone for sins. Here, they are heroes in wheelchairs and their helpers. The slough becomes the mound that Brian Clark helps Stanley Pranmaith climb – one of the greatest stories. Anger is here not a sin, but a propellant to save a life.

Canto 9

Likened to Dante’s third circle, the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who guards the damned, shifts into prophesies of the post-9/11 U.S.A., like portents of Florence in The Inferno. 

Canto 10

Second Circle, but no correlation to The Inferno, but tales of other heroes, including Port Authority Workers, and firefighters.

Canto 11

No correlation to Dante. George Willig climbed up the end pier of a tower in 1977 by using the window-washing groove. Now, in desperation, one man leads a few by ‘chimney climbing’ down. He gets 20 stories, before the South Tower collapses and, presumably, takes him with it. He may have been an experienced rock climber.

Canto 12

See Dante’s first circle – Limbo. The other ferryman, Charon – here, a fireman – will take Welles and Petite across the River Acheron – here the lobby. In Dante it is to Purgatory Mountain, but here it is only to life itself. The modern Gothic tracery of the lobby windows remind Petite of his walk across the towers of Notre Dame. The Tall Ships prophecy refers to the restaurant by that name in the Marriott Hotel, which collapsed, a few survived. The ones in Limbo forever chasing a banner and beset by creatures are here the terrorists who didn’t pass flight school, forever chasing a plane. There are various classical references not in Dante.

Canto 13

Not Dante inspired.