The writer was our Galeot with his book:--
That day we read no further on." She stopped:
Meanwhile he moaned so that compassion took
My sense away, and like a corse I dropped.
Observe that Dr. Parsons has put Dante's twenty-eight lines of eleven
syllables into twenty-four lines of ten syllables; and this without
losing a drop of the precious stream he undertakes to pour. But why
does he make Francesca address her companion personally, instead of
saying, "who shall never part from me?" And why does Mr. Dayman say,
"pious drops," instead of piteous? Mr. Dayman and Mr. Longfellow fill
up the twenty-eight lines. In neither of the three is there
any strain or wresting of the sense. But all three, and before them
Lord Byron and Carey, mistranslate this passage,--
"Per piu fiate gli occhi ci sospinse
Quella lettura."
All these translators interpret it to mean, that while they read,
their eyes often met; whereas Dante says, they read that passage over
more than once; or, literally rendered, several times that reading or
passage drew to it their eyes. To restore the meaning of the original
adds to the refinement of the scene.
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