Inferno I: An Introduction to the Afterlife

The Map of Hell, Boticelli.

The poem opens with the famous line: “Midway upon the journey of our life.” For centuries, literature has used “life” as a metaphor for a voyage or a journey. And with the simple word “midway” (nel mezzo), Dante taps into an enormous network of literary and philosophical references.

There’s a biblical echo here—Isaiah 38:10: “In the prime of my life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years?” There’s also Horace, who said poems should begin in medias res—in the middle of things. And there’s Aristotle, who, in Physics, describes time as a passage—a midpoint between beginning and end: “kind of middle-point, writing in itself both a beginning and an end, a beginning of future time and an end of a past time”. Everything we do, Aristotle argues, we do in the middle. Time, therefore, is movement.

The possessive pronoun “our” rather than “my” makes the poem immediately more universal. Dante blurs the lines between his individual experience and the reader’s. This is a personal story, yes—but one embedded in the human condition. We’re all part of this journey through time. Also, “midway” signals that Dante is about 35—the supposed midpoint of a 70-year life.

Here, Dante fuses classical and Christian traditions—something rarely done before him. Time as passage, sin as wandering, and salvation as returning to the right path. 

The second line—“I found myself within a forest dark”—signals that Dante has lost his way. He doesn’t say “I walked into the forest” but rather that he “found himself” there. It’s passive, almost dreamlike. He’s not in control.

The forest is both literal and symbolic: it represents confusion, hardship, and spiritual failure. He follows it up with: “For the straightforward pathway had been lost.” Again, this is more than being physically lost—this is moral and spiritual disorientation. The phrase “the straightforward pathway” implies there is a right way—and he is no longer on it.

This is the moment of spiritual crisis, a kind of midlife breakdown. The forest is savage, dark, and rough. It manifests not just his fear, but his sin, his moral blindness. Put simply: Dante has lost the path to God.

Later, Dante contradicts his earlier passivity. He says: “So full was I of slumber at the moment / In which I had abandoned the true way.” He didn’t just end up lost. He chose it. The verb “abandon” is active—it shows will. The “slumber” here is symbolic: it’s a sleep of the soul, a dream-like truth that has the appearance of a lie. But unlike a regular dream, this one will take him to revelation. This tension between passivity and responsibility lies at the heart of the Inferno. Yes, he’s lost—but he got there by his own choices. He willed it.

In lines 17–18, we get a glimpse of hope: “That planet’s rays / Which leadeth others right by every road.” This is the sun—symbolizing divine grace, truth, and salvation. But Dante is not basking in the light. He’s far from it, looking toward it from below.

The hill he sees represents salvation. In medieval art, light often symbolizes God’s presence, and here, Dante uses that iconography. He wants to climb the hill—but he can’t, not by himself. 

Later in the canto, Dante compares himself to a shipwrecked sailor in lines 22–24: “And even as he, who, with distressful breath, / Forth issued from the sea upon the shore, / Turns to the water perilous and gazes…” This is an early example of a Ulyssean simile—a recurring theme throughout The Divine Comedy. Ulysses (or Odysseus) becomes a symbol of the restless voyager, the one who dares to go too far, who becomes lost at sea in search of forbidden knowledge or unreachable shores.

Dante, at this point, feels a similar unease—like he’s transgressing. His journey into the afterlife isn’t something he earned or even fully understands. His presence there feels unauthorized, unsolicited. In fact, much of Canto II is devoted to explaining how and why he’s allowed to make this journey at all—who gave him permission, who vouched for him.

Ulysses, for Dante, becomes a cautionary double. He’s the negative version of what Dante himself could become: a voyager destroyed by his own hubris. Just like Ulysses, Dante is lost. Just like Ulysses, he is transgressing by stepping beyond mortal limits. And crucially, Dante isn’t passively lost—he’s actively chosen to abandon the true path.

The comparison adds weight to the whole journey. It’s not just a travelogue of the afterlife—it’s a reckoning with the dangers of ambition, curiosity, and pride. And in framing himself as both the lost sailor and the chosen pilgrim, Dante makes his story feel both mythic and deeply human.

As Dante tries to ascend the hill, he’s stopped—again and again—by three beasts:

• Leopard: often linked to lust or fraud

• Lion: typically seen as pride or violence

• She-wolf: most commonly associated with greed or incontinence

(These are popular interpretations; others exist.)

Every time Dante gathers courage to climb, he’s knocked back. The narrative becomes jagged, unstable—just like life. This repetition creates a rhythm of hope and despair: he tries, fails, rests, tries again. It’s almost Sisyphean. Each beast is more terrifying than the last. Each setback hits harder. He’s stuck in a loop of effort and failure—just like us when we try to better ourselves but fall short.

However, there is still reason to hope. Dante writes: “Up the sun was mounting with those stars / That with him were, what time the Love Divine…” This “Love Divine” is a poetic way to describe the force that moves the cosmos—God, yes, but also desire. In Dante’s world, love is what drives existence. It's not inherently bad. Desire is necessary—but it must be directed rightly.

The she-wolf embodies negative desire—endless hunger, an inability to be satisfied. It drives Dante away from the light: “Thrust me back thither where the sun is silent.”

So we have two kinds of desire:

• One that propels us toward the good (Divine Love)

• One that pulls us into despair (insatiable greed, lust, pride…)

The trick is how we negotiate desire—through reason. That’s the core of Dante’s moral philosophy. It’s not desire that condemns us—it’s disordered desire, desire without rational direction. We have agency; we have free will. Here, Dante is trying to say that, basically, only God is capable of fulfilling one with desire. Any secondary object of desire can never be fulfilled, which is what leads the souls to Hell or Purgatory. Here, the desire for the she-wolf is greedy; it is unsatisfiable, it is the wrong kind of desire, which makes him lose hope. Dante, thus, is driven away from the sun’s rays by the embodiment of negative desire.

Just when Dante is about to give up, Virgil appears. Dante cries out: “Have pity on me,” unto him I cried, / “Whiche’er thou art, or shade or real man!” The first word that Dante utters in direct discourse is “miserere”, asking Virgil to have pity on him. This encapsulates the first step that one takes in bad times: to ask for help. Dante is aware of his situation; he is aware that he is not at the right path, and he needs someone else to help him find his way again. 

Virgil is the Roman poet, the author of the Aeneid. But here, he’s more than a literary figure—he’s the embodiment of human reason. Dante chooses a pagan poet as his guide, someone he loves and admires. Classical reason becomes his first step toward salvation.

Virgil tells Dante that he lived during “the time of false and lying gods.” He represents the best of human understanding—yet he never knew the full truth of Christianity.This duality is key: Dante reveres classical wisdom, but he sees it as incomplete without faith. He sees in classical culture the highest achievement of human reason, and yet that culture did not achieve the knowledge that he considers necessary for salvation.

Throughout The Divine Comedy, Dante places himself between the classical and the Christian worlds, celebrating both while pushing beyond them. Virgilio, therefore, announces that he lived “During the time of false and lying gods.” 

The importance of human reason runs throughout The Divine Comedy and forms a core part of Dante’s philosophy. For Dante, reason is closely tied to free will. Its greatest product—language—is what distinguishes humans from both animals and angels. Angels are beyond language, communicating without words or sound; animals are below it, driven by instinct. Humanity sits in the middle, capable of reflection, communication, and choice.

Though it may not be fully clear yet, Virgil comes to represent not only guidance and classical wisdom but also reason, love, and even a kind of faith. Over the course of the journey, Virgil transforms from the admirable Roman poet—someone who knows his way through the afterlife—into a father figure. While he may not be as powerful when faced with Christian figures, his role becomes even more emotionally resonant. His limitations don’t lessen him—they make him more human and more beloved.

This canto captures so much: moral confusion, fear, helplessness when we lose our way, and the idea that salvation begins the moment we recognize we are lost. It also reminds us of the value of those who guide us—not just spiritually, but emotionally and intellectually.

Personally, this canto has helped me connect with Dante—not the poet, but the person. That connection only grew deeper with each new canto. Yes, he’s telling a story of a man on a journey “authorized” by God, which could easily sound arrogant or self-important. But it never does. Dante is incredibly self-aware. He questions himself constantly—just like I do, especially when it comes to literature. I never feel like I’ve read enough or understood enough to speak with authority.

But this canto reminds me: it’s okay. Most of us feel this way. The important thing is to keep going, and along with people who can be there for us, who will guide us through our hardships, we will find the pathway to the light.

Ayda Duru Demirtaş