Study Questions
1. Dante begins Canto XXVI with irony. Describe this irony.

2. How are the Counselors of Fraud punished?

3. What does Virgil think of Dante’s desire to speak to the flame?

4. Does Dante get to ask his questions?

5. Who is the flame who tells them of his travels?

6. What was the Palladium?

7. How was Eteocles killed?

8. What was unusual about the funeral pyre of Eteocles and his brother?

9. How was Ulysses killed?

10. What is the name of Deidamia’s son?

Answers
1. Dante says for Florence to rejoice because it is so well known—in Hell.

2. The Counselors of Fraud are punished by the fire burning above their heads, through which they must speak.

3. Virgil thinks that Dante’s wish is worthy of high praise and in no way wrong.

4. Virgil reads Dante’s thoughts and asks the questions for Dante.

5. The flame who tells them of his travels is Ulysses.

6. The Palladium was the statue of Troy, on which the safety of the city was to depend.

7. Eteocles and his brother killed each other in battle.

8. After their death, Eteocles’s and his brother’s bodies were placed on a funeral pyre; the flames stayed separate and would not united even in death.

9. Ulysses and his crew were drowned when the seas closed over them.

10. Deidamia’s son is named Achilles.