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Excerpt from The Vision of Dante Alighieri, Vol. 2: Purgatory
It is undoubtedly a natural description of the manners and habits of a ¿ock of sheep; but what truth, what sublimity, what beauty you can see in comparing a crowd of spirits, or ghosts, to them, I cannot conceive. If sheep are such silly imitators of their leader, why are we to suppose a troop of ghosts would all put their eyes and noses to the ground because the first might do so, in the same sort of ambition with which the clown tumbles after Harlequin and so I can discern no apposition in this vaunted simile, without which a simile is but on a level with his, who said, 'even as a wheelbarrow goes rumble rumble, even so that man lends another sixpence.
Although Cary began his translation with the Purgatorio, the first portion published was the Inferno, which appeared in two volumes in 180 5 and 1806, accompanied by the Italian text. In his original preface (which was omitted in later editions) Cary gives an account of his motives in making the translation, and he incidentally furnishes an interesting criticism on the version of Henry Boyd, which had been published in 1802.
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