In this first part of his poem, Dante makes it clear to the reader that the story he is telling is not a personal story but the story of all human beings. Virgil was born in ancient Rome before Christendom spread, so he was a good person but not a Christian.ĭante accepts, and the two poets begin their journey. Then Virgil says that if Dante wants to go to Heaven someone else must accompany him― Beatrice―because God does not allow pagans to enter. Virgil explains to Dante that if he wants to be saved he must go through Hell and Purgatory and offers to guide him. This is one of the many mysteries that Dante deliberately leaves unresolved in his poem.
The savior will be born in “ felt,” Virgil says.Įven today no one knows for sure what Dante meant by the word “felt.” Perhaps it means humble origins or belonging to religious orders that wore felt. Virgil’s prophecy is very dark, and it’s about a savior who will be nourished with wisdom, love, and virtue, and who will drive away the wolf into the hell. Virgil tells Dante that the work of the wolf will continue on earth until a savior comes to liberate the world. Virgil suggests that he take a different direction because the wolf is too dangerous and will ultimately kill him. The shadow tells him that he was a man, more precisely the ancient Roman poet Virgil, also known as Publius Vergilius Maro, and begs Virgil to free him from the danger in the wilderness. Dante, however, cannot distinguish whether it is a man or a shadow. While Dante goes backward to the forest, he sees a human figure and turns to it for help. The three beasts are allegories of three different sins: the leopard represents lust, the lion pride, and the wolf represents avarice. They force Dante back into the dark forest. While he seeks a way out of the forest, he meets three beasts: a leopard, a lion, and a wolf. The events of the Divine Comedy are set around 1300 because Dante was born in 1265 and rumored to be in the middle of his earthly life, which at that time was considered to be about seventy years.ĭante imagined a scary forest as a metaphor for sin. He did not realize what happened because his soul was sleepy and numb. It is horrible, tangled, and wild, and only the memory of it makes Dante scared.
Inferno 1 is the first canto in Dante’s Divine Comedy and perhaps the most famous of the epic poem.ĭante, author and protagonist of the poem, is in the middle of the journey of his life, in a dark forest. I found myself within a forest dark, Langdon thought, recalling the ominous first canto of Dante’s masterwork, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.
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