DANTE'S INFerno.

CANTO V.

theless, such similes, as that two souls lodged against each other in hell are like two brass pots set up to drain ;

Translated according to the Original (Canto XXIX.) and that the devils

Stanza.

MR EDITOR,

I SEND for insertion what, I believe, may be considered in some degree a literary novelty-a canto of Dante's Inferno, translated with the same involution of rhyme observed by him throughout his Divina Commedia. I am by no means certain that it is at all adapted to the English language, but I am sure that it will not be familiar to English ears: in this respect I have a difficulty yet to overcome, independently of those I have already encountered in the course of the translation.

In

As far as fidelity goes, I have been more successful than I perhaps expected, under the disadvantages of the stanza; and I have endeavoured, as much as possible, to imitate the forceful simplicity of the original. In many parts of his poem, Dante has carried his simplicity to an extreme, inadmissible, according to our modern and refined notions; for instance, where he says in the opening of Canto XXXII. of the Inferno, that what he is about to relate could not be told by a tongue accustomed only to call 66. mamma and papa," (mamma e babbo.) It is true that he takes care to distinguish his Commedia from the Alta Tragedia of Virgil, (Canto XX.) and that he lays down in his work De Vulgari Eloquentia, that stilum inferiorem becomes the former; never

thrust the miserable damned into the burning pitch, as cooks with their hooks thrust meat into a boiling pot, (Canto XXI.) however forcible, can scarcely now be looked upon in any other light than as bordering upon the burlesque, when literally rendered. The Reverend Mr Cary, in his blank-verse translation, has felt this difficulty in many places, but could not altogether overcome it.

The canto I have selected, however, for my essay in rhyme does not contain any such passages, and I believe it is universally admitted to be the most interesting and pathetic (though not the most striking and impressive) in the whole Inferno. It is the foundation on which Mr Leigh Hunt has built his delicate and picturesque structure of Rimini, as, besides other matters, it contains, in Dante's terse and severe style, the whole story of Francesca de Polenta and her unfortunate lover Paolo. If in this attempt I have not done well, I have done better than I expected, and, at all events, it will give merely English readers some notion of the manner and method of Dante. Those who are acquainted with the peculiarities of the original, and are also sensible of the hard untractable nature of our language, will be aware that I have had no easy task to perform. I offer it but as an experiment. Y.

London, Dec. 1820.

The Argument of Canto I.

Dante, guided by Virgil, enters the second circle of Hell, where he beholds Minos sitting as judge, and condemning souls, and indicating the number of circles they are to be thrust down, by the number of folds of his tail.-Minos in vain endeavours to prevent the passage of Dante through this division of the infernal regions, where are seen Semiramis, Cleopatra, and other carnal sinners, driven round by hurricanes and whirlwinds.-Dante here recognizes the graceful shades of Francesca da Polenta, and Paolo di Rimini, and is briefly told the story of their miserable and guilty loves.

Thus from the highest circle we descend
Into the second; though a smaller space

With so much more of grief which groans attend.

Our correspondent labours under a mistake if he thinks that this attempt was never made before. Mr Hayley endeavoured to give the three first books of the Inferno in the triple rhyme many years ago; but his translation has been allowed by all who have seen it to be a failure, and from that time to this it has been very little known. Lord Byron, in his Prophecy of Dante, just published, has likewise attempted the terza rima, but we suspect even he will not make it popular. He mentions that he had never seen any thing of the kind in English, except a short quotation from Hayley, whose performance itself he had not met with.-ED.

VOL. VIII.

3 G

There Minos girning stood with horrid face
Searching the crimes of all in his control,
Judging and punishing in every case

As he his tail enroll'd: the ill-born soul
Standing before him every crime confess'd,

And when the fearful judge had learnt the whole

He mark'd what place in Hell befitted best

By circles of his tail: for every fold

The soul in Hell one circle was deprest.

A crowd is aye before him to behold

Each one the judgment on his life's offence;

They speak-they hear and then are downward roll'd.

"Oh thou that com'st to this drear residence,"

Cried Minos, marking me as I drew near,

Ceasing awhile his judgments to dispense;

"Look whom thou trust, and how thou enter st here:
Be not deceiv'd by th' entrance wide and plain !"-
"Exclaim not!" said my guide,
cc nor his career

"His fated way essay thou to restrain ;
It is decreed where will and power are one:
No further question ask, nor him detain."-

And now 'gan wailings dismal, woe-begone,
To pierce my ear: already were we come
Where plaints around were heard, and other none.
It was a place where every light was dumb,
With a deep roar like the tempestuous main,
Wrought by fierce adverse winds to boiling foam.
Ceaseless rush'd on th' infernal hurricane,
Whirling the spirits to its fury given;
Lifting them up, then dashing down amain.

But when before the stormy ruin driven,

What shrieks and desperate howlings forth they sent,
And blasphemies against the power of Heaven!

I understood that to this punishment
All gross and carnal sinners were consign'd,
Who their fine reason to their pleasures bent.
And as huge flights of starlings on the wind
Are borne by their swift wings in winter serc,
So were these evil spirits, here confin'd,

Hurried above, below, now there, now here,
With every ling'ring hope of comfort lost,
Not of repose, but sufferings less severe.

As when in long array the skies are crost
By sailing cranes with their distressful cries:
So saw 1 howling spirits, tempest-tost,

Urg'd furiously by their hard destinies.
Then said I," Master, tell me who are they
That the black winds so grievously chastise?"

Dante is fond of this phrase: he previously uses it in Canto III.

"The first of them whose name you would I'd say,
And make you know her," thus he answer'd me,
"Was Empress, and o'er many tongues had sway.
"She was so boundless in her luxury,
That she gave licence to it in her law,
To lessen shame of her iniquity.

"Semiramis-of whom from books you draw
She follow'd Ninus, and had been his wife,
In realms the Soldan now doth overawe.
"That other dame for love destroyed her life,
And to Sicheus' ashes broke her faith :-
There Cleopatra in her lust most rife."
Helen came next, for whom, as story saith,
So long the time was ill: Achilles near
I also saw, who fought for love till death.

Paris and Tristan; and with these appear
More than a thousand shades, my guide did name,
Who mortal life forsook for love most dear.

When I had heard him thus point out each dame
And ancient knight that pass'd us swiftly by,
Pity well nigh my wand'ring sense o'ercame.

Thus I began-" Poet, full fain would I
Address the pair I see together float,
And seem as lightly as the wind to fly."

He thus "When nearer thou may'st better note;
And by the love that still them onward leads
Entreat, and thou shalt see them less remote."

When wafted towards us on the air that speeds,
I mov'd my voice, and cried-" Oh wearied sprites,
Come now and speak to us, if nought impedes!"
As two fond doves, allur'd by love's delights,
With steady outstretch'd wing to their soft nest
Cut through the air, as their sweet will incites,
They left the band where Dido and the rest
Remain'd, and sever'd the malignant air;
Such power was in the prayer I had addrest.

"Oh mortal man, benignant, gracious, fair,
Who visit'st us, amid the lurid* gloom,
That caus'd the earth the stain of blood to bear:

"If friendship with Heav'n's King we might presume,
Prayers for thy peace to him we would address,
Who hast such pity on our hapless doom.

"What to hear from thee, or by speech express,
That are we ready or to hear or speak,

While now the wind is hush'd and motionless.

The epithet in the original is perso, which Dante (as Mr Cary observes) explains elsewhere to be "a colour mixed of purple and black." Perse was made an English word by Chaucer, who, speaking of a doctor of physic, says that he was clad "in sanguin and in perse." It is, however, now quite obsolete, and the nearest to the original sense in Dante is lurid, as I apprehend, and not obscure, as Mr Cary renders it. Luridus, in Latin, means "black and blue," which is not very different from "black and purple." I cannot imagine on what authority it is said in Todd's Johnson that lurid is a word not now used.

"The land my birth-place lies, where billows break
On the sea shore: there flowing Po descends
In the deep ocean's bed his peace to seek.
"Love, that on gentle hearts so soon attends,
Ensnar'd him with my beauteous person, ta'en
By cruel course that still my thought offends:
"Love, that ne'er pardons loving not again,
Ensnar'd me but with pleasing him, so well,
That faithful here you see him still remain."
"To the same death did love us both compel :
Caïna + waits on him our blood hath shed."
Such were the heavy words that from them fell.
When these two injur'd souls had ceas'd, my head
I down inclin'd, and held it there so long,
That "What think'st thou?" at last the poet said.
And thus I answer'd,-" By what passion strong,
By what desire-what thoughts of dear delight,
They were subjected to that woeful wrong.'

Then upon them I once more turn'd my sight,
And cried, "Francesca, your deep miseries
Draw forth my tears of pity and despight...
"But say how in the season of soft sighs,
When and by what Love granted thee belief,
Or knowledge of your dubious sympathies ?"
Then she to me,-" There is no greater grief
Than to remember in our present woe

Glad days gone by: this knows your guide and chief. +

"But if so much thou wish the root to know

Of our sad love, the story I will say

As one whose tears the while he speaks must flow. §

"For mutual delight we read one day

Of Lancelot, || how he to love was thrall:
We were alone-suspicion far away.

"Full oft in reading our fixt eyes would fall
Upon one place; our colour fled the while.
That point o'ercame us-that one point of all;

""Twas when we read of that most wish'd-for smile,
So kiss'd by one that did so much adore:

Then he, whom nought from me shall e'er beguile,

It is obvious that Dante meant to make this stanza a sort of parody upon the preceding, beginning both with sentiments often since repeated. The soul of Francesca speaks in behalf of both, and refers to the cruel manner in which her person was killed by Lanciotto, the brother of her lover Paolo, who was still faithful in the extremity of ill."

even

Caïna is the division of hel! where murderers are punished, described by Dante in his 32d Canto.

There is a dispute among Dante's commentators, whether Francesca means to allude to some passage in Virgil, or merely to say that Virgil, as one of the souls of the department of Limbo, without hope of release, has reason to know the truth of the sentiment, which Boethius, De Cons. Phil. thus words: "In omni adversitate fortuna, infelicimum genus infortunii est fuisse felicem.”

In C. xxxiii. Dante makes Count Ugolino, while at his meal on Archbishop Ruggieri's head, say, Parlare & lagrimar vedrai inseme.

Lancelot of the Lake, who, it is known, was criminally in love with Genoura, the wife of King Arthur.

"A kiss from my warm lip all trembling bore.
Slave was the author and the book we read!
That day, that guilty day we read no more."-
While thus one of those gentle spirits said,
The other so bewail'd, that I through force
Of pity seem'd as though I were near dead,
And fell upon the ground as falls a corse.

THE CARBONARI AND THE REVOLU

TION AT NAPLES.

THE following remarks on the Neapolitan Revolution, and the principal actors in it, were made by an English traveller resident in Naples during the time of the events he relates. Their authenticity is unquestionable, but it will be seen that they were written before the cause of that Italy,

Still doom'd to serve, subduing or subdued,

had been betrayed by her own unworthy children.

But they

Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt,

They were not eagles, nourish'd with the day.

"THE French, on their first arrival at Naples, sowed the seeds of those liberal ideas with regard to government, which spread rapidly, and became the subject of discussion, as well in the provinces as in the capital. The French, either as republicans or as imperialists, always promised a free constitution, which, as usual, they never gave. In the meantime, opinion and desire kept pace with each other; societies were formed for discussion, and petitions for a representative government were continually presented to Ferdinand, to Murat, &c. all productive of the same result, promises, but no performance. Under Murat the Carbonari were established. This order is said to have taken its rise in America, and to have been the offspring of Free Masonry. It was expressly intended to include all orders of people, so as to give a

wider extent to principles of liberality, and at the same time to enlist hands enough to carry into effect what heads might determine upon. Its meetings were held in every corner of the kingdom, and in defiance of prohibition and persecution. It was a permanent committee of national opinion, and not a sect, as it is falsely called. After the last return of the present king, these meetings were still convened in secret, but they increased in number every day. All orders were enrolled, nobles, priests, soldiers, &c. It is only since the 6th of July that they have no longer been the objects of persecution. It was in these assemblies that the employment of force was at length determined upon, when all hope from entreaty had failed. The numbers of the Carbonari at the beginning of the Revolution were computed at eighty thousand. They have since risen to twelve hundred thousand. When it became necessary to resort to force, the military were naturally called upon. The chief and most conspicuous actors in the commencement were soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the regular troops. Of these, Serjeant Major Altomare is considered the most distinguished, and is always looked upon as the hero of the first days. General Pepe, the only officer of distinction whom they found to take the command in the beginning, was from the first zealous and active in the cause, and has, indeed, been always regarded as the head of the Carbonari. Minechini, the priest, who acted a conspicuous part, and marched with the army into Naples, is now said to have been a spy in the pay of Austria. The common soldiers were almost all prepared, and easily induced to join the cause. They be

Galeotto, in the original, which literally means a galley-slave; but it has been doubted whether some work bearing the title of Galcotto was not intended, but this could not be sense unless the same name belonged to the author. Mr Cary liberally renders it "love's purveyor," and Francesca may mean to say, that the book and the author were both the panders to the guilty amour of herself and Paolo.