Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

One of our light Western steamers, manned by our Western boatmen and
axemen, with its three decks, lofty staterooms, superior speed,
and light draught, would have been most admirably fitted for this
exploration.

But the expedition, with all its deficiencies, achieved a further
triumph. Dr. Bairkie, by using quinine freely, and by removing the beds
of the officers from the stifling cabins to the deck, escaped the loss
of a single man, although four months on the river,--thus demonstrating
that the white man can reach the interior of Africa in safety, a problem
quite as important to be solved as the course and capacity of the Niger
and its branches.

Thus have been opened to navigation the waters of the Mysterious River.

When the Landers first floated down the stream in their canoe, thirty
years since, they found vast forests and little cultivation, and the
natives seemed to have no commerce except in slaves and yams for their
support. But an officer who accompanied the several steam expeditions
was astonished in his last visit to see the change which a few years
had produced. New and populous towns had sprung up, extensive groves
of palm-trees and gardens lined the banks, and vessels laden with oil,
yams, ground-nuts, and ivory indicated the progress of legitimate
commerce.

The narrative of Dr. Bairkie, a distinguished German scholar, who has
written an account of the voyage of the Pleiad, will be found both
interesting and instructive; and we may some day expect another volume,
for he has returned to the scene of his adventures.

Another German in the service of Great Britain has given us a vivid
picture of Central Africa north of the equator. Dr. Henry Barth has
recently published, in four octavo volumes, a narrative of his travels
in Africa for five years preceding 1857. During this period, he
accompanied the Sheik of Bornou, one of the chief Negro states of
Africa, on his march as far south as the Benue, explored the borders of
Lake Tsadda, crossed the Niger at Sai, and visited the far-famed city
of Timbuctoo. Here he incurred some danger from the fanaticism of
the Moslems; but his command of Arabic, his tact and adroitness in
distinguishing the Protestant worship of the Deity from the homage
paid by Roman Catholics to images of the Virgin and Saints, and in
illustrating the points in which his Protestant faith agreed with the
Koran, extricated him from his embarrassment.

Dr. Barth found various Negro cities with a population ranging from
fifteen to twenty thousand, and observed large fields of rice, cotton,
tobacco, and millet. On his way to Timbuctoo, he saw a field of this
last-named grain in which the stalks stood twenty-four feet high. Our
Patent Office should secure some of the seed which he has doubtless
conveyed to Europe. The following prices, which he names, give us an
idea of the cheapness of products in Central Africa:--An ox two dollars,
a sheep fifty cents, tobacco one to two cents per pound.

From the sketch we have given of the Niger and its branches, and of the
countries bordering upon them, it would appear to be the proper policy
of Great Britain and other commercial nations to open a way from Sierra
Leone to the Niger, and to establish a colony near the confluence of
this river with the Benue. From this point, which is easily accessible
from the sea and the ports of the British colonies on the western coast
of Africa, light steamers may probably ascend to Sego and Djenne,
encountering no difficulties except at the rapids near Boussa, and may
penetrate into the heart of the Soudan. In this region are mines of
lead, copper, gold, and iron, a rich soil, adapted to cotton, rice,
indigo, sugar, coffee, and vegetable butter, with very cheap labor. With
steamers controlling the rivers, a check could here be given to the
slave-trade, and to the conflicts between the Moors and Negroes, and
Christianity have a fair prospect of diffusion. Such a colony is
strongly recommended by Lieutenant Allen, who accompanied the
expeditions of 1833 and 1842; and there can be no doubt that it would
attract the caravans from the remote interior, and put an end to the
perilous and tedious expeditions across the Desert.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola Illustrato nella Vita e nelle Opere, e di
lui Comento Latino sulla Divina Commedia di Dante Allghieri voltalo in
Italiano dall' Avvocato_ GIOVANNI TAMBURINI. Imola. 1855-56. 3 vol.
in 8vo. [The Commentary of Benvenuto Rambaldi of Imola on the _Divina
Commedia_, translated from Latin into Italian, by Giovanni Tamburini.]

Almost five centuries have passed since Benvenuto of Imola, one of
the most distinguished men of letters of his time, was called by the
University of Bologna to read a course of lectures upon the "Divina
Commedia" before the students at that famous seat of learning. From
that time till the present, a great part of his "Comment" has lain in
manuscript, sharing the fate of the other earliest commentaries on the
poem of Dante, not one of which, save that of Boccaccio, was given to
the press till within a few years. This neglect is the more strange,
since it was from the writers of the fourteenth century, almost
contemporary as they were with Dante, that the most important
illustrations both of the letter and of the sense of the "Divina
Commedia" were naturally to be looked for. When they wrote, the lapse of
time had not greatly obscured the memory of the events which the poet
had recorded, or to which he had referred. The studies with which he had
been familiar, the external sources from which he had drawn inspiration,
had undergone no essential change in direction or in nature. The same
traditions and beliefs possessed the intellects of men. Similar social
and political influences moulded their characters. The distance that
separated Dante from his first commentators was mainly due to the
surpassing nature of his genius, which, in some sort, made him, and
still makes him, a stranger to all men, and very little to changes like
those which have slowly come about in the passage of centuries, and
which divide his modern readers from the poet.

It was the intention of Benvenuto, as he tells us, "to elucidate what
was dark in the poem being veiled under figures, and to explain what
was involved in its multiplex meanings." But his Comment is more
illustrative than analytic, more literal than imaginative, and its chief
value lies in the abundance of current legends which it contains, and
in the number of stories related in it, which exhibit the manners or
illustrate the history of the times. So great, indeed, is the value
of this portion of his work, that Muratori, to whom a large debt of
gratitude is due from all students of Italian history, published in
1738, in the first volume of his "Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi," a
selection of such passages, amounting altogether to about one half of
the whole Comment. However satisfactory this incomplete publication
might be to the mere historical investigator, the students of the
"Divina Commedia" could not but regret that the complete work had not
been printed,--and they accordingly welcomed with satisfaction the
announcement, a few years since, of the volumes whose title stands at
the head of this article, which professed to contain a translation of
the whole Comment. It seemed a pity, indeed, that it should have been
thought worth while to translate a book addressing itself to a very
limited number of readers, most of whom were quite as likely to
understand the original Latin as the modern Italian, while also a
special value attached to the style and form in which it was first
written. But no one could have suspected what "translation" meant in the
estimation of the Signor Tamburini, whose name appears on the title-page
as that of the translator.

_Traduttore--traditore_, "Translator--traitor," says the proverb; and of
all traitors shielded under the less offensive name, Signor Tamburini
is beyond comparison the worst we have ever had the misfortune to
encounter. A place is reserved for him in that lowest depth in which,
according to Dante's system, traitors are punished.

It appears from his preface that Signor Tamburini is not without
distinction in the city of Imola. He has been President of the Literary
Academy named that of "The Industrious." To have been President of all
Academy in the Roman States implies that the person bearing this honor
was either an ecclesiastic or a favorite of ecclesiastics. Hitherto,
no one could hold such an office without having his election to it
confirmed by a central board of ecclesiastical inspectors (_la Sacra
Congregazione degli Studj_) at Rome. The reason for noticing this fact
in connection with Signor Tamburini will soon become apparent.

In his preface, Signor Tamburini declares that in the first division of
the poem he has kept his translation close to the original, while in
the two later divisions he had been _meno legato_, "less exact," in his
rendering. This acknowledgment, however unsatisfactory to the reader,
presented at least an appearance of fairness. But, from a comparison of
Signor Tamburini's work with the portions of the original preserved by
Muratori, we have satisfied ourselves that his honesty is on a level
with his capacity as a translator, and what his capacity is we propose
to enable our readers to judge for themselves. For our own part, we have
been unable to distinguish any important difference in the methods of
translation followed in the three parts of the Comment.

So far as we are aware, this book has not met with its dues in Europe.
The well-known Dantophilist, Professor Blanc of Halle, speaks of it in a
note to a recent essay (_Versuch einer blos philogischen Erklaerung der
Goettlichen Komoedie_, von Dr. L.G. Blanc, Halle, 1860, p. 5) as "a
miserably unsatisfactory translation," but does not give the grounds of
his assertion. We intend to show that a grosser literary imposition has
seldom been attempted than in these volumes. It is an outrage on the
memory of Dante not less than on that of Benvenuto. The book is worse
than worthless to students; for it is not only full of mistakes of
carelessness, stupidity, and ignorance, but also of wilful perversions
of the meaning of the original by additions, alterations, and omissions.
The three large volumes contain few pages which do not afford examples
of mutilation or misrepresentation of Benvenuto's words. We will begin
our exhibition of the qualities of the Procrustean mistranslator with
an instance of his almost incredible carelessness, which is, however,
excusable in comparison with his more wilful faults. Opening the first
volume at page 397, we find the following sentence,--which we put side
by side with the original as given by Muratori. The passage relates to
the 33d and succeeding verses of Canto XVI.

TAMBURINI

Qui Dante fa menzione di Guido Guerra, e meravigliano molti della
modestia dell' autore, che da costui e dalla di lui moglie tragga
l'origine sua, mentre poteva derivarla care di gratitudine affettuosa a
quella,--Gualdrada,--stipito suo,--dandole nome e tramandandola quasi
all' eternita, mentre per se stessa sarebbe forse rimasta sconosciuta.

BENVENUTO.

Et primo incepit a digniori, scilicet a Guidone Guerra; et circa istius
descriptionem lectori est aliqualiter immorandum, quia multi mirantur,
immo truffantur ignoranter, quod Dantes, qui poterat describere istum
praeclarum virum a claris progenitoribus et ejus claris gestis,
describit eum ab una femina, avita sua, Domna Gualdrada. Sed certe
Auctor fecit talem descriptionem tam laudabiliter quam prudenter, ut
heic implicite tangeret originem famosae stirpis istius, et ut daret
meritam famam et laudem huic mulieri dignissimae.

A literal translation will afford the most telling comment on the nature
of the Italian version.

TRANSLATION.

Here Dante makes mention of Guido Guerras, and many marvel at the
modesty of the Author, in deriving his own origin from him and from his
wife, when he might have derived it from a more noble source. But I find
in such modesty the greater merit, in that he did not wish to fail in
affectionate gratitude toward her,--Gualdrada,--his ancestress,--giving
her name and handing her down as it were to eternity, while she by
herself would perhaps have remained unknown.

TRANSLATION.

In the first place he began with the worthiest, namely, Guido Guerra;
and in regard to the description of this man it is to be dwelt upon a
little by the reader, because scoff at Dante, because, when he might
have described this very distinguished man by his distinguished
ancestors and his distinguished deeds, he does describe him by a woman,
his grandmother, the Lady Gualdrada. But certainly the author did this
not less praiseworthily than wisely, that he might here, by implication,
touch upon the origin of that famous family, and might give a merited
fame and praise to this most worthy woman.

It will be noticed that Signor Tamburini makes Dante derive _his own_
origin from Gualdrada,--a mistake from which the least attention to the
original text, or the slightest acquaintance with the biography of the
poet, would have saved him.

Another amusing instance of stupidity occurs in the comment on the 135th
verse of Canto XXVIII., where, speaking of the young king, son of Henry
II. of England, Benvenuto says, "Note here that this youth was like
another Titus the son of Vespasian, who, according to Suetonius, was
called the love and delight of the human race." This simple sentence is
rendered in the following astounding manner: "John [the young king] was,
according to Suetonius, another Titus Vespasian, the love and joy of the
human race"!

Again, in giving the account of Guido da Montefeltro, (_Inferno_, Canto
XXVII.,) Benvenuto says on the lines,

--e poi fui Cordeliero,
Credendomi si cinto fare ammenda,

"And then I became a Cordelier, believing thus girt to make
amends,"--"That is, hoping under such a dress of misery and poverty
to make amends for my sins; but others did not believe in him [in his
repentance]. Wherefore Dominus Malatesta, having learned from one of
his household that Dominus Guido had become a Minorite Friar, took
precautions that he should not be made the guardian of Rimini." This
last sentence is rendered by our translator,--"One of the household
of Malatesta related to me (!) that Ser Guido adopted the dress of a
Minorite Friar, and sought by every means not to be appointed guardian
of Rimini." A little farther on the old commentator says,--"He died and
was buried in Ancona, and I have heard many things about him which may
afford a sufficient hope of his salvation"; but he is made to say by
Signor Tamburini,--"After his death and burial in Ancona many works of
power were ascribed to him, and I have a sweet hope that he is saved."

We pass over many instances of similar misunderstanding of Benvenuto's
easily intelligible though inelegant Latin, to a blunder which would be
extraordinary in any other book, by which our translator has ruined a
most characteristic story in the comment on the 112th verse of Canto
XIV. of the "Purgatory." We must give here the two texts.

BENVENUTO

Et heic nota, ut videas, si magna nobilitas vigebat paulo ante in
Bretenorio, quod tempore istius Guidonis, quando aliquis vir nobilis
et honorabilis applicabat ad terram, magna contentio erat inter multos
nobiles de Bretenorio, in cujus domum ille talis forensis deberet
declinare. Propter quod concorditer convenerunt inter se, quod columna
lapidea figeretur in medio plateae cum multis annulis ferreis, et omnis
superveniens esset hospes illius ad cujus annulum alligaret equum.

TRANSLATION.

And here take notice, that you may see if great nobility flourished a
little before this time in Brettinoro, that, in the days of this Guido,
when any noble and honorable man came to the place, there was a great
rivalry among the many nobles of Brettinoro, as to which of them should
receive the stranger in his house. Wherefore they harmoniously agreed
that a column of stone should be set up in the middle of the square,
furnished with many iron rings, and any one who arrived should be the
guest of him to whose ring he might tie his horse.

TAMBURINI.

Al tempo di Guido in Brettinoro anche i nobili aravano le terre; ma
insorsero discordie fra essi, e sparve la innocenza di vita, e con essa
la liberalita. I brettinoresi determinarono di alzare in piazza una
colonna con intorno tanti anelli di ferro, quanto le nobili famiglie di
quel castello, e chi fosse arrivato ed avesse legato il cavallo ad uno
de' predetti anelli, doveva esser ospite della famiglia, che indicava l'
anello cui il cavallo era attaccato.

TRANSLATION.

In the time of Guido in Brettinoro even the nobles ploughed the land;
but discords arose among them, and innocence of life disappeared, and
with it liberality. The people of Brettinoro determined to erect in the
pub lic square a column with as many iron rings upon it as there were
noble families in that stronghold, and he who should arrive and tie his
horse to one of those rings was to be the guest of the family pointed
out by the ring to which the horse was attached.

Surely, Signor Tamburini has fixed the dunce's cap on his own head so
that it can never he taken off. The commonest Latin phrases, which the
dullest schoolboy could not mistranslate, he misunderstands, turning
the pleasant sense of the worthy commentator into the most
self-contradictory nonsense.

"Ad confirmandum propositum," says Benvenuto, "oceurrit mihi res
jocosa,"[A]--"In confirmation of this statement, a laughable matter
occurs to me"; and he goes on to relate a story about the famous
astrologer Pietro di Abano. But our translator is not content without
making him stultify himself, and renders the words we have quoted, "A
maggiore conferma referiro un fatto a me accaduto"; that is, he makes
Benvenuto say, "I will report an incident that happened to me," and then
go on to tell the story of Pietro di Abano, which had no more to do with
him than with Signor Tamburini himself.

[Footnote A: Comment on Purg. xvi. 80.]

We might fill page after page with examples such as these of the
distortions and corruptions of Benvenuto's meaning which we have noted
on the margin of this so-called translation. But we have given more than
enough to prove the charge of incompetence against the President of
the "Academy of the Industrious," and we pass on to exhibit him now no
longer as simply an ignoramus, but as a mean and treacherous rogue.

Among the excellent qualities of Benvenuto there are few more marked
than his freedom in speaking his opinion of rulers and ecclesiastics,
and in holding up their vices to reproach, while at the same time he
shows a due spirit of respect for proper civil and ecclesiastical
authority. In this he imitates the temper of the poet upon whose work he
comments,--and in so doing he has left many most valuable records of
the character and manners especially of the clergy of those days--He
loved a good story, and he did not hesitate to tell it even when it went
hard against the priests. He knew and he would not hide the corruptions
of the Church, and he was not the man to spare the vices which were
sapping the foundations not so much of the Church as of religion itself.
But his translator is of a different order of men, one of the devout
votaries of falsehood and concealment; and he has done his best to
remove some of the most characteristic touches of Benvenuto's work,
regarding them as unfavorable to the Church, which even now in the
nineteenth century cannot well bear to have exposed the sins committed
by its rulers and its clergy in the thirteenth or fourteenth. Signor
Tamburini has sought the favor of ecclesiastics, and gained the contempt
of such honest men as have the ill-luck to meet with his book. Wherever
Benvenuto uses a phrase or tells an anecdote which can be regarded as
bearing in any way against the Church, we may be sure to find it either
omitted or softened down in this Papalistic version. We give a few
specimens.

In the comment on Canto III. of the "Inferno," Benvenuto says, speaking
of Dante's great enemy, Boniface VIII.,--"Auctor ssepissime dicit
de ipso Bonifacio magna mala, qui de rei veritate fuit magnanimus
peccator": "Our author very often speaks exceedingly ill of Boniface,
who was in very truth a grand sinner." This sentence is omitted in the
translation.

Again, on the well-known verse, (_Inferno,_ xix. 53,) "Se' tu gia costi
ritto, Bonifazio?" Benvenuto commenting says,--"Auctor quando ista
scripsit, viderat pravam vitam Bonifacii, ct ejus mortem rabidam.
Ideo bene judicavit eum damnatum.... Heic dictus Nicolaus improperat
Bonifacio duo mala. Primo, quia Sponsam Christ! fraudulenter assumpsit
de manu simplicis Pastoris. Secundo, quia etiam earn more meretricis
tractavit, simoniacc vendcndo eam, et tyrannice tractando": "The author,
when he wrote these things, had witnessed the evil life of Boniface, and
his raving death. Therefore he well judged him to be damned.... And
here the aforementioned Pope Nicholas charges two crimes upon Boniface:
first, that he had taken the Bride of Christ by deceit from the hand of
a simple-minded Pastor; second, that he had treated her as a harlot,
simoniacally selling her, and tyrannically dealing with her."

These two sentences are omitted by the translator; and the long further
account which Benvenuto gives of the election and rule of Boniface is
throughout modified by him in favor of this "_magnanimus peccator_." And
so also the vigorous narrative of the old commentator concerning Pope
Nicholas III. is deprived of its most telling points: "Nam fuit primus
in cujus curia palam committeretur Simonia per suos attinentes.
Quapropter multum ditavit eos possessionibus, pecuniis et castellis,
super onmes Romanos": "For he was the first at whose court Simony was
openly committed in favor of his adherents. Whereby he greatly enriched
them with possessions, money, and strongholds, above all the Romans."
"Sed quod Clerici capiunt raro dimittunt": "What the clergy have once
laid hands on, they rarely give up." Nothing of this is found in
the Italian,--and history fails of her dues at the hands of this
tender-conscienced modernizer of Benvenuto. The comment on the whole
canto is in this matter utterly vitiated.

In the comment on Canto XXIX. of the "Inferno," which is full of
historic and biographic material of great interest, but throughout
defaced by the license of the translator, occurs a passage in regard
to the Romagna, which is curious not only as exhibiting the former
condition of that beautiful and long-suffering portion of Italy, but
also as applying to its recent state and its modern grievances.

BENVENUTO.

Judicio meo mihi videtur quod quatuor deduxerunt eam nobilem provinciam
ad tantam desolationem. Primum est avaritia Pastorum Ecclesiae, qui nunc
vendunt unam terram, nunc aliam; et nunc unus favet uni Tyranno, nunc
alius alteri, secundum quod saepe mutantur officiales. Secundum est
pravitas Tyrannorum suorum, qui semper inter se se lacerant et rodunt,
et subditos excoriant. Tertium est fertilitas locorum ipsius provinciae,
cujus pinguedo allicit barbaros et externos in praedam. Quartum est
invidia, quae viget in cordibus ipsorum incolarum.

TAMBURINI.

Per me ritengo, che quattro fossero le cagioni per cui la Romagna
si ridusse a tanta desolazione: l' abuso per avarizia di alcuni
ecclesiastici, che alienarono or una, or un' altra terra, e si misero
d' accordo coi tiranni,--i tiranni stessi che sempre erano discordi fra
loro a danno de' sudditi,--la fertilita de' terreni, che troppo alletta
gli strani, ed i barbari,--l' invidia, che regna fra gli stessi roma
gnuoli.

"In my judgment," says Benvenuto, who speaks with the authority of long
experience and personal observation, "it seems to me that four things
have brought that noble province to so great desolation. The first of
which is, the avarice of the Pastors of the Church, who now sell one
tract of its land, and now another; while one favors one Tyrant, and
another another, so that the men in authority are often changed. The
second is, the wickedness of the Tyrants themselves, who are always
tearing and biting each other, and fleecing their subjects. The third
is, the fertility of the province itself, which by its very richness
allures barbarians and foreigners to prey upon it. The fourth is, that
spirit of jealousy which flourishes in the hearts of the inhabitants
themselves." It will be noticed that the translator changes the phrase,
"the avarice of the Pastors of the Church," into "the avarice of some
ecclesiastics," while throughout the passage, as indeed throughout every
page of the work, the vigor of Benvenuto's style and the point of
his animated sentences are quite lost in the flatness of a dull and
inaccurate paraphrase.

A passage in which the spirit of the poet has fully roused his manly
commentator is the noble burst of indignant reproach with which
he inveighs against and mourns over Italy in Canto VI. of the
"Purgatory":--

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20