Perocch' è il Sol che v' allumò ed arse
Con caldo e con la luce, e sì iguali.
to be the true one, not only from its correspondence with most of the early copies, but from the rarity of the use of en by Dante. There is but one other passage in the poem where it is found (Purgatory, xvi. 121).
Such is an example, taken at random, of the doubts suggested and the illustration afforded by these editions in the study of the text. Of course such minute criticism is of interest only to those few who reckon Dante's words at their true worth. The common reader may be content with the text as he finds it in common editions, But Dante, more than any other author, stimulates his student to research as to his exact words; for no other author has been so choice in his selection of them. He is not only the greatest modern master of condensation in style, but he has the deepest insight into the value and force of separate words, the most delicate sense of appropriateness in position, and in the highest degree the poetic faculty of selecting the word most fitting for the thought and most characteristic in expression. It rarely happens that the place of a word of any importance is a matter of indifference in his verse, no regard being had to the rhythm; and every one sufficiently familiar with the language in which he wrote to be conscious of its indefinable powers will feel, though he may be unable to point out specifically, a marked distinction in the quality and combinations of the words in the different parts of the poem. The description of the entrance to Hell, in the third canto of the Inferno is, for instance, hardly more different from the description of the Terrestrial Paradise, (Purgatory, xxviii.,) in scenery and imagery, than it is in the vague but absolute qualities of language, in its rhythmical and verbal essence.
But, leaving these subtilties, let us look at some of the disputed passages of the poem, upon which the texts before us may give their evidence.
In the episode of Francesca da Rimini, Mr. Barlow has recently attempted to give currency to a various reading long known, but never accepted, in the line (Inferno, v. 102) in which Francesca expresses her horror at the manner of her death. She says, il modo ancor m' offende, "the manner still offends me." But for il modo Mr. Barlow would substitute il mondo, "the world still offends me,"—that is, as we suppose, by holding a false opinion of her conduct. Mr. Barlow's suggestions are always to be received with respect, but we cannot but think him wrong in proposing this change. The spirits in Hell are not supposed to be aware of what is passing upon earth; they are self-convicted, (Purgatory, xxvi. 85, 86,) and Francesca being doomed to eternal woe, the world could not do her wrong by taxing her with sin; while, further, the shudder at the method of her death, lasting even in torment, seems to us a far more imaginative conception than the one proposed in its stead. Our four texts read elmodo.
In the famous simile (Inferno, iii. 112-114) in which Dante compares the spirits falling from the bank of Acheron to the dead leaves fluttering from a bough in autumn, giving, as Mr. Ruskin says, "the most perfect image possible of their utter lightness, feebleness, passiveness, and scattering agony of despair," our common texts have
infin che il ramo Rende alla terra tutte le sue spoglie,
"Until the branch gives to the earth all its spoils"; but the texts of Jesi and Mantua, as well as those of the Bartolinian and the Aldus, and many other early authorities, here put the word Vede in place of Rende, giving a variation which for its poetic worth well deserves to be marked, if not to be introduced into the received text. "Until the branch sees all its spoils upon the earth" is a personification quite in Dante's manner. A confirmation of the value of this reading is given by the fact that Tasso preferred it to the more common one, and in his treatise on the "Art of Poetry" praises it as full of energy.
The value of this work of Lord Vernon's to the students of Dante, in enabling them to secure accuracy in their statements in regard to the early texts, has been illustrated to us by finding that Blanc, in his useful and excellent "Vocabolario Dantesco," has not unfrequently fallen into error through his inability to consult those first editions. For example, in the line, (Inferno, xviii. 43,) Perciò a figuralo i piedi affissi, as it is commonly given, or, Perciò a firgurarlo gli occhi affissi, as it appears in some editions, Blanc, who prefers the latter reading, states that gli occhi is found in "toutes les anciennes éditions." But the truth is, that those of Foligno and Naples read ipedi, that of Jesi has in piedi, and that of Mantua i pie. The Aldine of 1502 is the earliest edition we have seen which has gli occhi.
In the episode of Ugolino, (Inferno, xxxiii.,) the verse which has given rise to more comment, perhaps than any other is that (the 26th) in which the Count says, according to the usual reading, that the narrow window in his tower had shown him many moons before he dreamed his evil dream: Più lune già, quand' i' feci il mal sonno, "Many moons already, when I had my ill slumber." But another reading, found in a majority of the early MSS. and editions, including those of Jesi and Mantua gives the variation, più lume; while the editions of Foligno and Naples give lieve, which, affording no intelligible meaning, must be regarded as a mere misprint. In spite of the weight of early authority for lume, the reading lune is perhaps to be preferred, as giving in a word a brief expressive statement of a weary length of imprisonment,—while lume would only serve to fix the moment of the dream as having been between the first dawn and the full day. It is rare that the difference between an n and an m is of such marked effect.