�Consider your origin; you were not born to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.�

             The Divine Comedy

This quote from The Divine Comedy can easily be connected to Cantos twenty one through twenty six, as well as the rest of the Inferno. Virgil takes Dante through Hell to, as Virgil explains to Malacoda, �show another this dread state� (185). He must see the �brutes� that the demons and the fiends are in order to better understand the sorrow and pain present in Hell. When Virgil and Dante find that the bridge they seek to cross no longer exists, they are sent in search of another way over the next ditch to reach the Sixth Bolgia. They are sent with a group of demons to protect them in their search. Dante cowers away from the brutes of fiends that surround him. �I pressed the whole of my body against my Guide and not for an instant did I take my eyes from those black fiends who scowled on every side.� (186)  It is natural and pure that Dante is afraid of these fiends that lurk around him in their hellish manner. Dante has never been exposed to such �brutes� because he was not supposed to. He was supposed to �follow virtue and knowledge� throughout his life and not know of brutes.

When Dante and Virgil finally reach the Sixth Bolgia in circle eight, the demons leave them to continue their travel deeper into hell. They are left vulnerable to fiends who begin to hunt them. �These Fiends, through us, have been made ridiculous, and have suffered insult and injury of a kind to make them smart. Unless we take good care-now rage is added to their natural spleen-they will hunt us down as greyhounds hunt the hare.� (198) The Fiends once were smart and knowledgeable but now with hell as their fuel they are turned into vicious brutes that will hunt any creature down until they catch them, much like a greyhound would a hare. Through the good people, they were once knowledgeable but now they are the antitheses to what God intended for them.

Also in Cantos twenty three, still being persued by the Fiends, a different kind of connection to this quote from The Divine Comedy can be made. Running from the Fiends, Virgil takes Dante in his arms and jumps down an embankment and slides to safety. �my Guide and Master bore me on his breast, as if I were not a companion, but a son. And the soles of his feet had hardly come to rest on the bed of the depth below�� (199) I found a different interpretation for this passage which also compares directly to the quote that I chose. Dante was not born to live like a brute, he was supposed to become knowledgeable and virtuous. Maybe he was not meant to do this on his own. If captured by the Fiends, Virgil would most likely be able to escape, being who he is, but who knows what would have happened to the flesh and blood Dante. Maybe it�s not only that you shouldn�t live your lives like brutes, but you must also be shielded from brutes, or be strong enough to protect yourself from them. And maybe you cannot live a knowledgeable and virtuous life without the aid and protection from those who care for you. When Virgil holds Dante as if he�s his son, close to his chest protecting him from the horrors of hell, I saw a totally different relationship between Dante and Virgil. Virgil must guide Dante safely through hell, but maybe he is guiding him to a virtuous and knowledgeable life as well.