In equal parts sick­ened by all the time I’ve spent has­sling myself over mat­ters polit­i­cal and inspired by the mis­chie­vous bril­liance of Kent Johnson’s Epi­grami­ti­tis, I’ve decided to work out some fast-and-loose trans­la­tions of Dante’s Ten­zone with Forese Donati. I’ll post them indi­vid­u­ally as they emerge over the next few days and/or weeks.

In keep­ing with the spirit of the thing, I’ll try to keep the pedantry to a min­i­mum, but will say that these poems date from some­time before 1296, the year Donati died. (Dante would have turned thirty-​one that year, and Donati was prob­a­bly close to his age.) Some schol­ars sug­gest that the Ten­zone sig­nals a real break in Dante’s and Donati’s friend­ship, but I’m less than con­vinced. In any case, Dante por­trays Donati quite affec­tion­ately in Pur­ga­to­rio 23 and 24. For the pur­pose of today’s install­ment, it helps to know that “Bicci” was Forese’s nick­name, as, it seems, was his father’s. Also, the “dried figs” of the penul­ti­mate line are almost cer­tainly a sexual pun, but I don’t think I’ve quite got the sense of it.

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Dante to Forese Donati

Who­ever heard the cough
of Bicci’s mis­fated wife
might say she’d win­tered up north
where the snow crys­tals form.
But even mid-​August finds her with a cold—
you can guess how it goes in every other month!
And it does her little good to sleep in socks,
thanks to the short cov­er­ing she’s got.

No, the cough, the cold, and all her other ills
aren’t the fault of any old phlegm;
the prob­lem is what’s gone miss­ing from her nest.
Her mother, who has more than one reason to cry,
laments, “Oh, and to think that for a few dried figs
I could have put her in the house of count Guido!”

+ + +

Chi udisse tossir la mal fatata
moglie di Bicci vocato Forese,
potrebbe dire ch’ell’ha forse ver­nata
ove si fa ‘l cristallo in quel paese.
Di mezzo agosto la truovi infred­data;
or sappi che de’ far d’ogni altro mese!
E non le val perché dorma calzata,
merzé del cop­er­toio c’ha cortonese.

La tosse, ‘l freddo e l’altra mala voglia
non l’addovien per omor ch’abbia vecchi,
ma per difetto ch’ella sente al nido.
Piange la madre, c’ha più d’una doglia,
dicendo: “Lassa, che per fichi secchi
messa l’avre’ ‘n casa del conte Guido!”

1/ Dante, Inferno 26.112-120

Brothers…who through a hun­dred thou­sand
Dan­gers have reached the chan­nel to the west,
To the short evening watch which your own senses

Still must keep, do not choose to deny
The expe­ri­ence of what lies past the sun
And of the world yet uninhabited.

Con­sider the seed of your gen­er­a­tion:
You were not born to live like ani­mals
But to pursue virtue and pos­sess knowledge.

2/ Louis Mac­Ne­ice, “Thalassa”

Run out the boat, my broken com­rades;
Let the old sea­weed crack, the surge
Bur­geon obliv­i­ous of the last
Embarka­tion of feck­less men,
Let every adverse force con­verge–
Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heart­sick com­rades;
Let each hori­zon tilt and lurch–
You know the worst: your wills are fickle,
Your values blurred, your hearts impure
And your past life a ruined church–
But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, igno­ble com­rades,
Whose record shall be noble yet;
Butting through scarps of moving marble
The nar­whal dares us to be free;
By a high star our course is set,
Our end is Life. Put out to sea.

I’ve got an arti­cle on Dante’s Par­adiso (and why it’s so unloved) up at Slate this week. Check it out!

se fosse amico il re de l’universo,
noi pregheremmo lui de la tua pace