An Observation, a Translation, and an Opinion
The chapter headings are excerpts from publicity material for the spook shows
of the 1930’s through the 1950’s. I’ve shaded Fernando’s show more towards the
gore horror of the 1940’s and 1950’s shows, rather than towards the gentler
affairs of the early thirties. Most spook shows took place in movie palaces, but
there were always influences passing back and forth between them and the more
socially respectable magic acts of the day.
What Wolfe is reciting in Italian, to guide Archie to him at the Inferno, are
the words spoken by Dante to Brunetto Latini in hell. Latini was Dante’s old
teacher and mentor, who Dante finds showered with fire among the sodomites,
those held to be violent to nature. In case you’re interested, the Pinsky
translation of the lines is:
“Could I have everything for which I long,
You would not still endure this banishment
Away from human nature,” I replied.
“Your image---dear, fatherly, benevolent---
Being fixed inside my memory, has imbued
My heart: when in the fair world, hour by hour
You taught me, patiently, it was you who showed
The way man makes himself eternal; therefore,
The gratitude I feel toward you makes fit
That while I live, I should declare it here.
And what you tell me of my future, I write---”
(Robert Pinsky: 1994)
The way to eternity referred to in this passage is to perform one’s true
vocation with such excellence as to garner fame that will last past death.
The Italian is included in the Pinsky edition, and is copyright Arnoldo
Mondadori Editore S.p.A. Milano (1991)
I don’t know which of Shakespeare’s sonnets Wolfe chose, but I would be willing
to bet it was the twenty-seventh.