The three enemies of creativity according to Dante and what it takes to face them
The panther, the lion and the she-wolf will be there at every turn. Are you willing to face them? (Inferno 1 — Part 2)
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With each extract, you'll get a brief explanation and a journaling prompt, to help you reflect and take the next action in your creative and personal journey of growth, transformation and of stepping into your light.
Hello and welcome to the second issue of Dante’s Divine Comedy for Artists and Feminists!
We last left Dante as he was looking up towards the mountain, after getting lost in the dark forest. The very act of looking up was, as I shared in this series’ first newsletter, an act of courage: it takes guts to have hope. But it is key, because, as we will see in today’s passage, as soon as one allows themselves to follow one’s journey, what happens is that the “enemies” or “traps” show up.
The temptation to turn around: creativity as a scary path (and why one should not surrender)
And in fact, in today’s piece, we feel Dante’s angst and temptation to turn back: again and again.
At first, he turns back to “re-behold the pass, Which never yet a living person left.” Most commentators I have come across underline, when it comes to this particular line, that Dante is pointing to the finitude of life: we are like seafarers, always close to the next potential shipwreck. Life is a perilous journey—and that fact itself should be, for all of us, a source of both wisdom, and gratitude. However, I think that there is scope here to see this particular line from a different perspective.
To re-behold the path that never a living person has left, can be a way to think about the parts of ourselves we must surrender in order to give life to that which is close to our heart.
Marion Woodman wrote a book, which she titled “The Pregnant Virgin.” It is inspired by the metaphor of the Chrysalis, and in it, she suggests that, to be in an ongoing relationship with life, in order to let life flow through me (and not, “happen to me” or “happen by me”) we must let ourselves be at all times both Virgins (open to the new that wants to emerge) and Pregnant (open to our projects developing in their own direction, irrespective of how we want them to develop).
And, she writes, if you’re the kind of person who is brooding a project close to your heart, if you’re a Pregnant Virgin, “if you are to release your own butterfly, you too will sacrifice a drop of blood, let go of the past and turn to the future.”
To re-behold the path that never a living person has left, can be a way to think about the parts of ourselves we must surrender in order to give life to that which is close to our heart.
Dante’s meeting with the three enemies: what the panther, the lion and the she-wolf stand for
Time to read the extract and face the traps.
Thus continues the Divine Comedy in the English Longfellow edition:
And even as he, who, with distressful breath,
Forth issued from the sea upon the shore,
Turns to the water perilous and gazes;So did my soul, that still was fleeing onward,
Turn itself back to re-behold the pass
Which never yet a living person left.After my weary body I had rested,
The way resumed I on the desert slope,
So that the firm foot ever was the lower.And lo! almost where the ascent began,
A panther light and swift exceedingly,
Which with a spotted skin was covered o’er!And never moved she from before my face,
Nay, rather did impede so much my way,
That many times I to return had turned.The time was the beginning of the morning,
And up the sun was mounting with those stars
That with him were, what time the Love DivineAt first in motion set those beauteous things;
So were to me occasion of good hope,
The variegated skin of that wild beast,The hour of time, and the delicious season;
But not so much, that did not give me fear
A lion’s aspect which appeared to me.He seemed as if against me he were coming
With head uplifted, and with ravenous hunger,
So that it seemed the air was afraid of him;And a she-wolf, that with all hungerings
Seemed to be laden in her meagreness,
And many folk has caused to live forlorn!She brought upon me so much heaviness,
With the affright that from her aspect came,
That I the hope relinquished of the height.And as he is who willingly acquires,
And the time comes that causes him to lose,
Who weeps in all his thoughts and is despondent,E’en such made me that beast withouten peace,
Which, coming on against me by degrees
Thrust me back thither where the sun is silentWhile I was rushing downward to the lowland,
Before mine eyes did one present himself,
Who seemed from long-continued silence hoarse.
The enemies Dante encounters as soon as he ventures on his path are the panther, the lion and the she-wolf.
The first, the panther, is light and swift. She sets herself in the middle of the path, so much so that Dante considers turning back.
The second, the lion, doesn’t just block the path, it actually moves towards Dante, head uplifted, as if hungry.
The third, instead, the she-wolf, looks so thin and hopeless, that Dante lets her fear get to him, and thus, lets himself fall into despair.
Moving forward on our path, and engaging with that which we want to give life to, requires that we confront the three animals: our blocks, our shadows and truths, our fears.
In his poem, Choruses, from "The Rock", T.S. Eliot—who famously said that “Shakespeare and Dante had divided the world between them”—suggested that the panther, the lion and the she-wolf may be sex, money, and power. Other interpretations point to lust, pride and greed: on all accounts, three forces that can distract us from moving towards the light, from growth, self-awareness, and, ultimately, even our goals themselves.
But we can also see the panther as the creative block, the lion as the truth that stares at us in the face, and the she-wolf as our own fear, of being destitute, of inspiring pity.
Whichever the interpretation, moving forward on our path, and engaging with that which we want to give life to, requires that we confront the three animals: our blocks, our shadows and truths, our fears.
What we must beware of, though, is to lose sight of our goal—our creative pursuit— and make money, prestige, power, or sex our goal. That’s like letting one of the animals eat us alive.
The panther, the lion and the she-wolf: an invitation to deepen our path
Dante, like all of us, is tempted to listen to the lure of the three animals, and turn around, which would be a way to abandon the journey, and avoid getting into Hell. But it would also be a turning away from the calling: the deeper journey our soul wants to undertake.
The only way to step more fully into ourselves and our power is to accept that the panther, the lion and the she-wolf might be waiting for us at every turn. And that they are there to inspire our exploration, to deepen our quest.
Are we willing to face them? Are you?
Journaling Prompt:
Which of the three traps are you currently most lured by? What is the ultimate goal you feel you’re pursuing? How is it that life wants to flow through you? And what is it you must let go of, to let it?
Dante’s Divine Comedy for Artists and Feminists is a project by Stefania Montagna (not a literature expert, but a writer and life coach with an interest in psychology and spirituality).
Subscribe to get three e-mails per week with a portion of a canto each, to inspire your journey as a feminist and an artist FROM (CREATIVE) HELL TO PARADISE.
With each extract, you'll get a brief explanation and a journaling prompt, to help you reflect and take the next action in your creative and personal journey of growth, transformation and of stepping into your light.