On another occasion the poet met a churl driving before him a mob of donkeys, and enlivening his wearisome journey by singing also snatches of the divine poem. But, very naturally, he would intersperse his songs with an occasional pricking of the haunches of his asinine fellow-travellers with the goad, and the shout of arri, arri—the Italian g'long, g'long. Dante at once visited the fellow's back with an earnest blow, and cried: "That arri, arri, I never put it in that verse!" The poor asinaro shrugged his shoulders, and darted to one side, not well pleased with the uncouth salutation; but when at a safe distance, ignorant as he was of the cause of the blow and of the man who had inflicted it, he thrust his tongue out, and said, "Take that," an indecent act even for an Italian boor. Dante replied: "I would not give mine for a hundred of thine!"
What the smith and the drover did, in their own way, and in Dante's time, has been repeated down to our days. Volumes might be filled with merely the titles of essays, treatises, and theories, at times ingenious, seldom interesting, always betraying the conceit of the writer. Editions innumerable are crammed with interpretations conflicting with each other, and by which the sense of the poet has been cruelly distorted. We, who have been reared in the deepest reverence for Dante's orthodoxy, have always felt indignant at the irreligious and unphilosophical inordinations to which the Divina Commedia has been made to afford foundation and development.
For the nonce we mean to deal with translations, yet not in a general or comprehensive treatise; for to treat of all English translations of Dante, down to Sir J. F. W. Herschel's, the latest of all, would carry us over fields too extensive and uninviting. We have been led to beg for a corner of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, in order to introduce to its readers what, after a close and careful study, we deem the best of all translations of Dante. We allude to The First Canticle (Inferno) of the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Thomas William Parsons. Boston: De Vries, Ibarra & Co. 1867.
That Mr. Parsons possesses the spirit of a poet, no one who has read ever so little of his original compositions will gainsay. Whatever he writes has the true ring; there is nothing transcendental in him, and no mannerism; his sentiments are spontaneous, and flow into his diction with a naturalness that takes hold of the heart of the reader at once, like a peaceful streamlet mingling its waters with kindred waves. Opening a collection of his poems at random, we do not hesitate to transcribe, without any studied choice, what first offers itself to our eye. He writes on the death of his friend, the sculptor Crawford, and thus he suddenly gives vent to his feelings:
"O Death! thou teacher true and rough!
Full oft I fear that we have erred,
And have not loved enough;
But, O ye friends! this side of Acheron,
Who cling to me to-day,
I shall not know my love till ye are gone
And I am gray!
Fair women, with your loving eyes,
Old men that once my footsteps led,
Sweet children—much as all I prize,
Until the sacred dust of death be shed
Upon each dear and venerable head,
I cannot love you as I love the dead!
"But now, the natural man being sown,
We can more lucidly behold
The spiritual one:
For we, till time shall end,
Full visibly shall see our friend
In all his hands did mould—
That worn and patient hand that lies so cold!"
On a Palm-Sunday, as he wends his way to the bedside of a dying young convert, he begs of a little Catholic girl a twig of the blessed palm she is carrying home. Whereupon he extemporizes the following:
"To A Young Girl Dying:
With A Gift Of Fresh Palm-leaves.
"This is Palm-Sunday: mindful of the day, I bring palm branches, found upon my way: But these will wither; thine shall never die— The sacred palms thou bearest to the sky! Dear little saint, though but a child in years, Older in wisdom than my gray compeers! We doubt and tremble—we, with 'bated breath, Talk of this mystery of life and death; Thou, strong in faith, art gifted to conceive Beyond thy years, and teach us to believe!
"Then take my palms, triumphal, to thy home, Gentle white palmer, never more to roam! Only, sweet sister, give me, ere thou go'st, Thy benediction—for my love thou know'st! We, too, are pilgrims, travelling toward the shrine: Pray that our pilgrimage may end like thine!"
Mr. Parsons's poetical gift manifests itself most sensibly in what might be called "fugitive pieces." They are gems, like the above, and as they are offered to the reader they are at once set in the most fitting corner of his heart. We regret our limited space will not allow us to transcribe the poems To Magdalen, "Mary from whom were cast out seven devils;" or the death of Mary Booth; or the Vespers on the Shores of the Mediterranean, when the Italian mariner
"In mare irato in subita procella
Invoca Te nostra benigna Stella."