◦
“Table of Poets” in
Early Italian Poets vol. 1,
xxvi-xxvii.
◦
Valeriani and Lampredi, Poeti
del Primo Secolo vol. 1,
263-265.
◦
Panvini, Le rime della scuola siciliana vol. 1,
11.
This collection contains 10 texts and images, including:
Early Italian Poets
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
DGR follows the rhyme scheme of the original, making his usual substitutions of iambic trimeter for the setenarii. The translation is fairly close, although in the final stanza DGR's translation is perhaps as difficult as the original, as WMR's note to the final lines indicates. In the fourth stanza we can see DGR's poetic effectiveness very clearly. The meaning of the word “colosmini” in the original is uncertain. DGR decides not to translate it for meaning at all but instead simply invents a phonetic English equivalent, “colosmine”, and then proceeds to let the verse suggest that the linguistic history of the word and the strange stone's devaluation mirror each other. The result is an extremely effective turn of wit.
DGR's source text is Poeti del Primo Secolo (I. 263-265).
Textual History: Composition
As with most of DGR's translations of the early Italian poets, the date of this cannot be precisely determined. DGR probably wrote it early, in the late 1840s.
Printing History
The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.