Editing Minotaur (section)

===Dante's ''Inferno''===
[[File:DVinfernoMinotaurOnCliff m.jpg|thumb|[[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] and [[Virgil]] meet the Minotaur, illustration by [[Gustave Doré]]]]
The Minotaur ({{lang|it|infamia di Creti}}, Italian for 'infamy of Crete'), appears briefly in [[Dante]]'s ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', in Canto 12 (l. 12–13, 16–21), where Dante and his guide [[Virgil]] find themselves picking their way among boulders dislodged on the slope and preparing to enter into the [[seventh circle of hell]].<ref>The traverse of this circle is a long one, filling Cantos 12 to 17.</ref> Dante and Virgil encounter the beast first among the "men of blood": those damned for their violent natures. Some commentators believe that Dante, in a reversal of classical tradition, bestowed the beast with a man's head upon a bull's body,<ref>Inferno XII, verse translation by R. Hollander, p. 228 commentary</ref> though this representation had already appeared in the Middle Ages.<ref name=Kern-2000/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 116–117}}

{{Verse translation |lang=it
|attr1=''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'', Canto XII, lines 16–20
|1=
Lo savio mio inver' lui gridò: "Forse
tu credi che qui sia 'l duca d'Atene,
che sú nel mondo la morte ti porse?
Pártiti, bestia, ché questi non vene
ammaestrato da la tua sorella,
ma vassi per veder la vostre pene."
|2=
My sage cried out to him: "You think,
perhaps, this is the Duke of Athens,
who in the world put you to death.
Get away, you beast, for this man
does not come tutored by your sister;
he comes to view your punishments."
}}

[[File:Blake Dante Hell XII.jpg|thumb|left|[[William Blake]]'s image of the Minotaur to illustrate ''Inferno'' XII]]
In these lines, Virgil taunts the Minotaur to distract him, and reminds the Minotaur that he was killed by [[Theseus|Theseus the Duke of Athens]] with the help of the monster's half-sister [[Ariadne]]. The Minotaur is the first infernal guardian whom Virgil and Dante encounter within the walls of [[City of Dis|Dis]].{{efn|
The [[fallen angel]]s, the [[Erinyes]] [Furies], and the unseen [[Medusa]] were located on the [[City of Dis]]'s defensive ramparts.<ref>{{cite book |first=Dante |last=Alighieri |author-link=Dante Alighieri |title=[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]] |section=Canto&nbsp;IX}}</ref>
}}
The Minotaur seems to represent the entire zone of [[#Seventh Circle .28Violence.29|Violence]], much as [[Geryon]] represents Fraud in Canto XVI, and serves a similar role as gatekeeper for the entire seventh Circle.<ref>Boccaccio, ''Comedia delle ninfe fiorentine'' commentary</ref>

[[Giovanni Boccaccio]] writes of the Minotaur in his literary commentary of the Commedia: "When he had grown up and become a most ferocious animal, and of incredible strength, they tell that Minos had him shut up in a prison called the labyrinth, and that he had sent to him there all those whom he wanted to die a cruel death".<ref>{{cite book |author=Boccaccio |first=G. |author-link=Giovanni Boccaccio |date=30 November 2009 |title=Boccaccio's Expositions on Dante's Comedy |publisher=University of Toronto Press}}</ref> [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]], in his own commentary,<ref>Bennett, Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 177–180.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/pr5246.a43.vol2.rad.html |title=Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His Family-Letters with a Memoir (Volume Two) |website=www.rossettiarchive.org}}</ref> compares the Minotaur with all three sins of violence within the seventh circle: "The Minotaur, who is situated at the rim of the tripartite circle, fed, according to the poem was biting himself (violence against one's body) and was conceived in the 'false cow' (violence against nature, daughter of God)."

Virgil and Dante then pass quickly by to the [[centaur]]s (Nessus, Chiron and Pholus) who guard the [[Phlegethon|Flegetonte]] ("river of blood"), to continue through the seventh Circle.<ref>Beck, Christopher, "Justice among the Centaurs", Forum Italcium 18 (1984): 217–229</ref>