What It Is
Halfway through the journey of life, Dante finds himself in a dark forest, because the straight way has been lost, and he cannot say how he entered: he was so full of sleep at that point that he abandoned the true road. The forest is wild, harsh and strong, and the mere thought of it renews the fear, so bitter that death is scarcely more. At the foot of a hill lit by the sun the fear of the night is calmed and Dante climbs, but three beasts bar his way: a light, swift leopard with a spotted coat, which does not leave the front of his face; a lion, with its head raised and ravenous hunger; and a lean she-wolf, laden with every craving, which takes from him the hope of reaching the height and drives him back to where the sun falls silent. In that retreat appears Virgil.
Where It Appears
In Canto I of Inferno the whole scene is found. Of the three beasts, only the she-wolf has its meaning stated by someone, and it is Virgil who states it:
e ha natura sì malvagia e ria, / che mai non empie la bramosa voglia, / e dopo ’l pasto ha più fame che pria, and she has a nature so evil and cruel that she never fills her craving desire, and after eating she is hungrier than before.
In Canto II of Inferno, Virgil gives to Dante's doubt, as he hesitates to follow the open path, the name of the fear that the forest left behind:
l’anima tua è da viltade offesa; / la qual molte fïate l’omo ingombra / sì che d’onrata impresa lo rivolve, / come falso veder bestia quand’ ombra, your soul is wounded by cowardice, which often weighs down a man so that it turns him away from an honored undertaking, as false seeing does a beast when it shies at a shadow.
In Canto XV of Inferno, on meeting Brunetto Latini, Dante tells that he lost himself in a valley of serene life, before his age was full, and that yesterday morning he turned his back on him, when Virgil appeared to lead him back. In Canto XVI of Inferno, the cord that Dante wears girded about his body speaks again of the first beast, the spotted-coated leopard, which he once thought to catch with it.
What It Means
The forest is the place from which the poem sets out, and the text gives two reasons for being in it without choosing between them: Dante was full of sleep, and it says nothing more than that. The she-wolf is the only beast whose meaning the poem fixes: the craving that is never sated and that, after eating, is hungrier than before. Of the leopard and the lion he says nothing, and the readings that attribute sins to them come from tradition, not from the verses.
The symbol has two readings in the text. One is distraction without guilt, because no one deceived him and he simply fell asleep. The other is sleep as failure, because the poem does not say there was another cause for his having left the true way. In either case, the forest is undone only when another guides him, and what Virgil offers is a longer path, which passes through the depths of Hell before reaching the heights.
Relationships
- Standard themes: Desire, Sin.
- Themes of the work: Desire, Sin.
- Characters: Dante, Virgil, Brunetto Latini.
- Neighboring symbols: the cord and Geryon, which brings back the leopard in Canto XVI of Inferno and brings Geryon to the edge.