The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: The Inferno

CANTO I.

In middle[160] of the journey of our days
I found that I was in a darksome wood[161]—
The right road lost and vanished in the maze.
Ah me! how hard to make it understood
How rough that wood was, wild, and terrible:
By the mere thought my terror is renewed.
More bitter scarce were death. But ere I tell
At large of good which there by me was found,
I will relate what other things befell.
Scarce know I how I entered on that ground,10
So deeply, at the moment when I passed
From the right way, was I in slumber drowned.
But when beneath a hill[162] arrived at last,
Which for the boundary of the valley stood,
That with such terror had my heart harassed,
I upwards looked and saw its shoulders glowed,
Radiant already with that planet’s[163] light
Which guideth surely upon every road.
A little then was quieted by the sight
The fear which deep within my heart had lain20
Through all my sore experience of the night.
And as the man, who, breathing short in pain,
Hath ’scaped the sea and struggled to the shore,
Turns back to gaze upon the perilous main;
Even so my soul which fear still forward bore
Turned to review the pass whence I egressed,
And which none, living, ever left before.
My wearied frame refreshed with scanty rest,
I to ascend the lonely hill essayed;
The lower foot[164] still that on which I pressed.30
And lo! ere I had well beginning made,
A nimble leopard,[165] light upon her feet,
And in a skin all spotted o’er arrayed:
Nor ceased she e’er me full in the face to meet,
And to me in my path such hindrance threw
That many a time I wheeled me to retreat.
It was the hour of dawn; with retinue
Of stars[166] that were with him when Love Divine
In the beginning into motion drew
Those beauteous things, the sun began to shine;40
And I took heart to be of better cheer
Touching the creature with the gaudy skin,
Seeing ’twas morn,[167] and spring-tide of the year;
Yet not so much but that when into sight
A lion[168] came, I was disturbed with fear.
Towards me he seemed advancing in his might,
Rabid with hunger and with head high thrown:
The very air was tremulous with fright.
A she-wolf,[169] too, beheld I further on;
All kinds of lust seemed in her leanness pent:50
Through her, ere now, much folk have misery known.
By her oppressed, and altogether spent
By the terror breathing from her aspect fell,
I lost all hope of making the ascent.
And as the man who joys while thriving well,
When comes the time to lose what he has won
In all his thoughts weeps inconsolable,
So mourned I through the brute which rest knows none:
She barred my way again and yet again,
And thrust me back where silent is the sun.60
And as I downward rushed to reach the plain,
Before mine eyes appeared there one aghast,
And dumb like those that silence long maintain.
When I beheld him in the desert vast,
‘Whate’er thou art, or ghost or man,’ I cried,
‘I pray thee show such pity as thou hast.’
‘No man,[170] though once I was; on either side
Lombard my parents were, and both of them
For native place had Mantua,’ he replied.
‘Though late, sub Julio,[171] to the world I came,70
And lived at Rome in good Augustus’ day,
While yet false gods and lying were supreme.
Poet I was, renowning in my lay
Anchises’ righteous son, who fled from Troy
What time proud Ilion was to flames a prey.
But thou, why going back to such annoy?
The hill delectable why fear to mount,
The origin and ground of every joy?’
‘And thou in sooth art Virgil, and the fount
Whence in a stream so full doth language flow?’80
Abashed, I answered him with humble front.
‘Of other poets light and honour thou!
Let the long study and great zeal I’ve shown
In searching well thy book, avail me now!
My master thou, and author [160] Middle: In his Convito (iv. 23), comparing human life to an arch, Dante says that at the age of thirty-five a man has reached the top and begins to go down. As he was born in 1265 that was his own age in 1300, the year in which the action of the poem is laid.

[161] Darksome wood: A state of spiritual darkness or despair into which he has gradually drifted, not without fault of his own.

[162] A hill: Lower down this hill is termed ‘the origin and cause of all joy.’ It is symbolical of spiritual freedom—of the peace and security that spring from the practice of virtue. Only, as it seems, by gaining such a vantage-ground can he escape from the wilderness of doubt—the valley of the shadow of death—in which he is lost.

[163] That planet: On the Ptolemaic system, which, as perfected by the Arabian astronomers, and with some Christian additions, was that followed by Dante, the sun is reckoned as one of the seven planets; all the others as well as the earth and the fixed stars deriving their light from it. Here the sunlight may signify the Divine help granted to all men in their efforts after virtue.

[164] The lower foot, etc.: This describes a cautious, slow ascent.

[165] A nimble leopard: The leopard and the lion and wolf that come with it are suggested by Jeremiah v. 6: ‘A lion out of the forest shall slay them,’ etc. We have Dante’s own authority for it, in his letter to Can Grande, that several meanings are often hidden under the incidents of the Comedy. But whatever else the beasts may signify, their chief meaning is that of moral hindrances. It is plain that the lion and wolf are the sins of others—pride and avarice. If the leopard agrees with them in this, it most probably stands for the envy of those among whom Dante lived: at Inf. vi. 74 we find envy, pride, and avarice classed together as the sins that have corrupted Florence. But from Inf. xvi. 106 it appears that Dante hoped to get the better of the leopard by means of a cord which he wore girt about his loins. The cord is emblematical of self-control; and hence the leopard seems best to answer the idea of sensual pleasure in the sense of a temptation that makes difficult the pursuit of virtue. But it will be observed that this hindrance Dante trusts to overcome.

[166] Stars, etc.: The sun being then in Aries, as it was believed to have been at the creation.

[167] Morn, etc.: It is the morning of Friday the 25th of March in the year 1300, and by the use of Florence, which began the year on the anniversary of the incarnation, it is the first day of the New Year. The Good Friday of 1300 fell a fortnight later; but the 25th of March was held to be the true anniversary of the crucifixion as well as of the incarnation and of the creation of the world. The date of the action is fixed by Inf. xxi. 112. The day was of good omen for success in the struggle with his lower self.

[168] A lion: Pride or arrogance; to be taken in its widest sense of violent opposition to all that is good.

[169] A she-wolf: Used elsewhere in the Comedy to represent avarice. Dante may have had specially in his mind the greed and worldly ambition of the Pope and the Court of Rome, but it is plain from line 110 that the wolf stands primarily for a sin, and not for a person or corporate body.

[170] No man: Brunetto Latini, the friend and master of Dante, says ‘the soul is the life of man, but without the body is not man.’

[171] Sub Julio: Julius was not even consul when Virgil was born. But Dante reckoned Julius as the founder of the Empire, and therefore makes the time in which he flourished his. Virgil was only twenty-five years of age when CÆsar was slain; and thus it was under Augustus that his maturer life was spent.

[172] Author: Dante defines an author as ‘one worthy to be believed and obeyed’ (Convito iv. 6). For a guide and companion on his great pilgrimage he chooses Virgil, not only because of his fame as a poet, but also because he had himself described a descent to the Shades—had been already there. The vulgar conception of Virgil was that of a virtuous great magician.

[173] The style, etc.: Some at least of Dante’s minor works had been given to the world before 1300, certainly the Vita Nuova and others of his poems. To his study of Virgil he may have felt himself indebted for the purity of taste that kept him superior to the frigid and artificial style of his contemporaries, He prided himself on suiting his language to his theme, as well as on writing straight from the heart.

[174] Many a creature, etc.: Great men and states, infected with avarice in its extended sense of encroachment on the rights of others.

[175] Feltro and Feltro, etc.: Who the deliverer was that Dante prophesies the coming of is not known, and perhaps never can be. Against the claims of Can Grande of Verona the objection is that, at any date which can reasonably be assigned for the publication of the Inferno, he had done nothing to justify such bright hopes of his future career. There seems proof, too, that till the Paradiso was written Dante entertained no great respect for the Scala family (Purg. xvi. 118, xviii. 121). Neither is Verona, or the widest territory over which Can Grande ever ruled, at all described by saying it lay between Feltro and Feltro.—I have preferred to translate nazi-one as birth rather than as nation or people. ‘The birth of the deliverer will be found to have been between feltro and feltro.’ Feltro, as Dante wrote it, would have no capital letter; and according to an old gloss the deliverer is to be of humble birth; feltro being the name of a poor sort of cloth. This interpretation I give as a curiosity more than anything else; for the most competent critics have decided against it, or ignored it.—Henry of Luxemburg, chosen Emperor in November 1308, is an old claimant for the post of the allegorical veltro or greyhound. On him Dante’s hopes were long set as the man who should ‘save Italy;’ and it seems not out of place to draw attention to what is said of him by John Villani, the contemporary and fellow-townsman of Dante: ‘He was of a magnanimous nature, though, as regarded his family, of poor extraction’ (Cronica, ix. 1). Whatever may be made of the Feltros, the description in the text of the deliverer as one superior to all personal ambition certainly answers better to Dante’s ideal of a righteous Emperor than to the character of a partisan leader like Uguccione della Faggiuola, or an ambitious prince like Can Grande.

[176] Camilla, etc.: All persons of the Æneid.

[177] Envy: That of Satan.

[178] Thou hadst best, etc.: As will be seen from the next Canto, Virgil has been sent to the relief of Dante; but how that is to be wrought out is left to his own judgment. He might secure a partial deliverance for his ward by conducting him up the Delectable Mount—the peaceful heights familiar to himself, and which are to be won by the practice of natural piety. He chooses the other course, of guiding Dante through the regions of the future state, where the pilgrim’s trust in the Divine government will be strengthened by what he sees, and his soul acquire a larger peace.

[179] A soul: Beatrice.

[180] The Emperor: The attribution of this title to God is significant of Dante’s lofty conception of the Empire.

[181] ’Gainst his laws, etc.: Virgil was a rebel only in the sense of being ignorant of the Christian revelation (Inf. iv. 37).

[182] Saint Peter’s gate: Virgil has not mentioned Saint Peter. Dante names him as if to proclaim that it is as a Christian, though under heathen guidance, that he makes the pilgrimage. Here the gate seems to be spoken of as if it formed the entrance to Paradise, as it was popularly believed to do, and as if it were at that point Virgil would cease to guide him. But they are to find it nearer at hand, and after it has been passed Virgil is to act as guide through Purgatory.

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