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If I believed that my reply were made to one who to the world would e’er return, this flame without more flickering would stand still.
Guido da MontefeltroInferno · Canto XXVII.1
Circle 8: Fraud
Canto 27 of 34 — 79% descent
In the same ditch as Ulysses, another flame speaks: Guido da Montefeltro, the military strategist who became a Franciscan friar but was lured back into sin by Pope Boniface VIII. He tells his story only because he assumes Dante can never return to report it. He was wrong.
Why This Matters
T.S. Eliot used this as the epigraph to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Guido speaks only because he believes no one leaves Hell alive.
secrecydamnationconfession
Dante and Virgil with Guido da Montefeltro
Priamo della Quercia, 1444 · Public Domain