Throughout Dante’s journey through the Inferno, he experiences many emotions; pity being one of them. While Dante is the main one feeling these emotions towards the dammed souls he meets in Hell, there are some instances where Virgil also shares this emotion with him. Pity in the Inferno is usually something that is hard to come by being that everyone knows why they are in Hell and no one feels sorry for someone that has committed a sin, because it accomplishes nothing for anyone. Then Dante comes along and introduces pity, in various circles, of hell to some of the people he feels compassion towards.
In Canto V of the Inferno, Dante truly feels his first sense of pity in Hell. Francesca tells the story of her love affair with her brother-in-law, Paolo, and the sin that dammed them. I can well understand Dante’s overwhelming feeling of pity in this circle of Hell. It is the love
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Have you no sense of pity whatsoever?” (Canto XIII, lines 35-36). It can even be seen that Virgil feels some sense of pity for these souls who struggled on earth and are now trapped in this circle of Hell. Dante asks if Virgil will continue to ask this soul questions because “such pity chokes his heart” (Canto XIII, lines 81-84). Virgil responds by saying “That this man may fulfill generously what your words cry out for, imprisoned soul, may it please you to continue by telling us how a soul gets bound into these knots, and tell us, if you know, whether any soul might someday leave his branches”(Canto XIII, lines 85-90). Though Dante may be the one that displays pity more often throughout the Inferno, this canto of the story shows that Dante is not alone in feeling pity; even though Virgil recognizes the sins of these humans, he still pities their imprisoned