Editing Inferno (Dante) (section)

===Second Circle (Lust)===
[[File:Inferno Canto 5 line 4 Minos.jpg|thumb|left|Gustave Doré's depiction of [[Minos]] judging sinners at the start of Canto V]]

'''''Canto V'''''
<br>
Dante and Virgil leave Limbo and enter the Second Circle – the first of the circles of Incontinence – where the punishments of Hell proper begin. It is described as "a part where no thing gleams".<ref>''in parte ove non è che luca'' (''Inferno'', Canto IV, line 151, Mandelbaum translation.)</ref> They find their way hindered by the serpentine [[Minos]], who judges all of those condemned for active, deliberately willed sin to one of the lower circles. Minos sentences each soul to its torment by wrapping his tail around himself a corresponding number of times. Virgil rebukes Minos, and he and Dante continue on.

In the second circle of Hell are those overcome by [[lust]]. These "carnal malefactors"<ref>''i peccator carnali'' (''Inferno'', Canto V, line 38, Longfellow translation.)</ref> are condemned for allowing their appetites to sway their reason. These souls are buffeted back and forth by the terrible winds of a violent storm, without rest. This symbolizes the power of lust to blow needlessly and aimlessly: "as the lovers drifted into self-indulgence and were carried away by their passions, so now they drift for ever. The bright, voluptuous sin is now seen as it is – a howling darkness of helpless discomfort."<ref name=sayers101>Dorothy L. Sayers, ''Hell'', notes on Canto V, p. 101–102</ref> Since lust involves mutual indulgence and is not, therefore, completely self-centered, Dante deems it the least heinous of the sins and its punishment is the most benign within Hell proper.<ref name=sayers101/><ref>John Ciardi, ''Inferno'', notes on Canto V, p. 51</ref> The "ruined slope"<ref>''la ruina'' (''Inferno'', Canto V, line 34, Mandelbaum translation.)</ref> in this circle is thought to be a reference to the earthquake that occurred after the death of Christ.<ref>John Yueh-Han Yieh, ''One Teacher: Jesus' Teaching Role in Matthew's Gospel Report'' (Walter de Gruyter, 2005) p. 65; Robert Walter Funk, ''The acts of Jesus: the search for the authentic deeds of Jesus'' (Harper San Francisco, 1998) pp. 129–270.</ref>
[[File:Gianciotto Discovers Paolo and Francesca Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.jpg|upright|right|thumb|''Gianciotto Discovers Paolo and Francesca'' by [[Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres]]]]

In this circle, Dante sees [[Semiramis]], [[Dido (Queen of Carthage)|Dido]], [[Cleopatra]], [[Helen of Troy]], [[Paris (mythology)|Paris]], [[Achilles]], [[Tristan]], and many others who were overcome by sexual love during their life. Dante comes across [[Francesca da Rimini]], who married the deformed [[Giovanni Malatesta]] (also known as "Gianciotto") for political purposes but fell in love with his younger brother [[Paolo Malatesta]]; the two began to carry on an [[Adultery|adulterous]] affair. Sometime between 1283 and 1286, Giovanni surprised them together in Francesca's bedroom and violently stabbed them both to death. Francesca explains:

<blockquote><poem>
Love, which in gentlest hearts will soonest bloom
  seized my lover with passion for that sweet body
  from which I was torn unshriven to my doom.
Love, which permits no loved one not to love,
  took me so strongly with delight in him
  that we are one in Hell, as we were above.
Love led us to one death. In the depths of Hell
  [[Inferno (Dante)#Ninth Circle (Treachery)|Caïna]] waits for [[Giovanni Malatesta|him who took our lives]]."
  This was the piteous tale they stopped to tell.<ref>''Inferno'', Canto V, lines 100–108, Ciardi translation.</ref>
</poem></blockquote>

Francesca further reports that she and Paolo yielded to their love when reading the story of the adultery between [[Lancelot]] and [[Guinevere]] in the Old French romance ''[[Lancelot-Grail|Lancelot du Lac]]''. Francesca says, "''Galeotto fu 'l libro e chi lo scrisse''".<ref>''Inferno'' Canto V, line 137</ref> The word "Galeotto" means "[[Procuring (prostitution)|pander]]" but is also the Italian term for [[Galehaut|Gallehaut]], who acted as an intermediary between Lancelot and Guinevere, encouraging them on to love. John Ciardi renders line 137 as "That book, and he who wrote it, was a pander."<ref>''Inferno'', line 137, Ciardi translation.</ref> Inspired by Dante, author [[Giovanni Boccaccio]] invoked the name ''Prencipe Galeotto'' in the alternative title to ''[[The Decameron]]'', a 14th-century collection of novellas. The English poet [[John Keats]], in his sonnet "On a Dream", imagines what Dante does not give us, the point of view of Paolo:

<blockquote>
... But to that second circle of sad hell,<br>
Where 'mid the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw<br>
Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell<br>
Their sorrows. Pale were the sweet lips I saw,<br>
Pale were the lips I kiss'd, and fair the form<br>
I floated with, about that melancholy storm.<ref>[[John Keats]], ''[http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/keats/john/poems/on-a-dream.html On a Dream]''.</ref>
</blockquote>

As he did at the end of Canto III, Dante – overcome by pity and anguish – describes his swoon: "I fainted, as if I had met my death. / And then I fell as a dead body falls"<ref>''Inferno'', Canto V, lines 141–142, Mandelbaum translation.</ref>

{{Clear}}