Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20.djvu/767

1867.]

we must own that we have no sympathy with the theory of free translation, we recognize the manifold merits of execution in this work, and accept it as one which, together with Mr. Longfellow's version of the whole of Dante's Divina Commedia, and Mr. Norton's translation of the Vita Nuova, will make the present year memorable in our literature. It does not necessarily stand in antagonism to works executed in a spirit entirely different, and we shall make no comparison of it with the "Inferno" by Mr. Longfellow, the admirers of which will be among the first to feel its characteristic and very striking excellences.

In substituting the decasyllabic quatrain for the triple rhyme of the Italian, we suppose Dr. Parsons desired rather to please the reader's ear with a familiar stanza, than to avoid the difficulties (exaggerated, we think, by critics) of the tersa rima, and he could certainly have chosen no more felicitous form after once departing from that of his original. He has almost re-created the stanza for his purpose, giving it new movement, and successfully adapting to the exigencies of dialogue and of narrative what has hitherto chiefly been associated with elegiac and didactic poetry. Something of this may be seen in the following passages (from the description of the transit through the frozen circle of Caïna), which moreover appear to us among the best sustained of the version.

And as a frog squats croaking from a stream,
 * With nose put forth, what time the village maid
 * Oft in her slumber doth of gleaning dream,
 * Stood in the ice there every doleful shade.

Livid as far as where shame paints the cheek,
 * And doomed their faces downward still to hold,
 * Chattering like storks, their weeping eyes bespeak
 * Their aching hearts, their mouths the biting cold."


 * "A thousand visages I saw, by cold
 * Turned to dog-faces; horror chills me through
 * Whenever of those frozen fords I think.
 * And as we nearer to the centre drew,
 * Towards which all bodies by their weight must sink,

There, as I shivered in the eternal chill,
 * Trampling among the heads, it happed, by luck,
 * Or destiny or, it may be, my will
 * Hard in the face of one my foot I struck.

Weeping he cried, 'What brings thee bruising us
 * Unless on me fresh vengeance thou wouldst pile
 * For Mont' Aperti, why torment me thus?'
 * And I: 'My Master, wait for me awhile,

That I through him may set one doubt at rest;
 * Then, if thou bid me hasten on, I will.'
 * My leader stopped; and I the shade addressed
 * Who kept full bitterly blaspheming still,

'Say, who art thou whose tongue so foully speaks?'
 * 'Nay, who art thou that walk'st the withering air
 * Of Antenora, smiting others' cheeks
 * That, wert thou living, 'twere too much to bear?'

'Living I am; and thou, if craving fame,
 * Mayst count it precious,' this was my reply,
 * 'That I with other notes record thy name.'
 * He answered thus: 'Far other wish have I.

Trouble me now no longer, get thee gone:
 * Thine is cold flattery in this waste of Hell.'
 * At this his hindmost hairs I fastened on,
 * And cried, 'Thy name! I'll force thee now to tell,

Or not one hair upon thy head shall grow.'
 * He answered thus: 'Although thou pluck me bare,
 * I 'II neither tell my name, nor visage show;
 * Nay, though a thousand times thou rend my hair.'

I held his tresses in my fingers wound,
 * And more than one tuft had I twitched away
 * As he, with eyes bent down, howled like a hound;
 * When one cried out, 'What ails thee, Bocca? say,–

Canst thou not make enough clack with thy jaws,
 * But thou must bark too? What fiend pricks thee now?'
 * 'Aha!' said I, 'henceforth I have no cause
 * To bid thee speak, thou cursed traitor thou!

I'll shame thee, bearing truth of thee to men.'
 * 'Away!' he answered: 'what thou wilt, relate;
 * But, shouldst thou get from hence with breath again,
 * Mention him too so ready with his prate."

The encounter of Dante with Farinata and Cavalcante in their fiery tombs is also painted with such animated and fortunate strokes that we must reproduce some of them here:–

'O Tuscan! thou who com'st with gentle speech,
 * Through Hell's hot city, breathing from the earth,
 * Stop in this place one moment, I beseech:
 * Thy tongue betrays the country of thy birth.

Of that illustrious land I know thee sprung,
 * Which in my day perchance I somewhat vexed,'
 * Forth from one vault these sudden accents rang,
 * So that I trembling stood with fear perplexed.

Then as I closer to my master drew.