�O human race born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou fall.�

The Divine Comedy

This quote directly connects to Cantos six through ten in The Inferno. It means that humans are supposed to go to heaven, but without wind, which possibly could be religion or faith, they would certainly go down to hell. In Cantos six Virgil and Dante travel into the six �circle� as Dante refers to it. They come upon Gluttons which are men who took the things God gave them and littered the great world they received with garbage. They received these gifts but did not use �wind� or perhaps religion to use these things and travel to paradise. �We made our way across the sodden mess of souls the rain beat down, and when our steps fell on a body, they sank through emptiness.� (66) As they passed through the Gluttons they would step on their souls and there would be nothing to step on. The gluttons were empty, and they had nothing to believe in without the �wind� that God once showed them and they disregarded. One may speculate that the gluttons were sprawled over the ground, as garbage that God didn�t want because they discarded the things God gave them on the ground.

Cantos seven explains the fourth �Circle� of Upper Hell. These people are the hoarders and the wasters. They had a lifestyle that revolved directly around money. There was no God in their day to day life. They disregarded God completely with their obsessions for objects that now don�t mean a thing. Virgil explains these sinners, �In the first life beneath the sun they were so skewed and squinteyed in their minds their misering or extravagance mocked all reason.�(73) This connects to the quote from The Divine Comedy because they had no wind under their wings. They focused on money, and materialistic things that they were not able to understand the reasoning of God and what God has given them. They were not able to rise to heaven with just the wind that God gave them. They slowly lost sight of what they were bound to do, go to heaven, until eventually they didn�t have a chance.

In Cantos eight, Virgil and Dante try to enter the metropolis of Hell but they are turned away by the lost souls that guard it. �Take heart. Nothing can take our passage from us when such a power has given warrant for it.� (83) This is the antithesis to the other two examples that I have given. This is Virgil telling Dante that God has told him his path is to reach heaven, even if it means going through hell first, and with the strength of the wind that God has given him, nothing can stop him. Dante, being a paradise bound man, does not live the life of a sinner and his faithfulness to his religion is enough wind to push him towards heaven. At this point and time it doesnt seem like there is any doubt that  Dante will reach paradise. He has not been thworted by any one creature or anything else that Virgil could not handle.