Dante-the-pilgrim turns from the sure judge Minos and discovers the hellish hurricane that is the punishment of the lustful, the souls mercilessly blown around this second circle of hell.

The INFERNO is a constant surprise. We should expect no less, given the sin of lust. In this passage, we discover a double simile that sets up the problems to come in the canto. Who are the lustful? And what is the root nature of their sin?

As always, if you click the “notes” button in the player and scroll down the page, you’ll see a much fuller description of this episode of the podcast and this passage from INFERNO

Here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto V, Lines 25 - 51:

Now I begin to feel the note of sadness.

Now I came to a place

Where a great wailing knocks against me,

 

I came to a place where light itself is mute,

A place that roars like the sea in a hurricane

When conflicting winds slam against each other.

 

The hellish whirlwind, never resting,

Drives the spirits on with its violence,

It tortures them, turning and bashing them.

 

When they are driven up to a ruined outcropping,

They shriek, wail, and lament.

They even curse divine strength.

 

I understood that those tormented like this

Were the ones damned for their carnal sins,

Those who made reason bow down to lust.

 

And as in cold weather when the wings of starlings

Carry them aloft so that they crowd the air,

Just so does that wind carry those evil souls

 

Up and down, here and there,

Without any hope to comfort them,

Or any lessened sorrow, or even a place to light.

 

And like the cranes that go chanting their sad songs,

Making long lines up in the air,

Just so I saw them coming toward me, offering their cries,

 

Shades carried on by that blasting wind.

So I said, “Master, who are these people,

Whom the black wind so castigates?”