"You wait here while I go look for God / It won't be hard cause I know where He's not"

[larryhammer]

Here's a nifty old book: an 1897 edition of Dante I considered taking to Iceland. It's hardbound in olive stamped with gold ink and gilt-edged on top, cut slightly larger than a US mass-market paperback and a centimeter thick, containing the Rossetti Vita Nova and the 1805 Cary Comedy as revised by the editor, Oscar Kuhns. Even though it's just too large to fit in a pants pocket, darn it, it's nicely portable -- tastily topped with pedantic Victorian glossing.

Unfortunately the translation of The Comedy is very Miltonic, even with Kuhns's edits to tone it down. I find Miltonic pretty much unreadable, even in the hands of a master like Milton -- sub-Miltonic is teh Urfs. As an example, a bit from Canto VIII -- from just after Virgil has told yet another boatman that Dante's not for him:*

                                  As one who hears
Of some great wrong he hath sustained, whereat
Inly he pines: so Phlegyas inly pined
In his fierce ire. My guide, descending, stepped
Into the skiff, and bade me enter next,
Close at his side; nor, till my entrance, seemed
The vessel freighted.

I had to reread that a couple times to figure out what's going on, and for Dante that's Just Plain Bad. It's always struck me, in prior readings, that while you may not understand what Dante is Getting At, you can always follow the action. It doesn't help that the first sentence is a tautology: "he was annoyed like someone who is annoyed." For comparison, here's the same passage in John Ciardi's translation (1954):

Phlegyas, the madman, blew his rage among
  those muddy marshes like a cheat deceived,
  or like a fool at some imagined wrong.

My Guide, whom all the fiend's noise could not nettle,
  boarded the skiff, motioning me to follow:
  and not till I stepped aboard did it seem to settle

into the water.

And Dorothy L. Sayers's (1949):

As one who hears of some outrageous cheat
  Practiced upon him, and fumes and chokes with gall,
  So Phlegyas, thwarted, fumed at his defeat.

So then my guide embarked, and at his call
  I followed him; and not till I was in
  Did the boat seem to bear a load at all.

See? Clean and clear, both of them.

Yet one more example of why I consider Milton a pernicious influence on English literature. Just as well I went with Ovid this summer.

Anyone interested in starting a "100canti100days" community for a canto-a-day group reading?


* Innuendo intended -- this canto has lots of prime material for slashers to work with. Mentioned in case anyone needs to add a medieval fandom to their portfolio.

---L.

Comments

[chibicharibdys.livejournal.com]

Your footnote spawned an AIM conversation between me and Chu:

charibdys:AYGH DANTE AND VIRGIL SLASH
chu: totally canon
chu: we discussed that in highschool english class

[larryhammer]

A few lines later, we get

And after, laid his arms about my neck
And kissed my face and said: "Indignant soul,
Blessed is the womb that bare thee! ... "

Where "he" is Virgil. Totally canon.

In manga terms, Dante is the kouhei crushing on Virgil-sempai.

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

A canto a day would be good - get me reading it again without straining too much :). I've been lazy about Dnate far too many times in my life and not read him closely. Original? Or original and mixed translations? Original and mixed translations could be fun, though it would take away from actually reading Dante.

[larryhammer]

I'm thinking it'd be you could read it in any version you want. I happen to have four Infernos (those three, plus a many-hands translation), and would likely trade off. The original would be beyond me. I don't think I can read even Latin at that rate.

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I ought to have had the original and one translation, but they have both gone walkabout. My library needs sorting. This means I'm reduced to reading online versions.

I found at least six versions of Roland's tale. Shows my background, doesn't it?

[larryhammer]

I know I have one Roland, and I think somewhere (in a world lit antho?) there's another. Though that may not be complete. Hmm.

Nothing wrong with having a focus. Or focuses.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Ah -- nope, I've got two different partial Rolands, but nothing complete. The edition I was thinking of seems to have departed for the valley of Biblioroncevilles. That needs to change.

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Like me and my Dante :). I found one Dante, but it was his treatise on rhetoric.

[larryhammer]

Heavens -- what was that doing in the pile?

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

It wasn't on a pile, is the thing. I collect all my pre-18th century prose and verse in one giant bookshelf. Well, mostly. Certain translations are classified in my modern fiction section (all of my Sayers except for 1 volume and some continuations have gone walkabout, too). I need a librarian?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Inly he pined, like some great pining thing.

[larryhammer]

Pretty much, yeah.

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

it would work, though, if the narrator was a thirteenth year old girl.

[larryhammer]

..........

Well, that is one way to reduce the slashiness of the thing ...

---L.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Aw c'mon, how can you beat "Inly he pines"? We all pines inly, only we doesn't all know how to express it outly.

I would *love* a Canto-a-Day group. I love Inferno but skipped over huge chunks of the other two.

Agree re Milton's pernicious influence, except, of course, when it comes to Paradise Lost. Then his influence was actually pretty positive, overall.

[larryhammer]

But, um, isn't PL pretty much the locus of Miltonic influence?

That's a couple people interested in Canto-a-Day. Maybe that's enough to start -- especially if, once it gets set up, everyone pimps it in their journal. Maybe 100canti100days as a name? acantoaday? dantein100? 100daysofdante?

---L.

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

But, um, isn't PL pretty much the locus of Miltonic influence?

Well, if you're going to be technical about it...

I like all the names. Dantein100 is perhaps the funniest.

I seem to have 3 Dantes: Sinclair's very sound prose translation in 2-page spreads with the Italian, which is an excellent resource; the Longfellow translation, which is surprisingly good--fluid and accurate; and the Mandelbaum translation (with illustrations by Barry Moser). I think I might also have the Singleton translation somewhere.

I also have the Gustave Dore illustrations; the Botticelli illustrations; the Pinksky translation of Inferno, which I don't like but which has great illustrations by Michael Mazur; Tom Phillips' beautiful illustrated Inferno, and a videotape of Phillips' and Peter Greenaway's film of the first 5 cantos of Inferno.

All of which is evidence only of my neurotic habit of buying Dante a lot.

[larryhammer]

I once read the Mandelbaum Inferno only -- wasn't really impressed. I may have the Dore illustrations -- I know I have his for Orlando Furioso.

The problem with Dantein100 is, well, misreading possibilities.

---L.

The Hollanders rule

[terrill-soules.livejournal.com]

You owe it to yourself to add the Hollanders' strongest of all translations to your library. With the publication of Paradiso this August, they've completed the Commedia.

Why is it so good? He's one of the greatest dantistas alive. His wife is a poet.

What makes it even better? His extraordinary notes, which with thoughtful good humor distill the latest work--on virtually any line. He's published many a book on Dante, and many an article--and he continually sneaks in what amount to synopses of what could become fullblown essays.

Here is the Hollanders' translation of the Inferno VIII passage:

Qual è colui che grande inganno ascolta 22
Like one who learns of a deceitful plot
che li sia fatto, e poi se ne rammarca, 23
hatched against him and begins to fret,
fecesi Flegïàs ne l'ira accolta. 24
Phlegyas became in his stifled wrath.

Lo duca mio discese ne la barca, 25
My leader stepped into the boat,
e poi mi fece intrare appresso lui; 26
and had me follow after.
e sol quand' io fui dentro parve carca. 27
And only then did it seem laden.


I have around thirty translations, but envy you your Tom Phillips and Greenaway videotape.

Best,
Terrill Shepard Soules

Re: The Hollanders rule

[terrill-soules.livejournal.com]

I must add this:
No one but the Hollanders (with the possible exception of Merwin, in his translation of the Purgatorio) gets the profound plainness of the Poet.
All those magnificent effects are constructed of regular (for the most part) words. Remember that the Poet chose (over then de rigeur Latin) vernacular Italian for his masterpiece's vehicle, so mass intelligibility was a goal. As was, I believe, driving scholars nuts till the end of time with this or that tantalizing obscurity. (Which Hollander's notes sort out wonderfully.)

The thing is, nonreaders of Italian think the Poet wrote like Shakespeare. Well, he did, in the Vita Nuova, but in the Commedia he writes like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, who also did much with simple.

This great gift to us of the greatness of the plainness conveyed with dead-accurate fidelity, combined with stat-eof-the-art commentary (the layout's not bad, either) set the Hollander volumes down on Parnassus, like Noah's ark on Ararat.

Re: The Hollanders rule

[larryhammer]

That is pretty good work there, on those lines, from the Hollanders.

---L.

Re: The Hollanders rule

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Good point. I dislike the self-consciously vernacular quality in the Fagles translations of Homer, where it seems overly cute. But it's justified in Dante. I like your use of scam for inganno, below.

Re: The Hollanders rule

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Thank you; that is nice. And I love a good footnote.

The Phillips/Greenaway video turns up used on amazon.co.uk and other such sources quite often, but it's in PAL format. It's only the first 8 cantos, but it's really good. Phillips, Greenaway, and Dante are a marriage made in, uh ... Inferno. Voiceover by Gielgud, no less. Maybe sometday BFI will put it on a DVD. Meanwhile, some stills here: http://petergreenaway.co.uk/dante.htm

From my translation of Inferno VIII

[terrill-soules.livejournal.com]

*22*h8* Qual è colui che grande inganno ascolta [8]
Like someone who heard about a huge scam, then found

*23*h8* che li sia fatto, e poi se ne rammarca,
the sting was on him, and becomes very bitter—

*24*h8* fecesi Flegïàs ne l'ira accolta.
that was Phelgyas, with his anger gagged and bound.


P.S. This user is NOT logging your IP address. Nor does this user know, at the moment, how to stop logging your IP address.

All best,
Terrill Shepard Soules
*25*h8* Lo duca mio discese ne la barca, [9]
Down into the skiff steps my leader.

*26*h8* e poi mi fece intrare appresso lui;
He had me enter after him, and only then

*27*h8* e sol quand' io fui dentro parve carca.
did there seem to be cargo aboard her.

Re: From my translation of Inferno VIII

[larryhammer]

Going for unlinked axa rhymes on those tercets? Can't say I'm particularly fond of that slant rhyme in the second one. The first one's not bad, though a bit wordy, especially compared to the Hollanders' above. Though certainly it's a lot better than "Inly he pined, like a great pining thing."

Interesting that none of the versions I quoted bring out the sense of a "sting" as in con. Phelgyas feels cheated: here's easy prey for me to -- WHAP. He's been baited and switched. And he can't even complain out loud, not with the V-man having the backing of heaven.

---L.

Re: A stab of my own

[malsperanza.livejournal.com]

Dante had a huge advantage in his rhyming because if a word didn't quite rhyme properly he could invent a new Italian word or variant to suit.

For example, I think the usual word for "laden" would be carica, not carca. Dante dropped a syllable. (I'm not knowledgeable enough about medieval Italian to know if "carca" was a normal variant or a Dante invention, so this may be a bad example.) Our poets can do that with "o'er" and "e'er" and "is't" (and Shakespeare gets away with more), but Dante does it with almost any word he feels like messing with.

English is, I think, unusual in how it uses slant-rhymes--something jarring that looks like a mistake or a cheat, but isn't, and therefore rings slightly false in the sound even as it rings true in the sense. (Dickinson being the master of that technique.) It's not a bad substitute for deliberately misspelling a word to make it fit the prosody.

Re: A stab of my own

[terrill-soules.livejournal.com]

It IS a fun exercise. Unless you spend a week on three lines.
Your line two has a lilt and sounds natural to boot.
"in his ire" -- well, that's a surprisingly formal ending to a tercet beginning with two just-folks line.

Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner. I will again, at more length. Getting grades and deficiencies and lesson plans together have me somewhat leisureless.

Best,
Terrill


all I can say about rhyme right now is this: if the ear hears it as a rhyme, it's a rhyme. If it doesn't, it's not.

Kind regards.

A stab of my own

[larryhammer]

Right -- based on all these ponies that seem to have been scattered about here, and drawing on my Spanish and small Latin, for a first draft I get:

Like one who's just heard that it's all
a scam, a sting, and starts to fume,
so Phelgyas in his stifled ire.

My leader stepped down in the boat,
and had me follow after him;
not till then did it bear a load.

I'm partial to slanting with assonance, rather than on the final consonant. Didn't manage it on the first tercet -- thus calling it a first draft. Tetrameter, because I'm seen arguments that as English is more compact than Italian, that's a better match for hendecasyllables than pentameter, and the latter leads to padding. Certainly, forcing myself to pare down the lines to eight syllables made me go as plain as possible, matching Dante's style, as best I can tell.

Fun exercise.

---L.

[terrill-soules.livejournal.com]

It IS a fun exercise. Unless you spend a week on three lines.
Your line two has a lilt and sounds natural to boot.
"in his ire" -- well, that's a surprisingly formal ending to a tercet beginning with two just-folks line.

Anyway, I'm sorry I haven't responded sooner. I will again, at more length. Getting grades and deficiencies and lesson plans together have me somewhat leisureless.

Best,
Terrill

[larryhammer]

No worries -- Life Happens, as they say around here.

I hear you about a week spent on three lines. Good way to sap the life out of a snappy Latin epigram, that.

---L.

[larryhammer]

True about the switch in diction with "ire" -- I was of course trying to stick close to "l'ira." Hmm.

*ponders*

---L.