Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri. Alighieri was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. The poem's inventive visual sense of the afterlife is typical of the medieval worldview as it existed in the Western Church by the 14th century. Excerpt: "Day was departing, and the embrowned air Released the animals that are on earth From their fatigues; and I the only one Made myself ready to sustain the war, Both of the way and likewise of the woe, Which memory that errs not shall retrace. O Muses, O high genius, now assist me! O memory, that didst write down what I saw, Here thy nobility shall be manifest!"