It answered: "not a man now, but once I was." It is the shade of Virgil, who wrote the Aeneid, and lived in the times of the "lying and false gods."ĭante hails Virgil as his master and the inspiration for all poets. At first Dante is afraid, but then implores it for help, whether it be man or spirit. It has difficulty speaking, as though it had not spoken for a long time. Just as Dante begins to feel hopeless in his plight, a figure approaches him. Then a hungry lion appears more fearful than the leopard, but a "she-wolf" comes forward and drives Dante back down into the darkness of the valley. After resting for a moment, he begins to climb the hill towards the light, but he is suddenly confronted by a leopard, which blocks his way and he turns to evade it. He looks up from this dismal valley and sees the sun shining on the hilltop. He cannot remember how he wandered away from his true path that he should be following, but he is in a fearful place, impenetrable and wild. In the middle of the journey of his life, Dante finds himself lost in a dark wood, and he cannot find the straight path.
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