CANTO I

Dante lost in a dark wood; the leopard, the lion and the she–wolf; Virgil offers to guide him.

1 In the middle of our life's way *

I found myself in a wood so dark *

That I couldn't tell where the straight path lay.

4 Oh how hard a thing it is to embark

Upon the story of that savage wood,

For the memory shudders me with fear so stark

7 That death itself is hardly a more bitter food;

Yet whatever I observed there I'll convey,

In order to tell what I found that was good.

10 So full of sleep was I when I left the true way

That exactly how I entered that wild place

It's impossible for me to say;

13 But when I'd cleared that dark space

Which had turned my heart into a cavern

Of fear, I found myself at the base

16 Of a hill upon whose shoulders I could discern

The rays of that brilliant planet *

Which guides men straight through every turn.

19 With what relief a sense of quiet

Was welcomed by a heart tossed all night

So piteously, surely I can never forget.

22 And like a man who, reaching shore, turns his sight

Still shivering upon the raging sea

From whose clutch he's just made frantic flight,

25 So my spirit, driven even now to flee,

Looked back at that pass which had never

Let a single living soul go free.

28 When I had let my tired body recover,

And was once more on the lonely slope, I found

That for balance my firm foot was forever

31 Lower than the other on the ground.

But then suddenly!—at the start of a steep ascent *

There appeared a spotted leopard, jumping all around

34 With great nimbleness and plain intent

To block my path. The hour was early morning, *

And rising with the sun were those very stars present

37 When Divine Love first breathed life into each fair thing;

Such a fortuitous conjunction

Of time and sweet season sent my hopes soaring,

40 Until I was thrown into agitation

By the sudden, stunning sight

Of a fierce, ravenous lion.

43 He came at me with such manifest might

And hunger that the very air which surrounded

His proud head seemed to cringe with fright.

46 My anxiety was compounded

When a lean, craven she–wolf drew near,

(That same by whom so many have been wounded

49 And now live in despair), a beast whose mere

Appearance shook me with a terror so great

That never again did I expect to steer

52 An upward course against the fearful weight

Crushing all my hopes of ascent.

And like someone whose fortunes of late

55 Have collapsed—so that from the heights he's sent

Plunging down into losses so terrible

That all he can do is wail and lament

58 That times have become so horrible –

So did I fret while that restless beast turned me about

And drove me back toward where the sun is inaudible.

61 As I was rushing back down full of doubt

And panic I saw a figure blurred and dim, *

As if long silence had washed his image out.

64 "Oh have pity on me," I cried to him

In the midst of that desert. "Have pity on me,

Whoever you be, solid man or my own whim! "

67 "No man am I," he replied, "though what you see

Here was once a man, of Lombard parentage,

Mantua the soil of my family tree.

70 Under Julius I was born, though late in that age

And lived in Rome under the shining

Augustus, when false and lying gods held the stage.

73 It was then that I began to sing

Of Anchises' righteous son, to narrate *

His return from proud Ilium's burning.

76 But you, why do you make such a desperate

Descent toward misery, instead of climbing that mountain

From which all the world's joy and gladness emanate? "

79 "Are you then," I answered, unable to restrain