n into one another, clinging very properly
to the rhymes, which, interlinking all the stanzas by carrying the
echo still onward, bind each canto into one whole, just as our
Spenserian form does each stanza into a whole of nine lines. Whether
stanzas, strictly speaking, or not, shall we say our mind frankly
about the _terza rima_? To us it seems not deserving of admiration
_for its own sake_; and we surmise that had it not been consecrated by
Dante, neither Byron nor Shelley would have used it for original
poems. We are not aware that Dante's example has been followed by any
poet of note in Italy. _Terza rima_ keeps the attention suspended too
long, keeps it ever on the stretch for something that is to
come, and never does come, until at the end of the canto, namely, the
last rhyme. The rhymes cannot be held down, but are ever escaping and
running ahead. It looks somewhat like an artificial contrivance of the
first rhymers of an uncultivated age. But Dante used it for his great
song; and there it stands forever, holding in its folds the "Divina
Commedia."

Now, in rendering into English the poem of Dante, is it essential,--in
order to fulfill the conditions of successful poetic translation,--to
preserve the triple rhyme? Not having in English a corresponding
number of rhymes, will not the translator have to resort to
transpositions, substitutions, forcings, indirections, in order to
compass the meaning and the poetry? Place the passages already cited
from Mr. Dayman beside the original, and the reader will be surprised
to see how direct and literal, how faithful at once to the Italian
thought and to English idiom in expressing it, Mr. Dayman is. His
harness of triplets seems hardly to constrain his movement, so
skillfully does he wear it. If we confront him with the spirited
version in quatrains of Dr. Parsons, in the passages cited
from the "Inferno," or with those from the "Paradiso," in Mr.
Longfellow's less free unrhymed version, the resources and flexibility
of Mr. Dayman in handling the difficult measure will be again
manifest. To enable our readers to compare the translations with the
original and with one another, we will give the Italian, and then the
three versions, of the latter part of the Francesca story, from Canto
V. of the "Inferno:"--

"Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parlai io,
E cominciai: Francesca, i tuoi martiri
A lagrimar mi fanno tristo, e pio.
Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri,
A c