Dante's Inferno:Canto V

Love, Lust, infinite passions and desires. Drama reigns king in here, the second circle of hell!

Antonello

Oct 26, 2024 — 7 min read

Gustave Doré’s illustration of Inferno. Plate XIV: Canto V, a hurricane of souls.

Love, Lust, infinite passions and desires. Drama reigns king in here, the second circle of hell!

Hello fellow readers, if you made it this far, you’re in for a bumpy ride as we are now in the real Inferno!

The two poets have just left the LIMBO, the first circle of the infernal depths, to move onto the second circle, belonging to sinners fallen prey to lust and incontinence (no, not your bowel one).

I can’t help but feel close to this canto, because in one way or another, we have all experienced lust (a few notable exceptions are maybe the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis?).

So, taking from Canto IV, Dante moves on to the second circle:

So I descended from the first enclosure
down to the second circle, that which girdles
less space but grief more great, that goads to weeping.

Line 1–3 (tr. Mandelbaum, Inferno: Canto 5)

A terrifying Judge

Right here, we meet someone I honestly would’ve never imagined in a million years.

Gustave Dore illustration of Dante’s Inferno. Plate XIII: Canto V: Minos judges the sinners.

I’m talking about Minos, King of Crete, son of Europa and Zeus (I know, he has lots of kids).

He is the infernal judge, who listens to confessions of the damned souls and indicates to them which Circle they are destined for; twisting his very long tail around the body as many times as there are Circles that the damned must descend.

As soon as he sees that Dante is alive, he harshly addresses him and warns him not to trust Virgil, since exiting Hell is not as easy as entering. Virgil silences him by reminding him that Dante’s journey was wanted by God.

And guess how Virgil does that? exactly in the same way he did with Charon in Canto III:

For this is willed where all is possible

that is willed there. And so demand no more.

Line 23–24, Canto V (tr. Robin Kirkpatrick, Penguin Readers)

The Lustful tenants

Having passed Minos, Alighieri finds himself in a dark place, where a terrible storm blows incessantly, dragging the damned and throwing them from one side of the Circle to the other.

When these spirits arrive in front of a “ruin”, they emit cries and moans and blaspheme God. Dante immediately understands that they are the lustful ones, who fly through the air forming a large crowd similar to starlings when they fly in the sky.

Dante asks the Roman poet who are these souls and few notable ones are mentioned:

Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen (wife of Menelaus), Achilles, Paris, and Tristan, in the company of more than a thousand other souls.

Gossip can last centuries

Surely many of you have heard many of the previous names apart from one, Semiramis.

Semiramis Receiving Word of the Revolt of Babylon, by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, 1624 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

I had to do some research to find out that she was the queen of Assyrians, during the XIV (14th) century BC. The sources Dante has at hand depend upon Roman historian “Paolo Orosio” (AKA Orosius), a disciple of Saint Augustine and vital for the historic culture of Alighieri.

He writes about her that:

She was the most cruel and dissolute woman of the world

(Volume 2 of Paulus Orosius “Historiae Adversus Paganos”)

Semiramis changed the law of her realm to legitimize her own incestuous relationship with her son, who eventually assassinated her. If you think she was the only one to be that lunatic, have a look at Cleopatra!

What a time to be alive! After hearing all these names, Dante is struck by deep anguish and almost gets lost.

Paolo and Francesca

Dante notices that two of these souls are flying together and expresses a desire to speak with them. Virgil agrees and invites Dante to call them, which the poet does with an appeal full of passion.

The two spirits detach themselves from the host of souls and fly towards him, like two doves going towards the nest: they are a man and a woman, and the latter turns to Dante thanking him for the pity he shows towards them.

Then she introduces herself (Francesca), saying that she was born in Ravenna and that she was linked in life by an indissoluble love with the man who is still with her in death (Paolo); they were both murdered and the Caina, the area of the IX Circle where traitors of relatives are punished, awaits their killer.

Dante wants to know more, with sadness and a good heart asks what happened, so the woman replies:

There is no greater sorrow
than thinking back upon a happy time,
in misery.

Line 121–123 (tr. Mandelbaum, Inferno: Canto 5)

What a powerful line to start with and one that probably connects with many of us!

Francesca tells the poet that one day she was reading a book with Paolo for fun, which talked about Lancelot and Queen Guinevere. Reading had led them to look for each other several times and had made them pale. When they read the point where the kiss of the two lovers was described, they too kissed and stopped reading the book, which acted as a medium for their love relationship.

The Lovers’ Whirlwind, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, William Blake — The Lovers’ Whirlwind, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta by William Blake

Paolo cries in the background and Dante is overwhelmed by emotions, thus concluding the Canto with him fainting. (again?! get a grip man!)

If you are interested in the historical context and why Paolo is crying, read the note below, otherwise you can skip to the next paragraph.

(Francesca was the daughter of the lord of Ravenna, a city-state at war with Rimini, a rival power in northern Italy. To secure peace, Francesca’s father entered into an alliance with Rimini’s leaders, agreeing to marry his daughter to their heir apparent, Giovanni. The union was an unhappy one: Francesca fell in love with her husband’s younger brother, Paolo, and when Giovanni discovered their affair, he killed them both in a rage.)

Romantic Knights, Love Poetry and Notes

The mention of Lancelot and Guinevere is significant because it connects Francesca and Paolo’s story to the broader theme of illicit love in literature and legend.

Lancelot and Guinevere’s adulterous love is a well-known tale of forbidden passion, and by referencing it, Dante underscores the timeless and universal nature of the struggle between love and lust. It serves as a cautionary reminder of how stories can both inspire and corrupt.

Sinners here become romantic knights, drawing character into rose-tinted reverie. We can see though that Dante struggles, as he insists that love and moral integrity are identical, one thing.

But we can read in between the lines that this love, which dominates the Canto and overwhelms Paolo and Francesca, is not what brings the human being into happiness.

This love can only bring death (as explained above). The idea of love as fatality, or force to which is useless to go against, is clearly opposed by Alighieri, in favour of free will.

Ending here now, I have a question for you dear reader.

Are we able to resist this dangerous love through free will? ( I wonder what my philosophers friends Castalian Stream and Edward Breen think of this).