The beauty of the fifth canto of _Inferno_ does not depend on the ethical fact that the carnal sinners are punished, but on the poetic fact that their pathetic loves on earth are recalled and that their punishment is vividly, physically dramatized. The tragic pity and terror of it break through the baldest translation stripped of the enchantment of the original verse. Many English poets have been tempted to try to render that famous fifth canto. Mr. Arensberg has made the best version that I have seen. His version is in the _terza rima_, a difficult thing to manage in English, and he succeeds in making a good English poem, a shade finer than a mere _tour de force_. I doubt whether he or any other poet can so well translate the entire _Commedia_ in the same form, though the attempt has been made. The _terza rima_ has never been quite naturalized in our language. Even such a master as Shelley can not turn it perfectly. We imported the sonnet as easily as the apple and we made some French forms grow thriftily in our hardy garden. The _terza rima_ remains artificial and foreign, peculiarly Italian and more peculiarly Dante; he made it his own and moved at ease in its exacting rigidities. He was in thought and form a diabolical magician. In order to show the _terza rima_ in English and to suggest (not to solve!) the problem of translation, let us look at three versions of the last ten lines of the fifth canto of _Inferno_, the story of Paolo and Francesca. Francesca is speaking and tells how she and her lover read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere--romance within romance! First, Norton's clear, deliberately uninspired prose: "When we read of the longed-for smile being kissed by such a lover, this one, who never shall be divided from me, kissed my mouth all trembling. Gallehaut was the book, and he wrote it. That day we read no farther in it!" While the one spirit said this, the other was so weeping that through pity I swooned as if I had been dying, and fell as a dead body falls. Then Longfellow in traditional blank verse (and it is good verse; he knew his business): "When as we read of the much longed-for smile Being by such a noble lover kissed, This one, who ne'er from me shall be divided, Kissed me upon the mouth all palpitating. Galeotto was the book and he who wrote it. That day no farther did we read therein." And all the while one spirit uttered this, The other one did weep so that, for pity, I swooned away as if I had been dying, And fell, even as a dead body falls. Finally, Arensberg in _terza rima_: "When we had read how one so amorous Had kissed the smile that he was longing for, This one, who always must be by me thus, Kissed me upon the mouth, trembling all o'er; Galeot the book, and he 'twas written by! Upon that day in it we read no more."