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es get to four letters, as in _fronte_ and _braccia_. As a consequence hereof, Dante's lines, although always of eleven syllables, average about twenty-nine letters, while those of the three translators about thirty-three. Hence, the poem in their versions carries more weight than the original; its soul is more cumbered with body. In order to the faithful reproduction of Dante, to the giving the best transcript, possible in English, of his thought and feeling, should not regard be had to the essential difference between the syllabic constitutions of the two languages, what may be called the physical basis of the two mediums of utterance? Here is the Francesca story, translated in the spirit of this suggestion:-- I turned to them, and then I spake: "Francesca! tears o'erfill mine eyes, Such pity thy keen pangs awake. But say: in th' hour of sweetest sighs, By what and how found Love relief And broke thy doubtful longing's spell?" And she: "There is no greater grief Than joy in sorrow to retell. But if so urgently one seeks To know our Love's first root, I will Do as he does who weeps and speaks. One day of Lancelot we still Read o'er, how love held him enchained. Without mistrust we were alone. Our cheeks oft were of color drained: One passage vanquished us, but one. When we read of lips longed for pressed By such a lover with a kiss, This one whom naught from me shall wrest, All trembling kissed my mouth. To this That book and writer brought us. We No farther read that day." While she Thus spake, the other spirit wept So bitterly, with pity I Fell motionless, my senses swept By swoon, as one about to die. In the very first line two Italian trisyllables, _rivolsi_ and _parlai_, are given in English with literal fidelity by two monosyllables, _turned_ and _spake_. In the fourth observe how, in a word-for-word rendering, the eleven Italian syllables become, without any forcing, eight English: "Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri:" "But tell me: in th' hour of sweet sighs." For the sake of a more musical cadence, this line is slightly modified. Again, in the line,-- "Than joy in sorrow to retell," _joy_ represents, and represents faithfully, three words containing six syllables, _del tempo felice_: _retell_ stands for _ricordarsi_, and _in sorrow_ for _nella miseria_, or, three syllables for six; so that, by mean
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