A few years ago I finally read the entire Divine Comedy.

Oops. That was the way I originally started this post. Then I wondered whether "a few" was accurate, and how long it actually had been. And because I had written about it at the time I was able to find the answer. So here's the revised opening:

Nine years ago I finally read the entire Divine Comedy.

It's very hard for me to believe that it's been that long, but here's a post where I asked for recommendations for a translation. I was sure it had been five years at most.

I had previously read only the Inferno, in the translations of John Ciardi and Dorothy Sayers. This more recent time I ended up reading (and buying) Anthony Esolen's translation, which I liked and would recommend. Not only is it a good translation, it has, as one would expect from Esolen, insightful and reliable notes and commentary fully sympathetic to Dante's theology. 

While I was making up my mind about that I checked the local library to see and sample whatever translation or translations they had, and discovered the Inferno in Longfellow's translation, which I had not known existed. I didn't look at it closely, in part because I wanted an edition that included the Italian, as Esolen's and some others do, on facing pages. This I now scoff at--not at the thing, but at the use I made, or was unable to make, of it. What did I think I was going to do with the Italian, of which I don't even know enough to know how to pronounce any words except those that have migrated into English (pizza, cello)? I did have one or two moments when I seemed to catch a glimpse of beauty in the Italian, but mostly I just ignored it. The Italian text served only to double the number of pages required for the poem. 

But anyway: having an inclination to read Dante again, and perhaps as a result of reading several of Longfellow's poems at Poems Ancient and Modern over the past year or so, and thinking that maybe Longfellow's work in general deserves another look (as an undergraduate English major, I was a snob for English literature, and didn't think American lit deserved much attention), I went to the library and checked out the Longfellow Inferno. And now I'm sold on his translation. To jump ahead to my conclusion: I am enjoying this translation as poetry more than I had previous translations.

Or, I should say, on this edition, which is in the Barnes & Noble Classics series. The text is in the public domain, obviously, so in this day of cheap and easy publication anyone can throw the text into a file and publish it, either on paper or in electronic form. But this one is a serious work, with an introduction, extensive notes, and many other useful features by Peter Bondanella, a professor of Comparative Literature and Italian at Indiana University and Julia Conaway Bondanella, professor of Italian at IU. And it's physically well-designed, and a pleasure to read. At first I thought the library's copy was just something they'd had lying around unread for decades, but no: it was first published, as best I can tell, in 2005. 

It's in three volumes, not surprisingly--the poem itself would fit easily into one, but the accompanying material takes up almost as much space as the poem. The volume of Inferno from our library is a hardback, and I hadn't read very far in it before I decided that I wanted to own it. At that point I encountered some confusion. The hardback, which by the way includes only Peter Bondanella as editor, is apparently out of print. I was able to find a copy in good condition at Abebooks, and a copy of Purgatorio on eBay. The bindings are a little different, and Purgatorio also includes Julia Bondanella as co-editor, so I don't know if there was an earlier uniform edition, or there was a subsequent edition which differs slightly. And as for Paradiso, I've so far not been able to find any evidence that it ever existed in hardback. Its paperback edition is the only one I can find at Barnes & Noble, so I'll have to give up and get it when I'm ready for it, which will be in another week or two--I'm currently on Canto X of Purgatorio, reading one to three cantos a day.

Enough of that--what about the translation itself? Why do I prefer it? Why prefer Longfellow's 19th century technique and diction to a capable contemporary one? Well, it has something to do with the way our language has developed over the past 150 years or so. The one word that comes first to mind when I try to describe that change is "lighter," followed by "thinner." Longfellow's English has a weight and substance that contemporary English doesn't. Just as important, obviously, is the fact that Longfellow was an extremely gifted poet (let's set aside whether the adjective "great" is appropriate). Anthony Esolen has written some good poetry, too, but he is not in Longfellow's class. And he doesn't have the same tools.

Here are a couple of comparisons. The two passages describe the same thing: the condition of souls in the outermost circle of the structure of Hell, where those who died innocently but without baptism dwell. (I'll set aside reservations and arguments about the doctrine and its current status.) The first is Dante speaking upon encountering the place. The second is Virgil explaining why he himself must be there. 

Inferno, Canto IV, Esolen:

As far as I could tell from listening, here
    there were no wails, but only sighs, that made
    a trembling in the everlasting air.

They rose from sorrow, without punishment,
    the sorrow of vast throngs of people there,
    of men and women and of infants too.

Longfellow:

There, as it seemed to me from listening,
    Were lamentations none, but only sighs,
    That tremble made the everlasting air.

And this arose from sorrow without torment,
    Which the crowds had, that many were and great,
    Of infants and of women and of men.

Purgatorio, Canto VII 25-30--Esolen:

Nothing I did but what I left undone
    condemns me to the losing of that sight
    of the high Sun you yearn for, all unknown

To me until too late. Below here lies
    a place saddened by darkness, not the pain
    of torment, and the souls lament in sighs,

No shrieks of woe.

Longfellow:

I by not doing, not by doing, lost
    The sight of that high sun which thou desirest,
    And which too late by me was recognized.

A place there is below not sad with torments,
    But darkness only, where the lamentations
    Have not the sound of wailing, but are sighs.

One must make up one's own mind, of course, and it's not a question of fact--I think we can assume both translations are faithful, and they certainly match each other--but of taste. To my taste Longfellow has a solid, majestic, even noble quality. Not to say that Esolen lacks those, but they seem to me more present in Longfellow. 

I'll forego a detailed examination of those lines, which after all are only a couple of dozen out of some 14,000. But I notice a couple of instances that might support my point:

"there were no wails, but only sighs"

vs.

"were lamentations none, but only sighs."

Not only does "lamentations" strike me as the more potent word, but the rhythm seems more forceful. This is a somewhat mysterious thing, as both are regular iambic. Part of the effect is that what I've quoted of Esolen there is tetrameter, while Longfellow's is pentameter. Notice that the complete thought or image includes a line break in Esolen's, while Longfellow's is one single strong rhythmic unit, almost hammer-like. In general I find Longfellow's verse to be more rhythmically potent, and even, more generally, more musical.

But this example also points to something which is likely to put off contemporary readers. Notice in the first example that the grammatical unit "there were" in this place is complete in what I quoted from Esolen. But in Longfellow's the two words are not adjacent. Longfellow's syntax is more complex, and this is a mild example. Sometimes it's downright knotty, and often part of the reason for that is his use of inversions and other ways of shuffling the conventional order of words for musical reasons. English is pretty dependent on word order, and often a poet (or translator), at least before the 20th century, changes it around very freely, so that the reader may be presented with a knot that he or she may or may not struggle to untie. I admit that I've several times consulted Esolen's translation to be sure I have correctly understood a passage in Longfellow. 

Here's a simple example, from Canto IX of Purgatorio, which happens to be the one I just read:

So fair a hatchment will not make for her
    The Viper marshalling the Milanese

In other words, "The Viper marshalling the Milanese will not make for her so fair a hatchment." But initially you may, as I did, take "hatchment" for the subject of the verb "make."

And: "hatchment"? It suggests to me a nest full of eggs, or chicks. Or perhaps snakes? This is another difficulty which pops up now and then with Longfellow: he uses a fair number of words which are no longer in common use, some of which are explained in footnotes, some of which I look up, and some of which I guess the meaning from context. "Hatchment," according to Professor(s) Bondanella, here means "ornament."

Here are a few words, previously unknown to me, that I've just recently encountered in Longfellow's translation: "incoronate," "disparts," "relucent," "indurate," "janitor." 

Janitor? That's hardly an unfamiliar word, but I certainly didn't know that it can mean something closer to "gatekeeper," derived, like "January," from the name of Janus, the Roman god who faced in two directions and was associated with (among many other things) gates, doors, and the like. It appears in Canto IX of Purgatorio, in which Dante and Virgil arrive at the entrance to Purgatory proper (after landing on the island and passing through the outskirts, "Antepurgatory"), and are welcomed by an angel. 

Again began the courteous janitor;
    “Come forward then unto these stairs of ours.”

All right, that's enough for a blog post. One last thing: Longfellow began his translation of Dante after suffering a horrendous personal catastrophe: his beloved second wife (married some years after the death of his first) was killed in a household fire which also seriously injured Longfellow and, not surprisingly, permanently devastated him emotionally. You can read about it at Wikipedia.

An 1868 portrait of Longfellow by Julia Margaret Cameron (from Wikimedia Commons)

Frances "Fanny" Appleton Longfellow, drawing by Samuel W. Rowse (Wikimedia Commons)

A friend heard Kenneth Branagh recite this poem in the film Coming Through, which is about D.H. Lawrence's affair with Frieda Weekley, who left her husband for him. The poem is in the dialect of Lawrence's native Nottinghamshire, and my friend liked the way it sounded but couldn't understand some of it. So she looked it up online and, having found it, was still puzzled by some of the dialect, and asked me about it. And when I had taken a shot at paraphrasing it in standard modern English, she suggested that I put the result online for the possible benefit of others. So here it is. It will be interesting to see if this post ever gets any hits from search engines. If I can help one fainting literature student to a C-minus....

Here's a link to the poem at Project Gutenberg. It's a conversation between a brother and sister, assuming the word "sister" is meant literally, mainly in the voice of the brother, about an incident at the funeral of "our Ted," who seems to be their brother, though that isn't stated. 

Here's a link to an odd video in which the poem is recited in what I take to be its correct pronunciation by an animated photograph of Lawrence. It seems to be a labor of love on someone's part, and so I'm sorry to say that I find the video vaguely unpleasant, better listened to than watched.

And here's my attempt to lay it out in standard modern English. I'm making some guesses and assumptions: for instance, that the word "plank" means more or less what we mean, though "board" strikes me as more idiomatic for us in the context.  "Slive"--the manner in which the young woman approaches the grave--is defined in several dictionaries as "sneak," but I think "slip" seems more in keeping with the general attitude of the speaker toward the girl. I put it into paragraphs corresponding to the stanzas, with dashes as in the original indicating lines spoken by the sister. I'm not 100% sure that the lines "And him so young..." are meant to be hers, but typographically they seem to be.

***

VIOLETS

Sister, you know while we were on the boards beside the grave, while the coffin was still lying on yellow clay with the white flowers on top of it to keep off a bit of the rain

And the parson was making haste and all the mourners were huddling close together because of the rain, did you happen to notice a young woman away by a headstone, sobbing and sobbing?

--Why would I be looking around, when I was standing on the boards beside the open grave where our Ted was about to be buried?

--And him so young and so suddenly taken while he was being so wicked among pals worse than any name you could think of?

Let that be; there's some of the bad that we like better than the good, and he was one.
--And because I liked him best, yes, better than you, I can't bear to think where he is gone.

I know you liked him better than me. But let me tell you about this girl. When you had gone I stayed behind in the rain and saw what she wearing [or possibly "what she was doing"?].

You should have seen her slip up when we had gone, you should have seen her kneel and look into the wet grave--and her little neck shone so white, and she shook so much, that I almost

started crying myself. She undid her black jacket at the bosom and took from it a double handful of violets, all gathered together blue and white--and warm, for a bit

of the smell came wafting to me. She put her face right into them and cried again, then after a bit dropped them down into the grave. And I came away because of the heavy rain.

***

It's the last sentence, and mainly those last four words, that make the poem. I like it, though the dialect is an obstacle. I didn't know that Lawrence had written in this style. It's from a collection of poetry called Love Poems and Others, published in 1913, quite early in his career, and perhaps warrants further investigation. The whole book is available at the Gutenberg link above.

I'm not a fan of D.H. Lawrence in general. I think I enjoyed, but was not enchanted by, the two novels that I read in a Modern British Fiction course fifty years ago, Sons and Lovers and Women In Love, --or was it The Rainbow? Or maybe both? I can't remember for sure. And all I knew of his poetry was several free verse poems that still make it into anthologies. Or at least did when I was in college, and I didn't especially like them. 

Later on, when I ran across his work or discussions thereof, I was put off by his "dark forces of the blood" mysticism. (I can't remember where I heard that description--it isn't mine, anyway). His attacks on the desiccation of modern Western culture were (are?) accurate enough, but his prescriptions for a cure pretty dodgy. I recall especially a short story in which a European woman--modern, conventional, inhibited, etc.--awaits rather rapturously her sacrifice to an Aztec god, or something of that sort. Or perhaps that was an excerpt from a novel. Anyway, it struck me as sexually perverse, as  had some aspects of the novels, including what struck me as a somewhat homoerotic undertone. All in all, to be blunt, Lawrence strikes me as a man who had, to use a term that used to be relatively obscure slang but has passed into common usage in recent decades, a definite sexual kink. 

Here's a picture of Lawrence and Frieda, who hardly looks the femme fatale. 

And here is what I consider to be one of the very funniest Monty Python skits. Sons and Lovers is largely about a Sensitive Boy with literary talent and ambition, misunderstood and sometimes bullied by his Brutish Father, a coal-miner. It seems extremely likely that Python had it in mind when developing the skit, using an extremely simple and extremely effective twist. 

Well, this is more like it--more what I hoped for from a Beethoven concerto. More like Beethoven, I would even say. I mean, if Beethoven had died in, say, 1802, when he had written only the first two symphonies and the first two piano concertos, he would certainly have been remembered, but he wouldn't be Beethoven, the giant we know. I don't feel that I'm listening to that giant in the first two concertos, but I do in this one, though he's just getting started. The first two seem to me as if they could have been written by Mozart, but not the third. 

I guess, now that I think about it, it's especially the first movement that makes me say that. I think its structure is unusual: there is a long (several minutes) orchestral introduction in which a strong, but not bombastic, theme alternates with a more sweeping, almost pastoral one--a march alternating with a dance, and this introduction closes with something that sounds very much like a finale to me.

For a naive listener like me who doesn't understand or appreciate much of what's going on technically, a work in sonata form stands or falls on its principal themes--they have to touch me in order for me to find the changes wrought on them interesting. This movement certainly makes the grade in that respect. It's a vigorous and varied piece of music, not on the awe-inspiring level of the works that would come later, but certainly one that I'll want to hear again from time to time. I especially like the way it closes: the cadenza* is pretty close to the end, and is as spectacular as one could wish, closing with quiet trills that fade into equally quiet orchestral stirrings that quickly rise toward a fairly typical movement-closing resolution of loud chords. The transition takes only just over a minute and the effect is striking. Personally I would have preferred the fadeout, but the power chords seem to have been close to obligatory for a century or more.

The cadenza is apparently Beethoven's; the notes on my recording seem to assume so. The pianist, Alfred Brendel, makes these remarks:

In most of his cadenzas, Beethoven the architect turns into a genius running amok; almost all the principles of classical order fall by the wayside.... Breaking away in an alien manner from the style and character of the movement does not bother Beethoven at all, and the most adventurous harmonic detours are made with relish. No other composer has ever hazarded cadenzas of such provoking madness.

And right on, I say.

The second movement is mainly a lovely melody that seems almost hymn-like. The third is high-speed and high-spirited, even light-hearted--not as wildly energetic or as striking as that of the first concerto, but in the same vein. 

No, this concerto did not fly up straightaway into the higher reaches of my musical favorites, but neither will it be checked off and filed away, likely never to be heard again, considering my age.

The recording was from the same 5-CD set as the other two:

I don't have anything to say about the performance, having nothing to compare it to, but I have one complaint about the recording. As you can see from the cover, it's "live" (those quotation marks make it seem as if the term were questionable), recorded in 1983 and issued on CD in 1997. And the record company decided to include the applause at the end of each concerto. It's really loud, and quite intrusive and annoying. 

* In case you don't know the term, a cadenza is a virtuoso section for the concerto's featured instrument alone.