 |
 |
 |
This is a note on the reference at Notebook M p.76 opposite to the Rose Window / Wheel of Fortune of San Zenone, San Zeno Maggiore, in Verona. San Leonore in the Ruskin Library Transcript T7A appears to be a simple misreading, perhaps the result of a memory of Scott’s Leonore.
The lines quoted here are from Inferno VII, 60ff:
Or puoi veder, figliuol, la corta buffa
de’ ben che son commessi alla Fortuna,
per che l’umana gente si rabuffa;
Chè tutto l’oro ch’è sotto la luna
E che già fu, di quest’anime stanche
Non poterebbe farne posare una
Cary’s translation, which Ruskin knew and approved, reads:
Now mayst thou see, my son! how brief, how vain,
The goods committed into Fortune’s hands,
For which the human race keep such a coil!
Not all the gold that is beneath the moon,
Or ever hath been, of these toil-worn souls
Might purchase rest for one.’
The passage that follows is concerned with the changing fortunes of states and families. Light is spread equally by God, but worldly wealth and political power shift from state to state and from family to family ‘oltre la difension di senni umani’ (Inf. VII, 81), ‘beyond prevention of man’s wisest care’ (Cary). The first paragraph of the first volume of Stones of Venice suggests the possibility that London might learn lessons which would enable it to escape the destruction of Tyre and Venice. This passage challenges the basis of the argument of Stones of Venice; it suggests a view less likely to be acceptable to those who might wish to justify imperial wealth and power as being God’s reward for superior virtue.
There are five references to Dante in M, at Notebook M p.5, Notebook M p.76, Notebook M p.173, Notebook M p.181, and Notebook M p.199. Four of them refer to a powerful visual image, either from Dante, or in one case seen as being typical of Dante’s style. One of them raises a problem about the extent to which wealth and political power are to be seen as a reward for just behaviour, an issue relevant to central themes in Stones of Venice. Four of them involve direct quotation and in each case the quotations are in Italian. In one case the inaccuracy of the quotation suggests that Ruskin was quoting from memory.
|
|
|
[Version 0.05: May 2008]