Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/487

 12 8. n. DEC. 16, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

481

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER !>,

CONTENTS. No. 51.

TNOTES : Danteiana, 481 An English Army List of 1740, 482 Peele's Authorship of ' Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany.' 484 Belleforesf,, 486 "Taking it out in drink Metal-bridge, Dublin Notes on the Mussel-Duck don't think," 487.

QUERIKS -A Naval Relic of Charles I., 487-Jennings and Finlay Families " Sheridaniana "" Carrstipers : "Correll": " Whelping "- Rev. William Churchill^ Rev. Michael Ferrehee. 488- An Old Regimental Spirit Decanter-Sarum Missal The Depository of Royal Wills Authors Wantecl-Govane of Stirlingshire, 489 The Beggar's Opera '-The Speaker's Perquisites-pdours-- Poland in London-Ochiltree Family-G. Snell, Artist, 490.

CHEPLIES : Ladies' Spurs, 490 General Boulanger : Bibliography. 491 Boat-Race Won by Oxford with Seven Oars 492-Binnestead in Essex, 494-Bath Forum- Foreign Graves of British Authors A Lost Poem by Kipling-Authors Wanted- Officers' "Batmen," 495 The King of Italy's Descent from Charles I. Americanisms, 496" Privileges of Parliament "Substitutes for Pil- grimage, 497 " ffoliott " and " ffrench " Poe, Margaret Gordon, and 'Old Mortality 'Touch Wood-Inscriptions in Burial - Ground of the Chapel Royal, Savoy Sir Gammer Vaus 'Village Pounds, 498.

NOTES ON BOOKS : The Oxford Dictionary. -OBITUARY : William Henry Peet. 'Notices to Correspondents.

DANTEIANA.

1. ' INT.,' xxii. 14, 15 :

Ahi fiera compagnia ! ma nella chiesa Co' santi, ed in taverna co' ghiottoni. 'Textually these lines are almost negligible : Witte has " coi santi " and " coi ghiottoni," and the Bodleian MS. I. (Bat. 488) " in chiesa." As a proverb it is smartly quoted and is simple enough, yet has had its meaning strangely distended and distorted by, in my view, unwarrantably juxtaposing it with an altogether dissimilar English saying. Thus, the late much regretted Rev. H. F. Tozer explains it :

" i.e., adapt yourself to your company ; the proverb corresponds to the Engl. saying ' When you're in Home, do as the Romans do.' "

And Dean Plumptre :

" The proverb of 1. 14, the Italian equivalent of like proverbs in well-nigh all languages (' When at Rome, do as Rome does," <fcc.), reads almost like an apologia for the absence of all the conventional dignity of poetry."

I submit that to parallel the two proverbs is to distort Dante's meaning. The Italian

implies no more surely than an accidental or enforced consorting with company which may be good or ill ; the English denotes an inculcated participation in the conduct of either. Where, then, is the alleged corre- spondence between the two proverbs ? I marvel greatly that two such eminent Dante scholars should (by coincidence or connivance ?) read the meaning of one proverb into another, one of which is the exact converse of the other. " Birds of a feather flock together" is akin in speech wholly, in drift partly to the former, but in no sense to the latter.

To the poet's own countrymen the proverb he cites has no ambiguity. Says Scartaz- zini :

" Questo proverbio popolarc vuol dire che la convpagnia corrisponde sempre al luogo in cui 1'uomo si trova, onde nell' inferno non poteva aspettarsi compagnia migliore."

And Bianchi :

" Proverbio, che significa, che 1'uomo trova sempre la compagnia conveniente al luogo dove si porta : nell' Inferno npn poteva aspettarsi di trovare che gente di quei costumi."

Also Lombardi :

" Proverbio a dinotare che secondo il luogo hassi la compagnia : volendo dire che come nella chiesa si hanno compagni gli uomini santi ciod dabbene, e nell' osteria i ghiotti, cosi nell' luferno i demoni."

No hint here that Dante, by his use of a popular proverb, would have us imply that he and Virgil when in hell did as hell does, still less that " they went to their own company " (the 1j\0ov irpor rot/s Idlovs of Acts iv. 23), but that being in hell accident- ally they found themselves surrounded by a fiera compagnia of beings died dimoni whom they expected to find there, as one expects to find saints in a church and gluttons in an inn. Just this and nothing more.

As to Dean Plumptre's discovering in the proverb " an apologia for the absence of all the conventional dignity of poetry," I presume he refers, to quote his comment on 1. 36, to " the grotesque element " which " becomes less and less restrained." I am not so sure of a lurking apology therein as I am that there is no violation by the " grotesque. element " of " the conventional dignity of poetry." If there be such, then a similar apology was due to the world of letters from the illustrious author of ' The Dream of Gerontius ' and others.

2. ' Inf.,' xxiii. 4, 6 :

V61to era in su la favola d'Isopo. . . . Dov' ei parlo della rana e del topo.