TAMBURINI.
Per me ritengo, che quattro fossero le cagioni per cui la Romagna si ridusse a tanta desolazione: l' abuso per avarizia di alcuni ecclesiastici, che alienarono or una, or un' altra terra, e si misero d' accordo coi tiranni,—i tiranni stessi che sempre erano discordi fra loro a danno de' sudditi,—la fertilità de' terreni, che troppo alletta gli strani, ed i barbari,—l' invidia, che regna fra gli stessi roma gnuoli.
"In my judgment," says Benvenuto, who speaks with the authority of long experience and personal observation, "it seems to me that four things have brought that noble province to so great desolation. The first of which is, the avarice of the Pastors of the Church, who now sell one tract of its land, and now another; while one favors one Tyrant, and another another, so that the men in authority are often changed. The second is, the wickedness of the Tyrants themselves, who are always tearing and biting each other, and fleecing their subjects. The third is, the fertility of the province itself, which by its very richness allures barbarians and foreigners to prey upon it. The fourth is, that spirit of jealousy which flourishes in the hearts of the inhabitants themselves." It will be noticed that the translator changes the phrase, "the avarice of the Pastors of the Church," into "the avarice of some ecclesiastics," while throughout the passage, as indeed throughout every page of the work, the vigor of Benvenuto's style and the point of his animated sentences are quite lost in the flatness of a dull and inaccurate paraphrase.
A passage in which the spirit of the poet has fully roused his manly commentator is the noble burst of indignant reproach with which he inveighs against and mourns over Italy in Canto VI. of the "Purgatory":—
Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello,
Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta,
Non donna di provincie, ma bordello.
"Nota metaphoram pulcram: sicut enim in lupanari venditur caro humana pretio sine pudore, ita meretrix magna, idest Curia Romana, et Curia Imperialis, vendunt libertatem Italicam…. Ad Italiam concurrunt omnes barbarae nationes cum aviditate ad ipsam conculcandam…. Et heic, Lector, me excusabis, qui antequam ulterius procedam, cogor facere invectivam contra Dantem. O utinam, Poeta mirifice, rivivisceres modo! Ubi pax, ubi tranquillitas in Italia?… Nunc autem dicere possim de tola Italia quod Vergilius tuus de una Urbe dixit:
——'Crudelis ubique
Lucutus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago.'
…. Quanto ergo excusabilius, si fas esset, possem exclamare ad Omnipotentem quam tu, qui in tempora felicia incidisti, quibus nos omnes nunc viventes in misera Italia possumus invidere? Ipse ergo, qui potest, mittat amodo Veltrum, quem tu vidisti in Somno, si tamen umquam venturus est."
"Note the beauty of the metaphor: for, as in a brothel the human body is sold for a price without shame, so the great harlot, the Court of Rome, and the Imperial Court, sell the liberty of Italy…. All the barbarous nations rush eagerly upon Italy to trample upon her…. And here, Reader, thou shalt excuse me, if, before going farther, I am forced to utter a complaint against Dante. Would that, O marvellous poet, thou wert now living again! Where is peace, where is tranquillity in Italy?… But I may say now of all Italy what thy Virgil said of a single city,—'Cruel mourning everywhere, everywhere alarm, and the multiplied image of death.' …With how much more reason, then, were it but right, might I call upon the Omnipotent, than thou who fellest upon happy times, which we all now living in wretched Italy may envy! Let Him, then, who can, speedily send the Hound that thou sawest in thy dream, if indeed he is ever to come!"
It would be surprising, but for what we have already seen of the manner in which Signor Tamburini performs his work, to find that he has here omitted all reference to the Church, omitted also the address to Dante, and thus changed the character of the whole passage.
Again, in the comment on Canto XX. of the "Purgatory," where Benvenuto gives account of the outrage committed, at the instigation of Philippe le Bel, by Sciarra Colonna, upon Pope Boniface VIII., at Anagni, the translator omits the most characteristic portions of the original.
* * * * *
BENVENUTO.
Sed intense dolore superante animum ejus, conversus in rabiem furoris,
coepit se rodere totum. Et sic verificata est prophetia simplicissimi
Coelestini, qui praedixerat sibi: Intrâsti ut Vulpes, Regnabis ut Leo,
Morieris ut Canis.