Johnstown weekly Democrat. (Johnstown, Cambria County, Pa.) 1889-1916, 1889-12-20
DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY.
TEXTS AS VARIED AND UNCERTAIN
AS MANY ANCIENT CLASSICS.

More Than GOO MSS. of the Work Are
Known and Registered DIR. Moors's
Comparatively Successful investigation.
IN Whites Footsteps.
Most readers of Dante little imagine
upon what uncertain ground his text, as
they have it, stands Considering the
immense value which was Immediately
put on the poem in Italy. it is strange
that the poets own copy or copies.
should have disappeared especially as
manuscripts still survive, exhibiting a
text already tampered with, which seem
TO have been written within score of
years after the poets death. But all our
texts are second hand 1t is reckoned
that there are nearly three hundred
printed editions of the "Conmedia;"
and these printed books have as their
foundation, more or less directly, some
600 MSS, known and registered besides
number more still lying hid IN un-
examined libraries. Of course, the
"Commedia" in its substance reappears
in them all; but as soon as we begin to
compare our copies, and To observe
differences. we find an amount of varia-
ton, mostly minute, but not seldom i'm
portant, which makes us feel the gap
which there is between the editions
which we use, printed according TO the
rules of modern Italian photography,
and in part grammar, and the poem as
it came from the lips or the pen OF its
author
When, for instance, we go from our
Witte or Giuliani, with their smooth,
familiar text, to the fac-simile of the
Monte Casino manuscript, or Lord YER
mons reprint of the four first printed
editions of the Fifteenth century or
even of the Aldine text with its repro
ductionS i'll the Sixteenth, we seem intro
duced to a new language-at least to a
new mode of representing it-nearer,
probably, than anything of modern
Italian to the usage of the poet What
ordinary reader would guess that pero-
kivegio stands for pero ch 10 veggio?
Moore y liz But this is the least part
of the variation What words did
Dante write? is the question which arises,
as book after book, and manuscript after
manuscript, gives a phrase, a construc-
ton. name, metaphor differently,
making some difference, sometimes an
important difference, to the sense or the
beauty of the words. That is to say,
that the text of the "Commedia," like
the text of all ancient books. is, when
minutely and carefully examined, found
to be less uniformly settled than we I'M
consciously assume when we take up
the book as we have it in our current
editions 1t is. of course, what any one
accustomed to the critical study of class
ical authors would expect. The differ
ence is, that for the dozen or score of
manuscripts which form creditable
critical outfit for the editor of classical
author, we have for the "Commedia" a
list OF authorities which are counted by
hundreds.
The result has been that, though there
has been much talk in Italy about codici
of the "Commedia." chiefly in setting
forth the merits OF some favorite copy,
nothing was done, even toward prepar
ing the way for the settlement of the
text, till the subject was taken up by
Witte. The Crusca academicians. in their
edition t1595), appealed to manuscripts
for the readings which they approved
or condemned; but, besides that they
avowedly Improved" readings, they,
like most people at the time, only
counted their manuscripts and did not
weigh them, and were not alive to what
might have seemed an obvious truth,
except that the critical world was SO
long finding it out that there are manu-
scripts and manuscripts, good copies and
bad. Witte broke ground in attempting
a more reasonable and scholarlike treat
ment of the thing to be done. He en-
larged the area of comparison; he formed
scholarlike Judgment on the value of
his authorities, and he gave an example
of critical text. He ought to have the
full and ungrudging praise due to a
clear view of what was needed. and
great care and industry in carrying it
out within what was possible to him.
The work which Witte began has been
taken up by DR.. Moore in thorough
and solid way, which is, in the highest
degree, creditableto to English scholarship.
His volume of contributions to the text
ual criticism" of the "Commedia" is a
step in advance of anything yet said on
the subject, not only in England, but in
Germany. The immense mass of mate
rials which confronts the critical editor
of the "Commedia," comprising copies
which go back to a time not far distant
from the writer's death, makes the sift-
ing and classification of these copies a
necessity, if he would not be overwhelmed
10y an almost hopeless task
Or. Moore has made beginning in
this difficult work, though, with the eau
ton and modesty of a scholar, he pro-
poses it only as beginning. Can this
multitude of copies be sorted and ar
ranged on any principle? He selects a
number Of passages where the readings
vary-'tcst passages - as he calls them;
and he examines and compares the read
iDgs given 10y as many manuscripts as he
can get hold Of The number is large;
he cites, mainly from his own inspection,
over 200 All kinds Of unaccountable
anomalies present themselves; some of
the most curious variations, and even
:. al. !