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. 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":

"These are the questions which they will 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:

"When he had said this, with his eyes distorted, The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth, Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong."

Inferno, XXXIII. 76.

That is in the grand style, and so is the following, which describes those sinners locked in the frozen lake below Malebolge: --

"Weeping itself there does not let them weep, And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes Turns itself inward to increase the anguish.

Inferno, XXXIII. 94.

And the exclamation of one of these poor "wretches of the frozen crust" is an exclamation that Shakespeare might have written: --

"Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I May vent the sorrow which impregns my heart."

Ib. 112.

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 hinted, it is oftenest through sheer excess of LITERALISM that he ceases to be realistic, and departs from the spirit of his author instead of coming nearer to it. In the "Paradiso," Canto X. 1-6, his method leads him into awkwardness: --

"Looking into His Son with all the love 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: --

"Guardando nel suo figlio con l' amore 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 ehi cio 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, --

"O gracious and benignant ANIMAL!"

for

"O animal grazioso e benigno!"

Mr. Longfellow's good taste has prevented his doing anything like this, yet Mr. Rossetti's extravagance is due to an unswerving adherence to the very rules by which Mr. Longfellow has been guided.

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 destinee," 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.

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The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske, 1876