Dante Canto 5

Favorite Quote - "There Minos sits, grinning, grotesque, and hale. He examines each lost soul as it arrives and delivers his verdict with his coiling tail"(207).

Overview-In this canto the narrator comes across Minos. Minos listens to your tale and judges to what circle of hell one will be banished to. Very much like the angel Saint Peter who waits at the gates of heaven when you die. He decides whether you are allowed in or not. The narrator has some trouble getting in but Virgil helps him out. Once inside they meet up with Cleopatra, Paris and others and we hear their stories of how they were sent to hell. The narrator asks Francesca if he can hear her tale and feels great pity for her once she tells him it.

Figurative language-
"the voice of the damned rose in a bestial moan" (207)
"Now the choir of anguish, like a wound"(207)
"roaring on the naked dark like seas wracked by a war of winds"(207)
"As mating doves that love calls to their nest glide through the air with motionless raised wings"(209)
"Francesca, what you suffer here melts me to tears of pity and pain"(209)
"I fell, like a corpse might fall, to the dead floor of hell"(210)


I really found the character of Minos (see image) although I thought he was some type of demon and not a what looks like a human with a snake's tail. The first two times I read the canto I was really confused and had no idea what was going on, the third time it became clear. I do not understand why the protagonist felt so much pity for Francesca, maybe I missed the reason she was in hell because I don't know what it is. Anyways, if she is in hell there must be a reason, why all the pity? From this canto one can see that Dante's hell is nothing like that of No Exit's. This is more the stereotypical hell one would see in Christianity however with some Greek mythology thrown in. Personally, both seem terrible and I don't know which one I'd prefer to be in. Most likely the Inferno's just because the stress of being with two counterparts of myself would be too much to handle.