gans is interrupted at one point as the souls of the ancient poets Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan, with Virgil, do Dante the honor of taking him "as one of their own group, so that [he] was numbered sixth among such minds" (100). This encounter, rather immodestly, establishes Dante among the great poets and reassures the reader about his fitness to undertake such a large task as describing hell and heaven.
Section 3: As Dante and Virgil move to the second circle the relative peace of the first, where the inhabitants merely longed for God, is replaced by pain, terror, and anguish. Minos, the judge, examines each arrival and dispatches him or her to the appropriate place in hell. In the second circle Dante finds those guilty of sexual misconduct. This is the only circle in which women's names predominate and its most famous victims are Paolo and Francesca. Francesca tells the story of her infidelity with her brother-in-law and Dante reflects on the irony of "all those sweet thoughts, and oh, how much desiring" being the source of their downfall (113
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