DANTE'S INFERNO

MIDWAY upon the journey of our life 1 I found myself within a forest dark, 2 For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, Which in the very thought renews the fear. So bitter is it, death is little more; But of the good to treat, which there I found, Speak will I of the other things I saw there. I cannot well repeat how there I entered, So full was I of slumber at the moment In which I had abandoned the true way. But after I had reached a mountain’s foot, 3 At that point where the valley terminated, 4 Which had with consternation pierced my heart, Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders 1TheactionofthepoembeginsonGoodFridayoftheyear1300,atwhichtimeDante, who was born in 1265, had reached the middle of the Scriptual threescore years and ten. It ends on the first Sunday after Easter, making in all ten days. 2The dark forest of human life, with its passions, vices, and perplexities of all kinds; politically the state of Florence with its fractions Guelf and Ghibelline. 3Bunyan, inhisPilgrim’sProgress, whichisakindofDivineComedyinprose, says: “I beheld then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty... But the narrowwaylayrightupthehill,andthenameofthegoingupthesideofthehilliscalled Difficulty... TheywentthentilltheycametotheDelectableMountains,whichmountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken before.” 4Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress – “But now in this valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he spied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or stand his ground. ...Now at the end of this valley was another, called the valley of the Shadow of Death; and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it.”

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2 http://www.paskvil.com/

Vested already with that planet’s rays 5 Which leadeth others right by every road. Then was the fear a little quieted That in my heart’s lake had endured throughout 6 The night, which I had passed so piteously And even as he, who, with distressful breath, Forth issued from the sea upon the shore, Turns to the water perilous and gazes; So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward, Turn itself back to re-behold the pass Which never yet a living person left. 7 After my weary body I had rested, The way resumed I on the desert slope, So that the firm foot ever was the lower. 8 And lo! almost where the ascent began, 9 A panther light and swift exceedingly, 10 Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er! And never moved she from before my face, Nay, rather did impede so much my way, That many times I to return had turned. 11 The time was the beginning of the morning, And up the sun was mounting with those stars 12 That with him were, what time the Love Divine

5Thesun,withallitssymbolicalmeanings. ThisisthemorningofGoodFriday. Inthe Ptolemaic system the sun was one of the planets. 6The deep mountain tarn of his heart, dark with its own depth, and the shadows hanging over it. 7Jeremiah ii. 6: “That led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt.” In his note upon this passage Mr. Wright quotes Spenser’s lines, Faerie Queene, I. v. 31, – “there creature never passed That back returned without heavenly grace.” 8Climbing the hillside slowly, so that he rests longest on the foot that is lowest. 9Jeremiahv. 6: “Whereforealionoutoftheforestshallslaythem,awolfoftheevening shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces.” 10Wordly Pleasure; and politically Florence, with its factions of Bianchi and Neri. 11Piu` volte volto. Dante delights in a play upon words as much as Shakespeare. 12The stars of Aries. Some philosophers and fathers think the world was created in Spring.