Who He Is
Minos is the judge of Hell. He stands at the entrance to the second circle, snarling horribly, and there he examines the sins of the souls that arrive, judges them, and sends each one to the circle that is its due, wrapping his tail around his body as many times as the number of levels it must descend. The poem makes him the knower of sins, to whom a soul confesses everything, and to whom, as a soul from the depths says, erring is not permitted. He is not the one who decides what sin is: he applies the measure, and the order that comes before him comes from elsewhere. The name comes from myth, and the office from the classical tradition.
The Minos of myth is the king of Crete who, after death, becomes one of the judges of the underworld, and the Aeneid already shows him, in Book VI, separating and judging the souls, as the entry on Minos explains.
He reappears in four more cantos, always in passing, but always for the same function: the soul that tears itself from its own body is sent by him to the seventh mouth of Hell, Amphiaraus falls until he reaches him, Guido da Montefeltro is carried to him by a devil, and an alchemist is condemned by him in the last of the ten ditches.
Trajectory
In Canto V of Inferno, Dante descends to the second circle and comes upon Minos, who examines the sins at the entrance. The newly born soul confesses everything before him, and he sees which place in Hell is its due and wraps his tail around himself as many times as the number of levels the soul must descend. There are always many before him, and each goes in its turn: they speak, they hear, and they are hurled downward. When he sees Dante, he leaves off the act of his office and warns him not to be deceived by the width of the entrance. Virgil silences him with the same formula he used with Charon in Canto III of Inferno. There it reads:
Caron, non ti crucciare: / vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare, Charon, do not be angry: it is so willed there where what is willed can be done, and ask no more.
And here, to Minos, word for word:
Non impedir lo suo fatale andare: / vuolsi così colà dove si puote / ciò che si vuole, e più non dimandare, do not hinder his fated going: it is so willed there where what is willed can be done, and ask no more.
In Canto XIII of Inferno, Minos reappears in the speech of the trunk that explains to Virgil the fate of the soul that tears itself from its own body: Minos sends it to the seventh mouth. In Canto XX of Inferno, Virgil shows Amphiaraus, into whom the earth opened before the Thebans, and who did not stop falling until he reached Minos, who seizes each one. In Canto XXVII of Inferno, Guido da Montefeltro tells how the devil carried him to Minos, who wrapped his tail eight times around his hard back, bit it in rage, and sentenced him to the fire. In Canto XXIX of Inferno, an alchemist tells how, in the last of the ten ditches, Minos, to whom erring is not permitted, condemned him for the alchemy he practiced in the world.
Themes Embodied
Minos is Justice and law in action: he does not decide what sin is, he measures it. The Sin that each soul confesses to him is what defines the circle in which it will live forever, and the tail that coils around him is the instrument of measure. The scene that matters is the one in Canto V of Inferno: the judge speaks to Dante while alive, and it is Virgil who silences him, with the reason of a will that he knows and does not dispute.
Dante's Inferno is a machine of order, with a judge, a measure, and a will above the judge, and Minos is the figure in which the poem concentrates the first of these three elements. The measure in which he works is that of the design Virgil traces in Canto XI of Inferno: the figure serves the design, and the design comes before it.
Divergent Readings
The poem shows two sides of Minos's authority. In Canto V of Inferno he is checked by an order that surpasses him, and the text does not say whether he yields out of humiliation or because he knows where the invoked will comes from; only that the formula is enough. In Canto XXVII of Inferno and in Canto XXIX of Inferno his authority over the condemned is complete: a devil brings Guido to him, and the alchemist says of him that erring is not permitted to him.
The two figures do not contradict each other: Minos is absolute over the souls and limited by the will that places them there. The reader learns the hierarchy of Hell through him.
Relationships
- Dante: the living man to whom Minos gives warning, in Canto V of Inferno, about the width of the entrance.
- Virgil: the one who silences him with the formula of the will that no one disputes.
- Charon: the other guardian to whom Virgil addresses the same formula, in Canto III of Inferno.
- Pier delle Vigne: the trunk who tells that Minos sends the suicide's soul to the seventh mouth, in Canto XIII of Inferno.
- Guido da Montefeltro: the soul that a devil brings to Minos to be sentenced, in Canto XXVII of Inferno.