This is the first of four volumes of "Sacred Verses." The entire work is an approximate modern adaptation of Dante's "Divine Comedy." In this volume a young man suffers a great loss in his life and in addition, the loss of innocence and certitude that is characteristic of youth. This leads him to seek meaning in the world and in his life by an exploration of the nature of the physical world. In the following volumes he will travel through the philosophy of the centuries, and then the entire history of the spiritual world. In each of these journeys he will have a mentor (for Dante these were Virgil and Beatrice). In this volume the mentor is Stephen Hawking, a pre-eminent modern physicist. In future volumes the young man ages as he seeks (and eventually finds) a resolution of his quest. This is the first, and being concerned with the physical world (without spiritual values) may be considered equivalent to the Inferno of Dante.