The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-04-06

- would tell, in terrible allegory,
how he had gone through hell, how
he had been cleansed through the
purgatory of suffering and how he
sought heaven under the guidance
of wisdom and Beatrice.
But in what language? Latin was
unknown to the people, known only
to the clergy whom ne hated and
despised; it was an artificial
medium now, and distasteful to a
nature passionately direct and
sincere. Yet how would the learned
greet work in the new language
of the people?-would they even
think Of looking upon it as
literature?
Well, he had taken other risks,
and fought other battles, he would
take the risk, and fight this battle
to create a language. And so
aged forty-five, old enough to be
matured with trial and suffering,
young enough yet to feel the pas
sion that makes poetry, he set his
hand to the composition Of THE
Divine Comedy" the greatest poem
of modern times.
1t was hard labor, for almost
every sentence of it is Sculptured
into beauty, and to make a good
sentence is as laboriouS as chiseling
stone. And because it is less physi-
cal, it is less healthy; my book, "
says Dante, has made me lean for
many years"
No wonder; for not only was
every sentence carved with care
love, but the conception was as COM
plete and orderly and profound as
in some masterpiece Of philosophy;
and the detail was wrought as deli
cately as in cathedral that has
felt the devotion of a thousand
hands. Let us study it.
THE DIVINE COMEDY"
A S we open the book we notice
N that it is dominated by the
number three: three parts or
Inferno" with thirty-four
cantos, "Purgatorio" with thirty
three, Paradise" with thirty-three;
and the whole century of cantoS
woven together with that Insulating
terra rima every ryhme used
thrice which to an Italian must
form an irresistible stream of
sonorous verse. The very first verse
plungeS into the heart of things.
Mel mezzo del caamn di nostra vita
Mi ritrovai mel una selya oscura.
Or must me have 1t in lame trans
lation, where Cary, Longfellow, Nor
ton, all have failed?
In the midway of this our mortal life
l found me in gloomy wood astray,
Gone from the path direct: and cen to
tell:
It were no easy task. how savage wild
That forest. how robust and rough its
which to remember only. my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
He is lost when Virgil comes and
offers to guide him; Dante accepts
with poetic justice, since he is TAX
ing his plan for a descenSus in
avernum from the sixth book of the
"Aeneid." And Virgil meant for him
the Roman empire, which he adj
mired to idolatry, and which he had
been in word and deed; he did not
separate the Roman and Italian
peoples as we do; he had no Sus-
picion, probably, of the German
blood that flowed in his veins from
the migrations that had put an end
to the Latin race.
Virgil repayS his trust very dubi-
ously, taking him into a dark pit
over whose entrance are these dis
couraging words:
Per me 81 va nella citta dolente.
Lasciate ogni speranza vol oh! entratel
Or again to walk feebly with
Cary:
Through me you pass into the city of
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost Tor
All hope abandon. We who enter herer
1t is impossible to translate the
mournfulnesS and horror of the
original; "Lasciate" Qas-ce- ah- tay)
and the whole line that follows it
sounds like the racking of limbs,
a tearing of flesh, the crashing of
teeth of the damned; but nothing
of this is carried into the English.
Nothing harmonized by a mu-
steal bund," says Dante, "can be
transmitted from it's own speech
without losing its sweetness and
harmony" Surely before saying
this he must have read the English
renderings of the Divine Comedy
Virgil leads him first into Limbo
the place of the unbaptized; here
are the pagans who lived noble
lives; their only suffering is their
eternal and hopeless desire to see
the fare of God Horace. Ovid