Minos

Profile

Minos is recalled in the Commedia as the judge of the damned souls, placed by Dante at the entrance to Hell proper. Upon the arrival of each spirit, he is described as intent on examining the sins and assigning the location, indicating the circle by the number of coils of his tail. This office, already imagined by the ancient poets as belonging to a severe lawgiver, is taken up by Dante and adapted to the concentric structure of his subterranean realm. Minos addresses Dante directly, wondering at the presence of a living person, and is silenced by Virgil with a formula that recalls the one already used for Charon. His name also recurs in cantos XIII, XX, and XXVII to indicate generically the abode of the damned, and in Purgatorio I he is recalled by Cato as the boundary of the world from which Virgil and Dante come, foreign to the realm of the living.