Before dawn — that prophetic hour again — Dante dreams of a stammering, cross-eyed, lame woman, sallow-skinned, her hands deformed. As he gazes at her, she straightens, blushes, and her voice grows sweet. She reveals herself as the Siren who drew Ulysses from his course, who satisfies all who come to her. She is seduction itself — the glamour of the world's goods, the enchantment of wealth and comfort and sensory pleasure. A second woman, holy and stern, appears and calls to Virgil, who tears the Siren's garment from her belly and the stench that pours forth wakes Dante instantly. The allegory is almost brutal in its clarity: the worldly goods that enchant and corrupt are, in their nature, foul. It is the prolonged gaze — Dante's own looking — that transformed the hag into the Siren. Desire creates the illusion; reason and holiness tear it away.
The fifth terrace: flat, bare, treeless. Souls lie face-down on the stone, weeping — motionless, prostrated, their bodies pressed to the earth they once loved too much in place of Heaven. Their faces are down as their hearts were down; they cannot see the sky. They chant a psalm of penitence.
Among them lies Pope Adrian V — pope for only thirty-eight days in 1276, who spent his whole life before the papacy in pursuit of worldly power, only to discover on reaching its summit that it was dust. He addresses Dante with striking dignity: do not kneel to him; here, he and Dante are equal — they are both servants of a common Lord. He asks for prayers from his niece Alagia, who alone of his family has not been corrupted. The humbling of the most powerful office in Christendom to a face in the dust is one of Dante's most controlled acts of satire.