Importance of Allusions

"In the second circle of Dante's Inferno, the adulterous lovers cling to each other, whirling eternally, caught in an endless wind. My next-door neighbor who loves Chagall, does not think this sounds like Hell. I think it depends on the wind" --Eula Biss, "The Pain Scale"

"We float like two lovers in a painting by Chagall" --The Weepies, "Painting by Chagall"

"I think it depends on the wind"

The infernal hurricane that never rests
  Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine;
  Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.
When they arrive before the precipice,
  There are the shrieks, the plaints, and the laments,
  There they blaspheme the puissance divine.
I understood that unto such a torment
  The carnal malefactors were condemned,
  Who reason subjugate to appetite.
And as the wings of starlings bear them on
  In the cold season in large band and full,
  So doth that blast the spirits maledict;
It hither, thither, downward, upward, drives them;
  No hope doth comfort them for evermore,
  Not of repose, but even of lesser pain."

--Dante's Inferno, Canto V, lines 31-45


"The description of hurricane-force winds on the Beaufort scale is simply 'devestation occurs'"

--Eula Biss, "The Pain Scale"