Dante, our pilgrim, is underway! Except not really. As we’ve established, he sets out to go the way he already knows. It’s naturally the way he’d choose. It looks right. It’s lit up by the sun.

But he’s limping. Oh, and there are three beasts in the way. A lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf! They block his way and send him falling back to the scary place, the dark wood.

And then it gets weirder yet, as a shade, a ghost, a presence, something wild materializes in front of our pilgrim.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, as we start to climb a hill with our pilgrim, as we find our first complex allegory in the poet’s poem, and as we discover the beginnings of the beautiful poetry that makes COMEDY so compelling.

If you’re tuning in for the first time, it’s best to find the first episode (scroll or page down) and start there. You gotta walk with the pilgrim. And you gotta get going in the wrong direction with him. All before you can head in the right direction with him. In other words, down to hell.

Here’s my rough English translation from the medieval Tuscan. Look for more scholarly translations if you’re interested, particularly those from the Hollanders or from Stanley Lombardo.

After I rested my tired body a little,

I continued my way along the deserted slope,

So that my firmer foot was always the lower one.

 

Then look out! Near the beginning of the climb

A leopard, light and very fast,

Covered with a spotted coat,

 

Refused to get out of my face

But so blocked my way at every turn,

That again and again I had to go back.

 

The time was early morning,

And the sun was rising with those stars

That shone with it when divine love

 

First set in motion all those gorgeous things.

Because of the hour of the day and the sweet season,

I still held on to hope,

 

Despite the beast with the gaudy pelt.

But then I was struck with fear

At the sight of a lion that appeared.

 

He looked as if he was coming right at me,

His head held high with insane hunger

So that the air seemed to tremble at him.

 

What’s more, a she-wolf, so emaciated

That she seemed stricken with every kind of craving

That had made many to live in wretchedness,

 

Threw such a heavy weight of terror over me,

Terror that overwhelmed me at the sight of her,

That I lost all hope of getting up that hill.

 

And like someone who eagerly counts his gains

But weeps and gets sad

When the time comes for him to lose,

So did that restless beast make me feel—

Coming against me, little by little,

Driving me back to where the sun was silent.

 

While I was falling down the slope toward a low spot,

A figure presented itself before my eyes,

Someone who seemed barely perceptible in that long silence.

 

When I saw him in that vast wilderness,

I cried out to him “Miserere on me,

No matter what you are, either shade or true man!”