We've come to the second circle of hell, where the winds of lust howl. Dante's Inferno is nothing but surprising--and we meet first, not the lustful, a connoisseur of sin: Minos, a sure judge.

As we walk slowly across the universe in THE DIVINE COMEDY, we should expect to find things that puzzle us. And here, as usual, part of the problem is Virgil. Is he the sure guide he pretends to be?

Here’s my English translation of Inferno, Canto V: Lines 1 - 24:

So I went down from the first circle

And into the second, which rounds a smaller space

But has more pain to goad the cries.

 

Horrid Minos stands there, snarling.

He quizzes each sinner at the entrance,

Judging and sentencing them by wrapping himself up.

 

I mean that when the bad-born soul

Comes before him, it confesses everything

And that cognoscente of sin

 

Decides what its place in hell should be

By wrapping his tail around himself as many times

As the number of circles down it has to go.

 

They crowd him but go one at a time

To their judgment. They tell, they hear,

And they are hurled down.

 

“You there who comes to our hostelry of sorrow,”

Minos said when he saw me,

Setting aside the pursuit of his official duties,

 

“Beware how you get in and whom you trust.

Don’t kid yourself about the portal’s easy entrance!”

And my guide to him, “Why do you holler so much?

 

“Don’t get in the way of his destined journey.

This is willed where what is willed

Is what is done. Don’t question us anymore.”