" This
reading, beside being supported by the weight of ancient authority,
finds confirmation, in the context, in the terms in which Sordello's
aspect is described: "How lofty and disdainful didst thou stand! how
slow and decorous in the moving of thy eyes!"
A curious example of the mistakes of the old copies is afforded in the
charming description of the Terrestrial Paradise in the twenty-eighth
canto of the _Purgatory_. Dante says, that the leaves on the trees,
trembling in the soft air, were not so disturbed that the little birds
in their tops ceased from any of their arts,--
che gli augelletti per le cime
Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte.
The lines are so plain that a mistake is difficult in them; but, of our
four editions, the Jesi is the only one which gives them correctly.
Foligno and Naples read _angeleti_ for _augelletti_, while Mantua gives
us the astonishing word _intelletti_. Again, in line 98 of the same
canto, all four read, _exaltation dell' acqua_, for the simple and
correct _esalazion dell' acqua_. And in line 131, for _Eunoe si
chiama_, Jesi supplies the curious word _curioce si chiama_.
These examples of error are not of great importance in themselves, and
are easily corrected, but they serve to illustrate the great frequency
of error in all the early texts of the "Divina Commedia," and the
probability that many errors not so readily discovered may still exist
in the text, making difficulties where none originally existed.
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