Essays Aesthetical Part 6

Of pathos Dante has given examples unsurpa.s.sed in literature. By the story of Ugolino the chords of the heart are so thrilled that pity and awe possess us wholly; and by that of Francesca they are touched to tenderest sympathy. But Ugolino is to Lear what a single fire-freighted cloud that discharges five or six terrific strokes is to a night-long tempest, wherein the thundering heavens gape with a hundred flashes.

All the personages of Dante's poem (unless we regard himself as one) are spirits. Shakespeare, throughout his many works, gives only a few glimpses into the world beyond the grave; but how grandly by these few is the imagination expanded. Clarence's dream, "lengthened after life," in which he pa.s.ses "the melancholy flood," is almost super-Dantesque, concentrating in a few ejaculative lines a fearful foretaste of trans-earthly torment for a bad life on earth. And the great ghost in "Hamlet," when you read of him, how shadowy real!

Dante's representation of disembodied humanity is too pagan, too palpable, not ghostly enough, not spiritualized with hope and awe.

Profound, awakening, far-stretching, much enfolding, thought-breeding thoughts, that can only grow in the soil of pure, large sensibilities, and by them are cast up in the heave and glow of inward motion, to be wrought by intellect and shaped in the light of the beautiful,--of these, which are the test of poetic greatness, Dante, if we may venture to say so, has not more or brighter examples than Milton, and not so many as Goethe; while of such pa.s.sages, compactly embodying as they do the finer insights of a poetic mind, there are more in a single one of the greater tragedies of Shakespeare, than in all the three books of the "Divina Commedia."

Juxtaposition beside Shakespeare, even if it bring out the superiorities of the English bard, is the highest honor paid to any other great poet. Glory enough is it if admiration can lift Dante so high as to take him into the same look that beholds Shakespeare; what though the summit of the mighty Englishman s.h.i.+ne alone in the sky, and the taller giant carry up towards heaven a larger bulk and more varied domains. The traveler, even if he come directly from wondering at Mont Blanc in its sublime presence, will yet stand with earnest delight before the majesty of the Yungfrau and the Eigher.

But it is time to speak of Dante in English.

"It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible, that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as to seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet."

Thus writes a great poet, Sh.e.l.ley, in his beautiful "Defense of Poetry." But have we not in modern tongues the creations of Homer, and of Plato, who Sh.e.l.ley, on the same page, says is essentially a poet?

And can we estimate the loss the modern mind would suffer by deprivation of them in translated form? Pope's Homer--still Homer though so Popish--has been a not insignificant chapter in the culture of thousands, who without it would have known no more of Hector and Achilles and the golden glowing cloud of pa.s.sion and action through which they are seen superbly s.h.i.+ning, than what a few of them would incidently have learnt from Lempriere. Lord Derby's Iliad has gone through many editions already. And Job and the Psalms: what should we have done without them in English? Translations are the telegraphic conductors that bring us great messages from those in other lands and times, whose souls were so rich and deep that from their words their fellow-men, in all parts of the globe, draw truth and wisdom forever. The flash on which the message was first launched has lost some of its vividness by the way; but the purport of the message we have distinctly, and the joy or grief wherewith it is freighted, and even much of its beauty. Shall we not eat oranges, because on being translated from Cuba to our palates they have lost somewhat of their flavor? In reading a translated poem we wish to have as much of the essence of the original, that is, as much of the poetry, as possible. A poem it is we sit down to read, not a relation of facts, or an historical or critical or philosophical or theological exposition,--a poem, only in another dress. Thence a work in verse, that has poetic quality enough to be worth translating, must be made to lose by the process as little as may be of its worth; and its worth every poem owes entirely to its poetic quality and the degree of that.

A prose translation of a poem is an aesthetic impertinence, Shakespeare was at first opened to the people of the Continent in prose, because there was not then culture enough to reproduce him in verse. And in Shakespeare there is so much practical sense, so much telling comment on life, so much wit, such animal spirits, such touching stories so well told, that the great gain of having him even in prose concealed the loss sustained by the absence of rhythmic sound, and by the discoloration (impallidation, we should say, were the word already there) of hundreds of liveliest tinted flowers, the deflowering of many delicate stems. Forty years ago, Mr. Hay ward translated the "Faust" of Goethe into prose; but let any one compare the Hymn of the Archangels and other of the more highly-wrought pa.s.sages, as rendered by him, with any of the better translations in verse,--with that of Mr. Brooks for example,--to perceive at once the insufficiency, the flatness and meagreness of even so verbally faithful a prose version. The effect on "Faust," or on any high pa.s.sionate poem, of attempting to put it into prose, is akin to what would be the effect on an exquisite _bas-relief_ of reducing its projection one half by a persevering application of pumice. In all genuine verse (that is, in all poetic verse) the substance is so inwrought into the form and sound, that if in translating you entirely disregard these, rejecting both rhyme and measure, you subject the verse to a second depletion right upon that which it has to suffer by the transplanting of it into another soil.

The translator of a poem has a much higher and subtler duty than just to take the words and through them attempt pa.s.sively to render the page into his own language. He must brace himself into an active state, a creative mood, the most creative he can command, then transport himself into the mind and mental att.i.tude of the poet he would translate, feeling and seeing as the poet saw and felt. To get into the mood out of which the words sprang, he should go behind the words, embracing them from within, not merely seizing them from without. Having imbued himself with the thought and sentiment of the original, let him, if he can, utter them in a still higher key. Such surpa.s.sing excellence would be the truest fidelity to the original, and any cordial poet would especially rejoice in such elevation of his verse; for the aspiring writer will often fall short of his ideal, and to see it more nearly approached by a translator who has been kindled by himself, to find some delicate new flower revealed in a nook which he had opened, could not but give him a delight akin to that of his own first inspirations.

A poem, a genuine poem, a.s.sumes its form by an inward necessity.

"Paradise Lost," conceived in Milton's brain, could not utter itself in any other mode than the unrhymed harmonies that have given to our language a new music. It could not have been written in the Spenserian stanza. What would the "Fairy Queen" be in blank verse? For his theme and mood Dante felt the need of the delicate bond of rhyme, which enlivens musical cadence with sweet reiteration. Rhyme was then a new element in verse, a modern aesthetic creation; and it is a help and an added beauty, if it be not obtrusive and too self-conscious, and if it be not a target at which the line aims; for then it becomes a clog to freedom of movement, and the pivot of fact.i.tious pauses, that are offensive both to sense and to ear. Like buds that lie half-hidden in leaves, rhymes should peep out, sparkling but modest, from the cover of words, falling on the ear as though they were the irrepressible strokes of a melodious pulse at the heart of the verse.

The _terza rima_--already in use--Dante adopted as suitable to continuous narrative. With his feeling and aesthetic want rhymed verse harmonized, the triple repet.i.tion offering no obstacle, Italian being copious in endings of like sound. His measure is iambic, free iambic, and every line consists, not of ten syllables, but of eleven, his native tongue having none other than feminine rhymes. And this weakness is so inherent in Italian speech, that every line even of the blank verse in all the twenty-two tragedies of Alfieri ends femininely, that is, with an unaccented eleventh syllable. In all Italian rhyme there is thus always a double rhyme, the final syllable, moreover, invariably ending with a vowel. This, besides being too much rhyme and too much vowel, is, in iambic lines, metrically a defect, the eleventh syllable being a superfluous syllable.

In these two prominent features English verse is different from Italian: it has feminine rhymes, but the larger part of its rhymes are masculine; and it has fewer than Italian. This second characteristic, the comparative fewness of rhymes, is likewise one of its sources of strength: it denotes musical richness and not poverty, as at first aspect it seems to do, the paucity of like-sounding syllables implying variety in its sounds. It has all the vocalic syllables and endings it needs for softness, and incloses them mostly in consonants for condensation, vigor, and emphasis.

Primarily the translator has to consider the resources and individualities of his own tongue. In the case of Dante the rhythmical basis is the same in both languages; for the iambic measure is our chief poetic vehicle, wrought to perfection by Shakespeare and Milton.

There only remains, then, rhyme and the division into stanzas. Can the _terza rima_, as used by Dante, be called a stanza? The lines are not separated into trios, but run into one another, clinging very properly to the rhymes, which, interlinking all the stanzas by carrying the echo still onward, bind each canto into one whole, just as our Spenserian form does each stanza into a whole of nine lines. Whether stanzas, strictly speaking, or not, shall we say our mind frankly about the _terza rima_? To us it seems not deserving of admiration _for its own sake_; and we surmise that had it not been consecrated by Dante, neither Byron nor Sh.e.l.ley would have used it for original poems. We are not aware that Dante's example has been followed by any poet of note in Italy. _Terza rima_ keeps the attention suspended too long, keeps it ever on the stretch for something that is to come, and never does come, until at the end of the canto, namely, the last rhyme. The rhymes cannot be held down, but are ever escaping and running ahead. It looks somewhat like an artificial contrivance of the first rhymers of an uncultivated age. But Dante used it for his great song; and there it stands forever, holding in its folds the "Divina Commedia."

Now, in rendering into English the poem of Dante, is it essential,--in order to fulfill the conditions of successful poetic translation,--to preserve the triple rhyme? Not having in English a corresponding number of rhymes, will not the translator have to resort to transpositions, subst.i.tutions, forcings, indirections, in order to compa.s.s the meaning and the poetry? Place the pa.s.sages already cited from Mr. Dayman beside the original, and the reader will be surprised to see how direct and literal, how faithful at once to the Italian thought and to English idiom in expressing it, Mr. Dayman is. His harness of triplets seems hardly to constrain his movement, so skillfully does he wear it. If we confront him with the spirited version in quatrains of Dr. Parsons, in the pa.s.sages cited from the "Inferno," or with those from the "Paradiso," in Mr.

Longfellow's less free unrhymed version, the resources and flexibility of Mr. Dayman in handling the difficult measure will be again manifest. To enable our readers to compare the translations with the original and with one another, we will give the Italian, and then the three versions, of the latter part of the Francesca story, from Canto V. of the "Inferno:"--

"Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parlai io, E cominciai: Francesca, i tuoi martiri A lagrimar mi fanno tristo, e pio.

Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri, A che, e come concedette Amore Che conosceste i dubbiosi desiri?

Ed ella a me: nessun maggior dolore, Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria, e ci sa 'l tuo dottore.

Ma se a conoscer la prima radice Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto, Far come colui che piange, e dice.

Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto Di Lancilotto, come Amor lo strinse.

Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto.

Per piu fiate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura, e scolorocci 'l viso: Ma solo un punto fu quel, che ci vinse.

Qando leggemmo il disiato riso Esser baciato da cotanto amante, Questi, che mai da me non sia diviso, La bocca mi baci tutto tremante.

Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse: Quel giorno piu non vi leggemmo avante.

Mentre che l'uno spirito queste disse, L'altro piangeva si, che di pietade Io venni meno come s'io morisse, E caddi, come corpo morto cade."

Mr. Dayman:--

"Then toward them turned again: 'Thy racking woe,'

I said, 'Francesca, wrings from out mine eyes The pious drops that sadden as they flow.

But tell me, in your hour of honeyed sighs, By whom and how love pitying broke the spell, And in your doubtful longings made too wise.'

And she to me: 'No keener pang hath h.e.l.l, Than to recall, amid some deep distress, Our happier time: thy teacher knows it well.

Yet if desire so strong thy soul possess To trace the root from whence our love was bred, His part be mine, who tells and weeps no less.

'T was on a day when we for pastime read Of Lancillot, how love snared him to ruin: We were alone, nor knew suspicious dread.

Oft on that reading paused our eyes, renewing Their glance; and from our cheeks the color started; But one sole moment wrought for our undoing: When that we read of lover so kind-hearted Kissing the smile so coveted before, He that from me shall never more be parted Kissed me with lip to lip, trembling all o'er.

The broker of our vows, it was the lay, And he who wrote--that day we read no more.'

The other spirit, while the first did say These words, so moaned, that with soft remorse As death had stricken me, I swooned away, And down I fell, heavily as falls a corse."

Mr. Longfellow:--

"Then unto them I turned me, and I spake, And I began: 'Thine agonies, Francesca, Sad and compa.s.sionate to weeping make me.

But tell me, at the time of those sweet sighs, By what and in what manner Love conceded That you should know your dubious desires?'

And she to me: 'There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.

But if to recognize the earliest root Of love in us thou hast so great desire, I will do even as he who weeps and speaks.

One day we reading were for our delight Of Launcelot, how Love did him enthrall.

Alone we were, and without any fear.

Full many a time our eyes together drew That reading, and drove the color from our faces; But one point was it that o'ercame us.

Whenas we read of the much-longed-for smile Being by such a n.o.ble lover kissed, This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided, Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating.

Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it.

That day no farther did we read therein.'

And all the while one spirit uttered this, The other one did weep so, that, for pity, I swooned away as if I had been dying, And fell even as a dead body falls."

Dr. Parsons:--

"Then, turning round to them, I thus began: 'Francesca! tears must overflow mine eyes: My pitying soul thy martyr-throes unman; But tell me,--in the time of happy sighs, Your vague desires how gave Love utterance first?"

And she to me: "The mightiest of all woes Is, in the midst of misery, to be cursed With bliss remembered,--this thy teacher knows.

Yet, wouldst thou learn our pa.s.sion's root and head, As one may speak whose eyes with tears are dim, So will I speak. Together once we read The tale of Lancelot,--how Love bound him.

Alone we were without suspecting aught: Oft in perusal paled our cheeks their hue, And oft our eyes each other's glances caught; But one sole pa.s.sage 't was which both o'erthrew.

At reading of the longed-for smile,--to be By such a lover's kissing so much blest, This dearest--never shalt thou part from me!

His lips to mine, to mine, all trembling, pressed.

The writer was our Galeot with his book:-- That day we read no further on." She stopped: Meanwhile he moaned so that compa.s.sion took My sense away, and like a corse I dropped.

Observe that Dr. Parsons has put Dante's twenty-eight lines of eleven syllables into twenty-four lines of ten syllables; and this without losing a drop of the precious stream he undertakes to pour. But why does he make Francesca address her companion personally, instead of saying, "who shall never part from me?" And why does Mr. Dayman say, "pious drops," instead of piteous? Mr. Dayman and Mr. Longfellow fill up the twenty-eight lines. In neither of the three is there any strain or wresting of the sense. But all three, and before them Lord Byron and Carey, mistranslate this pa.s.sage,--

"Per piu fiate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura."

All these translators interpret it to mean, that while they read, their eyes often met; whereas Dante says, they read that pa.s.sage over more than once; or, literally rendered, several times that reading or pa.s.sage drew to it their eyes. To restore the meaning of the original adds to the refinement of the scene.

Why does Mr. Longfellow use such long words as _compa.s.sionate_ instead of _pitiful_ or _piteous_, _recognize_ for _know_, _palpitating_ for _trembling_, _conceded that you should know_ for _gave you to know_?

By the resolution to translate line for line, Mr. Longfellow ties his poetic hands. The first effect of this self-binding is, to oblige him to use often long Latin-English instead of short Saxon-English words, that is, words that in most cases lend themselves less readily to poetic expression. Mr. Dayman, not translating line for line, is free from this prosaic inc.u.mbrance; but as he makes it a rule to himself that every English canto shall contain the same number of lines as its original, he is obliged, much more often than Mr. Longfellow, to throw in epithets or words not in the Italian. And Dr. Parsons, who, happily freeing himself from either verbal or numerical bond, in several instances compresses a canto into two or three lines less than the Italian, and the x.x.xI. into nine lines less, might with advantage have curtailed each canto ten or twelve lines.

Do what we will, poetic translation is brought about more from without than from within, and hence there is apt to be a dryness of surface, a lack of that sheen, that spontaneous warm emanation, which, in good original work, comes from free inward impulsion. To counteract, in so far as may be, this p.r.o.neness to a mechanical inflexibility, the translator should keep himself free to wield boldly and with full swing his own native speech. By his line-for-line allegiance, Mr.

Longfellow forfeits much of this freedom. He is too intent on the words; he sacrifices the spirit to the letter; he overlays the poetry with a verbal literalness; he deprives himself of scope to give a billowy motion, a heightened color, a girded vigor, to choice pa.s.sages. The rhythmical languor consequent on this verbal conformity, this lineal servility, is increased by a frequent looseness in the endings of lines, some of which on every page, and many on some pages, have--contrary to all good usage--the superfluous eleventh syllable. Milton never allows himself this liberty, nor Mr. Tennyson in epic verse so little pretentious as "Idyls of the King." Nor do good blank-verse translators give in to it. Cowper does not in his Iliad, nor Lord Derby, nor Mr. Bryant in his version of the fifth book of the Odyssey, nor Mr. Carey in his Dante. Permissible at times in dramatic blank verse, it is in epic rejected by the best artists as a weakness. Can it be that Mr. Longfellow hereby aims to be more close to the form of Dante? Whatever the cause of its use, the effect is still farther to weaken his translation. These loose poetic endings--and on most pages one third of the lines have eleven syllables and on some pages more than a third--do a part in causing Mr. Longfellow's Dante to lack the clean outline, the tonic ring, the chiseled edge of the original, and in making his cantos read as would sound a high pa.s.sionate tune played on a harp whose strings are relaxed.

Looking at the printed Italian Dante beside the English, in a volume where opposite each English page is the corresponding page of the original, as in Mr. Dayman's, one cannot fail to be struck with the comparative narrowness of the Italian column. This comes of the comparative shortness of Italian syllables. For instance, as the strongest exemplification, the ever-recurring _and_, and the often-repeated _is_, are both expressed in Italian by a single letter, _e_. And this shortness comes of the numerousness of vowels. In lines of thirty letters Dante will have on an average sixteen consonants to fourteen vowels, nearly half and half; while his translators have about twenty consonants to ten vowels, or two to one. From this comparative rejection of consonants, Italian cannot, as English can, bind into one syllable words of seven or eight letters, like _friends_ and _straight_, nor even words of six letters, like _chimed_, _shoots_, _thwart_, _spring_; nor does Italian abound as English does in monosyllables, and the few it has are mostly of but two or three letters. In combination its syllables sometimes get to four letters, as in _fronte_ and _braccia_. As a consequence hereof, Dante's lines, although always of eleven syllables, average about twenty-nine letters, while those of the three translators about thirty-three.

Hence, the poem in their versions carries more weight than the original; its soul is more c.u.mbered with body.

In order to the faithful reproduction of Dante, to the giving the best transcript, possible in English, of his thought and feeling, should not regard be had to the essential difference between the syllabic const.i.tutions of the two languages, what may be called the physical basis of the two mediums of utterance? Here is the Francesca story, translated in the spirit of this suggestion:--

I turned to them, and then I spake: "Francesca! tears o'erfill mine eyes, Such pity thy keen pangs awake.