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any thing in the sound of his voice (le son de ma voix) that attracts the couple; but the spell of love by which they are sued: so, it appears that this is a fresh instance of Mr. Ginguené's inaccuracy.

The Po, which falls into the Adriatic not far from Ravenna, is fed with above twenty streams between Turin and Ponte-di-lago-scuro. There is in the text a trait which I endeavour to retain by the word beset (1); and which is not at all to be discovered in Ginguené's version, où le Po descend pour s'y reposer avec les fleuves qui le suivent; nor indeed in Mr. Cary's "To rest in Ocean with his "for sequent streams: per aver pace coi seguaci suoi does not mean to repose with his pursuers, but to be at peace with them; or, as a late comment well interprets it, 'to be no longer disquieted by the minor rivers which pursue him, chase him, and drive him along (2). The verse xcvi ——

While hushed, as now,

lies every

wind

is from Virgil

omnes

(Aspice) ventosi ceciderunt murmuris auræ (3).

(1) The placid main, which sheltereth Po

When by his rapid rills beset.

(2) Cioè scarica in mare le sue acque, per non essere più inquietato dai minori fiumi suoi, che seguendolo lo incalzano e lo sospingo. no. Poggiali. Ed. Livorno, 1807. Vol. 3. p. 71.

(3) Ecloga ix. v. 57.

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I strive to be very literal in my translation; and since one of the chief characteristics of my Author is concision, I refrain from adding a single syllable except in a few instances where, without doing so, I should have been unable to convey his full meaning. The tiercet beginning at verse c. is rendered almost word for word; and if the translation be obscure, it is not more so than the original. Francesca says, that love, which kindles (1) quickly in gentle hearts, made Paul enamoured of the beautiful form which had been reft from her in a manner on which she cannot even yet think without pain, viz. on the barbarous catastrophe already recounted p. 314. Love that exempts no beloved one from loving ("we love him because he first loved us says the Gospel (2)) so strongly enamoured me with his rapture, that behold I am not yet abandoned by him, or it. It say him or it, because it may be disputed which is the nominative case to abbandona, whether piacer, or costui, (that is Paul) or amor. The meaning however is nearly the same: I have attempted to preserve the meaning and likewise something of that slight want of precision; for my How faithful' may be referred either to love or to him. But to enter into the beauties of

(1) S'apprende means precisely kindle (see Vocabolario, §. iv.) so that Mr. Cary's" love that in gentle hearts is quickly learnt" conveys nothing of the metaphor. Yet s'apprendere in the sense of catching fire is common in Italian; as, un fuoco s'apprese in casa.

Love kindling quick where gentle hearts are met.

(2) I. Iohn. C. Iv. v. 19.

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the whole of this exquisite passage, it would be necessary to hear it well recited; for capable, as it is, of producing a high dramatical effect, half its colours fade under a common perusal ; and if its brief indications and passionate bursts are not aided by a corresponding variation of voice and features, and the verbal breaches filled up by Pantomime, there remains no cue to the rapid succession of opposite feelings; so that, that which would cause great emotion on the stage, becomes a rhapsodical medley. Had I not heard it declaimed by an excellent Actor, I should never have been able to penetrate its true spirit: for none have commented it with reference to its recital; although such a memoir would be both instructive and agreeable. Francesca's transitions from sorrowful complacency to horror at her ignominous death, and from melancholy satisfaction at the constancy of her love and lover to the common destruction which that love brought both upon herself and him, followed by a short denunciation of the deeper damnation awaiting their slayer; then the long silence until Virgil asks his pupil on what he was thinking; and this latter's abrupt exclamation, and his subsequent address to Francesca; who replies in a style more than ever expressive of an internal war of feelings, of sorrow, regret, contrition, disdain, satisfaction, and almost delight; her dwelling, in ten verses, on the theme of her love, with such a sense of bitterly alloyed plea

CANTO V.

sure, as shows clearly it is her ruling sentiment even in hell; her anew referring to the secure possession of her lover; and, after just touching the climax of joy and pathos, her recurring to the consciousness of her error; and pronouncing a malediction on the book and writer who so far misled her and her companion; and, in fine, her closing with that broken trope, which, however it be interpreted, will, I believe, continue to imply more meaning than an equal given number of syllables discoverable throughout the entire range of poetry, ancient, or modern : to render quite discernible all these various hues of passion, a masterly tragedian is as necessary, as in a soliloquy of Shakespere's (1). It is the mournful complacency, with which Francesca dwells on the eternity of her union with Paul, that forms the vital principle of the interest she excites: and without this vivida vis animi, this buoyancy and unconquerableness of her spirit, I do not conceive it were possible to make her maintain dignity and strength of character, without which it is vain to attempt to awaken deep commotion. Yet this consideration is so overlooked by some interpreters, that they make it a part, not of her consolation, but of her suffering

(1) The first line of the tiercet is prettily paraphrased by Lord Surrey:

I know how love doth rage

Upon a yielden mind;

How small a net may take and mesh

A heart of gentle kind.

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and despair, that she can never be separated from Paul. Boccaccio however, who almost always penetrated his Author's sense with the sagacity of congenial genius, was fully aware of the necessity of understanding the matter as I do (1); and he moreover adds that it appears to be an imitation of Dido and Sicchæus, whose affections are mutual and equal among the shades

Respondet curis æquatque Sicchæus amorem (»).

M. Ginguené and the other translators with whom I am acquainted interpolate a lui, or something equivalent (as Mr. Cary's "I, in answer") words that are, I believe, directly in opposition with the spirit of the original: for they make Dante reply unto Virgil, although there is no such thing in the text. It is, on the contrary, very observable, that Dante, who generally repeats methodically and I to him,' or something of the kind, expresses himself on the present occasion in a mode that testifies the propriety of understanding what first he utters as a simple soliloquy, to which succeeds his address to Francesca. Quando risposi, cominciai is the Italian when I answered, I began;' viz. I began to exclaim to myself: for otherwise our attention would be directed to Virgil by risposi

(1) Puoi comprendere ch' io l'amo come l'amai mentre vivevamo. Comento, Vol. 1. p. 318.

(2) Aeneid. Lib. VI. v. 74.