or that the latter line could possibly be twisted so as to mean, "babies, males, and maids," as the ingenious expounder has rendered it. 24. V. 123. Mr. Cary, by making occhi grifagni "hawk's eye," puts the spe cies for the variety. It is a mercy that it is no worse. He should have said, soarage eyes," it seems. What it is to have been out fowling with Tuscans! But, however, he is not so bad as Boccaccio, "the very best possible authority," who also "was no fowler," and misinterprets occhi grifagni, «6 eyes of a grifon." 25. V. 125. Mr. Cary's fierce "the soldan fierce❞ is an interpolation, and quite out of the spirit of the original. For solo, alone, is the only epithet in it. Solo in parte vidi 'l Saladino; and it is accompanied by the definite article, which in Italian is like a title of nobility, well agreeing with that Saracen's rank and virtues: The lonely, lordly Saladin. Mr. Cary has no right to interpolate a word, though it may describe a part of the Soldan's character, which is mentioned by historians---namely, that he was "the greatest terror" of the Christians. (Knolles's History of the Turks.). The learned expositor is at full liberty to supply whatever may be necessary to fill up his verse, provided he denies it the fine heroic complement; and yet, perhaps the Soldan might have challenged an Alexandrine of five. 26. Canto 5. V.25. For the first words of my translation of it, I must crave excuse; they do not literally construe" perche pur gride." But this simple check, when taken with the context, conveys such sense of mild command, that I, in three instances, found it forcibly recall to those perusing this canto for the first time (in the original I mean) the repulse given by our Saviour to Satan" Get thee behind me:" so that despairing of suggesting that venerable association of ideas by any other aneans, I was at last emboldened to introduce our Saviour's own words; and since I could not retain both the expressions and the spirit of my author, I surrendered the former, in the hope of being able to preserve the latter. Mr. Cary's "wherefore exclaimest ?" preserves neither the one nor the other; for it does not render pur (which has much signification here); and it is quite devoid of majesty. Mr. Cary, a divine, and hesitate to put our Saviour's words into the mouth of Minos in hell? He ought to have known better, and borrowed the whole sentence from the Bible, when he was unable to find an expletive in his own language to answer the word pur; and the learned expounder has served him quite right in not telling him any thing about its meaning. Men who have lived many years in Italy, and have been out fowling with Tuscans, and have the honour to be personally acquainted with Signor Bardi, and Chevalier Monti, and the Marchese Malaspina, go to, and who have, moreover, Alexandrines of their own, and use double rhymes at pleasure, like his lordship, are not quite so com municative. 27. V. 78. Per quell' amor ch'ei mena. Mr. Cary's love which carries them along" is as deficient as the French version. The expounder amply compensates the deficiency of all former versions He translates and commentaries. the words, " fondness which drew them on to their ruin, and of which they shall never be rid !" "Mena," he says, " has nearly forty significations, many of which convey sense of infliction.' It is very considerate of him to inflict only two of these on his readers, and not to employ the "artful beauty of Ascensius," which would have exposed them to the whole forty. "Mena" implies sense of infliction, as " give" implies it when joined with certain "to give a blow;" other words, as "to give a beating." 28. V. 82. Mr. Cary's "by fond desire invited" is less exceptionable (than M. Ginguene's); yet inasmuch as it may be referred to sexual desire, it is wrong. It is something not to be the worst. Occupet extremum scabies. When the learned expounder gives (quere, has the word the force of inflicts here?) his own translation, we shall, perhaps, know what is the best. 29. V. 98. There is in the text a trait which I endeavour to retain by the word beset, and which is not at all to be discovered in Ginguené's version, où le Po descend pour s'y reposer avec les fleuves qui le suivent; nor, indeed, in Mr. Cary's To rest in ocean with his sequent streams." We should not wonder if M. Ginguené and Mr. Cary, being kept in The placid main which sheltereth Po 30. V.99. S'apprende means precisely kindle (see Vocabolario, § iv.), so that Mr. Cary's "love that in gentle heart is quickly learnt," conveys nothing of the metaphor; yet s'apprendere, in the sense of catching fire, is common in Italian; as, un fuoco s'apprese in casa. We know what Mr. Cary will say to this; that s'apprende does not mean kindle, but catch; that it is, therefore, a metaphor, even when applied to fire itself; and that he has a note upon this line, to which he would have taken it civil of the expounder if he had referred. 31. V. 112. M. Ginguené and the other translators with whom I am acquainted, interpolate a lui, or something equivalent (as Mr. Cary's I, in answer"); words that are, I believe, directly in opposition with the spirit of the original. 66 This note is too long to transcribe. It ends by telling us, that in consequence of a remark of the chief Italian poet of this day, the Chevalier Monti, the expounder "took the liberty of inserting" (quere, omitting) "a syllable, and changed And, answering, I begun,' into And I, in answer's lieu,' as it at present stands." Mr. Cary stands too; and as he has one syllable less, he goes up. 32. V. 120. "Dubbiosi desiri," "dubious desires," is the original. "In the season of sweet sighs," is the original, and it means in the spring of life: so that, to interpolate your, as that gentleman (M. Ginguené) and Mr. Cary do, is to injure the image by oblite rating its generalization. Lombardi is the only commentator we know of, who has a note on this passage; and he is for M. Ginguené and Mr. Cary. "Al tempo ch'ognun di voi sospirava per amoroso fuoco, senza manifestarvelo l'un l'altro." 33. V. 137. After what I have said in my preface, I refrain from ever noticing Mr. Cary's translation, excepting when I find it literally defective; yet on this one occasion it may be allowed me, in justice to my author, to regret that it is possible for such literal exactness to co-exist with so that there is only one occasion on In its leaves That day we read no more. Mr. Cary ought not to have been so verbose as to put nine words where the ingenious expounder can make eight (in prose) serve. M. Ginguené has the most concision, who gets it into ten. Mr. Cary ought to have grammars are wrong in their interknown that all the dictionaries and pretation of the word vi, and that it. has been lately discovered in Tuscany to be a pronoun answering to lo in Italian, and it in English. 35. V. 69. Mr. Cary, in explaining it "Charles of Valois," is not to be blamed for many of the commentators do the same, even the last, M. Biagioli. 36. V. 79. Tegghiajo must be pronounced as a word of only two syllables, Cary is guilty of a false quantity, for he the iajo being a double diphthong. Mr. makes it a word of three syllables. well, that he will insist on the imposWe know Mr. Cary's obstinacy so sibility of pronouncing it as a word of only two. 37. V. 99. Whether Mr. Cary in tended to make the voice of the Eternal, instead of echoing throughout illimitable space, have the specific effect of rending the vaults of the dead, I do not know: but his version bears that aspect; And hear the eternal doom re-echoing rend The vault and it is not certainly the figure given by Dante, nor (in my opinion) half so majestic as his. How poor is doom, instead of his-quel! For I translate verbatim "Shall hear him who echoes through eternity; making quel mean colui, or Iddio (God), and not quel suono, which last word is considered by some commentators as understood, but unnecessarily; and, I think, most injudiciously. Mr. Cary will probably ask the expounder whether, when Milton speaks of A shout that tore hell's concave, P. L. 1. 541. he means, that the shout had the specific effect of tearing the concave of hell; or whether, when Hamlet, in Shakspeare, warns the players against splitting the ears of the groundlings, he means, that they should not perform that specific operation upon the ears of the audience. Our expositor here obliges us with one of his own double-rhymed Alexandrines, i His voice that rolls Echoing through ages-through the age unending; a translation which is the more to be admired as it gives that kind of sense to quel which he has just pronounced to be wrong. 38. Canto 7. V. 21. The verse is printed as an interrogation in the Cominiana, and all the most esteemed editions; as, indeed, the particle chi requires. Yet Mr. Cary translates it like a mere exclamation, adducing Landino as his authority, who makes chi the same as che. Landino's words are not very clear. Mr. Cary will, to be sure, cling to his favourite Landino, who, he says, in his preface, "appears to enter most thoroughly into the mind of the poet;' a preference which he would scarcely have given, if he had first seen this learned Comment. 39. V. 24. Mr. Cary, in translating onda not a mass of billows, but "a billow," diminishes much the propriety of the metaphor; and the more so, because Dante, by onda s'intoppa, alluded to a characteristic phenomenon of the straits of Messina, which he must have observed when he was ambassador in Sicily. Mr. Cary will be forced to confess his ignorance, that "onda" is used as a metaphor, or that it can possibly mean "a mass of billows;" for both which discoveries he will give full credit to the learned expounder, whose own translation of these three lines is too excellent not to be noticed. Not wild Charibdis; when the wildest masses Of breakers combat in its pool renown'd, Chafe like the innumerous troop that waltzes. If all is in this strain, what a loss have the lovers of Dante in not seeing the whole! 40. V. 30. Perche burli.-Though Mr. Cary's" why castest thou away," preserves the sense, it does not the imagery-the poetry of the text. No; no; leave that to the ingenious expounder. He will give you the imagery, the poetry; though with much modesty he tells you, at the same time," that the exact history of burlare is certainly to be looked for in the east." Spinning their weights around, around, While breasts strike breasts with pangs condign, Ho! charge, hurra, jolt, bound, rebound! Ho! foe to foe, and line to line! Each cursing each, and madly crying, "Why closed thy palm?"-"Why open thine ? "' Then thwart the sooty cavern flying, Still, still they bandy, railing, raging, That savage taunt, that fierce replying; And face about and form-engaging For ever in that rude, unvaried tilt. Be the history of burlare east or west, we will seek for it---for the veritable burlesque---only in this gentleman's translation, and Velutello's comment upon it as referred to by him. "Burella," in the Lombard dialect, means, a little ball usually tied to the tail of a monkey to prevent its running away; whence the proverb, "wherever the monkey goes, there goes the burella." 41. V. 40. Guerci della mente. Mr. Cary does not even attempt preserving this emboldened him to do so. fine expression. Shakspeare might have Ham. Methinks I see my father. Guerci della mente is by the learned expounder translated "mentally us. blind." Hamlet then was "mentally blind," when he saw his father in his mind's eye. When he has done with Dante, the ingenious commentator must elucidate Shakspeare for We have not the least doubt of his making such discoveries as are not now dreamt of. We apprize the English reader of Italian, that he is to blot out the meaning "squinteyed," which he will find affixed to guercio," in his dictionary, and substitute" blind," on the authority of the gentleman. Mr. C. was not enough emboldened by Shakspeare's example to write "squint-eyed. of mind," which was the only meaning of "guerci della mente" before this discovery; and he has therefore made it 66 in mind All these were so distorted. * 42. V. 48. Soperchio. Soperchio. Mr. Cary leaves out this metaphor. Neither does he introduce the characteristic term tonsures (chercuti) any where in his version of this passage. Mr. Cary, if he had a mind to answer this politely, would first wipe his spectacles, and gently setting them astride the commentator's nose, beg him to look out "chercuti" in his Italian dictionary, and "tonsures" in his English one, and then to tell him whether one word is a translation of the other, and whether "these whose heads are shorn," is not as exemplary a translation as can be made of " questi chercuti." By the same process, he may satisfy himself as to the synonymes he talks of in page 436. But Mr. Cary must needs acknowledge that he has dropped a metaphor (if metaphor it can be called) implied in the word soperchio, which did not seem to be transferable into his own language. The words literally rendered are "in whom avarice uses its excess." 43. V. 120. The word is pullulare, and is a figurative expression drawn from the bourgeoning of plants. Mr. Cary attends not to the metaphor. Into these bubbles make the surface heave, is Mr. Cary's translation. It must have required as great a master of our language as the learned expounder himself to render the metaphor tolerable in English. of all wisdom," is the text; and it is a bold 44. C. 8. V. 7. "So I, turning to the sea Virgil. Indeed, the variety of appellations and most Dantesque manner of designating which he is given, is a distinguishing trait of the Divine Comedy. No writer of verse or prose (in any language), not even Mr. Gibbon, rivals its fertility in this particu lar; Mr. Cary, as afraid of the boldness of the expression, replaces it with the commonplace one" turning to the deep source of I know not what of peculiar poignancy; knowledge." Yet mar di tutto 'l senno, has which a literal version best conveys. What a mortification must it be to Mr. Cary not to have satisfied such a critic! But let him be comforted; for how could he hope to emulate a fertility unrivalled even by Mr. Gib bon? A poignancy scarcely understood even by the learned critic him self. Having detained our reader so long in considering all the objections which are here made to Mr. Cary's translation, we shall take up no more of his time than will be necessary for remarking a few of the instances, wherein the expounder himself appears to have fallen into those errors from which no man, however wise and learned, is entirely exempt. The writer, having an hypothesis of his own on the allegory in the first canto, is, with the true zeal of a system-maker, very anxious to remove out of sight any thing that may weaken it. But The forest, (he tells us,) by other commentators is represented as meaning simply and abstractly vice and error; and by some the vice of Dante himself. as to these latter, they are at variance with the fact of his having been reputed one of the most moral of mankind, and no other of his works discovering any thing like the confession of ambition, voluptuousness, and avarice, which they would put into his mouth here: and as to the former, they surely set their author somewhat at variance, not only with the common language of ethics, and with the Bible,but even with him * Landino has a good note on this: "Non guardando diricto non seppono discernere el vero; e vedere la misura, la quale contiene la virtu: ma guatando biecamente presono gli estremi."-Ediz. 1484. "Not looking straight, they knew not to discern the truth, and to behold the measure in which virtue is contained; but looking askance, they took the extremes." Here the commentator is either so ignorant of the language he pretends to interpret, as not to understand the meaning of the word diritto, and therefore, looking out for it in his dictionary, mistakes straight, direct, for strait, narrow; or else is so weak, as to suppose that he can pass off one word for the other. But this, whether mistake or contrivance, will not avail him further than to puzzle some unpractised or unwary reader. Dante says he lost the diritta υία, lost, that is, the straight forward road of truth, the verace via, as he calls it in the twelfth line; and found himself in error, ignorance, and perplexity---all which are so plainly figured by a dark wood, wild, and rough, and strong una selva oscura -Selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte; that scarcely any reader of common understanding, if left to himself, could fail to discover the meaning of the allegory. Yet this same "wood," according to our present commentator, signifies "sanguinary faction,' which he terms " a particular species of vice." Thus, according to him, vice is in general "a gay alluring walk of flowers, wide and easy;' and one part of "this gay alluring walk of flowers," is "a dark wood, black and brambly," or, as he elsewhere calls it, "a bleak desert." Having, however, made out the "wood" to be "sanguinary faction," he concludes that the three beasts which he meets, the panther, the lion, and the wolf, cannot mean, as they have been hitherto understood, the three vices, which beset man in consequence of his error and ignorance, one after another, in youth, manhood, and old age, namely― Pleasure, Ambition, and Avarice; but that they are the City of Florence, the King of France, and the Court of Rome. Mr. Cary has remarked of Lombardi, one of the latest commentators, that "his zeal to do something new often leads him to do Lombardi can no longer, in this resomething that is not over wise.”+ spect, claim a pre-eminence over the other commentators. of Plato, by which this allegory is There is a passage in the Cratylus well explained. Τὸ δὲ ἀναγκαῖον καὶ ἀντίτυπον, παρὰ Tv Bovλýow ôv, tò weρì rηv àμapríav ἂν εἴη καὶ ἀμαθίαν. ἀπείκασται δὲ τῷ κατὰ τὰ ἄγκη πορείᾳ, ὅτι δύσπορα καὶ τραχέα καὶ λάσια ὄντα ἴσχει τοῦ ἰέναι. ἐντεῦθεν οὖν ἴσως ἐκλήθη ἀναγκαῖον, τῇ διὰ τοῦ ἄγκους ἀπεικασθὲν πορείᾳ. Bipont. Ed. vol. iii. p. 306. since they are contrary to the will, "The necessary and the resisting, must subsist about guilt and ignorance. But they are assimilated to a progression through a valley; because, on account of their being passed through with difficulty, and their rough and dense nature, like a place thickly planted with trees, they impede progression. And hence, peran assimilation to a progression through haps, necessity was denominated from a valley."-Taylor's Translation. In a note to his comment on c.i. v. 101, he says, "The odd prophecy of Landino having seemingly attracted no notice in the thickly printed volume wherein it occurs, I had the curiosity to try how it could be applied." Where then did it attract notice, if not in the thickly printed volume wherein it occurs? or how did it happen that the knowledge of it came down to Sterne, who "ridicules it," as the commentator himself tells us? The oral tradition from Landino to Sterne is much more difficult to imagine than the possibility of this prophecy having attracted the notice of some one reader in the thickly printed volume P. 9. If Dritta be not an error of the press, we should like to know in what edition the commentator here found diritta thus abbreviated. The whole line is + Preface, p. 50. Che la diritta via era smarrita. For a different etymology of áváyun, see Aristotle, Пgì Kóσμov. cap. vii. |