The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Canto I — When Lost, Call Out Loud for Help
I often wonder — back in university, when I kept saying, “I love The Divine Comedy”, was it true passion, or just a way to impress others?
The deeper I delved into Dante’s work, the more I realized how intricate and profound it truly is. And yet, the poem that stayed with me the most was always the very first canto. The further I read, the harder it became to continue.
Still, I remember it vividly — that day after finishing a table tennis tournament in Taoyuan, I rushed back to campus in Xinzhuang, just to make it in time for our Thursday afternoon Dante class. That was the first time in my life I ever entered what people call a state of flow — complete focus, pure joy, no distractions.
I once silently thought to myself:
If I could move even just one other person, let them be touched and lifted by this poet who speaks across seven centuries — that would be something truly beautiful.
That small thought lit a tiny flame in my heart.
And so, I began to dream — of studying The Divine Comedy abroad, of sharing that feeling of my soul being stirred.
But at that time, graduation was near. It was too late to apply for programs overseas, and there were no Dante-focused graduate programs in Taiwan.
Faced with reality and the need to make a living, I returned to my hometown and took a job that paid the bills.
I folded that dream away — for a while.
Now, almost thirty, and having left the job I held for six years, I find myself opening this book again — The Divine Comedy.
Maybe life does circle back to certain paths after all.
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In the first canto, Dante writes:
“Midway upon the journey of our life,
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward path had been lost.”
He doesn’t know how he ended up there.
He only knows that it is a dangerous place, thorny and shadowed.
That fear and uncertainty about the future —
it’s something we all experience at some point in our lives.
There, in the darkness, Dante cries out:
“Miserere di me” — Have mercy on me.
It’s a cry for help, a moment of vulnerability, but also of courage.
And because of that one act of reaching out, he meets Virgil, and begins the journey through Hell, Purgatory, and eventually, Paradise.
Our lives are often like that too.
We feel lost in our work, defeated in love, disheartened by the slow fading of our dreams.
Late at night, when no one’s around, that question drifts through our mind:
“How did I let myself end up like this?”
You might already be exhausted, and yet you still force a smile to get through the day.
Dante reminds us:
Asking for help is not weakness — it is a form of strength.
In a world that often feels cold, in a society that discourages emotional expression,
to say “I need help” might be the bravest thing we can do.
It is the first step toward healing, toward change.
Yes, change is terrifying.
The unknown is frightening.
But humans are fragile creatures, and it’s precisely because of that fragility that we need one another.
Every “Miserere di me” is a call toward the light.
Even if you’re still in the dark forest right now,
even if you don’t yet see the way out —
if you can find the courage to speak, to trust —
the one who will guide you will appear.
