Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/46

IX. Let us now inquire why It is that this language has varied into three chief forms, and why each of these variations varies in Itself; why, for instance, the speech of the right side of Italy varies from that of the left (for the Paduans speak in one way and the Pisans in another); and also why those who live nearer together still vary In their speech, as the Milanese and Veronese, the Romans and the Florentines, and even those who [40] have the same national designation, as the Neapolitans and the people of Gaeta, those of Ravenna and those of Faenza, and what is stranger still, the inhabitants of the same city, like the Bolognese of the Borgo S. Felice and the Bolognese of the Strada Maggiore. One and the same reason will explain why all these differences and varieties of speech occur.

We say, therefore, that no effect as such goes, beyond its cause, because nothing can [50] bring about that which itself is not. Since therefore every language of ours, except that created by God with the first man, has been restored at our pleasure after the confusion, which was nothing else but forgetfulness of the former language, and since man is a most unstable and changeable animal, no human language can be lasting and continuous, but must needs vary like other properties of ours, as for instance our manners and our dress, according to distance of time and place [60]. And so far am I from thinking that there is room for doubt as to the truth of our remark that speech varies ‘according to difference of time,’ that we are of opinion that this is rather