The second circle of hell is depicted in Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy. Inferno tells the story of Dante's journey through a vision of the Christian hell ordered into nine circles corresponding to classifications of sin; the second circle represents the sin of lust, where the lustful are punished by being buffeted within an endless tempest.
The circle of lust introduces Dante's depiction of King Minos, the judge of hell; this portrayal derives from the role of Minos in the Greek underworld in the works of Virgil and Homer. Dante also depicts a number of historical and mythological figures within the second circle, although chief among these are Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, murdered lovers whose story was well-known in Dante's time. Malatesta and da Rimini have since been the focus of academic interpretation and the inspiration for other works of art.
Punishment of the sinners in the second circle of hell is an example of Dantean contrapasso. Inspired jointly by the biblical Old Testament and the works of ancient Roman writers, contrapasso is a recurring theme in the Divine Comedy, in which a soul's fate in the afterlife mirrors the sins committed in life; here the restless, unreasoning nature of lust results in souls cast about in a restless, unreasoning wind.
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