The Portable Dante (8 page)

Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path.

How hard it is to tell what it was like, this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn (the thought of it brings back all my old fears),

a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer. But if I would show the good that came of it I must talk about things other than the good.

How I entered there I cannot truly say, I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth;

but when I found myself at the foot of a hill, at the edge of the wood’s beginning, down in the valley, where I first felt my heart plunged deep in fear,

I raised my head and saw the hilltop shawled in morning rays of light sent from the planet that leads men straight ahead on every road.

And then only did terror start subsiding in my heart’s lake, which rose to heights of fear that night I spent in deepest desperation.

Just as a swimmer, still with panting breath, now safe upon the shore, out of the deep, might turn for one last look at the dangerous waters,

so I, although my mind was turned to flee, turned round to gaze once more upon the pass that never let a living soul escape.

I rested my tired body there awhile and then began to climb the barren slope (I dragged my stronger foot and limped along).

Beyond the point the slope begins to rise sprang up a leopard, trim and very swift! It was covered by a pelt of many spots.

And, everywhere I looked, the beast was there blocking my way, so time and time again I was about to turn and go back down.

The hour was early in the morning then, the sun was climbing up with those same stars that had accompanied it on the world’s first day,

the day Divine Love set their beauty turning; so the hour and sweet season of creation encouraged me to think I could get past

that gaudy beast, wild in its spotted pelt, but then good hope gave way and fear returned when the figure of a lion loomed up before me,

and he was coming straight toward me, it seemed, with head raised high, and furious with hunger— the air around him seemed to fear his presence.

And now a she-wolf came, that in her leanness seemed racked with every kind of greediness (how many people she has brought to grief!).

This last beast brought my spirit down so low with fear that seized me at the sight of her, I lost all hope of going up the hill.

As a man who, rejoicing in his gains, suddenly seeing his gain turn into loss, will grieve as he compares his then and now,

so she made me do, that relentless beast; coming toward me, slowly, step by step, she forced me back to where the sun is mute.

While I was rushing down to that low place, my eyes made out a figure coming toward me of one grown faint, perhaps from too much silence.

And when I saw him standing in this wasteland, “Have pity on my soul, ” I cried to him, “whichever you are, shade or living man!”

“No longer living man, though once I was, ” he said, “and my parents were from Lombardy, both of them were Mantuans by birth.

I was born, though somewhat late,
sub Julio,
and lived in Rome when good Augustus reigned, when still the false and lying gods were worshipped.

I was a poet and sang of that just man, son of Anchises, who sailed off from Troy after the burning of proud Ilium.

But why retreat to so much misery? Why not climb up this blissful mountain here, the beginning and the source of all man’s joy?”

“Are you then Virgil, are you then that fount from which pours forth so rich a stream of words?” I said to him, bowing my head modestly.

“O light and honor of the other poets, may my long years of study, and that deep love that made me search your verses, help me now!

You are my teacher, the first of all my authors, and you alone the one from whom I took the noble style that was to bring me honor.

You see the beast that forced me to retreat; save me from her, I beg you, famous sage, she makes me tremble, the blood throbs in my veins. ”

“But you must journey down another road, ” he answered, when he saw me lost in tears, “if ever you hope to leave this wilderness;

this beast, the one you cry about in fear, allows no soul to succeed along her path, she blocks his way and puts an end to him.