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Messrs. Ginn & Company kindly printed for us three specimen pages without charge, and these, together with comparisons of prose and verse words in many different places, make this plan of arranging the material appear quite feasible. Its obvious advantages recommend it strongly.

The preparation of the cards for printing was practically finished before the end of the calendar year 1903, though the cards were afterward numbered by Mr. White and a few changes were made in the present year. Through Professor Norton and Dr. Moore, the editor of the Oxford Dante, the plan was brought to the notice of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, and in a letter to Professor Norton was expressed their willingness to print the Concordance. The manuscript was sent to Oxford about the end of March and notice of its receipt came before the end of April. The terms suggested for the publication by the Clarendon Press are very satisfactory, being much more liberal than it had appeared possible to obtain in this country. A member of the Society had already generously offered to be responsible for the money needed for the publication.

Some further information about the Concordance, including some approximate figures, may be in place here.

1. Size of the Book. By the omissions mentioned above and by keeping the mention of variant readings within very narrow limits it has been made possible, it is believed, to prevent the whole from occupying much more space than is taken by Professor Fay's corresponding work for the Divina Commedia. All the Italian verse in the Oxford Dante - other than the Divina Commedia — is included (with the few exceptions noted above), as well as some additional sonnets expected to appear in the third edition of that book. The total number of cards is 44,495 (the additional sonnets will cause an increase of 163, making in all 44,658), but a certain number of these contain more than the equivalent of one printed line each, while on the other hand sometimes one card may be combined with one or more others to make a single line. Allowance must also be made for a number of cross references. It is thought that the whole, inclusive of the necessary prefatory explanations, will not exceed nine hundred pages of the size seen in Professor Fay's Concordance.

It is intended to insert in the preface a comparative table exhibiting the differences in arrangement of the poems of the Canzoniere in other editions.

2. Arrangement of Quotations and References. The Canzoni come first in the verse, and among them those in the Vita Nuova take the first place, followed by those in the Convivio, the other Canzoni coming last in this group. Next come the Sestine, then the Ballate (beginning with the one in the Vita Nuova), then the Sonetti (those in the Vita Nuova preceding the others), then the Sette Salmi Penitenziali, and finally the Professione di Fede. For the prose the quotations from the Vita Nuova precede those from the Convivio. Within these various divisions the quotations are arranged in the order of the text except when a passage is anticipated because it is nearly or quite identical with one occurring earlier and is combined with that on one card.

3. Variant Readings and Doubtful Questions. Only a few variant readings have been admitted, the general principle being to admit such only when the text of the Oxford edition seemed so difficult if not even impossible that it was necessary to do so. In some cases where the question was one of punctuation the passage quoted (as in that edition) was yet so given as at least to suggest the possibility of a different punctuation and interpretation (cf. Canz. x. 150).

In some more or less difficult passages a decision had to be made before a certain word could be entered according to the general plan followed. It is believed that everything can be easily found, though it is not to be expected that every one will agree with the decision made in this or that case. Thus, intento in V. N. 19. 94 is entered as a noun, not as a participle, and the following word, trattato, is taken as a participle and put under trattare, not as a noun. The word altri is sometimes a singular pronoun, but in some cases it may also be taken as the plural of altro. The references for altro must be supplemented, in order to cover all doubtful cases, by consulting also altri, and vice versa. So, too, those for ciò are not absolutely complete without inclusion of cioè, conciofossecosachè, etc., and a similar thing may be said of secondo (prep.) and secondochè, avvenire and avvegnachè. It is not always easy to say at once whether uno is the indefinite article (which is not included) or the numeral. Under

bene the adverb and the noun are not distinguished and the same is true of male; and under solo no distinction is made between the use as adjective and that as adverb. In many cases Professor Grandgent's opinion was asked and it was freely given whenever asked, though the demands thus made on his time alone were not inconsiderable. But he is not to be held responsible for any decisions taken.

4. Cross References. These have been introduced to a considerable extent. The many different forms of words, as core and cuore, virtù, virtude, and virtute, frode and fraude, it seemed necessary to enter separately, and where the forms were not consecutive a cross reference was desirable. Where the difference was insignificant, for example, where it would not affect metre or rhyme, the general principle was to put all the passages quoted under one heading, but the other spelling was of course given with a reference to the one preferred. Where, on the other hand, the difference seemed more significant, each form was entered with its quotations, and reference was made from each one to the other or others. But of the two possible spellings in such words as sforzare, isforzare the second has been ignored, all such cases being entered only under the one without the initial, that is, under s; and for verbs compounded with dis there is no reference to corresponding forms having s only as the prefix, and vice versa. Some real or apparent inconsistencies will,

it is hoped, be pardoned.

5. Comparison of Prose and Verse. Of the total number of cards 33,094 (now 33,096, for two of the cards for the lately added sonnets are cross-reference cards for words occurring in prose only) are for the prose and 11,401 (now 11,562) are for the verse. From this it appears that the entries for prose are almost three times as many as those for verse. It is true that the number of cards is not the same as the number of occurrences of all the words entered, but this proportion is nearly enough correct for the relation of prose to verse as it would appear on the average on the printed pages. Individual pages will, however, vary considerably from this average.

The number of words and word forms entered as headings is not in this proportion when we compare verse and prose. Here a word of caution is necessary. None of the following figures can be taken

as absolutely exact; they are for the most part only approximations, the result of a rough count. The numerous variant forms make an exact count somewhat difficult; yet the numbers here given, inexact as they are, are not without interest. For the prose the total number of words and word forms entered is probably somewhat under 4000; for the verse the corresponding number is over 2300; that is, more than half as many as in the prose. It would seem also that for each word of the prose there are on the average between eight and nine occurrences, while for each word of the verse the average number of occurrences is about five. This is not surprising when we remember how much less verse there is than prose to be compared.

The divergence from the average numbers just given for the occurrences of the words in prose and verse respectively is often very great. In the (approximately) 4000 entries for the prose the number of cards (here pretty accurately known) for individual words varies from 1 up to 402 (for cosa), and the word parte has 358 cards. For the verse the variations are not so great, but they are still considerable, a minimum of 1 contrasting with such figures as 175 (for amore), 135 (for cuore). Let us compare prose and verse for these and a few other words where the figures can be given pretty exactly. Against the 402 cards for cosa in prose we find 44 for the same word in verse, and the 358 in prose for parte contrast even more strongly with 28 in verse; cuore has in prose 46, in verse 130 (this case is remarkable as showing a much higher number for verse than for prose); cominciare has in prose 136, in verse 8; ragione has in prose 212, in verse 17; while amore shows nearly equal numbers, - 185 in prose, 175 in verse.

But the most surprising results are seen when the words represented by a single card, and therefore in most cases occurring only once in prose or only once in verse, are counted. In the rough count made some time ago proper names, Latin words, and the less important variant forms of words were omitted. The number of prose words with only one card each appeared to be between 1100 and 1200, or, to put it in different language, more than a fourth of the prose words seem to occur only once each in prose. For the one-card words in the verse a similar result was found. Of these there are about 900 (the new sonnets previously not counted adding

some 40 to the old list and causing a certain number of others to disappear). A comparison with the prose vocabulary indicates that over 550 of these — considerably more than half — do not occur at all in the prose. This suggested another count, made with the same omissions, from which it appeared that of the verse words with more than one card each there are only about 220 which do not occur at all in the prose; that is, the proportion of such words is much smaller than in the case of the one-card words.

The two lists of words in verse which are not found in the prose contain a certain number of unusual words or forms, but it would be a mistake to suppose that most of them are unusual; a large number are common enough words, and the nonappearance of these 770 or more words in the prose is due in great part to the nature of the subjects treated by Dante in his prose; he simply had no occasion to use them.

It is obvious that further comparisons could be made in which the vocabulary of the Divina Commedia should receive its proper share of attention. One might also, for instance, examine the words which occur more or less frequently in the prose but are entirely absent from the verse.

E. S. SHELDON.

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