Where
ARE YOU GOING? Dante reminds us that our lives have a destination — and it is Love By Anthony Esolen
Isadora/Bridgeman Images
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Italian word I’ve translated as journey is cammino, and it sugante Alighieri’s Commedia is, in the view of many, gests a pilgrimage, as in the beloved Camino de Santiago, the the greatest poem in the history of literature. That pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James in Compostela. No one alone should recommend it to people of our day, is merely alone on a medieval except that we are in the pilgrimage. Even if you set habit of overlooking what out by yourself, you will be is old. It has been 700 years with fellow pilgrims; you will since Dante’s death in Seppray together and hear Mass tember 1321. We now have along the way. And if you automobiles, televisions and make it home, you will bring computers. We have come back memories to share with a long way. What could that those you love. long-dead Florentine say for Now, Dante says that us today? he was midway upon the A thousand things — but I journey, and again he wants will choose one. We are going to be understood precisely. somewhere, and the jourThe typical lifespan for man, ney we are on is not in our after the flood, is “three score choice. Sure, we can choose years and ten” or 70 (cf. Ps wrong and fail to complete 90:10). This means Dante it. But the destination, and was 35 when the narrative the means for arrival, are not takes place, and since he was up to us. The destination is born in 1265, his imagined to behold God and to delight journey to the hereafter ocin his glory. And Christ curred in 1300. That year is alone is the way. important to him for personLet us look closely at the al and historical reasons, but first lines of the poem: there’s more. Dante did not Midway upon the journey of make up his first line from our life his own head. He is echoing I found myself in a dark Scripture in a powerful way wilderness, — especially powerful for us for I had wandered from the now, when we seem to have straight and true. lost any sense that we are This is not just Dante’s going anywhere at all. way of seizing our attention. The scene is this. The Every word counts. He does good king Hezekiah fell ill, not say my life. It is our life. Dante stands for each person Dante wanders lost and alone in “a dark wilderness” at the begin- and the prophet Isaiah came to him to tell him to settle and for all of us together. The ning of the Inferno in a colorized engraving by Gustave Doré. SEPTEMBER 2021 B C O L U M B I A
COLUMBIA SEPT 21 ENG 8_16 FINAL.indd 21
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8/16/21 9:12 PM