402 COMMENT CANTO VIP. ther deficient in grammar or numbers should be produced by chance, and without its author being conscious of it. Let the present passage then be received as direct proof that Dante was tolerably versed in Hebrew: for although I know not to what amount his reputation as a poet may be concerned in the matter, it is certain that the conviction of his having been an Oriental scholar will assist us much in our criticisms, by letting us know where we are to seek for the elucidation of many a disputed phrase in his Divina Commedia, and in his version of the psalms for many a variation from the Vulgate. Let dispute about this passage end for ever: and if (as the Ab. Lanci's words imply there be still a public Professor sufficiently shallow and pedantic to play the witling before his juvenile audience, and (God give him modesty!) attempt caricaturing this speech of the ancient bard, let him learn that henceforth such buffoonery can only have the effect of exposing his own want of taste and prudence, as well as of erudition. It is great, the Ab. Lanci's merit in doing this tardy service to the memory of his mighty countryman, aud to his country, and (may I not add?) to the world at large; for can any be quite uninterested in the removal of an aspersion from so eminent a fellow-creature, as Dante? Whether he composed this verse himself, or borrowed it from some work that he had perused, it equally follows that he must have had a very competent familiarity ld be more striking; for to combine in so a compass so much force and pomp of perfectly adapted to the speaker and sion, and such a conflux of guttural letters urate syntax with a subserviency to the hyme, argues a person very conversant tongue which he employs. Heretofore rientalisms were averred to be detected ally in his phraseology, it used to be urg. e might have had them from the Paladins cens then frequenting Europe. But this ils little or nothing; for in the first place, no reason to believe that those Paladins cens had themselves any tincture of Head even if they had, it must have been small for the occasion. It could indeed only an oral smattering picked up among though this supposition, of Mahometans ers taking the trouble to do it, is less from the reflection that it was totally ary for the purposes of common life, e current dialect of those African Jews es was Arabic, not Hebrew. But to effect ere performed (compose a Hebrew verse to the occasion and write it in Roman -s) it were necessary that those rude solw not only Hebrew, but Italian perfectly to what incongruous a thesis that would eds no notice. If the line was borrowed ed to indulge, though unable to verify) its energy and grandeur, proving it to be an Author nowise adapted to the capacity of inner, and the fact of no such book being In either to the learned Abate or to his reaare both demonstrations of Dante's intimacy Hebrew. In fact where is the wonder in his havudied the eastern tongues? He had more need em than Milton; and Italy offered as many, or er facilities towards acquiring them then than and in the seventeenth century. In the very of Dante's birth (1265) a treaty between Pisa Tunis was first drawn up in Arabic, and then ed by a Pisan into Latin. A short period earnother Italian had translated an Hebrew tale, a and Duina; and another composed what -s vast Arabic erudition, a confutation of the . In the middle of the twelfth century an itant of Cremona translated Arabic treatises eometry and physics to the prodigious extent volumes, viz, the works of Avicen and PtoBut what most clearly demonstrates the fact iental acquirements being more common in previous to 1200, than they have ever been , is that up to that time the best Aristotles e schools were in Arabic; for it was in that year (as is recorded) that the first Greek ɔtle was imported into Italy, to S. Thomas nas's great delight, who, being himself both a and part of Plato saw at once the of civilization; c a career as the o the knowledge of Of the literary tri have retained any Boccaccio, immers Socrates and Tullthe Koran in thei with the praises o tle or nothing of rose of Sharon. In circumscribed devo their immediate fol them, but the brigh all Italian scholars ( down to the present the sight of Rome in covery that had escap sun-shine of the sixt (1) Hell, Comment, Canto denigo, passim. Andres Le of Plato into Latin) and Oriental scholar, nce the superiority of that Greek version he vulgar Arabic ones (1). Then what was other sense a revival of letters in Italy, se contributed to one very noble study, he languages of the East, primary source ation; or rather it had a quite contrary turning public attention towards Greece ne exclusively; so that in almost as rapid as the other arts and sciences advanced, wledge of Hebrew and Arabic died away. terary triumvirate, Dante alone seems to ained any thing of it; for Petrarch and o, immersed in the elegant philosophy of and Tully, neglected both the Bible and n in their originals; or wholly taken up praises of a Sappho or a Lesbia, knew litothing of the Virgins of Paradise or the haron. In this their meritorious, but too ribed devotion to the Classics, not only nediate followers made it a point to rival it the bright spirits of Leo x, and indeed 1 scholars (with a few exceptions) even the present day. Still allowing, that, at of Rome in this her night making a disat had escaped notice in that her glorious e of the sixteenth century, we may feel Comment, Canto Iv. p. 251. and Tiraboschi and Graim. Andres Letteratura, vol. 5. p. 520. 406 COMMENT CARTO YIL amazement, it can produce none, that Dante should have composed Hebrew at the epoch in which he lived, if there be now a Roman capable of interpreting it. Up to the birth of the former, the Oriental tongues were, as we have seen, to a considerable extent at least, a popular attainment in Italy; and this they never have been in England. Nevertheless Milton, when projecting his Christian poem, deemed it requisite to obtain a previous knowledge of Hebrew and in spite of innumerable difficulties did obtain it: then for Dante, who resolved upon not merely a Christian poem far longer and more peculiarly religious than the Paradise lost and regained, but on what necessarily demanded a thorough acquaintance with genuine Scriptural lore, a translation of the psalms, it was still more natural to desire to learn Hebrew, than for the other; and also easier for him to learn it, from the circumstances of the age (1). Milton, we know, became so ready with regard to that tongue that in his blindness he had a chapter of the Hebrew Bible read aloud to him every morning: (1) Non dirò, ch'egli tale lingua col suo studio esaurisse, ma dirò che non l'ignorava del tutto. Dotato di straordinario ingegno, volen. do eternare la memoria di se con una letteraria impresa, nella quale ogni savere apparisse, forse che dovea sgomentarsi di attendere anche a sua bella posta alcun poco alla cognizione di quelle lingue che dotte si appellano? Dante studiò tanto la Bibbia, che molte sue locuzioni, e forse le più poetiche sono tolte dalla espressione orientale......... e ben lo conosce chi quel linguaggio assapora. Dissertazione dell' Ab. M. A. Lanci, p. 38. |