Dante Translations 1870-1879

Not a busy decade

Dante Translations 1870-1879

The 1870’s was a sparse decade for complete translations of Dante. In the early part, James Ford published the Divine Comedy, a follow-up to his Inferno of 1865. Then, towards the end of the decade, Charles Tomlinson published the Inferno. There is also an unpublished manuscript of an almost complete Divine Comedy by William Charteris that is dated circa 1875. That’s it. There were quite a few partial translations, but they will be covered in a future post.

1870 - James Ford - Divine Comedy*
c. 1875 - William Charteris - Divine Comedy*
1877 - Charles Tomlinson - Inferno*

Translations in my collection are marked with an asterisk. All pictures are from my collection (unless noted). All titles are linked to PDF’s where available. I have a scan of the Charteris, not the original.

1870 - James Ford - Divine Comedy

In this journey exploring the different English translations of Dante, I try to find something interesting about each one, be it about the translation, the translator, or something that can, in some way, connect to either of those. Sometimes it’s a struggle. I call these translations, for lack of a better term, ‘generic.’ Ford’s translation falls in this group. It is not horrible, it is not good. It just is.

Ford published his translation The Divina Commedia of Dante. Translated into English Verse¹ in 1870, five years after his Inferno. In that interim he did not publish Purgatorio or Paradiso separately. I already discussed Ford for his 1865 Inferno in Dante Translations 1860-1869, but I will rehash a bit.

Ford’s attitude towards Terza Rima

The only thing that stood out for me was Ford’s attitude in the Preface when explaining his reasoning for sticking with terza rima for his translation, the sixth translator² to do so.

No one will argue that in translation a work loses something from the original. Ford, in his Preface, builds on this by adding there is a loss of something tangibly important when changing from the original form of the poem (terza rima). It is understandably acknowledged that terza rima is much more difficult to accomplish in English as we have fewer perfect rhymes and in ‘forcing’ a translation into terza rima we are “often obliged to dilute the sense.”³ Yet the “very rhyme of the original appears to be absolutely required to represent the full rhythmic force and spirit of the Poem.”⁴ Essentially, what I feel he is saying is in the process of translation you always lose a bit of meaning and the best one could do is strive to capture its ‘spirit,’ and terza rima is an essential part of that ‘spirit.’

Though I greatly enjoy all types of translations, I personally prefer those in terza rima and, in fact, agree with him.

c. 1875 - William Charteris - Divine Comedy

Sitting in the British Library is a manuscript of the Divine Comedy⁵ dated circa 1875 and attributed to Reverend William Charteris.

Before I delve into this manuscript I want to apologize for the somewhat blurry images below. The British Library would not do scans, I don’t remember why, so I hired a researcher in England to take photos of each page which he did with his phone, and though some of the images are a bit out of focus, the majority, with the help of a strong pair of reading glasses, are quite legible.

Why, yes, you read that right. I hired a researcher in another country to take photos of a book. And yes, it is a bit crazy to hire someone to take pictures of a couple hundred pages of a manuscript, but what else is a “passionate” collector to do? Sadly, this is not the only time I have done this.

The Unpublished Manuscript

What is known about Charteris’ translation is in a letter attached to the opening page of the manuscript from a London bookseller and publisher, Bertram Dobell, dated September 10, 1913. The letter was to Paget Toynbee. It states:

Dear Sir,

I am sorry I cannot give you any information on the Dante translations. They were bought with a quantity of other MSS [manuscripts] at Hodgson’s⁶ about six months ago. The notes written in the books are not mine, but those of some former possessor.

Yours truly,
B. Dobell

What I find most interesting is that the letter says there were multiple “Dante translations … bought with a quantity of other MSS.” What were these other translations? Were they also in manuscript? I am trying to find a listing of this auction to see the items auctioned. It is harder than you think. Finding it would shed light on this tantalyzing bit and possibly reveal other unpublished translations!

A Fascinating Tangent…

A side note about Bertram Dobell. He was also a poet who, in 1901, privately printed a poetry collection, which was later published in 1904, called Rosemary and Pansies. In it he included some of the first haiku ever written in English. Not the first, but pretty darn close. The haiku form was so new to English readers at the time that Dobell “considered it necessary to include a footnote explaining what a haiku was.”⁷ Here is a popular haiku from that collection:

You laughed while I wept,
Yet my tears and your laughter
Had only one source.⁸

I included this bit of information because haiku are an important part of my life. In December of 2013 I started exchanging haiku every day with my best friend Tom via text. Eleven years and six months later we are still sending each other haiku everyday. Well, almost everyday, but we do catch up with the correct number of haiku at the end of every month. So, finding a tie-in, though very tangential, to Dante is very exciting to me!

…The Unpublished Manuscript - Continued

Attached below the letter above is a short blurb as to who the Rev. William Charteris was:

The Rev. W. Charteris was at all events a Church of Scotland Missionary at Smyrna in 1880. The Church of Scotland started a mission in Alexandria in 1858.

Smyrna is in Turkey and is now known as Izmir. Alexandria is in Egypt. This cryptic note left me scratching my head, specifically the Alexandria bit. After hours (literally) of digging I found the relevance and a source for the information in this note. Here is the abbreviated version.

Charteris was born in Wamphray, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, July 27, 1810.⁹ He was educated at the University of Glasgow, and was ordained by London Presbytery in 1845 then was sent as a Missionary to the Jews in Corfu, an island off of Greece, and was there until 1864.¹⁰ In 1865 he became the Administrator to the Alderney Presbyterian Church on the Channel Islands, a group of independent islands in the English Channel, through 1869. He was then sent to Smyrna (Turkey) in 1870, then to Alexandria, Egypt, in 1875.¹¹ Around 1879 he was back in Smyrna where he spent the last six years of his life. He passed away on November 25, 1885.¹² His only publication was a Translation of the Shorter Catechism into Modern Greek.¹³

Interestingly, Charteris was the uncle of Archibald Hamilton Charteris, “Professor of Biblical Criticism and Biblical Antiquities in the University of Edinburgh; Chaplain to their late majesties Queen Victoria and King Edward [VII], and one of the Deans of the Chapel Royal of Scotland.”¹⁴

The Manuscript - a Transcription

Pictured below is the first page of the manuscript, Canto 1 of the Inferno. Charteris’ translation on this page runs 66 lines, but it corresponds with lines 1-45 of the original. The transcription follows the image. There are two places where I can’t quite figure out a word. Any help would be appreciated! If you are interested, leave a comment and I will email you this page. It got a bit blurrier when I posted it.

The Transcription - Inferno, Canto 1, lines 1-45:

When I was in my manhood’s prime
I spent a night ah! dreary time
Within a gloomy wood,
Far from the path direct astray.
Ah me, it pains me still today 5
How wild and rough and rude,
That forest was; the very thought
Of it, wherein to memory brought,
Renews my former dread!
A pang so bitter it recals, [sic] 10
That, scarce more hardly ever falls
The blows that strike one dead!
Yet how from evil good arose,
If in my verse I would disclose,
Of other things I now must tell 15
Which in that scene were taught me well.

I know not how I thither came,
Such drowsiness crept o’er my frame
That I the right path lost.
At length, beneath a hill I stood 20
Which terminates that vale and wood
Wherein my heart was tost*
With horror great, I upward gaze,
And see that now begin to graze,
Its shoulders broad, the welcome rays 25
Of the bright orb of day,
That guides Mankind, whate’er their load;
Then felt I less the fear that flowed
Through my heart’s depths, when all abroad,
Wrought in me such dismay, 30
Throughout the night which I had past*,
Night with such terrors over cast!
Now as the sailor brave,
Who with short breath and wearied arm,
Has gained the shore when free of harm, 35
From wave that follows wave,
Found him and the stars upon the sea,
Whence he escaped so perilously,
With reeling mind I turned to gaze
Upon that gorge whose devious ways, 40
None who them[?]* ever trode*, attained
Alive the footing I had gained.

Brief space I rested to restore
My weary limbs; then travelled o’er
The dreary waste, one foot before 45
The hinder firmly placed.
Lo! at the base of the ascent
A nimble Lynx, too near me bent
Its course, its speckled skin all blent*
With spots its form that graced; 50
Nor bounded off, at sight of me,
But my slow pace, to such degree,
Impeded, that I turned to flee
Once, twice, so much I feared,
But I was cheered by early morn 55
And while the sun was higher borne
With all the stars that so adorn
His system, and appeared
With him, when God, in love divine,
First gave them motion, bade them shine, 60
Proof he delighted..[?]* to combine
The beautiful and good,
That savage creature’s gaudy hide
And bearing air of morning tide,
Created hope, made fear subside 65
My ground I firmly stood.

* (all above asterisks listed by line number)
line 22 - tossed.
line 31 - passed.
line 41 - It looks like “them,” but that doesn’t make sense.
line 41 - trod.
line 49 - blended.
line 61 - the word looks like “delightible,” but that’s not a word. Maybe “delighted,” but there seems to be an extra character or two connected at the end.

The overall rhyme scheme is quite interesting. The first stanza of 16 lines consists of two sestets and a final quatrain of rhyming couplets:
AABCCB DDEFFE GGHH.

The next stanza of 26 lines consists of a sestet, an octave, a sestet, then another sestet of rhyming couplets:
AABCCB DDDEFFFE GGHIIH JJKKLL

The third stanza is 48 lines consisting of six octaves with the last one in rhyming couplets. Only the first three octaves are shown above. The last three are on page two, but the rhyme scheme is thus:
AAABCCCB DDDEFFFE GGGHIIIH JJJKLLLK MMMNOOON PPQQRRSS

The stanza following this goes back to the same rhyme scheme as the first stanza of 16 lines. It looks like the poem might follow the above three stanza pattern, but parts do seem to look a bit messy. I have not fully studied or transcribed the rest as of yet. Definitely a potential deep dive for a future post.

1877 - Charles Tomlinson - Inferno

In 1877 Charles Tomlinson published A Vision of Hell: The Inferno of Dante Translated into English Tierce Rhyme.¹⁵ Like Ford, it would fall under “generic” for me, and like Ford, it is in terza rima, the seventh to do so.

The best part of Tomlinson’s translation is not his Inferno, but rather the 37 page essay titled “Dante and His Translators” where he criticizes“almost every major translator of Dante into English who had ever set pen to paper.”¹⁶ Further, he arrogantly announces “a practical demonstration of how the task should be done.”¹⁷

The essay opens up with Tomlinson stating it is “the duty of the translator to convey the exact sense, and, as far as possible, the spirit of a poem.”¹⁸ Then he jumps into an example of what not to do by using John Dryden’s translation of Virgil (1697) where he criticizes Dryden for editing his translation to conform to social norms. Tomlinson points out that Dryden said of his own translation of Virgil, “for these village words, as I may call them, give us a mean idea of the thing” and continues, “to men and ladies of the first quality, who have been better bred than to be more nicely knowing in the terms.” Basically, what Dryden is saying is if it was offensive in any way he changed it, “[s]ome things I have omitted, and sometimes have added, of my own.”¹⁹ Tomlinson is highly offended by this and states, “to follow the author whether he deal with commonplace or noble objects … it is necessary to render Dante's familiar and even vulgar illustrations, without any attempt to make them polite.”²⁰ He even accuses previous translators, not unfairly, for censoring parts of the Inferno, i.e. following Dryden’s example.

I don’t have time to do a close reading of every aspect covered in this essay, but want to finish up with a final word. His criticisms begin with Charles Rogers (Inferno 1782) and go through the major translations ending with William Michael Rossetti (Inferno 1865). Yes, he missed a few, but he essentially names all the major translators and even a few of the partials, too. This man was really full of himself. It reminded me of a book I read on the art of translation by Burton Raffel who held nothing back. Slammed the work of other translators and even had the audacity to name names! The Tomlinson had this same vibe to me.

I enjoy the bluster of the intellectual snobbery rampant in the 19th century. If you do too, then I encourage you to read the essay. Just click on Tomlinson’s Inferno link at the beginning of this section. Let me know in the comments below.

1. Ford, James. The Divina Commedia of Dante. Translated into English Verse. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1870.

2. The translators who chose terza rima before Ford: John Dayman, Inferno 1843, Comedy 1865; Charles Bagot Cayley, Comedy 1851-1854; Thomas Brooksbank, Inferno, 1854; John Wesley Thomas, Comedy, 1859-1866; Claudia Hamilton Ramsey, Comedy, 1862-1865.

3. Ford, James. The Divina Commedia of Dante. Translated into English Verse. London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1870, p. ix.

4. Ibid, p. xi.

5. Charteris, William. Divine Comedy. Unpublished Manuscript. British Library, c.1875.

6. Founded by Robert Saunders circa 1807. He was joined by Edmund Hodgson who took control in 1828. Hodgson's sons, Barnard Becket Hodgson and Henry Hill Hodgson took over in 1867. In 1900 Henry Hill Hodgson was succeeded by his two sons, John Edmund Hodgson and Sidney Hodgson; the latter's son, Wilfrid Hodgson, became a partner in 1947. In 1967, the firm was taken over by Sotheby's.

“Hodgson’s & Co.” The British Museum. Accessed 27 May 2025. 2025.https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG31701

7. https://interestingliterature.com/2023/03/best-examples-of-haiku-poems/

8. https://www.bbcmaestro.com/blog/haiku-rules-for-poets

9. Find a Grave, database and images: memorial page for Rev William Charteris (27 Jul 1810–25 Nov 1885). Find a Grave Memorial ID 229898802. Citing Wamphray Parish Church Cemetery, Newton Wamphray, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Accessed 8 June 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/229898802/william-charteris

10. Seymour, A. A. D. “The Least Known Lord High: A Note on James Stewart Mackenzie.” The Ionian Islands: Aspects of their History and Culture. Edited by Anthony Hirst and Patrick Sammon. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, p. 163.

11. Scott, Hew. Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: The Succession of Ministers in the Church of Scotland from the Reformation, vol. 7: Synods of Ross, Sutherland and Caithness, Glenelg, Orkney and of Shetland, the Church in England, Ireland and Overseas. Vol. VII. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928, p. 714.

12. Find a Grave, database and images: memorial page for Rev William Charteris (27 Jul 1810–25 Nov 1885). Find a Grave Memorial ID 229898802. Citing Wamphray Parish Church Cemetery, Newton Wamphray, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Accessed 8 June 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/229898802/william-charteris

13. Gordon, Arthur. The Life of Archibald Hamilton Charteris. London and New York, Hodder and Stoughton, 1912, p. 390.

14. ibid, p. iii.

15. Tomlinson, Charles. A Vision of Hell: The Inferno of Dante Translated into English Tierce Rhyme; with an Introductory Essay on Dante and his Translators. London, S. W. Partridge and Co., 1877.

16. Cunningham, Gilbert F. The Divine Comedy in English, A Critical Bibliography, 1782-1900. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd, 1965, p. 117.

17. Ibid.

18. Tomlinson, Charles. A Vision of Hell: The Inferno of Dante Translated into English Tierce Rhyme; with an Introductory Essay on Dante and his Translators. London, S. W. Partridge and Co., 1877, p. 1.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid, p. 1-2.