Dante encounters a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf in Canto 1. What do you think these beasts symbolize, if anything? Which animal seems to pose the greatest problem for Dante?
When Dante is in his quest to get to the sunlight, he encounters three animals, which are a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. They fill him with fear and drive him back down to the sunless wood. They represent three major categories of human sin as well as three major divisions of the hell which Dante will experience later. The poet Dante represents mankind which is threatened by these three animals.Their symbolism contributes to the shadowy atmosphere of the opening scene and they are related to subsequent events in Dante’s journey through hell.
Some physical characteristics of these three animals reveal their hiding meaning as metaphor in Dante’s work. As described inferno, “all tremor and low and gaudy pelt”, the symbol the leopard represents the sin of fraud and lust. The lion’s “head held high” represents pride and “raging with hunger” represents violence. The She-Wolf “carries every craving in her leanness” meaning she is painfully skinny. It represents incontinence, avarice and malice, which Dante considered the worst of the sins. Moreover, it also may represent political ambition. At that time, in Florence, political squabbling take place all the time. Greed afflicts the whole country.
The Essay on Dante’s Inferno: Contrapasso
... and the third is the leopard, representing fraud and deception. According to Dante, fraud and ... by three animals. These animals represent the three rings of Hell. The first one is the she-wolf, representing incontinence, the second is the lion, representing violence, ...
I think the She-wolf seems to causes greatest problem for Dante. These beasts, especially the She-wolf, drive Dante back despairing into the darkness of error. “And now a she-wolf came, that in her leanness / seemed racked with every kind of greediness / (how many people she has brought to grief!)” (Inferno I 49-51).
As we can see from the description that the She-wolf approaches Dante step by step, which threaten Dante most. As I mentioned above, She-wolf represents the political ambition in some way and Dante describe what She-wolf’ s sin means the worst of the sins.
