LXIX. Ma finalmente convien ch' egli smonte, E disse: io son pur leggier come penna, Ed è scoppiato; che ne di' tu, conte? Rispose Orlando: un arbore d'antenna Mi par piuttosto, e la gaggia la fronte: Lasciaio andar, che la fortuna accenna Che meco appiede ne venga, Morgante. Ed io così verra, disse il gigante. LXX. Quando serà mestier, tu mi vedrai LXXI. Disse il gigante: io il porterò ben io, Da poi che portar me non ha voluto, LXXII. Guarda che non facesse la vendetta, LXXIII. Disse l'abate: il campanil v'è bene ; LXXIV. Era Morgante come una montagna: E portollo, e gittollo in luogo strano, LXXVI. E de gli onor ricevuti da questi, Qualche volta potendo, arà buon merito; LXXVII. Io me ne porto per sempre nel core L'abate, la badía, questo deserto; LXXVIII. Quando l'abate il conte Orlando intese, LXXIX. Noi ti potremo di messe onorare, Dì prediche di laude e paternostri, LXXX. Tanto ch'a questo par contraddizione; Ma so che tu se' savio, e 'ntendi e gusti, E grazie a lui e a te noi ne rendiamo. LXXXI. Tu ci hai salvato l'anima e la vita: LXXXII. LXXXIII. Se c'è armadura o cosa che tu voglia, Vattene in zambra e pigliane tu stessi, E cuopri a questo gigante le scoglia. Rispose Orlando: se armadura avessi Prima che noi uscissim de la soglia, Che questo mio compagno difendessi: Questo accetto io, e sarammi piacere. Disse l'abate: venite a vedere. LXXXIV. E in certa cameretta entrati sono, LXXXV. Questo fu d'un gigante smisurata, Ch 'a la badía fu morto per antico Come e' fu morto questo gran nimico, Veggendo questa istoria il conte Orlando, The Prophecy of Dante.' "Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, DEDICATION. LADY! if for the cold and cloudy clime I dare to build the imitative rhyme, Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime, Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime. CAMPBELL. Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth, Are one; but only in the sunny South Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms dis play'd, So sweet a language from so fair a mouthAh! to what effort would it not persuade? Ravenna, June 21. 1819. Ravenna. Dante's tomb, the classical pine wood, the relies of antiquity which are to be found in that place, afforded a suíficient pretext for me to invite him to come, and for him to accept my invitation. He came in the month of June. 18.9. arriving at Ravenna on the day of the festival of the Corpus Domini. Being deprived at this time of his books, his horses. and all that occupied him at Venice, I begged him to gratify me by writing something on the subject of Dante; and, with his usual facility and rapidity, he composed his Prophecy."] ["Twas in a grove of spreading pines he strayed," &e. DRYDEN'S Theodore and Honoria} PREFACE. In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that having composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's exile, the tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger. "On this hint I spake," and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos, to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that-if I do not err-this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet, whose name I have borrowed, and most probably taken in vain. Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold translated into Italian versi sciolti,—that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza or of the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation of his great "Padre Alighier," I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question. He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them 1 [Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in May, 1265, of an ancient and honourable family. In the early part of his life he gained some credit in a military character, and distinguished himself by his bravery in an action where the Florentines obtained a signal victory over the citizens of Arezzo. He became still more eminent by the acquisition of court honours; and at the age of thirty-five he rose to be one of the chief magistrates of Florence, when that dignity was conferred by the suffrages of the people. From this exaltation the poet himself dated his principal misfortunes. Italy was at that time distracted by the contending factions of the Ghibelines and Guelphs, among the latter Dante took an active part. In one of the proscriptions he was banished, his possessions confiscated, and he died in exile in 1321. Boccaccio thus describes his person and manners: "He was of the middle stature, of a mild disposition, and, from the time he arrived at manhood, grave in his manner and deportment. His clothes were plain, and his dress always conformable to his years: his face was long; his nose aquiline; his eyes rather large than otherwise. His complexion was dark, melancholy, and pensive. In his meals he was extremely moderate; in his as a nation-their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, or Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, when my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both. The Prophecy of Dante.' CANTO THE FIRST. ONCE more in man's frail world! which I had left My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God! From star to star to reach the almighty throne. That nought on earth could more my bosom move, Relieved her wing till found; without thy light Thou wert my life, the essence of my thought, manners most courteous and civil; and, both in public and private life, he was admirably decorous."] 2 The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables. 3 "Che sol per le belle opre Che fanno in Cielo il sole e l'altre stelle Pensar ben dèi ch' ogni terren' piacere." 4 [According to Boccaccio, Dante was a lover long before he was a soldier, and his passion for the Beatrice whom he has immortalised commenced while he was in his ninth year, and she in her eighth year. It is said that their first meeting was at a banquet in the house of Folco Portinaro, her father; and certain it is, that the impression then made on the susceptible and constant heart of Dante was not obliterated by her death, which happened after an interval of sixteen years. CARY.] Kk Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the world's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain, and never more, save when the cloud Which overhangs the Apennine, my mind's eye Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud Of me, can I return, though but to die, Unto my native soil, they have not yet Quench'd the old exile's spirit, stern and high. But the sun, though not overcast, must set, And the night cometh; I am old in days, And deeds, and contemplation, and have met Destruction face to face in all his ways. The world hath left me, what it found me, pure, And if I have not gather'd yet its praise, I sought it not by any baser lure; Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free: 1 Oh Florence Florence! unto me thou wast Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over," but thou wouldst not;" as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gather'd thee Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherish'd thee was stirr'd Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire. Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who for that country would expire, But did not merit to expire by her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer 2 Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom; "L'Esilio che m'è dato onor mi tegno. Cader tra' bouni è pur di lode degno." Sonnet of Dante, in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom. 2" Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence. [On the 27th of January, 1302, Dante was mulcted eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years' banishment; and in case the fine was not paid, his goods were to be confiscated. On the eleventh of March, the same year, he was sentenced to a punishinent due only to the most desperate of malefactors. The decree, that he and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered, in 1772, by the Conte Ludovico No, she denied me what was mine-my roof, And shall not have what is not hers-my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toil'd, travell'd, and each part Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art These things are not made for forgetfulness, Though, like old Marius 3 from Minturnæ's marsh And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and sever'd necksGreat God! Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me,- be my shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented field — In toil, and many troubles borne in vain For Florence. 4- I appeal from her to Thee! Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious vision, which to see And live was never granted until now, And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect Savioli. See Tiraboschi, where the sentence is given at length.] 3 [Under the pretence of opposing the power of Sella Marius, who had been five times elected to the consulst ejs aimed at the sovereign power. Stapylton says, that the Minturnian fens, in which he was discovered by Sylla's emiasaries, were in Switzerland! For this accurate piece of topography, he was indebted to the old scholiast. The spot. however, lies on the right hand of the ferry of Garigliano, a you go from Rome to Naples. - GIFFORD.] But the [In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate by instruction, we may well sympathise with a resentment which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh heart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender : ba poetry is full of comparisons from rural life; and the sincerav of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the vel d allegory that surrounds her. But the memory of has injures pursued him into the immensity of eternal light; and in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving spirit darkeus at the name of Florence. — HALLAM.] |