Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 - Various - Страница 3

J.F.M. (Vol. i., p. 101.) remarks, "I would venture to throw out a hint, that an edition of this Elegy, exhibiting all the known translations, arranged in double columns, might be made a noble monument to the memory of Gray." It has been asserted that there is scarcely a thought in this Elegy that Gray has not borrowed from some writer, ancient or modern and if this be true, I would take the liberty of adding a hint to that of J.F.M., namely, that the proposed edition should contain a third column, exhibiting all the known plagiarisms in this famous Elegy. To begin with the first line—

Lord Byron, in his notes to the third canto of Don Juan, says that this was adopted from the following passage in Dante's Purgatory, canto viii.:

And it is worthy of notice that this passage corresponds with the first line of Giannini's translation of the Elegy, as quoted by J.F.M.:—

I must add, however, that long before Lord Byron thought of writing Don Juan, Mr. Cary, in his excellent translation of the Italian poet, had noticed this plagiarism in Gray; and what is more, had shown that the principal thought, the "giorno che si muore," was borrowed by Dante from Statius's

St. Lucia, West Indies, Nov. 1850.

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