ssary
accompaniment of his idea, and must, wherever the idioms of the two
languages admit of it, be rendered by their exact equivalents. The
following passage, from the twenty-eighth canto of the _Purgatorio_,
will illustrate our meaning:--

"In questa altezza che tutta e disciolta
Nell'aer vivo, tal moto percuote,
E fa sonar la selva perch' e folta."

Literally,

In this height which is all detached
In the living air, such motion strikes,
And makes the wood resound because it is thick.

Such are the words of Dante line by line. Let us now see how Cary
renders them:--

"Upon the summit, which on every side
To visitation of the impassive air
Is open, doth that motion strike, and makes
Beneath its sway the umbrageous wood resound."

The fundamental idea of this passage is the explanation of the sound of
the forest, and this idea Cary has preserved. But has he preserved it in
its force and simplicity and Dantesque directness? We will not dwell
upon the rendering of _altezza_ by _summit_, although a little more care
would have preserved the exact word of the original. But we may with
good reason object to the expansion of Dante's three lines into four. We
may with equal reason object to

"which on every side
To visitation of the impassive air
Is open,"

as a correct rendering of

"che tutta e disciolta
Nell'aer vivo,"--

which is all detached
In the living air.

"To visitation of the impassive air,"

is a sonorous verse; but it is not Dante's verse, unless _all detached_
means _on every side is open to visitation_, and _impassive air_ means
_living air_. _Beneath its sway_, also, is not Dante's; nor can we
accept _umbrageous wood_, with its unmeaning epithet, for _the wood
because it is thick_, an explanation of the phenomenon which had excited
Dante's wonder.

Here, then, we have Cary's theory, the preservation of the fundamental
idea, but the free introduction of such accessory ideas as convenience
may suggest, whether in the form of epithet or of paraphrase.

Mr. Longfellow's translation of this passage may also be accepted as the
exposition of his theory:--

"Upon this height that all is disengaged
In living ether, doth this motion strike,
And make the forest sound, for it is dense."

We have here the three lines of the original, and in the o