Inferno

The poem begins on the night before Good Friday in the year 1300, “halfway along our life’s path” (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita). Dante is thirty-five years old, half of the biblical life expectancy of 70 (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate), lost in a dark wood (understood as sin) assailed by beasts (a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf) he cannot evade, and unable to find the “straight way” (diritta via) – also translatable as “right way” – to salvation (symbolized by the sun behind the mountain).