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Name Date from the Inferno: Cantos V and XXXIV by Dante Alighieri Reading Warm-up B Read the following passage, paying special attention to the underlined words. Then, read it again, and complete the activities. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper. Dante depended greatly on ancient Greek mythology for his descriptions of hell in the Inferno. According to the Greeks, all of the dead—both good and evil—were fated to reside in a shadowy land referred to simply as the Underworld. The piteous, melancholy dead were ruled by Hades, the stern and relentless brother of Zeus, king of the gods. Greek mythology describes nine rivers in the underworld. The most famous of these are the Acheron, the Lethe, and the Styx. In the Inferno, Dante and Virgil are borne across the Acheron by the grim ferryman Charon, the son of Erebus and Nyx. The Greeks believed that Charon would be so vexed if he were not paid for his services that he would refuse to row, so they placed a coin in the mouth of everyone who died. This money allowed the soul or shade to enter the underworld. Although Charon was the principal guardian of the Underworld, he was not alone. Other myths told of Cerberus, a fearsome, three-headed watchdog whose tail had the scaly texture of a dragon. In Hercules’ twelfth and final labor, the hero captured Cerberus. Lethe was the Underworld river of forgetfulness. The Greeks believed that anyone who drank from this river would lose any memory of his or her past existence. By divine decree, the gods swore their most sacred oaths by the water of the Styx. If any blemish of perjury stained such an oath, a god would suffer exile from divine society for nine years. Another set of ancient myths about the afterlife told of Elysium, or the Elysian fields, where heroes who had lived virtuously were rewarded with bliss after death. Originally, Elysium was located at the ends of the earth. Later, beliefs about this region converged, blending with popular ideas of the Underworld. Unit 5 Resources: From Decay to Rebirth 1. Underline the word that gives a clue to the meaning of piteous. If flowers were in a piteous condition, what would they look like? 2. Underline the words that hint at the meaning of borne. What word, consisting of the word borne, describes an airplane in flight? 3. Circle the words that describe what would cause Charon to become vexed. Explain how a vexed person might behave. 4. Underline the words that describe the tail’s texture. Which of the five senses would you use to learn about the texture of something? 5. What is a synonym for decree? Use decree in a sentence of your own. 6. Circle the word that gives a good clue to the meaning of blemish. Use blemish in a sentence of your own. 7. Underline the words that hint at the meaning of bliss. Use a word that is the opposite of bliss in an original sentence. 8. Underline the word that hints at the meaning of converged. What is an antonym of converged? © Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Pearson Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. 71