Second Circle
The Second Circle of Hell is the first true place of punishment within Dante Alighieri's Inferno, a realm where the sin of incontinence—specifically, the sin of lust—receives its eternal sentence. It is here that the pilgrim Dante, guided by Virgil, first witnesses the direct application of divine justice upon the damned, encountering a landscape of perpetual darkness and violent wind that serves as both torment and symbol for those who allowed their passions to rule their reason.
Structure and Guardianship
The Second Circle is smaller in circumference than the First Circle, Limbo, but it contains far greater suffering, a place that "goads to wailing." Its entrance is presided over by Minos, the infernal judge, who snarls horribly as he examines the transgressions of each arriving soul. Minos does not merely receive the damned; he actively judges them, wrapping his tail around himself as many times as the circle to which the soul must be consigned. When Dante and Virgil arrive, Minos interrupts his office to warn the living man, saying, "Look how thou enterest, and in whom thou trustest; Let not the portal's amplitude deceive thee." Virgil silences him with the same formula used against Charon, declaring the journey to be fated. The circle itself is a place "mute of all light," which bellows like the sea in a tempest when combated by opposing winds.
The Punishment of the Lustful
The defining torment of the Second Circle is the infernal hurricane, a blast that "never rests" and hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine, whirling them round and smiting them without mercy. The souls are driven "hither, thither, downward, upward" by the wind, and they have no hope of repose, not even of lesser pain. When they arrive before the precipice, they shriek, lament, and blaspheme the divine power. Dante compares their flight to that of starlings in the cold season, borne on in large, full bands, and to cranes going chanting forth their lays, making a long line of themselves in the air. Virgil explains that these are the "carnal malefactors" who subjugate reason to appetite.
The Notable Souls
Virgil identifies several famous figures among the multitude of the lustful. The first is Semiramis, the empress of many languages, who was so abandoned to sensual vices that she made lust licit in her law to remove the blame from herself. Next is Dido, who killed herself for love and broke faith with the ashes of her husband Sichaeus. Then comes Cleopatra, described as "the voluptuous." Dante also sees Helen of Troy, for whom so many ruthless seasons revolved; the great Achilles, who at the last hour combated with Love; Paris; and Tristan. Virgil names more than a thousand shades, all of whom Love had separated from their life.
The Story of Paolo and Francesca
The most poignant encounter in the Second Circle is with the souls of Francesca da Rimini and her lover Paolo. Dante notices two spirits who go together and seem light upon the wind, and he asks to speak with them. They approach like turtle-doves called by desire, and Francesca speaks for them both. She describes her birthplace on the sea-shore where the Po descends, and then explains how love seized her and Paolo. She says, "Love, that on gentle heart doth swiftly seize, Seized this man for the person beautiful That was ta'en from me, and still the mode offends me. Love, that exempts no one beloved from loving, Seized me with pleasure of this man so strongly, That, as thou seest, it doth not yet desert me; Love has conducted us unto one death." When Dante asks how they came to know their desires, Francesca recounts reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere together, alone and without fear. At the point where the knight kisses the queen, Paolo, trembling, kissed Francesca on the mouth. She concludes, "Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it. That day no farther did we read therein." As she speaks, Paolo weeps so bitterly that Dante, overcome with pity, swoons and falls "even as a dead body falls."
