Dante and Virgil descend to the second circle, this one smaller than the first. This is the actual beginning of Hell where the sinners are punished for their sins. Dante witnesses Minos, a great beast, examining each soul as it stands for judgment.
Minos hears the souls confess their sins, and then wraps his tail around himself to determine the number of the circle where the sinner belongs. Minos tells Dante to beware of where he goes and to whom he turns. Minos cautions Dante against entering, but Virgil silences him, first by asking him why he too questions Dante (as Charon did), and then by telling him, in the same words he used to tell Charon, that it was willed, and what is willed must occur. (The word "Heaven" is not used, here or anywhere else in Hell.)
Dante beholds a place completely dark, in which there is noise worse than that of a storm at sea. Lamenting, moaning, and shrieking, the spirits are whirled and swept by an unceasing storm. Dante learns that these are the spirits doomed by carnal lust. He asks the names of some that are blown past, and Virgil answers with their names and some knowledge of their stories.
