2 Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wood, 3 where the right way was lost. Ah! how hard a thing it is to tell what this wild and rough and difficult wood was, 6 which in thought renews my fear! So bitter is it that death is little more. But in order to treat of the good that I found in it, 9 I will tell of the other things that I saw there. I cannot well report how I entered it, so full was I of slumber at that moment 12 when I abandoned the true way. But after I had reached the foot of a hill, where that valley ended 15 which had pierced my heart with fear, I looked upward, and saw its shoulders clothed already with the rays of the planet 18 which leads man aright along every path. Then was the fear a little quieted which had lasted in the lake of my heart 21 through the night that I had passed so piteously. And even as one who with spent breath, issued forth from the sea upon the shore, 24 turns to the perilous water and gazes, so did my mind, which still was flying, turn back to look again upon the pass 27 which never left person alive.
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