2. Finding Yourself Lost: INFERNO, Canto I, Lines 1 - 9
A middle-aged man finds himself lost in a dark wood.
We’re at the opening lines of the greatest work of Western literature . . . okay, to date, if you must qualify it.
A dark wood, a man alone, and a mid-life crisis . . . not his, but ours.
Our journey may start in our poet’s imagination, but his poem’s opening has roots going back to the Bible.
The segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:
[01:09] Why would you want to walk with Dante?
[03:39] Who am I?
[05:56] At first glance, why are the opening lines so strange, even off-putting?
[14:12] Does Dante's poem open "in medias res"? That is, "in the middle of things"?
[16:33] Who's journey is this? Who is this "I"?
[21:57] What's the point of Dante's COMEDY?
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.
FOR MORE STUDY
Two translation issues:
Line 8 isn’t as simple as it seems. In the medieval Florentine, the line is “ma per trattar del ben ch’i vi trovai.” One problem lies with that opening phrase: “ma per trattar”—literally, “but in order to set forth” or “but in order to lay out” or even “but in order to step out.” Although the poet claims he wants to “set forth” the good, he doesn’t give us a clue how he will get to that good. In other words, he only states the goal . . . which is saying a lot without saying much! What’s more, there may be a tension between “trattar” in line 8 and “diró” (“I will tell”) in line 9. What’s the difference between laying something out and just saying it? What if why you tell something and how you tell it are at odds?
Those first three lines have given English translators all sorts of fits. Most try to set the vibe, maybe more than trying to render the medieval Florentine accurately. Here are a few examples of modern English translations: 1) Robert and Jean Hollander: “Midway in the journey of our life/ I came to myself in a dark wood,/ for the straight way was lost”; 2) Anthony Esolen: “Midway upon the journey of our life/ I found myself in a dark wilderness,/ for I had wandered from the straight and true”; John Ciardi: “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray/ from the straight road and woke to find myself/ alone in a dark wood”; Mary Jo Bang: “Stopped mid-motion in the middle/ Of what we call life, I looked up and saw no sky—/ Only a dense cage of leaf, tree, and twig. I was lost.”
Two interpretative issues:
At line 3, Dante claims that the straight way has been lost. But putting it that way reverses the valencies of Christian imagery. The straight way is the way to salvation, right? Or so it goes according to Proverbs 2:15 and The Gospel of Luke 3:4-5. We might think that the straight way is what the pilgrim will eventually find, particularly if he’s lost; but it seems as if he’s about to set off on another path . . . and not the straight one he’d been on. In fact, we might even say that he’s about to set out on a crooked path (if we hold to that common pairing in Christian imagery). If his is now the crooked path, wouldn’t it lead to damnation? Does this new (or crooked?) path involve only what happens in this first canto of INFERNO—that is, until someone arrives at about the halfway point to put the pilgrim on the right road? Or is the whole walk across the known universe the crooked path that leads to God?
Dante’s poem is set in the time of war. How might the threat of political and social unrest shape these opening lines? What does war do to the imagination?
A journaling prompt:
Dante begins his story “in the middle” of his life. If you had to begin your story at a mid-point in your life, which moment would you choose? Without going back to your childhood, which moment in your adult life would be the beginning of your story? How does starting there change how you tell your story . . . and even your story itself?