Page:A translation of the Latin works of Dante Alighieri.djvu/50

X. it, namely, the compilations of the exploits of the Trojans and Romans, the exquisite legends of King Arthur, and very many [20] other works of history and learning. Another, namely that of oc, claims that eloquent speakers of the vernacular first employed it for poertry, as being a more finished and sweeter language, for instance Peter of Auvergne and other ancient writers. The third also, which is the language of the Italians, claims pre-eminence on the strength of two privileges : first, that the sweetest and most subtle poets who have written in the vernacular are its intimate friends and belong to its household [30], like Cino of Pistoia and his friend; second, that it seems to lean more on grammar, which is common: and this appears a very weight argument to those who examine the matter in a rational way.

We, however, decline to give judgement in this case, and confining, our treatise to the vernacular Italian, let us endeavour to enumerate the variations it has received into itself, and also to compare these with one another. In the first place, then, we say that Italy has a twofold division [40] into right and left. But, if any should ask what is the dividing line, we answer shortly that it is the ridge of the Apennines, which like the ridge of a tiled roof discharges its droppings in differcnt directions on either side, and pours its waters down to either shore alternately through long gutter-tiles, as Lucan describes in his second book. Now the right side has the Tyrrhenian Sea as its basin, while the waters on the left fall into the Adriatic. The districts on the right [50]