Make the first circle beauteous, diversely
Partaking of sweet life, as more or less
Afflation of eternal bliss pervades them."

Here Mr. Cary not only fails to catch Dante's grand style; he does
not even write a style at all. It is too constrained and awkward to be
dignified, and dignity is an indispensable element of style. Without
dignity we may write clearly, or nervously, or racily, but we have
not attained to a style. This is the second shortcoming of Mr. Cary's
translation. Like Pope's, it fails to catch the grand style of its
original. Unlike Pope's, it frequently fails to exhibit any style.

It is hardly necessary to spend much time in proving that Mr.
Longfellow's version is far superior to Mr. Cary's. It is usually easy
and flowing, and save in the occasional use of violent inversions,
always dignified. Sometimes, as in the episode of Ugolino, it even rises
to something like the grandeur of the original:

"When he had said this, with his eyes distorted,
The wretched skull resumed he with his teeth,
Which, as a dog's, upon the bone were strong." [60]

[60] "Quand' ebbe detto cio, eon gli occhi torti
Riprese il teschio misero coi denti,
Che furo all' osso, come d'un can, forti."
Inferno, XXXIII. 76.

That is in the grand style, and so is the following, which describes
those sinners locked in the frozen lake below Malebolge:--

"Weeping itself there does not let them weep,
And grief that finds a barrier in the eyes
Turns itself inward to increase the anguish. [61]

[61] "Lo pianto stesso li pianger non lascia,
E il duol, che trova in sugli occhi rintoppo,
Si volve in entro a far crescer l' ambascia."
Inferno, XXXIII. 94.

And the exclamation of one of these poor "wretches of the frozen crust"
is an exclamation that Shakespeare might have written:--

"Lift from mine eyes the rigid veils, that I
May vent the sorrow which impregns my heart." [62]

[62] "Levatemi dal viso i duri veli,
Si ch' io sfoghi il dolor che il cor m' impregna."
Ib. 112.

There is nothing in Mr. Cary's translation which can stand a comparison
with that. The eighteenth century could not translate like that.
For here at last we have a real reproduction of the antique. In the
Shakespearian ring of these lines we recognize the authentic rendering
of the tones of the only man since the Christian era who could speak
like Shakespeare.