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.

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. Let’s see how that goes.

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The segments of this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE:

[02:13] 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.

[03:55] The balance between the two central characters of the COMEDY: the poet who is writing the work and the pilgrim who is walking the journey.

[07:46] Is this a dream poem?

[09:52] The hill just ahead--for the pilgrim and for us.

[12:12]  The lake of the heart.

[14:36] The poem's first simile: shipwreck.

[17:13] More about what hill could mean.

[20:40] Rereading the opening of the poem: INFERNO, Canto I, lines 1 - 27.

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 or the intellect). 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. This word will come to this deeper meaning way up in PURGATORIO, Canto XXV, when one of the penitents will claim that God breathes a new “animo” into the fetus when its development is complete. But even in this early passage, a Christian would even say that the “animo” (or “spirit”) is the true essence of a human. Dante doesn’t (indeed, can’t) make the fine distinctions we can between mental processes and emotional vibes . . . or even between the mental and spiritual parts of a person. But what if we translated 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 at the end of the line, in the rhyming position. It rhymes with “pianeta” (“planet”) at line 17 and with “queta (“quiet” or “calm”) at line 19. So given Dante’s poetic craft, “pieta” is colored by those other two words. The reassuring, rising sun and the quiet in his heart come first in the rhyme order and find to their conclusion in “pieta” (“sorrow”)—which may lead 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 yet left alive” or “turned back to look at the pass that has long since never let a person live.” If we take the first translation as the proper one (as I have during the podcast episode and in my above translation), 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 currently 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 a hill”); line 14, “quella valle” (“this valley”), and line 26, “lo passo” (“the pass”—as between two mountains). The two big questions are one, whether “quella valle” is where the “selva oscura” is located. (The vast majority of scholars think so.) And two, whether “lo passo” is also part of “quella valle.” (There’s more divided opinion on this one.) 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 his readers?

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 - 450, the ill-fated voyage of Jason and his Argonauts. Two reference points? Is the image double-voiced or two-edged in some way?

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”) in 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 at the end of PURGATORIO, Canto XXIII. But without having already read the poem, are there other ways to think about and interpret that dark wood, the upward slope, and the rising sun when you first encounter them? How would you interpret these elliptical details, given your religious or personal background?

Two journaling prompts:

1. Imagine your heart as a lake. What are its waters like?

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