The Unseen World, and Other Essays | ||
XI.
LONGFELLOW'S DANTE.[1]
THE task of a translator is a thankless one at best. Be he never so skilful and accurate, be he never so amply endowed with the divine qualifications of the poet, it is still questionable if he can ever succeed in saying satisfactorily with new words that which has once been inimitably said—said for all time—with the old words. Psychologically, there is perhaps nothing more complex than an elaborate poem. The sources of its effect upon our minds may be likened to a system of forces which is in the highest degree unstable; and the slightest displacement of phrases, by disturbing the delicate rhythmical equilibrium of the whole, must inevitably awaken a jarring sensation.[2]" Matthew Arnold has given us an excellent series of lectures upon translating Homer, in which he doubtless succeeds in showing that some methods of translation are preferable to others, but
can rest satisfied with the interpretation
yet this rendering is literally exact.
A second obstacle, hardly less formidable, hardly less fatal to a satisfactory translation, is presented by the highly complicated system of triple rhyme upon which Dante's poem is constructed. This, which must ever be a stumbling-block to the translator, seems rarely to interfere with the free and graceful movement of the original work. The mighty thought of the master felt no impediment from the elaborate artistic panoply which must needs obstruct and harass the interpretation of the disciple. Dante's terza rima is a bow of Odysseus which weaker mortals cannot bend with any amount of tugging, and which Mr. Longfellow has judiciously refrained from trying to bend. Yet no one can fail to remark the prodigious loss entailed by this necessary sacrifice of one of the most striking characteristics of
Something, too, must be said of the difficulties inevitably arising from the diverse structure and genius of the Italian and English languages. None will deny that many of them are insurmountable. Take the third line of the first canto,—
All these, however, are difficulties which lie in the nature of things,—difficulties for which the translator is not responsible; of which he must try to make the best that can be made, but which he can never expect wholly to surmount. We have now to inquire whether there are not other difficulties, avoidable by one method of translation, though not by another; and in criticizing Mr. Longfellow, we have chiefly to ask whether he has
The translator of a poem may proceed upon either of two distinct principles. In the first case, he may render the text of his original into English, line for line and word for word, preserving as far as possible its exact verbal sequences, and translating each individual word into an English word as nearly as possible equivalent in its etymological force. In the second case, disregarding mere syntactic and etymologic equivalence, his aim will be to reproduce the inner meaning and power of the original, so far as the constitutional difference of the two languages will permit him.
It is the first of these methods that Mr. Longfellow has followed in his translation of Dante. Fidelity to the text of the original has been his guiding principle; and every one must admit that, in carrying out that principle, he has achieved a degree of success alike delightful and surprising. The method of literal translation is not likely to receive any more splendid illustration. It is indeed put to the test in such a way that the shortcomings now to be noticed bear not upon Mr. Longfellow's own style of work so much as upon the method itself with which they are necessarily implicated. These defects are, first, the too frequent use of syntactic inversion, and secondly, the too manifest preference extended to words of Romanic over words of Saxon origin.
To illustrate the first point, let me give a few examples. In Canto I. we have:—
"So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there";
which is thus rendered by Mr. Cary,—
Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
Yet to discourse of what there good befell,
All else will I relate discovered there";
and by Dr. Parsons,—
Yet, having found some good there, I will tell
Of other things which there I chanced to see." [6]
Again in Canto X. we find:—
With Epicurus all his followers,
Who with the body mortal make the soul";—
an inversion which is perhaps not more unidiomatic than Mr. Cary's,—
With Epicurus all his followers,
Who with the body make the spirit die";
but which is advantageously avoided by Mr. Wright,—
And with him all his followers, who maintain
That soul and body share one common doom";
and is still better rendered by Dr. Parsons,—
With his whole sect, is Epicurus pent,
Who thought the spirit with its body died." [7]
And here my eyes, reverting to the end of Canto IX.,
By which they so intensely heated were,
That iron more so asks not any art,"—
and those of Dr. Parsons,—
Wherewith the enkindled tombs all-burning gleamed;
Metal more fiercely hot no art requires." [8]
Does it not seem that in all these cases Mr. Longfellow, and to a slightly less extent Mr. Cary, by their strict adherence to the letter, transgress the ordinary rules of English construction; and that Dr. Parsons, by his comparative freedom of movement, produces better poetry as well as better English? In the last example especially, Mr. Longfellow's inversions are so violent that to a reader ignorant of the original Italian, his sentence might be hardly intelligible. In Italian such inversions are permissible; in English they are not; and Mr. Longfellow, by transplanting them into English, sacrifices the spirit to the letter, and creates an obscurity in the translation where all is lucidity in the original. Does not this show that the theory of absolute literality, in the case of two languages so widely different as English and Italian, is not the true one?
Secondly, Mr. Longfellow's theory of translation leads him in most cases to choose words of Romanic origin in preference to those of Saxon descent, and in many cases to choose an unfamiliar instead of a familiar Romanic word, because the former happens to be etymologically
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore,
Per me si va tra la perduta gente."
Here are three lines which, in their matchless simplicity and grandeur, might well excite despair in the breast of any translator. Let us contrast Mr. Longfellow's version.—
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost,"—
with that of Dr. Parsons,— ,
Through me eternal wretchedness ye find;
Through me among perdition's race ye fare."
I do not think any one will deny that Dr. Parsons's version, while far more remote than Mr. Longfellow's from the diction of the original, is somewhat nearer its spirit. It remains to seek the explanation of this phenomenon. It remains to be seen why words the exact counterpart of Dante's are unfit to call up in our minds the feelings which Dante's own words call up in the mind of an Italian. And this inquiry leads to some general considerations respecting the relation of English to other European languages.
Every one is aware that French poetry, as compared with German poetry, seems to the English reader very tame and insipid; but the cause of this fact is by no means so apparent as the fact itself. That the poetry of Germany is actually and intrinsically superior to that of France, may readily be admitted; but this is not enough to account for all the circumstances of the case. It does
With regard to French, the case is just the reverse. The Frenchman has no Saxon words, but he has, on the other hand, an indigenous stock of Latin words, which he learns in early childhood, which give outlet to his most intimate feelings, and which retain to some extent their primitive concrete picturesqueness. They are to him just as good as our Saxon words are to us. Though cold and merely intellectual to us, they are to him warm with emotion; and this is one reason why we cannot do
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude,
Thy tooth is not so keen," etc., etc.;
which I have somewhere seen thus rendered into French:
Tu n'es pas si cruel
Que l'ingratitude de l'homme.
Ta dent n'est pas si pénétrante," etc., etc.
Why are we inclined to laugh as we read this? Because it excites in us an undercurrent of consciousness which, if put into words, might run something like this:—
Thou art not so cruel
As human ingratitude.
Thy dentition is not so penetrating," etc., etc.
No such effect would be produced upon a Frenchman. The translation would strike him as excellent, which it really is. The last line in particular would seem poetical to us, did we not happen to have in our language words closely akin to dent and pénétrante, and familiarly employed in senses that are not poetical.
Applying these considerations to Mr. Longfellow's choice of words in his translation of Dante, we see at once the unsoundness of the principle that Italian words should be rendered by their Romanic equivalents in English. Words that are etymologically identical with those in the original are often, for that very reason, the worst words that could be used. They are harsh and foreign to the English ear, however homelike and musical
Doubtless by long familiarity with the Romanic languages, the scholar becomes to a great degree emancipated from the conditions imposed upon him by the peculiar composition of his native English. The concrete significance of the Romanic words becomes apparrent to him, and they acquire energy and vitality. The expression dolent may thus satisfy the student familiar with Italian, because it calls up in his mind, through the medium of its equivalent dolente, the same associations which the latter calls up in the mind of the Italian himself.[9] But this power of appreciating thoroughly the beauties of a foreign tongue is in the last degree an acquired taste,—as much so as the taste for olives and kirschenwasser to the carnal palate. It is only by long and profound study that we can thus temporarily vest ourselves, so to speak, with a French or Italian consciousness in exchange for our English one. The literary epicure may keenly relish such epithets as dolent; but the common English reader, who loves plain
Those who have read over Dante without reading into him, and those who have derived their impressions of his poem from M. Doré's memorable illustrations, will here probably demur. What! Dante not grotesque! That tunnel-shaped structure of the infernal pit; Minos passing sentence on the damned by coiling his tail; Charon beating the lagging shades with his oar; Antaios picking up the poets with his fingers and lowering them in the hollow of his hand into the Ninth Circle; Satan crunching in his monstrous jaws the arch-traitors, Judas, Brutus and Cassius; Ugolino appeasing his famine upon the tough nape of Ruggieri; Bertrand de Born looking (if I may be allowed the expression) at his own dissevered head; the robbers exchanging form with serpents; the whole demoniac troop of Malebolge,—are not all these things grotesque beyond everything else in poetry? To us, nurtured in this scientific nineteenth century, they doubtless seem so; and by Leigh Hunt, who had the eighteenth-century way of appreciating other ages than his own, they were uniformly treated as such. To us they are at first sight grotesque, because they are no longer real to us. We have ceased to believe in such things, and they no longer awaken any feeling akin to terror. But in the thirteenth century, in the minds of Dante and his readers, they were living, terrible realities. That Dante believed literally in all this unearthly world, and described it with such wonderful minuteness because he believed in it, admits of little doubt. As he walked the streets of Verona the people whispered, "See, there is the man who has been
Therefore, while acknowledging the accuracy with which Mr. Longfellow has kept pace with his original through line after line, following the "footing of its feet," according to the motto quoted on his title-page, I cannot but think that his accuracy would have been of a somewhat higher kind if he had now and then allowed himself a little more liberty of choice between English and Romanic words and idioms.
A few examples will perhaps serve to strengthen as well as to elucidate still further this position.
"Inferno," Canto III., line 22, according to Longfellow:—
Resounded through the air without a star,
Whence I at the beginning wept thereat."
According to Cary:—
Resounded through the air pierced by no star,
That e'en I wept at entering."
According to Parsons:—
Which, loud resounding through the starless air,
Forced tears of pity from mine eyes at first."[10]
Canto V., line 84:—
CARY.—"Cleave the air, wafted by their will along."
PARSONS.—"Sped ever onward by their wish alone." [11]
Canto XVII., line 42:—
CARY—"That to us he may vouchsafe
The aid of his strong shoulders."
PARSONS.—"And ask for us his shoulders' strong support." [12]
Canto XVII., line 25:—
Contorting upwards the envenomed fork
That in the guise of scorpion armed its point."
Glancing, his tail upturned its venomous fork,
With sting like scorpions armed."
As up the envenomed, forked point he swung,
Which, as in scorpions, armed its tapering end." [13]
Canto V., line 51:—
Line 136:—
"Purgatorio," Canto XV., line 139:—
Forward as far as ever eye could stretch
Against the sunbeams serotine and lucent." [16]
Mr. Cary's "bright vespertine ray" is only a trifle better; but Mr. Wright's "splendour of the evening ray" is, in its simplicity, far preferable.
Canto XXXI., line 131:—
Singing to their angelic saraband."
Here Mr. Longfellow has apparently followed the authority of the Crusca, reading
Whenever Mr. Longfellow's translation is kept free from oddities of diction and construction, it is very animated and vigorous. Nothing can be finer than his rendering of "Purgatorio," Canto VI., lines 97-117:—
Her that has grown recalcitrant and savage,
And oughtest to bestride her saddle-bow,
May a just judgment from the stars down fall
Upon thy blood, and be it new and open,
That thy successor may have fear thereof:
Because thy father and thyself have suffered,
By greed of those transalpine lands distrained,
The garden of the empire to be waste.
Come and behold Montecchi and Cappelletti,
Monaldi and Filippeschi, careless man!
Those sad already, and these doubt-depressed!
Come, cruel one! come and behold the oppression
Of thy nobility, and cure their wounds,
And thou shalt see how safe [?] is Santafiore.
Come and behold thy Rome that is lamenting,
Widowed, alone, and day and night exclaims
`My Cæsar, why hast thou forsaken me?'
Come and behold how loving are the people;
And if for us no pity moveth thee,
Come and be made ashamed of thy renown." [18]
So, too, Canto III., lines 79 -84:—
By ones, and twos, and threes, and the others stand
Timidly holding down their eyes and nostrils,
And what the foremost does the others do
Huddling themselves against her if she stop,
Simple and quiet, and the wherefore know not." [19]
Francesca's exclamation to Dante is thus rendered by Mr. Longfellow:—
This is admirable,—full of the true poetic glow, which would have been utterly quenched if some Romanic
Her eyes directed toward me with that look
A mother casts on a delirious child." [22]
And, finally, the beginning of the eighth canto of the "Purgatorio":—
In those who sail the sea, and melts the heart,
The day they've said to their sweet friends farewell;
And the new pilgrim penetrates with love,
If he doth hear from far away a bell
That seemeth to deplore the dying day." [23]
This passage affords an excellent example of what the method of literal translation can do at its best. Except in the second line, where "those who sail the sea" is wisely preferred to any Romanic equivalent of naviganti the version is utterly literal; as literal as the one the school-boy makes, when he opens his Virgil at the Fourth Eclogue, and lumberingly reads, "Sicilian Muses, let us sing things a little greater." But there is nothing clumsy, nothing which smacks of the recitation-room, in
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay.
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah, surely nothing dies but something mourns!" [24]
Setting aside the concluding sentimental generalization, —which is much more Byronic than Dantesque,—one hardly knows which version to call more truly poetical; but for a faithful rendering of the original conception one can hardly hesitate to give the palm to Mr. Longfellow.
Thus we see what may be achieved by the most highly gifted of translators who contents himself with passively reproducing the diction of his original, who constitutes himself, as it were, a conduit through which the meaning of the original may flow. Where the differences inherent in the languages employed do not intervene to alloy the result, the stream of the original may, as in the verses just cited, come out pure and unweakened. Too often, however, such is the subtle chemistry of thought, it will come out diminished in its integrity, or will appear, bereft of its primitive properties as a mere element in some new combination. Our channel is a trifle too alkaline perhaps; and that the transferred material may preserve its pleasant sharpness, we may need to throw in a little extra acid. Too often the mere differences
Every thoroughly conceived and adequately executed translation of an ancient author must be founded upon some conscious theory or some unconscious instinct of literary criticism. As is the critical spirit of an age, so among other things will be its translations. Now the critical spirit of every age previous to our own has been characterized by its inability to appreciate sympathetically the spirit of past and bygone times. In the seventeenth century criticism made idols of its ancient models; it acknowledged no serious imperfections in them; it set them up as exemplars for the present and
Now nineteenth-century criticism not only knows that in no preceding age have men thought and behaved as they now think and behave, but it also understands that old-fashioned thinking and behaviour was in its way just as natural and sensible as that which
A century ago, therefore, a translation of Dante such as Mr. Longfellow's would have been impossible. The criticism of that time was in no mood for realistic reproductions of the antique. It either superciliously neglected the antique, or else dressed it up to suit its own notions of propriety. It was not like a seven-league boot which could fit everybody, but it was like a Procrustes-bed which everybody must be made to fit. Its great exponent was not a Sainte-Beuve, but a Boileau. Its typical sample of a reproduction of the antique was Pope's translation of the Iliad. That book, we presume, everybody has read; and many of those who have read it know that, though an excellent and spirited poem, it is no more Homer than the age of Queen Anne was the age of Peisistratos. Of the translations of Dante made during this period, the chief was unquestionably Mr. Cary's.[27] For a man born and brought up in the most unpoetical of centuries, Mr. Cary certainly made a very good poem, though not so good as Pope's. But it fell far short of being a reproduction of Dante. The eighteenth-century note rings out loudly on every page of it. Like much other poetry of the time, it is laboured and artificial. Its sentences are often involved and occasionally obscure. Take, for instance, Canto IV. 25-36 of the "Paradiso":
Urge equally; and therefore I the first
Of that will treat which hath the more of gall.
Of seraphim he who is most enskied,
Moses, and Samuel, and either John,
Choose which thou wilt, nor even Mary's self,
Have not in any other heaven their seats,
Than have those spirits which so late thou saw'st;
Nor more or fewer years exist; but all
Make the first circle beauteous, diversely
Partaking of sweet life, as more or less
Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them. "
Here Mr. Cary not only fails to catch Dante's grand style; he does not even write a style at all. It is too constrained and awkward to be dignified, and dignity is an indispensable element of style. Without dignity we may write clearly, or nervously, or racily, but we have not attained to a style. This is the second shortcoming of Mr. Cary's translation. Like Pope's, it fails to catch the grand style of its original. Unlike Pope's, it frequently fails to exhibit any style.
It is hardly necessary to spend much time in proving that Mr. Longfellow's version is far superior to Mr. Cary's. It is usually easy and flowing, and save in the occasional use of violent inversions, always dignified. Sometimes, as in the episode of Ugolino, it even rises to something like the grandeur of the original:
The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth,
Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong." [28]
That is in the grand style, and so is the following, which
And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
Turns itself inward to increase the anguish. [29]
And the exclamation of one of these poor "wretches of the frozen crust" is an exclamation that Shakespeare might have written:—
There is nothing in Mr. Cary's translation which can stand a comparison with that. The eighteenth century could not translate like that. For here at last we have a real reproduction of the antique. In the Shakespearian ring of these lines we recognize the authentic rendering of the tones of the only man since the Christian era who could speak like Shakespeare.
In this way Mr. Longfellow's translation is, to an eminent degree, realistic. It is a work conceived and executed in entire accordance with the spirit of our time. Mr. Longfellow has set about making a reconstructive translation, and he has succeeded in the attempt. In view of what he has done, no one can ever wish to see the old methods of Pope and Cary again resorted to. It is only where he fails to be truly realistic that he comes short of success. And, as already
Which each of them eternally breathes forth,
The primal and unutterable Power
Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves
With so much order made, there can be none
Who this beholds without enjoying Him."
This seems clumsy and halting, yet it is an extremely literal paraphrase of a graceful and flowing original:—
Che l' uno e l' altro eternalmente spire,
Lo primo ed ineffabile Valore,
Quanto per mente o per loco si gira
Con tanto ordine fe', ch' esser non puote
Senza gustar di lui chi ciò rimira "
Now to turn a graceful and flowing sentence into one that is clumsy and halting is certainly not to reproduce it, no matter how exactly the separate words are rendered, or how closely the syntactic constructions match each other. And this consideration seems conclusive as against the adequacy of the literalist method. That method is inadequate, not because it is too realistic, but because it runs continual risk of being too verbalistic. It has recently been applied to the translation of Dante by Mr. Rossetti, and it has sometimes led him to write curious verses. For instance, he makes Francesca say to Dante,—
for
Mr. Longfellow's good taste has prevented his doing
Good taste and poetic genius are, however, better than the best of rules, and so, after all said and done, we can only conclude that Mr. Longfellow has given us a great and noble work not likely soon to be equalled. Leopardi somewhere, in speaking of the early Italian translators of the classics and their well-earned popularity, says, who knows but Caro will live in men's remembrance as long as Virgil? "La belie destinée," adds Sainte-Beuve, "de ne pouvoir plus mourir, sinon avec un immortel!" Apart from Mr. Longfellow's other titles to undying fame, such a destiny is surely marked out for him, and throughout the English portions of the world his name will always be associated with that of the great Florentine.
June, 1867.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 3 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867.
As Dante himself observes, "E però sappia ciascuno, che nulla cosa per legame musaico armonizzata si pno della sue loquela in altra trasmutare sanza rompere tutta sue dolcezza e armonia. E questa e la ragione per ehe Omero non si muto di greco in latino, come 1' altre scritture che avemo da loro: e questa e la ragione per che i versi del Psaltero sono sanza doleezza di musica e d' armonia; che essi furono trasmutati d' ebreo in greco, e di greco in latino, e nella prima trasmutazione tutta quella dolcezza venne meno." Convito, I. 7, Opere Minori, Tom. III. p. 80. The noble English version of the Psalms possesses a beauty which is all its own.
The more flexible method of Dr. Parsons leads to a more satisfactory but still inadequate result:—
From the right path I found myself astray."
Ma per trattar del ben ch' i' vi trovai,
Dirò dell' altre cose, ch' io v' ho scorte."
Inferno, I. 7-10.
Con Epicuro tutti i suoi seguaci,
Che l'anima col corpo morta fanno."
Inferno, X. 13-15.
Per le quali eran sì del tutto accesi,
Che ferro più non chiede verun' arte."
Inferno, IX. 118-120.
A consummate Italian scholar, the delicacy of whose taste is questioned by no one, and whose knowledge of Dante's diction is probably not inferior to Mr. Longfellow's, has told me that he regards the expression as a noble and effective one, full of dignity and solemnity.
Risonavan per l' ner senza stelle,
Perch' io al cominciar ne lagrimai."
Torcendo in su la venenosa forca,
Che, a guisa di scorpion, la punta armava."
Oltre, quanto potean gli occhi allungarsi,
Contra i raggi serotini e lucenti."
Costei ch' è fatta indomita e selvaggia,
E dovresti inforcar li suoi arcioni,
Giusto gindizio dalle stelle caggia
Sopra il tuo sangue, e sia nuovo ed aperto,
Tal che il tuo successor temenza n' aggia:
Chèavete tu e il tuo padre sofferto,
Per cupidigia di costà distretti,
Che il giardin dell' imperio sia diserto.
Vieni a veder Montecchi e Cappelletti,
Monaldi e Filippeschi, uom senza cura:
Color già tristi, e questi con sospetti.
Vien, crudel, vieni, e vedi la pressura
De' tuoi gentili, e cure lor magagne,
E vedrai Santafior com' e oscura [secura?].
Vieni a veder la tua Roma che piagne,
Vedova e sola, e dì e notte chiama:
Cesare mio, perchè non m' accompagne?
Vieni a veder la gente quanto s' ama;
E se nulla di noi pietà ti move,
A vergognar ti vien della tua fama."
Ad una, a due, a tre, e l' altre stanno
Timidette atterrando l' occhio e il muso;
E ciò che fa la prima, e l' altre fanno,
Addossandosi a lei s' ella s' arresta,
Semplici e quete, e lo 'mperchè non sanno."
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria."
Inferno, V. 121-123.
Yet admirable as it is, I am not quite sure that Dr. Parsons, by taking further liberty with the original, has not surpassed it:—
Is in the midst of misery to be cursed
With bliss remembered."
Gli occhi drizzò ver me con quel sembiante,
Che madre fa sopra figlinol deliro."
Ai naviganti, e intenerisce il core
Lo dì ch' han detto ai dolci amici addio;
E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore
Punge, se ode squilla di lontano,
Che paia il giorno pianger che si more."
This work comes at the end of the eighteenth-century period, as Pope's translation of Homer comes at the beginning.
Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,
Che furo all' osso, come d'un can, forti."
Inferno, XXXIII. 76.
The Unseen World, and Other Essays | ||