In the epic poem The Divine Comedy, 14th-century Italian poet Dante Alighieri leads the reader on an allegorical journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. In the opening of the poem, Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood, which symbolizes his deviation from righteous living. While attempting to get his bearings, Dante spots a shining hill, which he calls the Mount of Joy. He begins to climb, but beasts, such as the she-wolf of unrestraint and the lion of ambition, block his way. Disheartened, Dante meets his guide Virgil, the 1st-century-BC Roman poet, who explains that to regain his way, Dante must travel with Virgil through hell and purgatory, and, with another guide, visit paradise.

The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto I

By Dante Alighieri

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 on the discolored 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

on 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 honor.

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 honor

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.

Source: Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy: Inferno. Translated by John Ciardi. W. W. Norton & Company, 1970.¹