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In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura. I began the Commedia not as allegory but as fact: I was lost, politically, spiritually, personally. I had been exiled from Florence, the city I loved above all others, condemned in absentia to be burnt alive if I ever returned. The dark wood was not metaphor. It was my life in 1300.