José-Maria de Heredia – 6 Au tragédien E. Rossi

Ernesto Rossi was one of the best-known Italian actors of his day. He was admired in particular for his Shakespearean roles as Macbeth, King Lear, Romeo and Hamlet. Romeo and Juliet was his favourite play.

In May 1865, a great three-day festival was held in Florence by the newly united Italy, to honour its national hero, Dante Alighieri, whose six hundredth birth anniversary was being celebrated. The three greatest actors in Italy travelled at their own expense, for no payment, laying aside rivalries, to take part. Several Dantesque tableaux were presented, and Rossi performed one from the Purgatorio, and two from the Inferno.

Dante’s famous terza rima is an interlocking scheme in which the middle line of a tercet rhymes with the first and third lines of the next (aba bcb cdc) and so on, ending the perpetual motion usually with a single, separate, line rhyming with the middle line of the preceding tercet. To get an idea of how it works, here is a colour coded sample of some lines that Rossi recited from the Inferno:
Ed el mi disse: «Volgiti! Che fai?
Vedi là Farinata che s’è dritto:
da la cintola in sù tutto ’l vedrai».
Io avea già il mio viso nel suo fitto;
ed el s’ergea col petto e con la fronte
com’ avesse l’inferno a gran dispitto.

E l’animose man del duca e pronte
mi pinser tra le sepulture a lui,
dicendo: «Le parole tue sien conte».

With this information, the following sonnet should be easier to comprehend. For no reason I can think of, it was placed in the section of Les Trophées titled Nature and Dream, under the sub-group The Sea of Brittany. After the original sonnet, comes the literal translation in prose, and then my version, followed by a translation each by Edward R. Taylor and Maurice Egan.

Au Tragédien E. Rossi
Après une récitation de Dante

Ô Rossi, je t'ai vu, traînant le manteau noir,
Briser le faible coeur de la triste Ophélie,
Et, tigre exaspéré d'amour et de folie,
Étrangler tes sanglots dans le fatal mouchoir.

J'ai vu Lear et Macbeth, et pleuré de te voir
Baiser, suprême amant de l'antique Italie,
Au tombeau nuptial Juliette pâlie.
Pourtant tu fus plus grand et plus terrible, un soir.

Car j'ai goûté l'horreur et le plaisir sublimes,
Pour la première fois, d'entendre les trois rimes
Sonner par ta voix d'or leur fanfare de fer;

Et, rouge du reflet de l'infernale flamme,
J'ai vu—j'en ai frémi jusques au fond de l'âme!—
Alighieri vivant dire un chant de l'Enfer.

Prose translation (literal):
TO THE TRAGEDIAN E. ROSSI: AFTER A RECITATION OF DANTE
O Rossi, I have seen thee, trailing thy black cloak, breaking the feeble/ weak heart of sad Ophelia, and tiger exasperated by love and madness, strangle thy sobs in the fatal handkerchief.
I have seen Lear and Macbeth, and wept to see thee kiss, supreme lover of old / immemorial Italy, in nuptial tomb Juliet pale. But thou wast more grand and more terrible, one evening.
For I have tasted the horror and the pleasure sublime [plural, hence applies to both emotions], for the first time, to hear the triple rhymes sound in your golden voice their iron fanfare/ trumpet call;
And, red with reflection of the hellish flame, I have seen – (seeing it) I have trembled to the bottom of my soul – Alighieri live recite/ speak a chant/ song of Hell.

[Actually, “trois rimes”, triple rhymes, is not the same thing as Dante’s invention, the terza rima. A triple rhyme is one where the words have at least three syllables, the last two being unstressed as in tearfully, fearfully. Heredia should have used the Italian term to avoid confusion - it has been adopted into English, and French (where it is sometimes hyphenated) - but he wanted a rhyme for sublimes. I have used the word linkèd because it gives some idea of Dante’s rhyme scheme. The Italian plural, terze rime, would look like a rhyme but it would not sound like one!]

To The Tragedian E. Rossi
AFTER A RECITATION FROM DANTE (©2016 by Ruth Heredia)

I have seen you, Rossi, trailing your black cloak
As the gentle heart of sad Ophelia broke,
And tigerish your misprised love’s mad raging
When fatal kerchief stifled your wild sobbing.

Lear I have seen, Macbeth, and still I grieve
For the famed Italian lover long ago
Kissing Juliet, entombed in nuptials of woe.
But grander you were, more terrible, one eve.

That taste of horror and pleasure, both sublime,
Was the first.  Your golden voice in trumpet calls
Of iron sounded in the linkèd rhyme;

And, redly reflecting a flame most fell,
I saw – to its depths my soul it still appals -
Alighieri live, recite a chant from Hell.

AFTER A RECITATION FROM DANTE (Tr. by Edward R. Taylor, 1906)

I've seen thee, Rossi, robed in black, give fair
Ophelia's tender heart thy rending blow,
And, tiger mad with love and phrenzied woe,
Read in the handkerchief thy soul's despair.

Macbeth and Lear I've seen, and wept whene'er
I saw thee, who lov'st olden Italy so,
Kiss Juliet in her nuptial tomb laid low;
Yet once beyond all these I found thee dare.

For mine the horror and the joy sublime
Of then first listening to the triple rhyme
Sound in thy golden voice its iron swell;

And, lit by flames of the infernal shore,
I saw and shuddered to my being's core
The living Dante chant his song of Hell.

To the Tragedian Rossi (Tr. by Maurice F. Egan, ca 1902)

Trailing thy mantle black, I’ve seen thee break,
O Rossi, weak Ophelia’s saddened heart,
And, as the love-mad Moorish tiger, start
Strangling the sobs thy victim could not wake;

I Lear, Macbeth have seen, and seen thee take
The last cold kiss in love’s supremest part
Of older Italy;—high flights of art!—
Yet greater triumphs have I seen thee make:

For I did taste of joy and woe sublime
When I did hear thee speak the triple rhyme,—
In voice of gold you rang its iron knell;

And red, in reflex of the infernal fire,
My very soul moved by deep horror dire
Saw Alighieri, living, chant of hell!


The sonnet seems expressly designed to lead up to the I-wants-to-make-your-flesh-creep final line. It probably works when recited in French, but I find it excessively contrived for all that. It has language I found difficult to turn into expressions acceptable to me, forcing me into compromises for lines that would rhyme and scan, and so giving the translation a dated effect. Some of Heredia’s own compromises for the sake of rhyme, and getting his alexandrines, and fitting everything into fourteen lines of a set pattern, are evident in the prose translation above. One of his contortions is complicated, and must be explained in order to shed light on the misunderstanding that both his poet translators fell into. Heredia got out of naming Hamlet and Othello, at the same time earning points for cleverness. That was easy with Hamlet’s black cloak and the mention of Ophelia. Desdemona is not named, but there are the handkerchief and the word ‘strangling’ (although the victim was smothered). Pale Juliet in her ‘nuptial tomb’ ought to suffice for Romeo, but something more was required to fill a line. What clothing, what object, what characteristic comes to mind? None. But Romeo is one half of a famous pair of lovers; they are Italian, and theirs is a once-upon-a-time story. Hence, the “suprême” lover, of “l’antique” Italy. But the phrasing – dictated solely by the requirements of versification – is ambiguous. Taylor has taken it to mean that Rossi is one “who lov'st olden Italy so”. Egan does not fall into that error, but what does “love’s supremest part of older Italy” mean? The play is English, not Italian.

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