Fate and Fotune

No mortal power may stay her spinning wheel.
The nations rise and fall by her decree.
None may foresee where she will set her heel:

she passes, and things pass. Man's mortal reason
cannot encompass her. She rules her sphere
as the other gods rule theirs. Season by season...

In Dante’s The Inferno fate and the figure of Dame Fortune play an important role in the book. In the above passage Dante specifically talks about the mythological figure of Dame Fortune. He says that she is a very powerful god and no man can comprehend her decisions of fate. When Dante says, “No mortal power may stay her spinning wheel. The nations rise and fall by her decree” he is talking her power with the fate of man. He explains that no man can stay in her favor for long and that their fate will eventually turn bad. He also says in the passage, “ None may foresee where she will ser het heel” he says this because no one knows how their fat will turn out. I believe Dante relates the figure of Dame Fortune to god in many ways. One way is that he believes they are both powerful, by god being the creature of everything, and the figure of Dame Fortune being able to control man’s destinies. Another way is that no one can understand god or take in god’s being, and Dante explains the same thing with the figure when he says, “Man’s mortal reason can’t encompass her.” He also compares her to god by saying, “She rules her sphere as the other gods rule theirs” saying that she does the same things as other gods. I believe that this version of fate and destiny is very different than fate from Sophocles. In Sophocles’ book Oedipus, everyone is on a straight path to their destiny with no way to change it. However in the Inferno everyone has a destiny they must meet, but they can take different paths to get there. Also in Sophocles’ Oedipus the path is made by the gods, while in The Inferno it is directed by the gods, but made by man.