Rhetorical question

A question asked without expecting an answer, either because the answer is already implied, or because what matters is the doubt it exposes.

In Purgatory

First it must be that heaven turn me outside of her as much as it did in life, since I put off the good sighs until the end, unless prayer first helps me, one that rises from a heart that lives in grace; the other, what is it worth, if it is not heard in heaven?

The speech ends with "the other, what is it worth, if it is not heard in heaven?", a question that expects no answer, because Belacqua already knows it. It closes the rule with a warning that only the prayer of someone who lives in grace has reach.

Cantos I to IV: The shore and Ante-Purgatory, Belacqua, seated at the foot of the rock, answering Dante

What good is it that Justinian mended your bridle, if the saddle is empty? Without it, the shame would be less.

Cantos V to VIII: Those who repented late, Dante, narrator, in the invective against Italy and the Empire

and she: the good of others, for you, what will it be, if you forget your own?; to which he: now take comfort, for it is fitting that I fulfill my duty before departing: justice wills it and piety holds me back.

Cantos IX to XII: The gate and pride, The widow and Emperor Trajan, in the scene carved on the wall of the first ledge

O proud Christians, wretched and weary, who, sick in the sight of the mind, trust in backward steps, do you not realize that we are worms born to form the angelic butterfly, which flies unshielded to justice?

Cantos IX to XII: The gate and pride, Dante, narrator, who interrupts the scene to speak to the proud

my blood was so inflamed with envy that, had I seen a man rejoice, you would have seen me full of livid envy. From my seed I reap such straw; O human kind, why do you set your heart where company must be barred?

Cantos XIII to XVI: Envy and wrath, Guido del Duca, to Dante, on the ledge of the envious