Orval, or The Fool of Time :: :: University of Virginia Library

Orval, or The Fool of Time

And Other Imitations and Paraphrases. By Robert Lytton

Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831-1891)

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IMITATIONS AND PARAPHRASES.

THE FIRST CANTO OF THE INFERNO.

FRANCESCA DA RIMINO.

MICHELAGNOLO BUONARROTI

RONSARD.

DANISH.

SERVIAN.

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FRANCESCA DA RIMINO.

PARAPHRASE.

[_]

(Fifth Canto of the Inferno.)

When of my Teacher I had learn'd the names
Of those renownèd knights of other days,
And theirs, the former time's most famous dames,
Lost in sad wonder, after mute amaze,

“Bard,” I began, “much is my heart inclined
To parley with yon twain that, where I gaze,
Seem coming, borne so light upon the wind.”

And he to me: “Their nearer neighbouring note;
Then, by the love that moves them, thus entwined,
Charge them, and they will come.” No sooner smote

The swift gust near us, which those spirits, join'd,
Did simultaneous to our sight upfloat,
Than, moved to utterance, “Come! O come,” I cried,

“Afflicted souls! nor yet to our inquiring
Deny discourse, if by nought else denied,”
As doves, solicited by fond desiring,

To their loved nest, on steady wings and wide,
Through air are wafted by the sweet inspiring
Of their own wishes swift; so, parting there

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Dido's dim throng, the twain toward us sail'd
In such wise speeding through that evil air;
So much my cry compassionate prevail'd.

“O being that, beneficent and fair,
Through this obscure comest, visiting,” they wail'd,
“Us that have earth embrued with bloody stain,

Were He, the Universal King, our friend,
Since thou hast pity on our pitiless pain,
Prayers to Him we for thy peace would send.

Whate'er to hear, or haply tell, thou art fain,
To tell or hear, thy bidding we attend,
What time, as now, the wind is whist. The land

That bore me seaward lies where Po proceeds
Down, with his sequent waters, to his rest.
Love, that in gentle heart scant kindling breeds,

Him, by the fairness of the form that drest
This spirit once (and yet indignant bleeds
Sharp memory of its taking off!) possest;

Love, that in one beloved doth love beget,
Me too well pleased with pleasing him, so well
That, as thou seest, he hath not left me yet:

Love led us to one death: Caïna's hell
Waits him that spilt our lives.” Such response met
My sense, from such resentful sorrowing sent,

That so long, for the sadness of it, was
My countenance in such dejection bent,
The Poet cried, “What musest thou?” “Alas!”

I answer'd, “What sweet thoughts, what fond intent
Have brought them to this miserable pass!”
Then, yet once more returning to the two,

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“Francesca, pitifullest tears,” I cried,
“For thy deep woes I weep. Yet tell me how
To him and thee did Love the means provide,

First in the time of your sweet sighs, to know
Your yet uncertain wishes?” She replied,
“There is no greater pang than to recall

In misery days of happiness that were.
And that thy Teacher knows. Yet I, if all
So deep be thy desire to see laid bare

Of our love's growth the root original,
Will speak as one that weeping tells his care.
For pleasant passing of the time, one day,

Of love-thrall'd Launcelot the tale we read:
We were alone: all danger far away
From our suspecting: though the colour fled

Our faces oft, and oft our looks to stray
Into each other's eyes that reading led.
One point alone o'ercame us. We the while

Thus reading still, still unsuspecting ever,
When as we read of that so long'd-for smile
That such deep love did, with such dear endeavour,

To so sweet kissing of sweet lips beguile,
He that from me shall be disparted never
Me on the mouth all trembling kist. Accurst

The felon book was, and its scribe as well!
That day we read no more.
While thus the first,
The other spirit made moan so miserable

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That, by sick pity all my sense disperst,
Down, as to earth a dead corpse falls, I fell.”

“Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.”

Those commentators who affirm that the Galeotto of this line is the proper name of Galahad are probably right. They have, at least, ample warrant for their opinion in the sixty-sixth chapter of the Italian Romance of Lancilotto, relating “Come la Reina conobbe Lancilotto . . . e come la prima congiunzione fu fatta fra Lancilotto e Ginevra per lo mezzo di Galeotto.” The obvious sense of the passage is that both the book and its author were go-betweens. But, although the go-between of the Italian Romance is called Galahad,—a name which probably was to Dante's Italian contemporaries (as that of Shakespeare's Pandarus was, and is, to Englishmen) a synonym for pimp, yet, in any case, the force of Dante's supposed allusion to him would be lost upon English readers who cannot associate the memory of the “Virgin Knight” with the ignoble character and functions ascribed to the Galahad of the Italian tale. For this reason I am content to take the simple common meaning of the word galeotto, viz., a felon— a scoundrel—the French galérien. Mr. Cary, indeed, translates the line thus—

“The book and writer both were love's purveyors;”

but this euphuistic paraphrase appears to me to convey no sense of the denunciatory intensity of Francesca's abrupt and startling exclamation. There is a dramatic effect in the angry suddenness with which the narrator of the tragedy breaks off her narration by an implied curse, just at the point where the situation she is describing was broken into, and abruptly ended, by a crime: and I think it little matters how you translate this word galeotto, so long as you retain unimpaired the imprecatory force which it gives to the whole passage.

O. M.