Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/42

VIII. tended beyond. [40] But a third idiom prevailed in all that part of Europe which remains from the other two, though it now appears in a threefold form. For of those who speak it, some say in affirmation oc, others oïl, and others and sì, namely the Spaniards, the French, and the Italians Italians. Now the proof that the vernaculars of these nations proceed from one and the same idiom is obvious, because we see that they call many things by the same names, as Deum, velum, amorem, mare, terram, vivit [50], moritur, amat and almost all other things. Now those of them who say oc inhabit the western part of the Soutj of Europe, beginning from the frontier of the Genoese; while those who say sì inhabit the country east of the said frontier, namely that which extends as far as that promontory of Italy where the Gulf of the Adriatic Sea begins, and Sicily. But those who say oïl lie in some sort to the north of these last; for they have the Germans [60] on their east and north; on the west they are enclosed by the English sea, and bounded by the mountains of Aragon; they are also shut off on the south by the inhabitants of Provence, and the precipices of the Apennines. 3. The climes (climata) were seven zones into which the ancient geographers divided that part of the earth which was known to them. Each clime, going northward, included such a space that the mean length of the longest day was half-an-hour longer than that of the longest day in the previous clime to the south (Moore, Studies in Dante, 3rd series, 131).

43 Oc = Latin hoc (this) ; oïl results from the combination of affirmative hoc with 'ille' (he); as if to the question, ‘Did he do it?’ the answer were given, ‘Yes, he did.’ Sì = sic (so). 44. The speakers of the language of oc are not