The Prophecy of Dante E-Book

Lord Byron

• Herausgeber: Enrico Conti
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

"The Prophecy of Dante" is a story in verse written by Lord Byron in 1819 and published two years later (1821). The entire work was dedicated to Countess Guiccioli: in fact, the story was written in Ravenna (Italy). "The Prophecy of Dante" has been defined by many critics as a grandiose, turbulent, emotional and even mystical work.

Leseprobe

The Prophecy of Dante

LordByron

“’Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,

And coming events cast their shadows before.”

Campbell, [Lochiel’s Warning].

The Prophecy of Dante

01 CHAPTER

02 CHAPTER

03 CHAPTER

04 CHAPTER

Dedication.

Lady! if for the cold and cloudy clime

Where I was born, but where I would not die,

Of the great Poet–Sire of Italy

I dare to build the imitative rhyme,

Harsh Runiccopy of the South’s sublime,

Thou art the cause; and howsoever I

Fall short of his immortal harmony,

Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.

Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth,

Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obeyed

Are one; but only in the sunny South

Such sounds are uttered, and such charms displayed,

So sweet a language from so fair a mouth—

Ah! to what effort would it not persuade?

Ravenna, June 21, 1819.

Preface

In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that having composed something on the subject of Tasso’s confinement, he should do the same on Dante’s exile,—the tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger.

“On this hint I spake,” and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that—if I do not err—this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet, whose name I have borrowed and most likely taken in vain.

Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold translated into Italian versi sciolti,—that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza or the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation of his great “Padre Alighier,” I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory9 in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti’s ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question.

He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation—their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, where my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both.

The Prophecy Of Dante.

01 CHAPTER

Canto The First.

Once more in Man’s frail world! which I had left

So long that ’twas forgotten; and I feel

The weight of clay again,—too soon bereft

Of the Immortal Vision which could heal

My earthly sorrows, and to God’s own skies

Lift me from that deep Gulf without repeal,

Where late my ears rung with the damned cries

Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from that place