![]() But you, why do you turn back towards such pain? Why do you not climb the delightful mountain, that is the origin and cause of all joy?’ I was a poet, and sang of Aeneas, that virtuous son of Anchises, who came from Troy when proud Ilium was burned. I was born sub Julio though late, and lived in Rome, under the good Augustus, in the age of false, deceitful gods. When I saw him, in the great emptiness, I cried out to him ‘Have pity on me, whoever you are, whether a man, in truth, or a shadow!’ He answered me: ‘Not a man: but a man I once was, and my parents were Lombards, and both of them, by their native place, Mantuans. While I was returning to the depths, one appeared, in front of my eyes, who seemed hoarse from long silence. And as one who is eager for gain, weeps, and is afflicted in his thoughts, if the moment arrives when he loses, so that creature, without rest, made me like him: and coming at me, little by little, drove me back to where the sun is silent. She brought me such heaviness of fear, from the aspect of her face, that I lost all hope of ascending. #Torment of the styx chest fullBut not so fair that I could avoid fear at the sight of a lion, that appeared, and seemed to come at me, with raised head and rabid hunger, so that it seemed the air itself was afraid and a she-wolf that looked full of craving in its leanness, and, before now, has made many men live in sadness. The time was at the beginning of the morning, and the sun was mounting up with all those stars, that were with him when Divine Love first moved all delightful things, so that the hour of day, and the sweet season, gave me fair hopes of that creature with the bright pelt. It would not turn from before my face, and so obstructed my path, that I often turned, in order to return. And, behold, almost at the start of the slope, a light swift leopard with spotted coat. And as a man, who, with panting breath, has escaped from the deep sea to the shore, turns back towards the perilous waters and stares, so my mind, still fugitive, turned back to see that pass again, that no living person ever left.Īfter I had rested my tired body a while, I made my way again over empty ground, always bearing upwards to the right. Then the fear, that had settled in the lake of my heart, through the night that I had spent so miserably, became a little calmer. But when I reached the foot of a hill, where the valley, that had pierced my heart with fear, came to an end, I looked up and saw its shoulders brightened with the rays of that sun that leads men rightly on every road. I was so full of sleep, at that point where I abandoned the true way. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. ![]() Inferno Canto I:1-60 The Dark Wood and the Hill
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