the divine comedy of dante alighieri

473 Pages·2004·9.18 MB·English

Wabash College Library
CRAWFORDSVILLE, INDIANA
pa4302
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F18
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THIS BOOK IS A GIFT
WABASH COLLEGE
L E E McCANLISS
O F T H E
CLASS O F 1907
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480 2
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DIVINA COMMEDIA
INFERNO
THE DIVINE COMEDY OF
DANTE ALIGHIERI
THE ITALIAN TEXT WITH A TRANSLATION
IN ENGLISH BLANK VERSE AND
A COMMENTARY
BY
COURTNEY LANGDON
VOLUME I
INFERNO
CAMBRIDGE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
Oxrom UmvEnWv Pnmss
1918
COPYRIGET, 1918
KABVABD UNfVEBSITY PFSSS
COLLEGE
ALLA MIA
AVE DAh’lE
I32I-I 92 I
Above Man’s war-wracked World a veteran throng
Of singing spirits gather in the air,
Called from the Poets’ Heaven to take their share
In Right’s impending victory mer Wrong.
Far in their van the Eagle Eye of Song
Looms o’er Ravenna, where he died, and where
He saw God’s Freedom in the dazzling glare
Of visions, which to every race belong.
Him hhs redeemed, united Italy -
Her Alps new crowned wdh Monza’s iron band,
-
Her Hadria wedded with her Doge’s ring
Hails as the Prophet-Bard of Liberty;
And bids the free of every tongue and land
Join in her Ave, and their tribute bring.
PREFACE
EV ERY new translation of the Divine Comedy, though
in itself a fresh tribute, however humble, to the inter-
lingual, as well as to the international claims of the loftiest
“
of poets,” calls for a word of justification. That justification
involves the expression of some theory as to the translation
of Dante’s world-poem, itself implying a criticism, whether
expressed or not, of competitors already in the field.
The present translation, which is the result of over twenty
years’ work with large classes in Dante in English at
“ ”
Brown University, was undertaken and continued with the
object of meeting a need, which did not seem adequately met
by the well known translations of Cary, Longfellow, Norton,
or others more recent; it, therefore, frankly aimed at being in
every possible way an improvement on its rivals old and new.
Since the advent of the feeling that minute loyalty to the
actual words and thought of the original is a prerequisite to
a translation of any poem of supreme human import, such
a pioneer work as that of Cary, which so long held the field,
came to be recognized as being, not only no longer abreast
of the modern achievements of Dante scholars, but as
inadequate in the above all-important respect.
Longfellow’s widely diffused version, which is an almost
painfully accurate translation of the then accepted Italian
text, at once attained great popularity not only in America
[ vii]
PREFACE
but abroad, a popularity largely due to the poetical fame of
its author, to its literal loyalty to every word of the original,
for which it could so easily be made to serve as a pony,’
and to the wealth and excellence of its accompanying notes.
Longfellow, however, in his apparent eagerness to be true
to every syllable of the Italian, was led to draw too much
upon the tempting Latin element, which looks like Italian,
and too little upon the stronger, homely Anglo-Saxon ele-
ment, of his English medium, to bring due conviction to an
English ear; he was also betrayed into infelicities of con-
struction and rhythm peculiarly surprising in such a poet as
the author of the incomparable Dante Sonnets, a betrayal
which has found explanation in the state of his mind and
heart during the prosecution of the work. This, conse-
quently, remains as an instance of a great translation which,
not intended to be prose, ought not to have been thought of
as poetry. After using it for two or three years, I gave it up,
in spite of its many happy lines, and valuable notes, because
I found that I could not read it aloud with continuous
pleasure either to myself or to my hearers.
Possibly as a reaction against these obvious defects,
Charles Eliot Norton produced his well known and excellent
prose version, against which the only thing that can be said
is, that it is just what it purports to be, prose, a prose only
slightly hampered by extreme verbal loyalty; and that it
was composed under the strange conviction, expressed in his
preface, that to preserve in its integrity what (of the
“ ”
[ viii ]
PREFACE
thought and sentiment embodied in the verse) may thus
“
be transferred, prose is a better medium than verse.” Ad-
mitting, however, that for the harmonious blending of mean-
ing and music in the original, a new harmony might, indeed,
be substituted, Mr. Norton unfortunately added: but the
“
difference is fatal,” and in giving up the creation of a new
harmony himself, he lent the great authority of his name to
the suggestion that any such attempt by others would prove
futile.
As to such efforts as that of Dean Plumptre and others to
translate Dante in English terza rima, it ought to be suffi-
cient to urge, in the first place, that rhymes are practically
an insurmountable obstacle for one who, as a translator, is
‘already limited by the demands of loyalty to another’s
articulated thought and feeling; and, secondly, that terza
rima is not an indigenous, or even a fully acclimated, form
of verse in English, and can not be made to sound natural to
an English ear, or, at any rate, produce the effect it does in
Italian, where it is to the manner born. I, therefore, feel
that neither terza rima, nor, indeed, any rhymed transla-
tion in metrical forms still more alien in poetical tone to that
in which the Divine Comedy was written, can prove to be
at best other than unnatural and unsympathetic, though at
times brilliant, tours deforce. Their readers will too often be
met by forced constructions, and forced or weak rhymes,
while students familiar with the Italian original will too
often be grieved by omissions, weakenings, or additions, to