Inferno: Canto 5 -- Circle 2

For those of you who have felt the injustice of limbo's being within the gate of perdition, where reside all virtuous men, women, and children who met their end without the beatific vision as their guide, take comfort in the torments described below, for these sins, while simple, have punishments multiplied. If the virtuous pagans are assigned to the Elysian fields of hopelessness as their only damnation, then at least they were placed there directly by G-d rather than by the infernal minion, Minos. It is here that we find the first judgment (the Last Judgment is yet to come even in Dante's cosmology, and he'll explicitly mention this often) of the damned. Minos, with his great tail, hears confessions, and, in infernal parody of all that is good (for hell can only ape), condemns the confessees to their appropriate place in hell rather than reconciling them with the sweetness and light of G-d's glory. This infernal reconciliation, in fact, is nothing more than the reaffirmation of G-d's eternal order, for, remember, a couple of cantos ago you saw the damned eagerly lined up along the river Acheron, yearning for their placement in the proper order of things even if it meant eternal damnation. G-d's hegemony is absolute, and Minos, a bestial (priestial) functionary of hell, is not exempt from his ordained responsibilities. (Today, that function would likely be remanded to a librarian whose every book must be returned to its proper place.)

Once past Minos, we find ourselves among the carnal -- their sin was the least of the sins damnation claims for it is merely the perversion of the natural love men and women ought to have for one another (we'll say nothing of the sodomites here, for their place is much lower, in deed, and for them, we must go down further). In lust, we lose sight of that natural love, and we focus all of our energies on the creation, rather than on the image of the creator within the beloved, and on the fleeting pleasures of sexual release rather than on the more constant pleasures of a holy and reciprocal union where the flesh of two becomes one. Dante, of course, is partial to lovers and accords them the least punishment in hell and the least penance in purgatory. After all, what he is writing in this Comedy is a love story dedicated to his muse, Beatrice, whom he had to follow to the grave with no hope ever of consummating anything other than the beauty of his own verses. Lovers' sin is light because it is the most innocent -- we see within another an image of G-d and we unwittingly debase it through an immoderation of the body (for those who wittingly debase the flesh of others, the 8th circle lashes them below).

In this circle, we find one of the most memorable and pitiable scenes ever composed in literature (as evidenced by the wealth of artistic dramatizations that have followed it through the centuries), that of Paulo and Francesca, whose adulterous affair was ended by her husband's sword since her lover's was too reticent to leave its sheath. In life, they were enjoying together a book (today, it would be a website) concerning the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere, and Francesca claims that he who wrote the book is the one responsible for her fall, for he was a pander and will be punished in his proper place.
The image here is of a tornado, two lovers pressed together yet unable to find joy in one another's company as they are whipped by the symbol of their passions as in life they allowed those passions to be their guide. That's the state of being of the lustful -- on earth, we who lust erode the image of G-d that we are meant to project as a lamp and reflect as a mirror. We mistake carnality for that which is more enduring, and we pursue that instead of the good. Dante sees this for what it is, and he swoons for the second (and final) time.

Now, as long as we're here, I might broach the question that all of you will ask eventually -- Paulo and Francesca are in hell for their lust because they were killed before they had a chance to repent. Those who were not killed in their sin and had the leisure to repent of it afterward make it all the way up the Mount. Could the accident of our states of being at the moment of our death be fickle enough to place us for an eternity without hope or with it? Could Minos instead of sentencing pause for a moment to counsel, to ask the sinners to be reconciled to G-d, to, in effect, assign some souls a steeper but more joyous path? In Dante, there is no hope of that, and Hamlet's resolve to kill Claudius in Act III, Scene iii, 77-100:

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that, (80)
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May; (85)
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him. And am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage? (90)
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At game, a-swearing, or about some act (95)
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black
As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

is very Dantean in its understanding of the power of prayer, which, for reasons appropriate enough, has been called the last refuge of the scoundrel.

S.