Catholicism and Poetry #7 Dante

"Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost."


Thus, simply,  begins Robert Pinsky's translation of the Inferno by Dante, or beautifully in Italian, "selva oscura".  As a writer on the arts, I have such great limitations and yet I believe that I have insight into the first Canto of the Inferno, which has always moved me, both before and after the middle of my life.  Perhaps it is because I have often found myself alone, lost in what is dark and grouping for a turning point. 

This is the genius of where Dante begins.   He begins with a confession.  His confession, brief though it is, is as complete as that of Augustine.  But it is the confession of a poet.   He says that
"To tell
About those woods is hard"


For Dante the woods will always be dark.  The experience of sin, loss, confusion, even upon our reflection, does not become light.  It isn't our goal.  The goal is at the end of the right road.  So a poet, speaking honestly, can never turn what is dark into light.  He has to rely on God.  His descriptions will be as obscure as his experience is.   And it is quite painful for:


"—so tangled and rough

And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter." 

For Dante, as a true Christian, sin and alienation from God is as bitter as death.  It is the water of bitterness, Mariah, from Exodus.  There two was a journey from sin towards God.  And every time the Hebrews complained and alienated themselves from God, they gave themselves bitter water to drink.  So Dante is unhappy, but he does not despair for he says

"And yet, to treat the good I found there as well

I'll tell what I saw,"

The good is always present for Dante.  If we are being honest we can speak of the good as well as the evil.  

Evil is a mystery for Dante. Sin obscures it's origin. 

" though how I came to enter
I cannot well say, being so full of sleep
Whatever moment it was I began to blunder

Off the true path. "

Now he describes, literally, the morning star, but that is obviously not the real meaning of these lines.

"But when I came to stop
Below a hill that marked one end of the valley
That had piereced my heart with terror, I looked up

Toward the crest and saw its shoulders already
Mantled in rays of that bright planet that shows
The road to everyone, whatever our journey."

Dante is really talking about how God's light reaches us, no matter what path in life we are on. 

The Italian below:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita. (3)

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura! (6)

Tant’è amara che poco è più morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
dirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ho scorte. (9)

Io non so ben ridir com’i’ v’intrai,
tant’era pien di sonno a quel punto
che la verace via abbandonai. (12)

Ma poi ch’i’ fui al piè d’un colle giunto,
là dove terminava quella valle
che m’avea di paura il cor compunto,

guardai in alto, e vidi le sue spalle
vestite già de’ raggi del pianeta
che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle.

More of the first Canto at:

http://www.csupomona.edu/~jelerma/dante/index.html

More on the Inferno at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

And for biography of Dante:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Alighieri