The Divine Comedy is the most well-known piece in Italian literature. Many have translated the work, and there are many ways to go about translating Dante. Looking specifically at Canto V, we will examine that there are different methods that go into translation, as seen in the translations by Charles Rogers (1782) and John Dayman (1865).
Dante uses a complex rhyme scheme, called the “terza rima”, which is were there are stanzas of three lines that contain interlocking rhymes at the end of each line; the rhyme pattern follows: ABA-BCB-CDC. Not only are constant rhymes difficult to translate, but Dante also uses rich and ambiguous language in his poems. Both translations by Rogers and Dayman, are kept in poem style. But what makes this an interesting comparison is that Dayman’s translation maintains the terza rima, while Rogers does not.
Rogers maintains a more faithful translation throughout the canto than Dayman. In the very first line it is noticed when Dante writes “Così discesi del cerchio primario”(34), Rogers translates it to “From the first circle we descended down”(17), which is a more faithful translation than Dayman writing “So I plunged downwards from that upper ring”(35), which is a more communicative way of translating. Because Dayman chose to maintain the terza rima, he had to form sentences with the same meaning in order to get the rhyme at the end of the line, maintaining the style, but losing faithfulness to the source text.
Canto V is when Dante has descended into the second circle of hell. This Canto is most noteworthy because it is the canto where Francesca di Rimini tells the story of how she got to hell with her husbands brother, and lover, Paolo. Francesca tells Dante that she and Paolo, began reading Lancelott, and when they got to the part where the characters in the story finally kissed, Francesca committed adultery towards her husband. Rodgers translation reads “When, reading that her captivating smile/ Was by the Lover she adored kiss’d;/ … But from that day we never read in’t more,” which is awkward to read for a modern day English speaker. Dayman’s translation reads “When that we read so true-hearted/ Kissing the smile so coveted before,/ … And he who wrote–that day we read no more” which is a more romantic way of writing the story, and it feels to be more in the spirit of the source text.
Although Roger chose to remain faithful to the source text, some lines were more poetically translated by Dayman. Dayman kept the terza rima, but in doing so he had to be more free with his translation. It shows that translation loss remains inevitable, whether it be in rhyme, ambiguous meaning, or simply losing the melody of the target language.
Works Cited
Alighieri Dante. The Divine Comedy. Translated by John Dayman, Longmans, Green, 1865. https://archive.org/details/divinecomedydan00daymgoog
Alighieri Dante. The Divine Comedy. Translated by Charles Rogers, London Printed by J. Nichols, 1782. https://archive.org/details/infernoofdantetr00dantuoft