Canto I

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say
what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
Its very memory gives a shape to fear.

Death could scarce be more bitter than that place!
But since it came to good, I will recount
all that I found revealed there by God’s grace.
How I came to it I cannot rightly say,
so drugged and loose with sleep had I become
when I first wandered there from the True Way.

But at the far end of that valley of evil
whose maze had sapped my very heart with fear
I found myself before a little hill

and lifted up my eyes. Its shoulders glowed
already with the sweet rays of that planet
whose virtue leads men straight on every road,

and the shining strengthened me against the fright
whose agony had wracked the lake of my heart
through all the terrors of that piteous night.

Just as a swimmer, who with his last breath
flounders ashore from perilous seas, might turn
to memorize the wide water of his death –

so did I turn, my soul still fugitive
from death’s surviving image, to stare down
that pass that none had ever left alive.

And there I lay to rest from my heart’s race
till calm and breath returned to me. Then rose
and pushed up that dead slope at such a pace

each footfall rose above the last. And lo!
almost at the beginning of the rise
I faced a spotted Leopard, all tremor and flow

and gaudy pelt. And it would not pass, but stood
so blocking my every turn that time and again
I was on the verge of turning back to the wood.

This fell at the first widening of the dawn
as the sun was climbing Aries with those stars
that rode with him to light the new creation.

Thus the holy hour and the sweet season
of commemoration did much to arm my fear
of that bright murderous beast with their good omen.

Yet not so much but what I shook with dread
at sight of a great Lion that broke upon me
raging with hunger, its enormous head

held high as if to strike a mortal terror
into the very air. And down his track,
a She-Wolf drove upon me, a starved horror

ravening and wasted beyond all belief.
She seemed a rack for avarice, gaunt and craving.
Oh many the souls she has brought to endless grief!

She brought such heaviness upon my spirit
at sight of her savagery and desperation,
I died from every hope of that high summit.

And like a miser – eager in acquisition
but desperate in self-reproach when Fortune’s wheel
turns to the hour of his loss – all tears and attrition

I wavered back; and still the beast pursued,
forcing herself against me bit by bit
till I slid back into the sunless wood.

And as I fell to my soul’s ruin, a presence
gathered before me in the discoloured air,
the figure of one who seemed hoarse from long silence.

At sight of him in that friendless waste I cried:
“Have pity on me, whatever thing you are,
whether shade or living man.” And it replied:

“Not man, though man I once was, and my blood
was Lombard, both my parents Mantuan.
I was born, though late, sub Julio, and bred

in Rome under Augustus in the noon
of the false and lying gods. I was a poet
and sang of old Anchises’ noble son

who came to Rome after the burning of Troy.
But you – why do you return to these distresses
instead of climbing that shining Mount of Joy

which is the seat and first cause of man’s bliss?”
“And are you then that Virgil and that fountain
of purest speech?” My voice grew tremulous:
“Glory and light of poets! Now may that zeal
and love’s apprenticeship that I poured out
in your heroic verses serve me well!

For you are my true master and first author,
the sole maker from whom I drew the breath
of that sweet style whose measures have brought me honour.

See there, immortal sage, the beast I flee.
For my soul’s salvation, I beg you, guard me from her,
for she has struck a mortal tremor through me.”

And he replied, seeing my soul in tears:
“He must go by another way who would escape
this wilderness, for that mad beast that fleers

before you there, suffers no man to pass.
She tracks down all, kills all, and knows no glut,
but, feeding, she grows hungrier than she was.

She mates with any beast, and will mate with more
before the Greyhound comes to hunt her down.
He will not feed on lands nor loot, but honour

and love and wisdom will make straight his way.
He will rise between Feltro and Feltro, and in him
shall be the resurrection and new day

of that sad Italy for which Nisus died,
and Turnus, and Euryalus, and the maid Camilla.
He shall hunt her through every nation of sick pride

till she is driven back forever to Hell
whence Envy first released her on the world.
Therefore, for your own good, I think it well

you follow me and I will be your guide
and lead you forth through an eternal place.
There you shall see the ancient spirits tried

in endless pain, and hear their lamentation
as each bemoans the second death of souls.
Next you shall see upon a burning mountain

souls in fire and yet content in fire,
knowing that whensoever it may be
they yet will mount into the blessed choir.

To which, if it is still your wish to climb,
a worthier spirit shall be sent to guide you.
With her shall I leave you, for the King of Time,

who reigns on high, forbids me to come there
since, living, I rebelled against his law.
He rules the waters and the land and air

and there holds court, his city and his throne.
Oh blessed are they he chooses!” And I to him:
“Poet, by that God to you unknown,
lead me this way. Beyond this present ill
and worse to dread, lead me to Peter’s gate
and be my guide through the sad halls of Hell.“

And he then: “Follow.” And he moved ahead
in silence, and I followed where he led.

—

Summary:

Dante recounts that in the middle of his life, he found himself lost in a dark forest (Wood of Errors), having lost the right path while half asleep. Worried and frightened, he was comforted by the sight of a hill (Mount of Joy), the top of which was sunlit. However, when he tried to climb the hill to reach the brighter regions, he found his way blocked by three savage animals: first a leopard, then a lion, then a she-wolf. Dante was too frightened to continue, and retreated back to the forest, where fortunately he met the shade of Virgil, his literary hero. Virgil informed him that the three beasts were impassible: the she-wolf would reign until the greyhound came and slew her, and restored peace to Italy. In the meantime, Virgil would lead Dante to salvation, but first they must pass through Hell. Virgil would not be able to take Dante all the way to Paradise, since as a Pagan he had no right to enter there instead a more worthy soul would take him the final part of the way. Dante gladly accepted his offer.

Analysis:

The Inferno is an opaque poem, which lends itself particularly well to complicated interpretation, and no doubt was intended as such. Metaphors and symbolism are found in every line, and to give a complete description of all the interpretations that have been made would be a huge undertaking. However, in order to fathom the sheer richness of the poem, it is necessary to have an understanding of the more widely accepted interpretations.

The Inferno was written during Dante’s exile from Florence, whereas it purports to recount events that occurred much earlier. A passage in Canto XXI, 112-114, has been used by commentators to fix the fictional date of Canto I as the night before Good Friday, April 7, 1300. (In 1300 Dante was 35 years old: half of the Biblical span of 70 years.) The morning spent trying to climb the hill is thus Good Friday. One should note the careful correlation of Christian symbolic time with events in the poem.

Since Dante wrote the Inferno after he was exiled in 1301, this made it possible for him to make accurate “predictions” about events which had already occurred, thus lending an aura of truth to his genuine prophecies.

The dark forest is a metaphor for everything that Dante thought was wrong in 1300. This could include inner confusion and sin, the necessary imperfection of the world (as opposed to Paradise and God), political corruption, the absence of true authority, the bad behavior of the Pope, etc. Redemption is associated with struggle, in this case the struggle uphill, which is made impossibly difficult by the continual temptations of sin. The leopard is thought to symbolize lust, the lion pride, and the she-wolf avarice. The identity of the greyhound has been widely disputed: Christ, Dante himself, the Holy Roman Emperor, and Dante’s benefactor Cangrande della Scala are some candidates. Since Dante strongly supported the imperial claim to authority, it seems most likely that the greyhound is the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VII (elected in 1308, probably before the Inferno was written, but after it “took place.”)

Figure 1. Wood of Error