Canto I

Midway on my journey through life, I find myself within a forest dark, for the straight path has been lost. The forest is savage, rough, and stern, and I don’t know how I stumbled into it. I think I was asleep at that moment, when I abandoned the true way.
I have not slept well. The night pierced my heart. I dreamed I had reached the mountain's foot, where the valley terminated. My soul was fleeing onward, dragging me up the mountain, but my weary body needed to rest.
Before I could begin my ascent, a mad dog, a ghost dog, her fur and skin white as death, stood in my way and growled at me. She’d come against me, snapping her jaws, head uplifted, ravenous, so that even the air was afraid of her. I knew I could not pass, and so I grew despondent. The dog lashed against me by degrees, thrusting me back where the sun is silent.
I need my hammer. Then I can hammer in the morning, hammer in the evening, all over this land. First I will crack the skull of this mangy dog. And then I will kill my poor family. They will be free of me and my sins, at last. Amen.