In the Ninth Canto Virgil declares to Dante: Tu sei omai al Purgatorio giunto-"Thou hast arrived at Purgatory now!" and it is not until the next Canto that the gate of Purgatory proper is unfolded to the poet. The first nine Cantos being preliminary, are by Italian critics called the Ante-Purgatorio.
In the first cornice of the true Purgatory, "La, dove 'l Purgatorio ha dritto inizio," Dante meets a procession of spirits crouching under great burdens of stone, in expiation of their sin of pride. As this Tenth Canto, however, is mostly occupied with an elaborate description of certain sculptures around the cornice, illustrative of the same deadly sin, and might be less interesting to the readers of The Catholic World, we proceed to the Eleventh, where we are introduced to the spirits of Omberto Aldobrandeschi, Oderisi the illuminator, and Provenzan Salvani, lord of Sienna. In Omberto the pride of birth is especially reproved; and in Salvani the pride of place, the arrogance of power. The sin of Oderisi is of the æsthetic order common to a period of larger culture. Himself an artist, whose fault was pride of art, he inveighs against the vanity of painters and of poets, and the emptiness of a present reputation.
In the translation of Canto VII., published in the April No. of The Catholic World, I proposed a new rendering of the 74th verse, namely,
India's rich wood, heaven's lucid blue serene,
for
Indico legno, lucido e sereno,
which line I would then have read,
Indico legno, lucido sereno,
without the conjunction. I had not found this reading in any edition which fell to my hands, and it was merely a suggestion of my own to make intelligible what seemed to be unsatisfactory to the sense.
In a late No. (June 14) of the London Athenæum, Dr. H. C. Barlow, a very learned Dantean, confirms my reading by one of the older texts in his library, and also adds that, "in the edition of the Divina Commedia by Paola Costa, we find the reading recently adopted by Mr. Parsons ... which the editor says is an emendation of Biondi, who has defended it with much learned reasoning."
Nevertheless, Dr. Barlow does not accept this amendment; but believes, with Monti, that Dante meant to compare the rich and varied hues of a flower-bed to something like charcoal; to wood, clear and dry; for instance, ebony; and he quotes from Monti this word: "What can be darker than the night? yet when free from clouds we call it serene." The answer whereto is that when the night is free from clouds, and starry, or serene, it is not dark, and many objects in nature are blacker than such a night.
I cannot feel quite so sure of my reading as Dr. Barlow appears to be of his own interpretation, but I have some confidence that Dante did not mean ebony, for the obvious reason that ebony is not a brilliant color such as Dante was describing; and the statement which Dr. Barlow takes such pains to prove, namely, that painters often introduce black for the sake of contrast, does not apply at all to a verbal description—"segnius per aurem," etc.
I am after all inclined to think that the true reading of this much-disputed verse may be
Indico legno, e lucido sereno,
but my mind is not made up entirely, and one object of publishing these Cantos in a periodical is that my version, before it is completed, may have the advantage of critical suggestions, and perhaps elucidation, in doubtful passages, from the learning and ingenuity of such Italian scholars in England as Mr. Haselfoot, Dr. Barlow, and Sir Frederic Pollock.
Translator.