Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20.djvu/768

760


 * 'Turn back! what dost thou?' he exclaimed in haste:
 * See! Farinata rises to thy view;
 * Now mayst behold him upward from his waist.

Full in his face already I was gazing,
 * While his front lowered, and his proud bosom swelled,
 * As though even there, amid his burial blazing,
 * The infernal realm in high disdain he held."

In this scene, however, the radical defect of Dr. Parsons's work appears: it is unequal, and unsustained even in some of its best parts. It seems scarcely credible that the poet who could produce the grand lines just given, could also mar the whole effect of the father's frantic appeal to know if his son Guido be no longer alive, by putting in his mouth the melodramatic words,

Sayest thou, 'he had'? what mean ye! is he dead?" But our translator does this, and he makes Ugolino report little Anselm as saying, Thou look'st so, father! what's the matter, what?" —a line that Melpomene herself could not read with tragic effect, for, Disse; tu guardi sì, padre; che hai?" As he likewise causes Francesca to say, Love quick to kindle every gentler breast Fired this fond being with the lovely shape Bereft me so!" for, Amor, che al cor gentil ratto s'apprende; Prese costui della bella persona Che mi fu tolta"; and, Where Po descends in Adria's peace to rest Raging with all his rivulets no more," for, Su la marina dove 'l Po descende Per aver pace co' seguaci sui."

Indeed, we have to confess that the present is on the whole not a satisfactory translation of the episode of Francesca da Rimini. The inscription on the gate of hell, also, is rendered in a manner scarcely to be called successful, and not bearing comparison with that of the other rhyming translators,—Ford, Wright, and Cayley. As to the beginning of the seventh canto, we must think that Dr. Parsons was chiefly moved by the prevailing sentiment of mankind to translate Pape Satan! pape Satan aleppe!" into Ho! Satan! Popes more Popes head Satan here!"

These and other blemishes arrest the most casual glance. The merits of any work are harder to prove than its faults, though they are quite as deeply felt; and, as we have already intimated, it is the misfortune of Dr. Parsons that some of his greatest defects are in passages otherwise the most generally successful. There are probably few pages of the translation which do not offend by some lapse; but at the same time there is no page which will not command admiration by sublime and striking lines. We think the whole of the following passage from the thirteenth canto (it is the well-known description of the sentient wood into which the self-violent arc turned) has a peculiar strength and dignity:— Amid the branches of this dismal grove,
 * Their loathsome nests the brutal Harpies build,
 * Who from the Strophades the Trojans drove
 * With woful auguries erelong fulfilled.

Huge wings they have, men's faces, human throats,
 * Feet armed with claws, vast bellies clothed with plumes:
 * From those strange trees they pour their doleful notes.
 * 'Now, ere thou further penetrate these glooms,'

Said my good master, 'thou shouldst understand
 * Thou'rt in the second circlet, and shalt be,
 * Until thou come upon the horrid sand.
 * Give good heed then: more wonders thou shalt see,

Yea, to confirm all stories I have told.'
 * On every side I heard heart-rending cries,
 * But not a person could I there behold:
 * Wherefore I stopped, bewildered with surprise.

Methinks he thought I thought the voices came
 * From some that, hiding, in the thicket lay:
 * Because the Master said, 'If thou but maim
 * One of these plants, yea, pluck a branch away,

Then shall thy judgment be more just than now.'
 * Therefore my hand I slightly forward reached ;
 * And while I wrenched away a little bough
 * From a huge bush, 'Why mangle me?' it screeched.

Then, as the dingy drops began to start,
 * 'Why dost thou tear me?' shrieked the trunk again,
 * 'Hast thou no touch of pity in thy heart?
 * We that now here are planted, once were men;

But, were we serpents' souls, thy hand might shame
 * To have no more compassion on our woes';
 * Like a green log, that hisses in the flame,
 * Groaning at one end, as the other glows,

Even as the wind comes sputtering forth, I say,
 * Thus oozed together from the splintered wood
 * Both words and blood. I dropped the broken spray,
 * And, like a coward, faint and trembling stood."

This picture, also, of the apparition of the angel who opens the gates of Dis is done with a hand as firm as it is free:—