Dante, the Gītā and waking up in the dark wood

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai in una selva oscura perchè la dritta via mi era smarrità In the middle of the journey of our life, having lost my way - not seeing the clear way forward, in a dark forest, I came to myself... So begins Dante's Inferno, in a way that bears a striking resemblance to the beginning of the Bhagavad Gītā - in which the protagonist, Arjuna comes to realise the ways he has relied on up to that point are no longer adequate for the challenge he now finds ...