I am not Commander Shepard

When half way through the journey of our life
I found that I was in a gloomy wood,
because the path which led aright was lost.
And ah, how hard it is to say just what
this wild and rough and stubborn woodland was,
the very thought of which renews my fear!
So bitter ’t is, that death is little worse
but of the good to treat which there I found,
I ’ll speak of what I else discovered there.

I cannot well say how I entered it,
so full of slumber was I at the moment
when I forsook the pathway of the truth
but after I had reached a mountain’s foot,
where that vale ended which had pierced my heart
with fear, I looked on high,
and saw its shoulders
mantled already with that planet’s rays
which leadeth one aright o’er every path.

Then quieted a little was the fear,
which in the lake-depths of my heart had lasted
throughout the night I passed so piteously.

And even as he who, from the deep emerged
with sorely troubled breath upon the shore,
turns round, and gazes at the dangerous water
even so my mind, which still was fleeing on,
turned back to look again upon the pass
which ne’er permitted any one to live.

When I had somewhat eased my weary body,
o’er the lone slope I so resumed my way,
that e’er the lower was my steady foot.
Then lo, not far from where the ascent began,
a Leopard which, exceeding light and swift,
was covered over with a spotted hide,
and from my presence did not move away
nay, rather, she so hindered my advance,
that more than once I turned me to go back.

Some time had now from early morn elapsed,
and with those very stars the sun was rising
that in his escort were, when Love Divine
in the beginning moved those beauteous things
I therefore had as cause for hoping well
of that wild beast with gaily mottled skin,
the hour of daytime and the year’s sweet season
but not so, that I should not fear the sight,
which next appeared before me, of a Lion,
— against me this one seemed to be advancing
with head erect and with such raging hunger,
that even the air seemed terrified thereby —


and of a she-Wolf, which with every lust
seemed in her leanness laden, and had caused
many ere now to lead unhappy lives.
The latter so oppressed me with the fear
that issued from her aspect, that I lost
the hope I had of winning to the top.

And such as he is, who is glad to gain,
and who, when times arrive that make him lose,
weeps and is saddened in his every thought
such did that peaceless animal make me,
which, ’gainst me coming, pushed me, step by step,
back to the place where silent is the sun…