Here a slight crux arises as to what Dante meant by “Grammar”: at least (for the first part of his observations is clear enough) what he meant by saying that “the Greeks have it, and others but not all.”[[549]] Are Grammatica and “Latin” interchangeable terms? or does he mean that there was a literary as well as a vernacular form of Greek, and literary as well as vernacular forms of Hebrew, Arabic, &c.? The latter seems to suit the argument best up to a certain point; but it is exposed to the difficulty that, if so, Dante would be trying to make, out of the Vulgars, a Grammatica for Italian, which nowhere seems to have been his intention. But it is no great matter.
He has so far cleared his ground very well; but, to his own orderly and scholastically educated mind, he does not seem to |The nature, &c., of the gift of speech.| have done enough. He lays down in chap. ii. that man alone has intercourse by speech. Angels and animals do not want it, for angels communicate intuitively; devils have no need of it;[[550]] to animals[[551]] it were useless: and if anybody urges the serpent in Paradise, Balaam’s ass, Ovid in the Metamorphoses about magpies, these objections can be met in various ways. The real power of speech has been given to man alone. He needed it (chap. iii.) because he has both reason and senses, and therefore must have some medium which will convey the discourse of the former in a manner acceptable to the latter. It is probable (chap. v.) that man spoke before woman, though the earliest recorded speech is assigned to Eve: for man is more excellent. And it is probable that the first word he spoke was “El,” “God,” and was addressed to God Himself in Paradise. No doubt (vi.) the language was Hebrew. Foolish people may be driven (had Dante heard of the Gaelic claim?) to believe that their own vernacular was that of Adam. But he knows better. Though he drank of Arno before his teeth appeared, and loves Florence so dearly that for the love he bore her is he wrongfully suffering exile—though for the pleasure of his own senses there exists no pleasanter place than Florence, yet he thinks that there are places in the world nobler and more delightful than Tuscany and Florence, and that many nations and races may use a pleasanter and handier speech. The consideration of the Flood, Babel, and the consequent division of speech (chap, vii.) saddens him very much; but the facts are indisputable.
It is probable that these chapters, coming as they do at the very outset, have, with hasty readers and thinkers, brought some discredit on the book. They exhibit what it used to be, and still is to some extent, the fashion to call the childish side of mediævalism and scholasticism. Every age no doubt has its own childishnesses, and is profoundly convinced that in holding them it has thoroughly put away childish things. I do not myself know that, if it were possible to take a simultaneous horizontal view of the ages, the nineteenth century would be found so very much in advance of the thirteenth in this respect. But putting this aside as matter of separable controversy, we may observe that, in the main body of his argument, Dante is merely arguing, and arguing very sensibly and closely, from premisses which no one educated man in a thousand of his contemporaries would have disputed, and that at the beginning and end there are very notable things. The notable thing at the beginning is the separation of “Grammar” and the “Vulgar Tongue,” and the, at that time, exceedingly bold ascription of greater “nobility” to the latter.[[552]] The notable thing at the end is the unexpectedly cosmopolitan character of Dante’s sentiments about the excellence of various countries and their vernaculars. It is true that, for good as well as for evil, there was about Europe then a certain solidarity which has entirely disappeared; but local, as distinct from national, patriotism was as strong, and occasionally as silly, as at any other time. Dante’s own attitude puts us at once into a position for literary criticism which neither Greek nor Roman had enjoyed—the Greek losing it by his arrogant assumption of a solitary literary position for his own tongue, and the Roman partly by his imitation of Greek, partly by the lurking desire to make out that Latin was not so very inferior after all.
At any rate, in the chapter (viii.) which follows, there is no deficiency in what we are pleased to call the scientific spirit; |Division of contemporary tongues.| on the contrary, any one who knows the historical circumstances of the time can only be amazed at the precision, the general justice, and, on the whole, the particular exactness with which Dante, in full Middle Age, surveys the languages of Europe. He is well aware of the threefold general division of language—Teutonic-Slavonic, Turanian or Tartar, and Romance—and assigns the boundaries quite correctly. He is further aware of the divisions of Romance speech itself, and as he had adopted as his criterion of Teutonic speech different forms of “yea” (“jo”) for the word of affirmation, so he uses the same criterion in this case. Of Romance-speaking nations he says, some say “oc,” some “oil,” and some “si.” The first are “Spaniards,” the second Frenchmen, the third Italians. The connection of “Spaniards” and “oc” need excite no surprise. Castilian, though in existence, and already provided with the noble Poema del Cid and other documents, was as yet by no means the dominant language of Spain. In particular, Aragon and Catalonia, which spoke a Provençal dialect, had far more to do with Italy than Castile: Galicia, which all Europe visited in pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago, also favoured the “oc,” and Provençal was actually later than this the dialect of Portugal, if not of all Spain, for certain literary purposes. And the Spanish kingdom of Aragon was infinitely the most important country that spoke “oc.”
Proceeding, Dante illustrates the relationship of the three tongues by observing that all call most important things (God, |And of the subdivisions of Romance.| heaven, earth, living, dying, loving—the selection is not negligible) by forms of the same Latin originals. In the next chapter he continues the stress on this point, producing literary and poetical quotations, from Provençal (Giraut de Borneil), French (Thibaut of Navarre), and Italian (Guido Guinicelli), of the word Amor; and points out—thus ever drawing nearer, in true methodic way, to his special subject—that the variations between the three great Romance speeches are produced, in each language, by dialectic differences. And he has, on the fact and on the consequent necessity of establishing some common centrical form by Grammar[[553]], observations which lack neither truth nor sense. Then, Which is the best of the three Romance forms? He will not say, only timidly advancing for Italian that si is nearest sic. Otherwise, each has strong claims. Oil is not only easier and pleasanter,[[554]] but whatever has been composed or translated in vernacular prose belongs to it, the “most fair intricacies of Arthur,”[[555]] those of Trojans and Romans, &c. Oc was first employed for poetry, being more finished and sweeter. Italian has the sweetest and most refined poets[[556]] of all, and seems to be the closest to “grammar.”[[557]]
He will not, however, attempt componere lites[[558]], but consider the variations, &c., of the Vulgar Tongue itself—i.e., Italian—though, |The Italian Dialects: Some rejected at once.| as we shall see, he does not hesitate to draw illustrations from the others. He first takes the Apennines as his language-watershed, and allowing fifteen main dialects, not a few of which are sub-divided, he proceeds to examine their claims, clearing away the bad ones. As the Romans think they ought to have precedence[[559]] (note the crisp touch of life in this), let us give it them—by kicking their claims out of the way at once.[[560]] The alma sdegnosa gives something more than a hint of itself in the description of Roman dialect as a “tristiloquy,” the ugliest of all the vernacular dialects; which is no wonder, since they stink worst of all in the deformity of their customs and morals. The Marchers of Ancona and the Spoletans go next, each of the rejected ones having a scornful tag of his own barbarism tied to his tail, as Dante ejects him from the competition. And he tells us, as if it settled the matter (for, as we shall see, the Canzone is rather a fetish with Dante), “many Canzoni have been written in contempt of them.” The Milanese, the Bergamasks, the Aquileans and Istrians follow, with all the mountainous and country patois[[561]], and the Sardinians, who are not Latins, though “to be joined with them,” and who only imitate Latin as apes do men. After this rapid sifting (he uses the metaphor) a new chapter is necessary.
Of those “kept in the sieve” Sicilian claims the first place. Indeed Dante acknowledges that “whatsoever the Italians poetise is called Sicilian.” He admits this, but says it is merely |Others—Sicilian, Apulian, Tuscan, and Genoese.| due to the fact that Sicilian princes, or princes resident in Sicily, Frederick the Emperor and his son Manfred, have been patrons of literature, and have thus attached the best Italian genius to the Sicilian court. But he says (after an indignant digressory denunciation of contemporary sovereigns) that there is no special value in the common Sicilian dialect, which indeed is seldom used for poetry at all, while of that which is used, more to follow. As for the Apulians, there have been some good writers among them, but their ordinary speech is spoilt with barbarisms.[[562]]
But what of the Tuscans? Dante can only repeat that cosmopolitan criticism, which, though it would be very illiberal to impute it wholly to his exile, was no doubt assisted thereby. They may madly assert their title to the possession of the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue, and even some distinguished men may have condescended to the Tuscan vernacular. But let us examine them town by town. Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Siena, Arezzo are hit off each in a sentence expressing its boast, and, we may suppose, expressing it with some provincialism. But Dante says, when men really to be admired, Guido, Lapo, and “another”[[563]] of Florence, and Cino da Pistoia, have written, it is in “curial,” not in the vulgar Tuscan tongue.
As for the Genoese, the annihilation of the letter Z would strike them dumb, for they can say nothing without it.
Then he crosses the Apennines[[564]] and decides successively that Romagnese, in its various divisions, and Venetian, are full of |Venetian: Some good in Bolognese.| drawbacks and vulgarities.[[565]] After which a whole chapter (xv.) is given to the dialect of Bologna. It is perhaps better than any other and why? Because it borrows the best things from the others, as, for instance, Sordello the Mantuan borrowed from Cremona, Brescia, and Verona. On the other hand, Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio are too Lombardic, and though they have lent a touch of piquancy to Bolognese, cannot create a good literary dialect for themselves. Still Bolognese, though better than other individual dialects, because more composite, is not the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue, for otherwise Guido Guinicelli and other great Bolognese poets would not have departed from it. So down with the sieve for, as for places like Trent and Turin, they are too near the frontier, and if they were pulcherrima as they are turpissima they would not be vere Latinum.