In this episode of WALKING WITH DANTE, we take the first steps with our pilgrim, Dante, as he wakes up in a dark wood and starts his walk . . . through hell? No way! Across the known universe.

But before the stars, he first finds himself in a dark wood. He's in a mid-life crisis. Not his. Ours.

He doesn't know how he got there. He just knows it's a bad place. So bad that it makes him quake even as he tries to write about it years later.

Which means there are two Dantes in the poem: the pilgrim who's walking and the poet who's writing. At times, they compete for our attention.

Join me, Mark Scarbrough, to discover the opening lines of Dante's masterwork COMEDY.

If you want to see my rough English translation of this passage, head out to markscarbrough.com or walkingwithdante.com. Or just listen along in this episode.

Here are the segments of this episode of the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE:

[01:09] Why would you want to walk with Dante? Four reasons.

[03:39] Who am I? This podcast has been brewing for years. I finally worked up the courage. Like Dante.

[05:56] Here are the opening lines of of Dante's COMEDY. Why are they so strange, even off-putting at first glance?

[14:12] Does Dante's poem open "in medias res"? That is, "in the middle of things" (as goes the Latin)? That's a phrase to signal the epic form. But Dante's not writing an epic. He's writing a comedy.

[16:23] Who's journey is this? It's a tougher question than you might think. Who is this "I"? And how can this "I" write this journey into the wilds of the universe itself?

[21:57] What's the point of Dante's COMEDY? How can I sum it up in just a few words.