Throughout Dante's Inferno, fortune and fate are extremely important themes. Fate is what brought Dante on the journey in the first place and therefore has a huge role throughout his journey. In Circle Four, Dante and Virgil discuss Dame Fortune. They both begin to express how they believe that fate rules above all and that nothing and no one can change one's fate. Dante says, "No mortal power may stay her spinning wheel/The nations rise and fall to her decree/None may foresee where she will set her heel" which expresses how he feels. When he says that "the nations rise and fall to her decree", he is saying that she controls what happens to everyone. This is interesting because, in Christianity, Dante believed that God controlled everything yet he personifies fate as something completely different. It makes one ponder how "in touch" Dante was with his religion at the time. He may have been writing the book in order to understand his religion better.

As Dante keeps talking, he goes so far as to compare fate to a god. Dante goes on to say, "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..." and explains how he believes that fate has just as much power as a god. By saying this he also shows that he believes that there may be more than one god. Many people second guess what they believe and question things that have been so solid throughout their life and this is exactly what Dante is doing. He is going against what the entire book is about by saying that there is more than one god and that fate has just as much power.

Fate is also shown differently than it is in other parts of the book. Throughout the book Dante has known that it was his fate to go on this journey but he believes that it was through God's will. Here, he is saying that fate is the only thing that can determine what happens to a person. He shows that he believes fate is different than God and that it is almost more powerful than God.