Divine Comedy

[NakedBear]

Satan was once good. God? He was always bad.

God was normal all through the old testment; then he lost his mind, and now thinks he's Jesus.

Poor chap.

---

Indeed, he really missed a trick .

I didn't think there was any doubt about whether Divina Commedia is worth reading and totally enjoyable. It's beyond criticism, as far as I'm concerned -- but then I'm a terza rima nut and also can't resist a bit of metapoetry wrapped in a rollicking good yarn. I think Pinsky only did Inferno and it's not bad, but I do prefer Longfellow. John Ciardi did a reasonable version as well, and he did the whole trio.

The version in my local library is the Mandelbaum one. Looks pretty readable. And thanks for mentioning Ciardi. I'd overlooked him, and yet his translation looks pretty good to me.

Since the comedy is so deep (so they say) I'll probably read it twice, at least, and so try a different translation with each iteration.

Of those I've look over, the one by Dorothy Sayer seems most to have adhered strict rhyming terza rima. That could be good or bad, depending how far she had to stretch the contents of the original.

So much work even before starting an earnest reading.