Finding Yourself Lost: Inferno, Canto I, Lines 1 - 9

A middle-aged man finds himself lost in a dark wood.

We’re starting out with the opening lines of, well, the greatest work of Western literature (to date, if you must).

A dark wood, a man alone, and a mid-life crisis—not his, but ours.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we take the first steps on the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE and discover that the journey starts in a place that seems unimaginable but that has roots in traditions back to the Bible.

Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:09]  Why would you want to walk with Dante? Four reasons.

[03:39]  Who am I? This podcast has been brewing for years. I finally worked up the courage. Like Dante.

[05:56]  Here are the opening lines of of Dante's COMEDY. Why are they so strange, even off-putting at first glance?

[14:12]  Does Dante's poem open "in medias res"? That is, "in the middle of things" (as goes the Latin)? That's a phrase to signal the epic form. But Dante's not writing an epic. He's writing a comedy.

[16:23]  Who's journey is this? It's a tougher question than you might think. Who is this "I"? And how can this "I" write this journey into the wilds of the universe itself?

[21:57]  What's the point of Dante's COMEDY? How can I sum it up in just a few words.

Here’s my English translation of INFERNO, Canto I, lines 1 - 9:

In the middle of the journey of our life

I found myself in a dark wood

For the straight way was lost.

Ah, how hard it is to say what

That wood was, so savage and gnarled and hard

That such a thought brings back my fear.

It is so bitter that death is hardly more so—

But to discuss the good I found there

I will tell the other things I saw.