INTRO:
Oh! King Minos, his son was a Taurus -
A Greek legend whose details might bore us,
Yet old Virgil’s Aeneid implores us
To think Minos a judge of the Dead.

The next chapter is D. Alighieri’s
He conceived of a Minos more scary.
This huge reptile makes sinners despair-y
He’s Inferno’s vile Judge of the Dead.
Olé!

DANTE:
Così
Discesi del cerchio primaio
Dov’è dolor che piunge a guaio
A farmisi lagrimar pio
Stavvi horribilmente Minòs.

Our nice sojourn in Limbo had ended
To the grim Second Ring we descended
Where this gross snarling monster offended
With the verdict he gives with his tail.

Essamina le colpe nel’intrata,
Le confessa l’anima mal nata
Vede qual loco d’inferno è da essa,
Della peccata è conoscitor!

He examines the souls of transgressors
As a devilish father-confessor,
Assigns Circle of Hell, more or less, Sir,
With the number of coils in his tail.

Un atto di cotanto offizio -
Sempre dinanzi ne stanno molte
Vanno al giudizio,
E dicono e odono
Minos si cigne e giù son volte.

You’d done rapine and pillage and letching
You’d sinned quite a good bit in your youth
You thought you had hidden
Those bad things you did then,
But Minos will find out the truth.

Crowds pour in! To get dissed!
In turn each one gets judged
They’d prefer not to budge,
But they’re hurled downward in the abyss.

Disse Minòs a me quando me vide,
“Guarda di cui tu ti fide”
E’l duca mio lui “Perche pur gride?”
Vuolsi cosí colà si puote.

Oh, this tail-twister’s workflow was broken,
When he’d spied me and snarkily spoken,
Virge rebuked him with a poignant token
Of the Power that willed us ahead.

A pianto sentire or son venuto
In loco d’ogne luce muto
Da contrari venti è combattuto
Intesi - ecco dannati
I peccator carnali
Nulla speranza di posa
Ove Minòs manda colla coda*.

Now, there starts up such sad incantation,
And the roar of a storm’s emanation -
Wind-tossed darkness and sad lamentation
Cause by now you could guess
There’s eternal distress -
Lovers carnally sinned and confined
Here, where Minos’s tail-twist assigned.
Olé

* coda, the Italian word for tail, also implies a conclusion or ending.