Review

Author(s): Anthony K. Cassell

Review by: Anthony K. Cassell
Source: MLN, Vol. 91, No. 1, Italian Issue (Jan., 1976), pp. 164-167
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2907280
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 REVIEWS q

Giovanni Boccaccio, The Book of Theseus:Teseida delle nozze

d'Emilia, trans. Bernadette Marie McCoy (Sea Cliff, New
York: Teesdale Publishing Associates, 1974. 352 pp.).
In the De Vulgarieloquentia(II, ii), Dante had noted the lack of heroic
poetry in the Italian language. He himselfhad sung of moral rectitude
and he gave Cino da Pistoia firstplace in the celebration of love; it re-
mained for future poets to deal with the third subject of poetry: arms.
Thus in 1339 or 1340 Boccaccio took up the challenge of giving his
mother tongue its own epic; flushed by achievement as he finishedthe
Teseida,he boasted that his work was the firstto "make the Muses sing in
Italian of the toils endured because of Mars" (Book XII, 84). Having no
vernacular models, he followedVirgiland Statiusin dividinghis workinto
twelvebooks; formetrehe turned to the medievalcantariand adopted the
ottavarima,later to become the preferred form for Renaissance heroic
poems. Criticsagree, however,thatBoccaccio's effortwas nota totalsuccess.
The diverseinfluences,both medievaland classical(theAeneid,the Thebaid,
and plausiblyFebus-el-Forte,the Romande Thebes,the Romande Tristanand
the ByzantineDigenesAkritas,to name a few) lend the workan odd, hybrid
flavour;the Teseidalacks unity,even by medieval standards,in tone, style
and plot. The subject matteras we might expect concerns far more the
pangs of love than the celebrationof war; the charactersare shallow and
shadowy,while the insistentattentionto detail and the cold enumerations
are tedious and sterile.The workis neverthelessof the greatestimportance
bothforwhatitrevealsof thewriter'sartisticdevelopmentand because of its
vast influence on European literature.A rendering of the Teseida into
Englishwillthereforeprove to be a mostwelcometool forAnglo-American
studentsof Boccaccio, not to mentionthe milestoneit willbe forChaucer,
Shakespeare, Fletcherand Dryden scholars. But we will all have to wait.
The BookofTheseus,as faras I can ascertain,is the maiden ventureof the
Teesdale Publishing Associates and the firstof many translationsfrom
Boccaccio that ProfessorMcCoy has promised us. The book's Preface is a
briefbut thought-provoking letterof presentationby Louis L. Gioia of the
Medieval Text Association.The Introductionwhichfollowsdetailsthe plot
and espouses the most recent scholarshipon the work. On the whole the
translationitselfmaintainsthe pseudo-epic tone of the original verywell
indeed; the editorgroups Boccaccio's own glosses at the end of each of the

MLN 91 164-199 (1976)

Copyright? 1976 by The Johns Hopkins UniversityPress
All rightsof reproductionin any formreserved.

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 M L N 165

twelvebooks where the reader may easilyconsultthem withouthaving his

eye teased as he reads the main text.
Other features,however,are less felicitous.Physicallythe volume could
be improvedbybetterdesign. It is a greatpitythatinsteadof the crude and
cloyingmodern redrawingwhichappears as the Frontispiece,the designer
could not have reproduced the beautiful original miniature from the
French manuscriptof the Teseidanow found in Vienna's Staatsbibliothek.
(For a reproductionof thisfifteenth-century illustrationsee Emilio Cecchi
and Natalino Sapegno, Il Trecento, Storiadella letteraturaitaliana,II [Milan,
1965], facing p. 328). Professor McCoy's Introduction is made to flow
irritatinglyinto Boccaccio's own textwithno clear indicationof a division
(pp. 17-18). A somewhatjumbledappearance resultsfromtheoverexuber-
ant mixtureof typefaces,and the decorative"neo-medieval"capitals clash
awkwardlywiththe modern sans-seriftypein whichthe translationis set.
All emptyspaces are filled by an ornate and unexplained capital "B," an
affectationwhich detractsfrom the seriousness of the presentation(this
symbolis repeated on pp. i, ii, vi, viii,72, 93, 113, 117, 138, 165, 236, 239,
282, 287, 329, 334, 343, 362). These defectscoupled witha lack of editorial
notes and inferiorpaper and binding make fifteendollars an exorbitant
list-pricefor the hardback.
The translationis readable, thoughthereare forthisreviewer'stastetoo
manyprecious usages such as "darksome,""winsome,"and "blithesome"to
translateBoccaccio's simple "nero" and "lieto." Too regularlythe trans-
lator's tone jerks from the pompous to the colloquial (e.g. "eschewingall
repose, he pulled himselftogether"VIII, 114). I have checked the transla-
tion carefullyagainst the Italian textchosen by ProfessorMcCoy (ed. Al-
berto Limentani in Tuttele operedi GiovanniBoccaccio,II, a cura di Vittore
Branca [Milan, 1964]), and was surprisedto findthaton nota fewoccasions
the Englishversiongave a diametricallyopposite meaningto thatexpressed
by the original; space permitsbut a few examples:
IV, 40: e in Attenecontema si mise: "He settleddown in Athenswithout
fear"
IV, 45: son io fornito,e ancor di disirid'amor, viepiu chebisognonon
m'era:"I am supplied. . . withlongingsof love as well.Yet thereisnoone
needierthanI" (The expressed overabundance of desire in the Italian
["far more than the necessaryfor me"] is lost completely.)
V, 48: chi me' saprA della spada ferire: "Whoever knows how to be
wounded lessby the sword" ("me' " is "meglio" not "meno"; "ferire"is
transitive.)
V, 86: perch'io accompagnarlo/voglio ad amar : "because I will not
share my beloved withhim."

Even grantedthatthe translatormustbe givenoccasionalpoeticlicense,too

oftensinglewordsare mistranslated:
VII, (Glosses,p. 200): i fisici[=physicians]:

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166 REVIEWS

"physicists";ibid (p. 204): al termineposto[=decided, fixed, designated]:

"the proposedfinishline"; IV, 11: foce: "fire" (taken for fuoco"?); IV, 60:
teneva sua voglia celata: "he always kept hisface concealed." In Stanza
30, Book IV, "nelli tempi vicin" [= in nearby temples] is rendered as
"recently",the translatortaking "tempio" in error for "tempo." In the
stanza following(IV, 31) "vegnendosi il suo fin" is translated"they saw
his end," similarlymistaking"vedere" for"venire."The lines "e ci6 Teseo
vie piiu che l'altre accora che prima gli erano state contate" (V. 89) are
given unintelligiblyas "Theseus realized much more still,even before he
was told." Since "accorare" has been takenfor"accorgersi",thatwhatTeseo
now hears saddenshim morethananything toldhimbeforeis totallymissingin
the English. Similarly,in V, 103, "Their injurieshad exhausted bothofthem,
for theywere quite seriouslyhurt"misrepresentsthe Italian "quando cias-
cun di loro, assai ferito,le piaghe si stagnavatuttequante";the reader with
even a modest knowledge of Italian realizes the confusion of "stagnare"
(staunch)with"stancare"(tire,exhaust),togetherwiththeattendantimpos-
sibilitythat"tuttequante" could referto twomales. Other errorssuch as "as
you say" for "come io dico" are surprising,especiallysince the verb is the
rhymeword (V, 23). In the stanza immediatelyfollowingthe translator
renders"senza ordine nessun" [=disordinately]as "withoutanyone'sleave"
thus leavingaside Boccaccio's meaning thatthe guards sinned of theirown
willbyindulgingtheirdisorderedappetites.This erroris even more serious
given the translator's critical opinion that the work constitutes a
"psychomachia"or a "kind of moralityplay" (p. 16).
There are also countlessomissionsof which the followingare, unfortu-
nately,typical:IV, 12: co' suoi; IV, 41: del tutto;IV, 35: l'altrier;V, 32: piu
volte;XI, 32: piu volte.In the Introductorysonnetof Book III, theentireline
(1.12) "e mostrai pattiche con lui fermaro"is missing,and later for "non
degno armentoa la tua deitate,/non lauree corone,e orpur censolmi fossea
sodisfarnecessitate(IV, 44), we read "worthybeasts [. . .] or laurel crowns
[. . .] could satisfy my need."
On theotherhand thereare numerous arbitraryinsertions.For example
"nen questa guisa mi credettientrarenelle camere tue ad abitare"is trans-
lated as "I did not thinkI would enteryourchamberto dwellwithyouin this
fashion."Since Arcitais dead and Emilia is weeping because she is without
him, the insertionis gratuitousand wrong. Other interpellationsare the
resultof mere lapsus or whim.(Consider "e avvisatodello nostroinganno"
(V, 21): "And advised of our nexttrick")
Too often the translationis marred by grammaticalor semantic mis-
construction.For example in III, 6 we read "the trees neared the time of
theirflowering"for"e strettieran dal tempo gli alberi a fiorire."The fact
thattheweather(tempo) compelled (stretti=costretti) the treesto blossomis
lost in the English. It is sad that this error appears in one of the most
beloved and poetic passages of the original.In IV, 36 "Love almostrevived

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 M L N 167

himalthoughhe was close to death"does not in any wayreflect"e'l tramortito

amor quasi rivisse." It is moribund love which is being revived, not
Penteo-Arcita. In IV, 61, the phrase "mostrando/non saper che fosse
amore" is rendered "She did not knowthatshe was loved." Here Boccaccio
wishesto conveythe coynessof Emilia in pretendingthatshe does not know
about love even in the abstract,universalsense, let alone how it mightapply
to her personally.The translationbetraysthe author's delicacy.
Other passages merelyapproximate but do not conveythe whole mean-
ing of the original. For example "di bon core" (V, 27, 39 et passim) is
consistentlytranslatedas "with a stout heart," a rendering which hardly
reflectsthe original sense of "willingly"or "contentedly"in Boccaccio's
text."Per dare esemplo a chiunque il vedea/di confortarsidelle cose sute"
(XI, 10) is rendered as "to givean example to anyone who mightlook to him
for encouragement in those circumstances."The Italian, on the contrary,
means "consolationforthosethingswhichhadcometopass" not"courage" for
presentcircumstancesas the translationsuggests. The phrase "he was re-
ceived like a nobody" for"cosi sconosciuto/. .. fu ricevuto"(IV, 18) failsto
convey the original sense of Arcita'sbeing in disguise and thus welcomed
unrecognized; the Italian "sconosciuto" has none of the social implications
evoked by the imprecisetranslation.Two stanzas below thiswe read, "He
had notheard anythingabouther"for"ne di se cosa alcuna sentiadire." Again
through mistranslationBoccaccio's insistence on the success of Penteo-
Arcita's disguise is omitted. In Stanza 36, XI, the translatorsolemnlyin-
formsus thatTheseus surrenders"his sceptreand ball and loftycrown"to
Arcita'sfuneralpyre;theusual Englishforthe"pomo" ofcoronationregalia
is "orb."
The above samplingis farfromexhaustiveand we mustregretfully note
that few octaves pass withouterror or without need of amendment. A
serious lack of familiarity withmodern and fourteenth-century Italian is all
too obvious. Taken as a whole thisvolume,advertisedas "splendid,""faith-
ful,""a collector'sitem"is a greatdisappointment;as itstandsitcan onlybe
employed withthe greatestcaution and circumspection.One can onlyhope
that the translatorwill correct her solecisms in a completelyoverhauled
revision.

ofIllinois
University ANTHONY K. CASSELL

Ubersetzungund Nachahmungim europdischenPetrarkismus.

Studien und Texte herausgegeben von Luzius Keller (Stutt-
gart:J.B. MetzlerscheVerlagsbuchhandlung,1974. 448 pp.).
Volume settimodelle StudienzurAllgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literatur-
originato-come ci e detto nella breve premessa del curatore-
wissenschaft,

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