"which on every side
To visitation of the impassive air
Is open,"
as a correct rendering of
"che tutta è disciolta
Nell'aer vivo,"—
which is all detached
In the living air.
"To visitation of the impassive air,"
is a sonorous verse; but it is not Dante's verse, unless all detached means on every side is open to visitation, and impassive air means living air. Beneath its sway, also, is not Dante's; nor can we accept umbrageous wood, with its unmeaning epithet, for the wood because it is thick, an explanation of the phenomenon which had excited Dante's wonder.
Here, then, we have Cary's theory, the preservation of the fundamental idea, but the free introduction of such accessory ideas as convenience may suggest, whether in the form of epithet or of paraphrase.
Mr. Longfellow's translation of this passage may also be accepted as the exposition of his theory:—
"Upon this height that all is disengaged
In living ether, doth this motion strike,
And make the forest sound, for it is dense."
We have here the three lines of the original, and in the order of the original; we have the exact words of the original, disciolta meaning disengaged as well as detached, and therefore the ideas of the original without modification or change. The passage is not a remarkable one in form, although a very important one in the description of which it forms a part. The sonorous second line of Mr. Cary's version is singularly false to the movement, as well as to the thought, of the original. Mr. Longfellow's lines have the metric character of Dante's precise and direct description.