The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto I

¹Midway upon the journey of our life

²I found myself within a forest dark,

³For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

⁴Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

⁵What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

⁶Which in the very thought renews the fear.

⁷So bitter is it, death is little more;

⁸But of the good to treat, which there I found,

⁹Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

¹⁰I cannot well repeat how there I entered,

¹¹So full was I of slumber at the moment

¹²In which I had abandoned the true way.

¹³But after I had reached a mountain's foot,

¹⁴At that point where the valley terminated,

¹⁵Which had with consternation pierced my heart,

¹⁶Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,

¹⁷Vested already with that planet's rays

¹⁸Which leadeth others right by every road.

¹⁹Then was the fear a little quieted

²⁰That in my heart's lake had endured throughout

²¹The night, which I had passed so piteously.

²²And even as he, who, with distressful breath,

²³Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,

²⁴Turns to the water perilous and gazes;

²⁵So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,

²⁶Turn itself back to re-behold the pass

²⁷Which never yet a living person left.

²⁸After my weary body I had rested,

²⁹The way resumed I on the desert slope,

³⁰So that the firm foot ever was the lower.

³¹And lo! almost where the ascent began,

³²A panther light and swift exceedingly,

³³Which with a spotted skin was covered o'er!

³⁴And never moved she from before my face,