Items related to Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Robert and Jean Hollander’s verse translation with facing-page Italian offers the dual virtues of maximum fidelity to Dante’s text with the feeling necessary to give the English reader a sense of the work’s poetic greatness in Italian. And since Robert Hollander’s achievements as a Dante scholar are unsurpassed in the English-speaking world, the commentaries that accompany each canto offer superb guidance in comprehension and interpretation. This translation is also the text of the Princeton Dante Project Web site, an ambitious online project that offers a multimedia version of the Divine Comedy and links to other Dante Web sites. On every count, then, this edition of Paradiso is likely to be a touchstone for generations to come, and it completes one of the great projects of literary translation and scholarship of our time.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
ROBERT HOLLANDER (Princeton ’55) taught Dante's Divine Comedy to Princeton undergraduates for thirty years and is the author of some twenty-two books and seventy-five articles on Dante, Boccaccio, and other Italian authors. He recently retired from Princeton, where he was the chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature. He has received many awards, including the gold medal of the city of Florence in recognition of his work on Dante. JEAN HOLLANDER, his wife, is a poet, teacher, and director of the Writer's Conference at the College of New Jersey.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
PARADISO I
La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l’universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte più e meno altrove.
Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende
fu’ io, e vidi cose che ridire
né sa né può chi di là sù discende;
perché appressando sé al suo disire,
nostro intelletto si profonda tanto,
che dietro la memoria non può ire.
Veramente quant’ io del regno santo
ne la mia mente potei far tesoro,
sarà ora materia del mio canto.
O buono Appollo, a l’ultimo lavoro
fammi del tuo valor sì fatto vaso,
come dimandi a dar l’amato alloro.
Infino a qui l’un giogo di Parnaso
assai mi fu; ma or con amendue
m’è uopo intrar ne l’aringo rimaso.
Entra nel petto mio, e spira tue
sì come quando Marsïa traesti
de la vagina de le membra sue.
O divina virtù, se mi ti presti
tanto che l’ombra del beato regno
segnata nel mio capo io manifesti,
vedra’mi al piè del tuo diletto legno
venire, e coronarmi de le foglie
che la materia e tu mi farai degno.
The glory of Him who moves all things
pervades the universe and shines
in one part more and in another less.
I was in that heaven which receives
more of His light. He who comes down from there
can neither know nor tell what he has seen,
for, drawing near to its desire,
so deeply is our intellect immersed
that memory cannot follow after it.
Nevertheless, as much of the holy kingdom
as I could store as treasure in my mind
shall now become the subject of my song.
O good Apollo, for this last labor
make me into a vessel worthy
of the gift of your belovèd laurel.
Up to this point, one peak of Mount Parnassus
has been enough, but now I need them both
in order to confront the struggle that awaits.
Enter my breast and breathe in me
as when you drew out Marsyas,
out from the sheathing of his limbs.
O holy Power, if you but lend me of yourself
enough that I may show the merest shadow
of the blessèd kingdom stamped within my mind,
you shall find me at the foot of your beloved tree,
crowning myself with the very leaves
of which my theme and you will make me worthy.
Sì rade volte, padre, se ne coglie
per triunfare o cesare o poeta,
colpa e vergogna de l’umane voglie,
che parturir letizia in su la lieta
delfica deïtà dovria la fronda
peneia, quando alcun di sé asseta.
Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda:
forse di retro a me con miglior voci
si pregherà perché Cirra risponda.
Surge ai mortali per diverse foci
la lucerna del mondo; ma da quella
che quattro cerchi giugne con tre croci,
con miglior corso e con migliore stella
esce congiunta, e la mondana cera
piu a suo modo tempera e suggella.
Fatto avea di là mane e di qua sera
tal foce, e quasi tutto era là bianco
quello emisperio, e l’altra parte nera,
quando Beatrice in sul sinistro fianco
vidi rivolta e riguardar nel sole:
aguglia sÌ non li s’affisse unquanco.
E sì come secondo raggio suole
uscir del primo e risalire in suso,
pur come pelegrin che tornar vuole,
così de l’atto suo, per li occhi infuso
ne l’imagine mia, il mio si fece,
e fissi li occhi al sole oltre nostr’ uso.
Molto è licito là, che qui non lece
a le nostre virtù, mercé del loco
fatto per proprio de l’umana spece.
So rarely, father, are they gathered
to mark the triumph of a Caesar or a poet—
fault and shame of human wishes—
that anyone’s even longing for them,
those leaves on the Peneian bough, should make
the joyous Delphic god give birth to joy.
Great fire leaps from the smallest spark.
Perhaps, in my wake, prayer will be shaped
with better words so Cyrrha may respond.
The lamp of the world rises on us mortals
at different points. But, by the one that joins
four circles with three crossings, it comes forth
on a better course and in conjunction
with a better sign. Then it tempers and imprints
the wax of the world more to its own fashion.
Its rising near that point had brought out morning there
and evening here, and that hemisphere
was arrayed in light, this one in darkness,
when I saw that Beatrice had turned toward her left
and now was staring at the sun—
never had eagle so fixed his gaze on it.
And, as a second ray will issue from the first
and rise again up to its source,
even as a pilgrim longs to go back home,
so her gaze, pouring through my eyes
on my imagination, made itself my own, and I,
against our practice, set my eyes upon the sun.
Much that our powers here cannot sustain is there
allowed by virtue of the nature of the place
created as the dwelling fit for man.
Io nol soffersi molto, né sì poco
,ch’io nol vedessi sfavillar dintorno,
com’ ferro che bogliente esce del foco;
e di sùbito parve giorno a giorno
essere aggiunto, come quei che puote
avesse il ciel d’un altro sole addorno.
Beatrice tutta ne l’etterne rote
fissa con li occhi stava; e io in lei
le luci fissi, di là sù rimote.
Nel suo aspetto tal dentro mi fei,
qual si fé Glauco nel gustar de l’erba
che ’l fé consorto in mar de li altri dèi.
Trasumanar significar per verba
non si poria; però l’essemplo basti
a cui esperïenza grazia serba.
S’i’ era sol di me quel che creasti
novellamente, amor che ’l ciel governi,
tu ’l sai, che col tuo lume mi levasti.
Quando la rota che tu sempiterni
desiderato, a sé mi fece atteso
con l’armonia che temperi e discerni,
parvemi tanto allor del cielo acceso
de la fiamma del sol, che pioggia o fiume
lago non fece alcun tanto disteso.
La novità del suono e ’l grande lume
di lor cagion m’accesero un disio
mai non sentito di cotanto acume.
Ond’ ella, che vedea me sì com’ io,
a quïetarmi l’animo commosso,
pria ch’io a dimandar, la bocca aprio
I could not bear it long, yet not so brief a time
as not to see it sparking everywhere,
like liquid iron flowing from the fire.
Suddenly it seemed a day was added to that day,
as if the One who has the power
had adorned the heavens with a second sun.
Beatrice had fixed her eyes
upon the eternal wheels and I now fixed
my sight on her, withdrawing it from above.
As I gazed on her, I was changed within,
as Glaucus was on tasting of the grass
that made him consort of the gods in the sea.
To soar beyond the human cannot be described
in words. Let the example be enough to one
for whom grace holds this experience in store.
Whether I was there in that part only which you
created last is known to you alone, O Love who rule
the heavens and drew me up there with your light.
When the heavens you made eternal,
wheeling in desire, caught my attention
with the harmony you temper and attune,
then so much of the sky seemed set on fire
by the flaming sun that neither rain nor river
ever fed a lake so vast.
The newness of the sound and the bright light
lit in me such keen desire to know their cause
as I had never with such sharpness felt before.
And she, who knew me as I knew myself,
to calm my agitated mind
before I even had begun to speak, parted her lips
e cominciò: “Tu stesso ti fai grosso
col falso imaginar, sì che non vedi
cio che vedresti se l’avessi scosso.
Tu non se’ in terra, sì come tu credi;
ma folgore, fuggendo il proprio sito,
non corse come tu ch’ad esso riedi.”
S’io fui del primo dubbio disvestito
per le sorrise parolette brevi,
dentro ad un nuovo più fu’ inretito
e dissi: “Già contento requievi
di grande ammirazion; ma ora ammiro
com’ io trascenda questi corpi levi.”
Ond’ ella, appresso d’un pio sospiro,
li occhi drizzò ver’ me con quel sembiante
che madre fa sovra figlio deliro,
e cominciò: “Le cose tutte quante
hanno ordine tra loro, è questo e forma
che l’universo a Dio fa simigliante.
Qui veggion l’alte creature l’orma
de l’etterno valore, il qual è fine
al quale è fatta la toccata norma.
Ne l’ordine ch’io dico sono accline
tutte nature, per diverse sorti,
più al principio loro e men vicine;
onde si muovono a diversi porti
per lo gran mar de l’essere, e ciascuna
con istinto a lei dato che la porti.
Questi ne porta il foco inver’ la luna;
questi ne’ cor mortali è permotore;
questi la terra in sé stringe e aduna;
and said: ‘You make yourself dull–witted
with false notions, so that you cannot see
what you would understand, had you but cast them off.
‘You are not still on earth, as you believe.
Indeed, lightning darting from its source
never sped as fast as you return to yours.’
If I was stripped of my earlier confusion
by her brief and smiling words,
I was the more entangled in new doubt
and said: ‘I was content to be released
from my amazement, but now I am amazed
that I can glide through these light bodies.’
Then she, having sighed with pity,
bent her eyes on me with just that look
a mother casts on her delirious child,
and said: ‘All things created have an order
in themselves, and this begets the for...
La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l’universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte più e meno altrove.
Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende
fu’ io, e vidi cose che ridire
né sa né può chi di là sù discende;
perché appressando sé al suo disire,
nostro intelletto si profonda tanto,
che dietro la memoria non può ire.
Veramente quant’ io del regno santo
ne la mia mente potei far tesoro,
sarà ora materia del mio canto.
O buono Appollo, a l’ultimo lavoro
fammi del tuo valor sì fatto vaso,
come dimandi a dar l’amato alloro.
Infino a qui l’un giogo di Parnaso
assai mi fu; ma or con amendue
m’è uopo intrar ne l’aringo rimaso.
Entra nel petto mio, e spira tue
sì come quando Marsïa traesti
de la vagina de le membra sue.
O divina virtù, se mi ti presti
tanto che l’ombra del beato regno
segnata nel mio capo io manifesti,
vedra’mi al piè del tuo diletto legno
venire, e coronarmi de le foglie
che la materia e tu mi farai degno.
The glory of Him who moves all things
pervades the universe and shines
in one part more and in another less.
I was in that heaven which receives
more of His light. He who comes down from there
can neither know nor tell what he has seen,
for, drawing near to its desire,
so deeply is our intellect immersed
that memory cannot follow after it.
Nevertheless, as much of the holy kingdom
as I could store as treasure in my mind
shall now become the subject of my song.
O good Apollo, for this last labor
make me into a vessel worthy
of the gift of your belovèd laurel.
Up to this point, one peak of Mount Parnassus
has been enough, but now I need them both
in order to confront the struggle that awaits.
Enter my breast and breathe in me
as when you drew out Marsyas,
out from the sheathing of his limbs.
O holy Power, if you but lend me of yourself
enough that I may show the merest shadow
of the blessèd kingdom stamped within my mind,
you shall find me at the foot of your beloved tree,
crowning myself with the very leaves
of which my theme and you will make me worthy.
Sì rade volte, padre, se ne coglie
per triunfare o cesare o poeta,
colpa e vergogna de l’umane voglie,
che parturir letizia in su la lieta
delfica deïtà dovria la fronda
peneia, quando alcun di sé asseta.
Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda:
forse di retro a me con miglior voci
si pregherà perché Cirra risponda.
Surge ai mortali per diverse foci
la lucerna del mondo; ma da quella
che quattro cerchi giugne con tre croci,
con miglior corso e con migliore stella
esce congiunta, e la mondana cera
piu a suo modo tempera e suggella.
Fatto avea di là mane e di qua sera
tal foce, e quasi tutto era là bianco
quello emisperio, e l’altra parte nera,
quando Beatrice in sul sinistro fianco
vidi rivolta e riguardar nel sole:
aguglia sÌ non li s’affisse unquanco.
E sì come secondo raggio suole
uscir del primo e risalire in suso,
pur come pelegrin che tornar vuole,
così de l’atto suo, per li occhi infuso
ne l’imagine mia, il mio si fece,
e fissi li occhi al sole oltre nostr’ uso.
Molto è licito là, che qui non lece
a le nostre virtù, mercé del loco
fatto per proprio de l’umana spece.
So rarely, father, are they gathered
to mark the triumph of a Caesar or a poet—
fault and shame of human wishes—
that anyone’s even longing for them,
those leaves on the Peneian bough, should make
the joyous Delphic god give birth to joy.
Great fire leaps from the smallest spark.
Perhaps, in my wake, prayer will be shaped
with better words so Cyrrha may respond.
The lamp of the world rises on us mortals
at different points. But, by the one that joins
four circles with three crossings, it comes forth
on a better course and in conjunction
with a better sign. Then it tempers and imprints
the wax of the world more to its own fashion.
Its rising near that point had brought out morning there
and evening here, and that hemisphere
was arrayed in light, this one in darkness,
when I saw that Beatrice had turned toward her left
and now was staring at the sun—
never had eagle so fixed his gaze on it.
And, as a second ray will issue from the first
and rise again up to its source,
even as a pilgrim longs to go back home,
so her gaze, pouring through my eyes
on my imagination, made itself my own, and I,
against our practice, set my eyes upon the sun.
Much that our powers here cannot sustain is there
allowed by virtue of the nature of the place
created as the dwelling fit for man.
Io nol soffersi molto, né sì poco
,ch’io nol vedessi sfavillar dintorno,
com’ ferro che bogliente esce del foco;
e di sùbito parve giorno a giorno
essere aggiunto, come quei che puote
avesse il ciel d’un altro sole addorno.
Beatrice tutta ne l’etterne rote
fissa con li occhi stava; e io in lei
le luci fissi, di là sù rimote.
Nel suo aspetto tal dentro mi fei,
qual si fé Glauco nel gustar de l’erba
che ’l fé consorto in mar de li altri dèi.
Trasumanar significar per verba
non si poria; però l’essemplo basti
a cui esperïenza grazia serba.
S’i’ era sol di me quel che creasti
novellamente, amor che ’l ciel governi,
tu ’l sai, che col tuo lume mi levasti.
Quando la rota che tu sempiterni
desiderato, a sé mi fece atteso
con l’armonia che temperi e discerni,
parvemi tanto allor del cielo acceso
de la fiamma del sol, che pioggia o fiume
lago non fece alcun tanto disteso.
La novità del suono e ’l grande lume
di lor cagion m’accesero un disio
mai non sentito di cotanto acume.
Ond’ ella, che vedea me sì com’ io,
a quïetarmi l’animo commosso,
pria ch’io a dimandar, la bocca aprio
I could not bear it long, yet not so brief a time
as not to see it sparking everywhere,
like liquid iron flowing from the fire.
Suddenly it seemed a day was added to that day,
as if the One who has the power
had adorned the heavens with a second sun.
Beatrice had fixed her eyes
upon the eternal wheels and I now fixed
my sight on her, withdrawing it from above.
As I gazed on her, I was changed within,
as Glaucus was on tasting of the grass
that made him consort of the gods in the sea.
To soar beyond the human cannot be described
in words. Let the example be enough to one
for whom grace holds this experience in store.
Whether I was there in that part only which you
created last is known to you alone, O Love who rule
the heavens and drew me up there with your light.
When the heavens you made eternal,
wheeling in desire, caught my attention
with the harmony you temper and attune,
then so much of the sky seemed set on fire
by the flaming sun that neither rain nor river
ever fed a lake so vast.
The newness of the sound and the bright light
lit in me such keen desire to know their cause
as I had never with such sharpness felt before.
And she, who knew me as I knew myself,
to calm my agitated mind
before I even had begun to speak, parted her lips
e cominciò: “Tu stesso ti fai grosso
col falso imaginar, sì che non vedi
cio che vedresti se l’avessi scosso.
Tu non se’ in terra, sì come tu credi;
ma folgore, fuggendo il proprio sito,
non corse come tu ch’ad esso riedi.”
S’io fui del primo dubbio disvestito
per le sorrise parolette brevi,
dentro ad un nuovo più fu’ inretito
e dissi: “Già contento requievi
di grande ammirazion; ma ora ammiro
com’ io trascenda questi corpi levi.”
Ond’ ella, appresso d’un pio sospiro,
li occhi drizzò ver’ me con quel sembiante
che madre fa sovra figlio deliro,
e cominciò: “Le cose tutte quante
hanno ordine tra loro, è questo e forma
che l’universo a Dio fa simigliante.
Qui veggion l’alte creature l’orma
de l’etterno valore, il qual è fine
al quale è fatta la toccata norma.
Ne l’ordine ch’io dico sono accline
tutte nature, per diverse sorti,
più al principio loro e men vicine;
onde si muovono a diversi porti
per lo gran mar de l’essere, e ciascuna
con istinto a lei dato che la porti.
Questi ne porta il foco inver’ la luna;
questi ne’ cor mortali è permotore;
questi la terra in sé stringe e aduna;
and said: ‘You make yourself dull–witted
with false notions, so that you cannot see
what you would understand, had you but cast them off.
‘You are not still on earth, as you believe.
Indeed, lightning darting from its source
never sped as fast as you return to yours.’
If I was stripped of my earlier confusion
by her brief and smiling words,
I was the more entangled in new doubt
and said: ‘I was content to be released
from my amazement, but now I am amazed
that I can glide through these light bodies.’
Then she, having sighed with pity,
bent her eyes on me with just that look
a mother casts on her delirious child,
and said: ‘All things created have an order
in themselves, and this begets the for...
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication date2007
- ISBN 10 0385506783
- ISBN 13 9780385506786
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages944
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 55.15
Shipping:
US$ 4.25
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0385506783
Buy New
US$ 55.15
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0385506783
Buy New
US$ 55.10
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # VIB0385506783
Buy New
US$ 69.81
Convert currency
Stock Image
PARADISO: A VERSE TRANSLATION
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 2.75. Seller Inventory # Q-0385506783
Buy New
US$ 73.72
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Book is in NEW condition. Seller Inventory # 0385506783-2-1
Buy New
US$ 93.96
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks51054
Buy New
US$ 94.00
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0385506783
Buy New
US$ 98.38
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # newMercantile_0385506783
Buy New
US$ 99.44
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Prompt service guaranteed. Seller Inventory # Clean0385506783
Buy New
US$ 99.53
Convert currency
Stock Image
Paradiso: a Verse Translation
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0385506783
Buy New
US$ 105.15
Convert currency