For literature lovers, teachers, poets, writers.
Please, find color variations and similar designs in my collection "Dante": https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/554368-dante-s-divine-comedy-inferno-the-dark-forest-by-yupcat More Floral or Animal designs in my collections "Floral and Plants": https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/492812-floral-plants-by-yupcat And "Animals": https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/492811-animals-by-yupcat Feel free to tag @yupcat on Instagram, or send me pictures of your finished projects here. I'd love to see what you create! CURIOUS FACTS: In 2021, Dante Alighieri (Florence 1265 – Ravenna 1321) was celebrated throughout Italy for the 700th anniversary of his death. Dante is the author of the Divine Comedy universal masterpiece and “father of the Italian language”. He is also symbol of Italian culture in the world and inexhaustible source of inspiration till nowadays. This design was inspired by Canto 1: The Dark Forest (Divine Comedy) HALFWAY through his life, DANTE THE PILGRIM wakes to find himself lost in a dark wood. Terrified at being alone in so dismal a valley, he wanders until he comes to a hill bathed in sunlight, and his fear begins to leave him. But when he starts to climb the hill, his path is blocked by three fierce beasts: first a LEOPARD, then a LION, and finally a SHE-WOLF. They fill him with fear and drive him back down to the sunless wood. Midway along the journey of our life I woke to find myself in a dark wood, for I had wandered off from the straight path. How hard it is to tell what it was like, this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn (the thought of it brings back all my old fears), a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer. But if I would show the good that came of it I must talk about things other than the good. How I entered there I cannot truly say, I had become so sleepy at the moment when I first strayed, leaving the path of truth; but when I found myself at the foot of a hill, at the edge of the wood’s beginning, down in the valley, where I first felt my heart plunged deep in fear, I raised my head and saw the hilltop shawled in morning rays of light sent from the planet that leads men straight ahead on every road. And then only did terror start subsiding in my heart’s lake, which rose to heights of fear that night I spent in deepest desperation. Just as a swimmer, still with panting breath, now safe upon the shore, out of the deep, might turn for one last look at the dangerous waters, so I, although my mind was turned to flee, turned round to gaze once more upon the pass that never let a living soul escape. I rested my tired body there awhile and then began to climb the barren slope (I dragged my stronger foot and limped along). Beyond the point the slope begins to rise sprang up a leopard, trim and very swift! It was covered by a pelt of many spots. And, everywhere I looked, the beast was there blocking my way, so time and time again I was about to turn and go back down. The hour was early in the morning then, the sun was climbing up with those same stars that had accompanied it on the world’s first day, the day Divine Love set their beauty turning; so the hour and sweet season of creation encouraged me to think I could get past that gaudy beast, wild in its spotted pelt, but then good hope gave way and fear returned when the figure of a lion loomed up before me, and he was coming straight toward me, it seemed, with head raised high, and furious with hunger— the air around him seemed to fear his presence. And now a she-wolf came, that in her leanness seemed racked with every kind of greediness (how many people she has brought to grief!). This last beast brought my spirit down so low with fear that seized me at the sight of her, I lost all hope of going up the hill. As a man who, rejoicing in his gains, suddenly seeing his gain turn into loss, will grieve as he compares his then and now, so she made me do, that relentless beast; coming toward me, slowly, step by step, she forced me back to where the sun is mute. (Excerpts from Inferno from The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri - Translated by Mark Musa)