CANTO I N. - LIVIII. The text is amendui i parenti miei. But parente in Italian, like the french parent, means, not a father or mother, but any relation; and an illiterate Italian would not know what the text meant, for he would construe it 'my two relations'. Parenti here then, as well as frequently in Dante, is a latinism, answering to our parent, a word that preserves its primitive, latin signification. Dante has been criticised for making Virgil call his parents, Lombards (1): but, although this name was unknown in Virgil's life, it was well known to him at the time he was now speaking; and to make him use it towards his pupil exemplifies kind condescension. 0. -LXX. Virgil, according to Donatus (2), was born during the first consulship of Pompey the great, and Crassus; that is, while Cæsar was still an obedient servant of the State and General in Gaul. Some, referring 'though late' to Cæsar's dictatorship, make Virgil express a regret at his not having been born under it; for, as I just said, his birth preceded by several years Cæsar's usurpation. Others will have Virgil apply 'though late' more immediately to himself, and lament that his birth had been too (1) Lett. dagli Elisij. CANTO 1. late, to permit him to enjoy Cæsar's juvenile triumphs; for, it is clear, some of these took place before Virgil existed, and some while he was too infantile to be conscious of them. But, I think, the sentiment suggested by me sorrow for not having been born much earlier, before the first disasters of the Republic (1). more characteristic of Dante; and even of Virgil, who (as Dryden well observes) was too sincere a commonwealth's man to refrain, in the very book recited in the presence of Augustus, from blaming his uncle, Cæsar, albeit in a covert, courtly guise, by the borrowed lip of his fabulous forefather, Anchises (2). Thus to represent Virgil as proud of having been born under the glorious Julius Cæsar, yet as regretting he had not seen still more glorious times, those of undefiled freedom, was natural; whether we attend to the sentiments of that Roman poet himself, or to those of the Tuscan republican, Dante. Here however, as elsewhere, I only propose my opinion, without allowing it to interfere with my translation; for my 'though late' retains all the uncertainty of the original ancorché fosse tardi; and, in this, I obey Ascensius, who, in speaking of a disputed passage in the Aeneid, affirms it is sometimes an artful beauty to arrange a phrase so, - (1) Hos utinam inter heroas natum tellus me prima tulisset! Hor. Sat. 2. Lib. 2. (2) Proice tela manu, sanguis meus! Dryd. Notes. line 1143. CANTO I. that it becomes susceptible of a variety of explications (1). The epithet given to Ilion in the Italian is superbo- ——a literal translation of ceciditque superbum Ilium (»). In this pathetical burst of encomium, of which the style is so beautiful, (3) Dante however is not unfair to himself; for, though he avows his having had a master in style, it is Style alone that is specified. He must have been conscious, that, in still higher qualities, he had neither the will nor the genius that employs itself in imitating others. As inventor, he could not but have felt himself vastly superior to Virgil; of whom Macrobius, nowise unjustly, remarks, that he scarcely inserted an incident in any of his works without having a model in Homer, Apollonius, Pindar, or some other Greek; and that on the only occasion when he appears to have been reduced to his own contrivance he succeeded badly; for that the wounding of a stag and a consequent tumult among country churls is no adequate cause for the breaking out of a war of such importance and all the mighty the fall of Turnus and the foun events to ensue (1) Artis est interdum sic loqui ut in plureis sententias trahi possumus. Com. (2) Aeneid. lib. 3. v. 2. (3) Lo bello stile: Oui certes un beau style, et le plus beau qu'ait employé aucun poëte depuis que Virgile lui meme avait cessé de se faire entendre. Hist. Litt. d'Italie. Vol. 2. p. 30. CANTO I. ding of Rome (1). Indeed if invention be the highest gift of poetry, (and that it is we have the authority of Dryden) then has Dante but two rivals in that art, Homer, and Shakespere. If the rest are poets, this triumvirate are vates. Q- -XC. This verse is sometimes cited to prove the circu lation of the blood to be no recent discovery of Harvey; and the citation acquires speciousness from the fact of physic having been one of Dante's favorite studies. A french review (2). seems to think that M. Biagioli was the first to advance such a pretension; but therein it makes a mistake (3). In one of the oldest comments, bearing date 1343, that is, only 22 years after Dante's decease, or indeed the very oldest, (unless those left by Dante's own children, Peter and Jacob Alighieri, preceded it, which, in my mind, is improbable) it is asserted, that the best instructed men were then of opinion, that it was impossible to decide who was meant by the hound (4). Similar indecisi (1) Saturn. lib 5. Cap. 17. (2) Le Journal des Savans. (3) Magalotti. Lett. Vol. 1. Aeneid. lib. 7. (4) Chi sia questo Veltro non è diffinito, ed è pretermesso da molti valenti Uomini. Bib. Ricc. Cod. 1016. CANTO I. on is displayed by both of the younger Alighieri: Peter, after observing it was a very contested point, de quo tantum quæritur adds, it was a prediction of the birth of some illustrious personage, but whom he knows not-prædicit nascere et surgere quemdam plenum sapientiæ; (1) Jacob is of opinion, that hound was inserted merely for the sake of its contra-distinction to wolf, these being animals naturally enemies, -veltro per contrario della lupa (2). Boccaccio, a little later, owned equal ignorance; although hinting a suspicion of some individual being personified (3). So true is my former observation, that this entire allegory was either mis-understood from the beginning, or soon en tirely forgot, or sedulously kept secret by the early annotators; and was afterwards interpreted by the moderns, as best suited their own interests, caprice or prejudice. Landino and others say, that the hound means Christ; at whose second coming, between the heavens, (this being the mystical signification they give Feltri) avarice and every other vice shall be re-consigned to the bottomless pit: or else a certain benign conjunction of the planets calculated by Dante, who is reported even (7) Manifestamente confesso ch'io non l'intendo,........ ma pare intendere altro che non dica la lettera. Com. Vol. 1. pp. 47--88. |