Talking busily, the two wend their way through a forest of sighing spirits, until they approach a fire, around which dignified shades have gathered.  Informing Dante these are men of honored reputations, Virgil points out among them four mighty figures coming to meet them, and whispers they are Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan.  After conversing for a while with Virgil, these bards graciously welcome Dante as sixth in their poetic galaxy.  Talking of things which cannot be mentioned save in such exalted company, Dante walks on with them until he nears a castle girdled with sevenfold ramparts and moat.  Through seven consecutive portals the six poets pass on to a meadow, where Dante beholds all the creations of their brains, and meets Hector, Aeneas, Camilla, and Lucretia, as well as the philosophers, historians, and mathematicians who from time to time have appeared upon our globe.  Although Dante would fain have lingered here, his guide leads him on, and, as their four companions vanish, they two enter a place “where no light shines.”

Canto V. Stepping down from this circle to a lower one, Dante and Virgil reach the second circle of the Inferno, where all who lived unchaste lives are duly punished.  Smaller in circumference than the preceding circle,—­for Dante’s hell is shaped like a graduated funnel,—­this place is guarded by the judge Minos, who examines all newly arrived souls, and consigns them to their appointed circles by an equal number of convolutions in his tail.

  For when before him comes the ill-fated soul,
  It all confesses; and that judge severe
  Of sins, considering what place in hell
  Suits the transgression, with his tail so oft
  Himself encircles, as degrees beneath
  He dooms it to descend.

On beholding Dante, Minos speaks threateningly, but, when Virgil again explains they have been sent hither by a higher power, Minos too allows them to pass.  Increasing sounds of woe now strike Dante’s ear, until presently they attain the intensity of a deafening roar.  Next he perceives that the whirlwind, sweeping violently round this abyss, holds in its grasp innumerable spirits which are allowed no rest.  Like birds in a tempest they swirl past Dante, to whom Virgil hastily points out Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris, and Tristan, together with many others.

Obtaining permission to address two shades floating toward him, Dante learns that the man is the Paolo who fell in love with his sister-in-law, Francesca da Rimini.  Asked how she happened to fall, the female spirit, moaning there is no greater woe than to recall happy times in the midst of misery, adds that while she and Paolo read together the tale of Launcelot they suddenly realized they loved in the same way, and thus fell into the very sin described in this work, for “book and writer both were love’s purveyors.”  Scarcely has she confessed this when the wind, seizing Francesca and Paolo, again sweeps them on, and Dante, hearing their pitiful moans, swoons from compassion.