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1This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you: + Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes. + Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. + Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. + Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I
2;<'/ /6.i^- ^- ^o , prJHS^S THE DIYINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI TRANSLATED VERSE FOR VERSE FROM THE ORIGINAL INTO TERZA RIMA. JAMES INNES MINOHIN. LONDON: LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 1885. PREFACE. ■ Ql In the month of August, 1856, I attempted the experiment of translating into terza rima the beautifiil story of Francesca of Rimini, in the fifth Canto of .the " Inferno." I was then employed as a district officer in the Madras Presidency, and I continued to occupy my leisure in the translation of the poem, completing the whole of the " Inferno" early in the following year. Throughout the year 1857, the year of the Indian Mutiny, my family being in England, I was living as the only English officer in charge of a large sub-district, and throughout that year I was absolutely without any English companion, and with the terrible tales of mutiny and massacre that reached me daily through the Press, I lived unarmed and in absolute security amidst a peaceful agricultural community. Such a life was singularly suitable for literary labour, and during my miany hours of solitary leisure in that stirring year I completed in the month of October my translation of the " Divine Comedy." I spent the next year in a carefal revision of my work, and then laid it by, hoping that I might live to publish it in after years. In the year 1866 I returned to England for the first time after an absence of twenty-two years, and at the
3iv PREFACE. request of the late Professor Brewer, of King's College, who was himself a great student of Dante, I placed in his hands the MS. of my translation, which he had heard from a mutual friend that I had completed. Mr. Brewer greatly encouraged me by the favourable opinion he kindly formed of my work, but he did much more than pass such an opinion : he compared my whole translation carefully with the original, and marked every passage in the long poem which he considered to stand in need of alteration, and advised me, after again subjecting it to a complete revision, to bring it before the public, telling me that he considered it the best translation of the "Purgatory'' and the "Paradise" that had come under his notice. On my return to India I devoted the leisure hours of another year to the revision which Mr. Brewer had recommended, and I. in fact re- wrote every passage which had been marked by him as unsatisfactory. So many years had elapsed since I had written it that I could judge my work as fairly as if it had not been my own, and I took a critical pleasure in the justice of Professor Brewer's obelisks of condemnation. The correction of the marked passages was no light labour, as the alteration of one crabbed line often entailed a new turning of a whole triplet, the exigencies of rhyme in the terza rima being generally the cause of the blots requiring alteration. After another interval of sixteen years I bring my work before the general judgment of Dante students as the result of the honest labour of many years of a stu-
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
1This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing tliis resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you: + Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes. + Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. + Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for in forming people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. + Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http: //books .google .com/I
2;<'/ /6.i^- ^- ^o , prJHS^S THE DIYINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI TRANSLATED VERSE FOR VERSE FROM THE ORIGINAL INTO TERZA RIMA. JAMES INNES MINOHIN. LONDON: LONGMANS, GEEEN, AND CO. 1885. PREFACE. ■ Ql In the month of August, 1856, I attempted the experiment of translating into terza rima the beautifiil story of Francesca of Rimini, in the fifth Canto of .the " Inferno." I was then employed as a district officer in the Madras Presidency, and I continued to occupy my leisure in the translation of the poem, completing the whole of the " Inferno" early in the following year. Throughout the year 1857, the year of the Indian Mutiny, my family being in England, I was living as the only English officer in charge of a large sub-district, and throughout that year I was absolutely without any English companion, and with the terrible tales of mutiny and massacre that reached me daily through the Press, I lived unarmed and in absolute security amidst a peaceful agricultural community. Such a life was singularly suitable for literary labour, and during my miany hours of solitary leisure in that stirring year I completed in the month of October my translation of the " Divine Comedy." I spent the next year in a carefal revision of my work, and then laid it by, hoping that I might live to publish it in after years. In the year 1866 I returned to England for the first time after an absence of twenty-two years, and at the
3iv PREFACE. request of the late Professor Brewer, of King's College, who was himself a great student of Dante, I placed in his hands the MS. of my translation, which he had heard from a mutual friend that I had completed. Mr. Brewer greatly encouraged me by the favourable opinion he kindly formed of my work, but he did much more than pass such an opinion : he compared my whole translation carefully with the original, and marked every passage in the long poem which he considered to stand in need of alteration, and advised me, after again subjecting it to a complete revision, to bring it before the public, telling me that he considered it the best translation of the "Purgatory'' and the "Paradise" that had come under his notice. On my return to India I devoted the leisure hours of another year to the revision which Mr. Brewer had recommended, and I. in fact re- wrote every passage which had been marked by him as unsatisfactory. So many years had elapsed since I had written it that I could judge my work as fairly as if it had not been my own, and I took a critical pleasure in the justice of Professor Brewer's obelisks of condemnation. The correction of the marked passages was no light labour, as the alteration of one crabbed line often entailed a new turning of a whole triplet, the exigencies of rhyme in the terza rima being generally the cause of the blots requiring alteration. After another interval of sixteen years I bring my work before the general judgment of Dante students as the result of the honest labour of many years of a stu-
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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