66 "Terza Rima does not seem to suit the genius of English poetry-it is certainly uncalculated for a work of any length. In our language, however, it may do for a short "ode. The public at least thought my attempt a failure, "and the public is in the main right. I never perse 66 cute the public. I always bow to its verdict, which "is is generally just. But if I had wanted a sufficient reason for my giving up the Prophecy-the Prophecy "failed me. 66 66 "It was the turn political affairs took that made me relinquish the work. At one time the flame was expected "to break out over all Italy, but it only ended in smoke, " and my poem went out with it. I don't wonder at the enthusiasm of the Italians about Dante. He is the poet "of liberty. Persecution, exile, the dread of a foreign grave, could not shake his principles. There is no Italian gentleman, scarcely any well-educated girl, that has 66 66 66 66 66 not all the finer passages of Dante at the fingers' ends,— particularly the Ravennese. The Guiccioli, for instance, "could almost repeat any part of the 66 66 and, I dare say, is well read in the prayer-book of love. Divine Comedy;' 66 Shelley always says that reading Dante is unfavourable to writing, from its superiority to all possible composi"tions. Whether he be the first or not, he is certainly the 66 66 66 most untranslatable of all poets. You may give the meaning; but the charm, the simplicity-the classical simplicity, is lost. You might as well clothe a statue, as attempt to translate Dante. He is better, as an Ita"lian said, 'nudo che vestito.' 66 "There's Taafe is not satisfied with what Carey has "done, but he must be traducing him too. What think 66 66 you of that fine line in the Inferno' being rendered, as Taafe has done it? "There's alliteration and inversion enough, surely! I "have advised him to frontispiece his book with his own 66 head, Capo di Traditore, the head of a traitor; then "will come the title-page comment-Hell!" I asked Lord Byron the meaning of a passage in 'The Prophecy of Dante.' He laughed, and said : X “I suppose I had some meaning when I wrote it: I 66 believe I understood it then.' "That," said I, " is what the disciples of Swedenberg say. There are many people who do not understand passages in your writings, among our own countrymen I wonder how foreigners contrive to translate them." "And yet," said he, "they have been translated into all “the civilized, and many uncivilized tongues. Several of "them have appeared in Danish, Polish, and even Russian "dresses. These last, being translations of translations "from the French, must be very diluted. The greatest compliment ever paid me has been shewn in Germany, "where a translation of the Fourth Canto of Childe 66 66 Harold' has been made the subject of a University prize. 66 My own meaning when I would be very fine.” Don Juan, Canto IV. Stanza 5. "But as to obscurity, is not Milton obscure? How do you explain "Is it not a simile taken from the electricity of a cat's "back? I'll leave you to be my commentator, and hope 66 you will make better work with me than Taafe is doing "with Dante, who perhaps could not himself explain half "that volumes are written about, if his ghost were to rise "again from the dead. I am sure I wonder he and Shakspeare have not been raised by their commentators long ago!" 66 66 66 People are always advising me," said he, "to write an epic. You tell me that I shall leave no great poem "behind me ;-that is, I suppose you mean by great, a heavy poem, or a weighty poem; I believe they are synonymous. You say that 'Childe Harold' is unequal; "that the last two Cantos are far superior to the two first. "I know it is a thing without form or substance, a voyage 66 66 66 66 pittoresque. But who reads Milton? My opinion as to the inequality of my poems is this, that one is not "better or worse than another. And as to epics,-have There's 'Joan 66 66 66 you not got enough of Southey's? There's d'Arc,' 'The Curse of Kehama,' and God knows how many more curses, down to The Last of the Goths!' "If you must have an epic, there's 'Don Juan' for you. "I call that an epic*: it is an epic as much in the spirit of our day as the Iliad was in Homer's. Love, religion, and politics form the argument, and are as much the cause of quarrels now as they were then. There is no want of Parises and Menelauses, and of Crim.-cons. into "the bargain. In the very first Canto you have a Helen. 661 66 Then, I shall make my hero a perfect Achilles for fighting, a man who can snuff a candle three successive "times with a pistol-ball: and, depend upon it, my moral "will be a good one; not even Dr. Johnson should be able to find a flaw in it! "Some one has possessed the Guiccioli with a notion "that my 'Don Juan' and the Don Giovanni of the Opera 66 are the same person; and to please her I have discon 6 * Only five Cantos of Don Juan' were written when I held this conversation with him, which was committed to paper half an hour after it occurred. |