4. Climbing Away From The Turbulence In The Lake Of The Heart: INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 10 - 27

Our pilgrim appears to have found a way out: up a steep slope, toward the rising sun. Hope abounds!

We’re moving to the first steps in our journey across the known universe with the pilgrim Dante. Problem is, he starts off in the wrong direction. So we do, too!

What happens when you set out to walk out of the hell in your life and you just go the way in front of you?

For the moment at least, we’re headed into what seems like the gorgeous, wide world before us.

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The segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:13] My English translation of INFERNO, Canto 1, Lines 10 - 27. If you'd like to read along or continue the conversation with me, please scroll down this page to find the passage, supplemental study material, and a spot to add a comment.

[02:48] The balance between the two central characters of COMEDY: the poet who is writing the work and the pilgrim who is walking the journey.

[06:40] Is this a dream poem?

[08:49] The hill ahead--both for the pilgrim and for us,.

[11:19]   The lake of the heart.

[13:56] The poem's first simile: surviving a shipwreck.

[16:32] More about that hill.

My English translation of INFERNO, Canto 1, lines 10 - 27:

I cannot rightly say how I got there,

I was so full of sleep at the moment

When I abandoned the true way.

But when I got to the foot of a hill

Where this valley ended

That had pierced my heart with fear,

I looked high up and saw its shoulders

Bathed in the rays of that planet

That leads all of us straight along every path.

Then the fear in the lake of my heart was calmed,

The fear that had lasted all the night

That I had spent in distress.

And as someone with belabored breath

Who has gotten out of the deep and to the shore

Then looks back at the perilous water

So my mind, still fleeing,

Turned back to look once more at the pass

No one has ever left alive.

FOR MORE STUDY

Three translations issues:

1. At line 25, Dante says his “animo” turned back to look at the pass even as he was running away: “così l’animo mio, ch’ancho fuggiva. . . .” I translated “animo” as “mind” (that is, some version of “mental processes”). My translation is justified by other uses of “animo” in the poem. But “animo” also means “spirit” or “soul,” some ineffable part of a human beyond the corporeal. In fact, a Christian would say that the “animo” (or “spirit”) is the true essence of a human. Dante doesn’t (indeed, can’t) make the fine distinctions that we can between mental processes and emotional vibes . . . or between the mental and the spiritual makeup of a person. But what if we did translate this word as “spirit”? If his spirit turned back, how does that change our perspective on this backward glance?

2. As Dante discusses how he was calmed in these first steps of the journey, he uses a loaded word at line 21: “pieta” (“sorrow”). Although this word is common in medieval Florentine, it is also heavy with theological implications. (Think of the many statues and paintings of Mary holding the dead Jesus off the cross, those “pieta” images.) What’s more, the word “pieta” is in the rhyming position. It rhymes with “pianeta” (“planet”) at line 17 and with “queta (“quiet” or “calm”). So “pieta” is colored by those other words. The reassuring rising sun and the quiet in his heart come first in the rhyme order and come to their conclusion with “pieta” (“sorrow”)—which leads us already to believe that the calm is at best temporary.

3. The passage ends with a bit of a riddle: “retro a rimarar lo passo/ che non lasciò già mai persona viva” (ll. 26b - 27). These lines can be translated two ways: “turned back to look at the pass that no person has ever left alive” or “turned back to look at the pass that has never let a person live.” If we take the first translation as the proper one (as I have), the pilgrim is the first guy to have gotten away. If we take the second translation, we know there’s no escape, no matter what the pilgrim thinks. (We also have a problem with how the pilgrim Dante would know this bit of information—and would then assume that these lines are a commentary intrusion from the poet in the background.) This translation debate goes on even today.

Four interpretative issues:

1. There are many geographical markers in the first twenty-seven lines of INFERNO: line 2, “una selva oscura” (“a dark wood”); line 13, “al pié d’un colle” (“at the foot of the hill”); line 14, “quella valle” (“this valley”), and line 26, “lo passo” (“the pass”—as between two mountains). The two big questions are whether “quella valle” is where the “selva oscura” is located. (The vast majority of scholars think so.) And two, whether “lo passo” is indeed part of “quella valle.” (There’s more divided opinion on this one.) Dante the poet does seem to want us to work out the geography of the poem’s opening, given the number of clues he’s dropped. But it’s also curious that it’s hard to get a firm hold on exactly what this landscape looks like. Is that intentional? What do you imagine the poet wants from us?

2. There are at least two classical references for that opening simile about surviving a shipwreck at lines 22 - 24: Virgil’s AENEID I: 180 - 181, the scene where Aeneas shipwrecks on the shore of Carthage; and Ovid’s METAMORPHOSES VII: 1 - c. 450, the ill-fated voyage of Jason and his Argonauts. But two reference points? Doesn’t that muddy the water? Why does Dante make a muddled classical reference as the first one in his poem?

3. At line 12, Dante says that he abandoned the true way: “che la verace via abbaondonai.” Is “la verace via” the same thing as “la diritta via” (“the straight way”) at line 3? Most scholars think so. But what’s the difference between “verace” and “diritta”? Does “verace” redefine “diritta”? Theologically? In terms of the poem?

4. Over the centuries, most Dante commentators have interpreted the three major motifs in the opening lines as an allegory: dark wood—hill—sun = moral failing—the best of human effort—the best of human understanding. This allegory is rooted in Christian theology (as it probably should be) but also relies on what happens later in the poem, even way up into Purgatory when the pilgrim redefines his journey’s start in a conversation with Forese Donati. Are there other ways to think about that dark wood, the upward slope, and the rising sun? How would you interpret these elliptical details, given your religious or personal background?

Two journaling prompts:

1. Close your eyes and imagine your heart as a lake. Where is it in your body? What are its waters like? Are they troubled? Calm? Murky? Deep? Shallow? Drying up? Filling up?

2. Are you your own narrator, as Dante the poet is for Dante the pilgrim? Or is someone else narrating your life for you? What would it take for you to become your own narrator?