Virgil leads Dante through the gates of Hell, marked by the haunting inscription “ABANDON ALL HOPE, YOU WHO ENTER HERE”. They enter the outlying region of Hell, the Ante-Inferno, where the souls who in life could not commit to either good or evil now must run in a futile chase after a blank banner, day after day, while hornets bite them and worms lap their blood. Dante witnesses their suffering with repugnance and pity.