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 find it I canot 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 a 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, gaurd 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 into 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 wortheir 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.