Canto XXVI
Dante laments the dishonorable state of the city of Florence and hopes for a brighter future before moving on to the eighth chasm, which holds evil counselors. Dante reminds himself as the approach the next chasm that he must not obtain deliverance for himself and Florence through fraud. Within that chasm Dante sees numerous little fires that seem like fireflies on a summer night.
Each sinner is engulfed in a flame as the prophet Elijah was engulfed by the fire of the chariot that carried him away to heaven. One flame contains both Ulysses and Diomed who stole a statue, the Palladium, from the city of Troy. When they draw near, Virgil asks them how they died. Ulysses recounts the story of the last voyage of his life in which he leaves the Mediterranean Sea through the straights of Gibraltar, which were considered to be the western end of the world by the Greeks, and upon seeing a great mountain upon an island, a storm capsizes his ship and all are killed.
Topic Tracking: God's Will 6
Topic Tracking: Literature/Mythology/Bible
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