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| IN the midway 1 of this our mortal life, | |
| I found me in a gloomy wood, astray | |
| Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell, | |
| It were no easy task, how savage wild | |
| That forest, how robust and rough its growth, | 5 |
| Which to remember only, my dismay | |
| Renews, in bitterness not far from death. | |
| Yet, to discourse of what there good befel, | |
| All else will I relate discover’d there. | |
| How first I enter’d it I scarce can say, | 10 |
| Such sleepy dulness in that instant weigh’d | |
| My senses down, when the true path I left; | |
| But when a mountain’s foot I reach’d, where closed | |
| The valley that had pierced my heart with dread, | |
| I look’d aloft, and saw his shoulders broad | 15 |
| Already vested with that planet’s beam, 2 | |
| Who leads all wanderers safe through every way. | |
| Then was a little respite to the fear, | |
| That in my heart’s recesses deep had lain | |
| All of that night, so pitifully past: | 20 |
| And as a man, with difficult short breath, | |
| Forespent with toiling, ’scaped from sea to shore, | |
| Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands | |
| At gaze; e’en so my spirit, that yet fail’d, | |
| Struggling with terror, turn’d to view the straits | 25 |
| That none hath passed and lived. My weary frame | |
| After short pause recomforted, again | |
| I journey’d on over that lonely steep, | |
| The hinder foot 3 still firmer. Scarce the ascent | |
| Began, when, lo! a panther, 4 nimble, light, | 30 |
| And cover’d with a speckled skin, appear’d; | |
| Nor, when it saw me, vanish’d; rather strove | |
| To check my onward going; that oft-times, | |
| With purpose to retrace my steps, I turn’d. | |
| The hour was morning’s prime, and on his way | 35 |
| Aloft the sun ascended with those stars, 5 | |
| That with him rose when Love Divine first moved | |
| Those its fair works: so that with joyous hope | |
| All things conspired to fill me, the gay skin | |
| Of that swift animal, the matin dawn, | 40 |
| And the sweet season. Soon that joy was chased. | |
| And by new dread succeeded, when in view | |
| A lion came, ’gainst me as it appear’d, | |
| With his head held aloft and hunger-mad, | |
| That e’en the air was fear-struck. A she-wolf | 45 |
| Was at his heels, who in her leanness seem’d | |
| Full of all wants, and many a land hath made | |
| Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear | |
| O’erwhelm’d me, at the sight of her appall’d, | |
| That of the height all hope I lost. As one, | 50 |
| Who, with his gain elated, sees the time | |
| When all unawares is gone, he inwardly | |
| Mourns with heart-griping anguish; such was I, | |
| Haunted by that fell beast, never at peace, | |
| Who coming o’er against me, by degrees | 55 |
| Impell’d me where the sun in silence rests. | |
| While to the lower space with backward step | |
| I fell, my ken discern’d the form of one | |
| Whose voice seem’d faint through long disuse of speech. | |
| When him in that great desert I espied, | 60 |
| “Have mercy on me,” cried I out aloud, | |
| “Spirit! or living man! whate’er thou be.” | |
| He answered: “Now not man, man once I was, | |
| And born of Lombard parents, Mantuans both | |
| By country, when the power of Julius yet | 65 |
| Was scarcely firm. At Rome my life was past, | |
| Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time | |
| Of fabled deities and false. A bard | |
| Was I, and made Anchises’ upright son | |
| The subject of my song, who came from Troy, | 70 |
| When the flames prey’d on Ilium’s haughty towers. | |
| But thou, say wherefore to such perils past | |
| Return’st thou? wherefore not this pleasant mount | |
| Ascendest, cause and source of all delight?” | |
| “And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring, | 75 |
| From which such copious floods of eloquence | |
| Have issued?” I with front abash’d replied. | |
| “Glory and light of all the tuneful train! | |
| May it avail me, that I long with zeal | |
| Have sought thy volume, and with love immense | 80 |
| Have conn’d it o’er. My master thou, and guide! | |
| Thou he from whom alone I have derived | |
| That style, which for its beauty into fame | |
| Exalts me. See the beast, from whom I fled. | |
| O save me from her, thou illustrious sage! | 85 |
| For every vein and pulse throughout my frame | |
| She hath made tremble.” He, soon as he saw | |
| That I was weeping, answer’d, “Thou must needs | |
| Another way pursue, if thou wouldst ’scape | |
| From out that savage wilderness. This beast, | 90 |
| At whom thou criest, her way will suffer none | |
| To pass, and no less hinderance makes than death: | |
| So bad and so accursed in her kind, | |
| That never sated is her ravenous will, | |
| Still after food more craving than before. | 95 |
| To many an animal in wedlock vile | |
| She fastens, and shall yet to many more, | |
| Until that greyhound 6 come, who shall destroy | |
| Her with sharp pain. He will not life support | |
| By earth nor its base metals, but by love, | 100 |
| Wisdom, and virtue; and his land shall be | |
| The land ’twixt either Feltro. 7 In his might | |
| Shall safety to Italia’s plains arise, | |
| For whose fair realm, Camilla, virgin pure, | |
| Nisus, Euryalus, and Turnus fell. | 105 |
| He, with incessant chase, through every town | |
| Shall worry, until he to hell at length | |
| Restore her, thence by envy first let loose. | |
| I, for thy profit pondering, now devise | |
| That thou mayst follow me; and I, thy guide, | 110 |
| Will lead thee hence through an eternal space, | |
| Where thou shalt hear despairing shrieks, and see | |
| Spirits of old tormented, who invoke | |
| A second death; 8 and those next view, who dwell | |
| Content in fire, 9 for that they hope to come, | 115 |
| Whene’er the time may be, among the blest, | |
| Into whose regions if thou then desire | |
| To ascend, a spirit worthier 10 than I | |
| Must lead thee, in whose charge, when I depart, | |
| Thou shalt be left; for that Almighty King, | 120 |
| Who reigns above, a rebel to His law | |
| Adjudges me; and therefore hath decreed | |
| That, to His city, none through me should come. | |
| He in all parts hath sway; there rules, there holds | |
| His citadel and throne. O happy those, | 125 |
| Whom there He chuses!” I to him in few: | |
| “Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore, | |
| I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse | |
| I may escape) to lead me where thou said’st, | |
| That I Saint Peter’s gate 11 may view, and those | 130 |
| Who, as thou tell’st, are in such dismal plight.” | |
| Onward he moved, I close his steps pursued. | |
