Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

That’s how Dante opened his Commedia, and those lines speak with such clarity and honesty about the miserable month of May that I have just survived. Dark, lonesome, stressful.

Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost.

It’s funny to think back of the days of Letteratura Italiana I. Back then, class ran from 2-3 and it was usually hot during that time of the day. The Italian Studies corner, aula cinquecento, had a single large window that looked on a remarkable view — a wall half naked, half covered with green leaves. I would sit in the front row because that way it was easier to escape once class is over, and on the final desk to the left.

I wasn’t too terribly interested in the volgare and its subsequent climb to power, nor was I the least bit impressed by the politics of Italian cities. The material being in an Italian much advanced beyond my knowledge did not help, and fittingly I discovered that I knew next to nothing about Catholicism and the Middle Ages. This glaring lack of knowledge and the contrasting vast, encyclopaedic knowledge of my professor made me feel profoundly ignorant, a feeling I abhor more than anything else. To add insult to injury, the professor once ridiculed my bracelets, which are sacred to me, and then class turned terminally intolerable.

Then came Dante’s Commedia and changed everything.

Granted it was difficult to understand the volgare, and I don’t think I tried that hard. But the depths of the work explained were too delicious to ignore, and too tempting to resist especially since at that time in my history, dark themes inherent in religion and mythology were very attractive to me. My professed ignorance paired with this enthusiasm turned Letteratura I into a class I anticipated, an experience of knowing, a special time of the day where I can think of Dante’s careful calculations and his images and characters and ponder on meanings underneath the surface, a time where I can stay after class for hours and ask questions and discuss ideas ranging from the determination of Jesus’ birth date to evolution.

La Commedia was the reason for this metamorphosis which paved the way for a more profound and radical change in my character, thought, and principles. My professor, by granting me what time I asked of him after class, and by accepting my opinions and sharing his, opened the door for me to change.

In the Commedia, Dante has Ulisse (Odysseus) tell his men when they propose to return home after venturing to the end of the world, in an attempt to urge them to carry out their adventure to its completion:

Fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza

You have not been created to live like brutes,
But to seek virtues and knowledge.

Ulisse and his men continue the journey and they eventually drown, if you’re curious. Dante had obviously not owned a copy of the Odyssey and his Greek was not that strong, so he simply altered the story (talk about intellectual copy rights.)

Dante’s two lines here summarize why I bothered with surviving the miserable month of May. If the purpose of life is to use what resources we have and to exhaust them by doing so, then I was never more alive than during May. Dante, and my professor, are to thank for that. I have managed to walk out of the dark wood.