48 Variations of Dante (and/as variations of the work of caroline bergvall (off dante))
Error lay at the source of all change, all species experiment. It was the author of all the still emerging undesignable variations on life… The ability of traits to persist in stillness. Evolution is the exception, stability the rule…yet faulty copying (of generic information) is the only agency for change…Species laugh off the most rigorous hierarchy… The aim is to widen the target, to embrace more than was possible before.
- misquoted Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations
by using the word generic in stead of genetic.
… who works at his (her) own word in all of our sentences might trick from even the ruts of once ritual the buts and mistakes that token the actual. The poet as maker frees the thing from the prophets.
- Robert Duncan, footnote to “Letters for Denise Leverton; An A Muse Ment”
- quoted from Kathleen Fraser’s essay Faulty Copying from Translating the Unspeakable, Poetry and the Innovative Necessity.
1.along the jouney ofour life half way
I found myself along the jouney in a darwood where the path no longer lay
2.at the midpoit of my life Ifound myself o a jouney
the strait path therein lay vanished
3alfwayway over the way of our life
missed the struggle way
4.halfway along the forest obscured by the lost way
I faltered
the path
5.halfway along our journey I had woken in wonder
at the point no longer half the way astray
6halway through thi treckoflife
I found myself halfway and half to go
7halfay through our treck in life I found myself halway
in a dark wood and I didn’t know whee to go
88halfway upon the journey
I found myself in a gloomy wood reasoning the path direct as lost
9halfway alonf the journey of my life
I roused to find myself in darknes
and I faltered because the waywas really lost
10in the middle of our journey
I found myself in a darkened wood
and I rasoned the right road was lost for good
11.. In our lifes journey at its midway stag
I found myself wooded obscur-ly
to the right path that obscured me
12 I our lifes journey at the midway stage
I found myself on the path where the path was obscure
where the right path, guding y lost
13in the middle of our life
I the path
of our journey
I found myself lost
in the middle of the road
14,in the middle of my life as a journey I came upon my life as a midwy point
in a darke wood for the strait road was more lost
15 IN the middle of my life as a journey I came across myself
withi a dark wood where the strait road was lost
16in the middle of my life as a journey
I came across myself astray in a darkened wood
where the srait road was lost out odf sight
17 IN the middle of my life as a journey I found myself in dark wood: for thestrait was lost
18 in the middle of a morta life
I wandered into a dark forest of darksome wwod
whee the true true road could no longer
be seen.
19 in the midtime of my life
I foud yself in a darsky wood lost
20 in the midway ofthis mortal life
I reawoke inside myself
A darker wood off the course lost…
21 just half way I woke to fing myself inside a dark wood of the course off the right road.
22midway along the path of the road high in our days
I found myself within a shaky woodf where the strit path tangled and lostt
23 Midway along the jpourbney of my life
I woke to find myself in some dark woods
Four I hasd wandered from the path..
23midway along the path of our lives
I woke to find myself in some woods
For I had wandered of the strait path.
24. Miday along thespan of our natural life’s road
I woke in the dark
25 Midway in the jouney
I went astray
From the strait road the way and woke up to me self
Alone
26 midway in the journey in our kife I found meself
In a dark wood for the strat road was lost.
27 MIDWAY LIFES Journey I was aware
That I had served the dark
And right up to the forest the path stopped and appeared not nowhere…
28,.midway Midway on lifes journey I found myself
In a dark wood the righrt road lost
29.. Midway on the journey of our life I found myself within
A darksome woood, for the right way was lost and lost so bloody losrt.
30Mway the path of life that men persue
Found me in a darkwoosd astratty
The way has been lost
31. Midwaythis way of lifewe are bound upon,
I woke to find myself in a dark woodb
Where theright road was lost and stolen
33. MIDWAY uupon the joyuney of my days
I found myself in a wood so dreer
The direxct path owhee met my gaze
34 Midway upon the journey of my life
I found myself in a deep forest dark
fOr the path direct hAD Failed to keep
3535. Midway upon the jouney of yomy life
Our life, I found myself in a dark forest the right road lost
356 MidWAY Upon the journey ogf my life
357 I found myself in a forest dark
358 Forthestrat rioad has been lost
37. Midway upon the jouney of our life
I fond myself in a dark forewood
Soo dark the right road could not be found.
38 MIDWAY upon the hjourney of our life I woke to find myself astray in a dark wood Confused by the strait ways if my life
39. MIDWAY upon the pathway of life of life
I found myself within a darksome wood
Wherein in the proper road was lost to view.
40.. MIDWAY upon the road of our life
I found myself within a wood missed
41.. on the travelling way of ones life half
I gfound myself in a darkforest when…
I lost the path the path was narrow and too strat
42Upon ther midway piint of the journey
I found myself ij a dark wood
Where the strit darkling wood
Where .. I had gone astray
43 UPON the JOURNEy of our life halvesd
I found myself gloomy
For I had missed the proper path
44 Upon the journey of life midway
I car upon myself in a dark wood
Far from the the self strat the path astray
45. Upon the journey miwayI found myself in a dark wood
46…When halfway through the journeyi found myself in a gloomy wood
Lost lost lost
47 When I had journeyed half our lifeaway
I found myself shadowed ing thefores
For I had the path lost in the shadowed forest
For Ihad lostthe path that doees not stray.
Caroline Bergvall’s arrangement of Dante’s The Divine Comedy-Pt. 1 Inferno-Canto’s 1-(1-3) as translated by 1 Dale 1996, 2 Creagh and Hollander 1989, 3 Musgrove 1893, 4 Sisson 1980, 5 Zappulla 1998, 6 Heaney 1993, 7 Ellis 1994, 8 Pollock 1854, 9 Johnson 1915, 10 Sibbald 1884, 11 Rosetti 1865, 12 Johnston 1867, 13 Schwerner 2000, 14 Durling 1996, 15 Sinclair 1939, 16 Heaney 1993, 17 John A. Carlyle 1844, 18 Chaplin 1913, 19 Shaw 1913, 20 Cary 1805, 21 Phillips 1983, 22 Wheeler 1911, 23 Musa 1971, 24 Forster 1961, 25 Ciadri 1996, 26 Singleton 1970, 27 Binyon 1933, 28 Pinsky 1994, 29 Sullivan 1893, 30 Anderson 1921, 31 Sayer 1949, 32 Bodey 1938, 33 Broksbank 1854, 34 Wilstach 1888, 35 Vincent 1904, 36 Longfellow 1867, 37 MacKenzie 1979, 38 Bickersteth 1955, 39 Edwarden 1915, 40 Norton 1891, 41 Arndt 1994, 42 Minchin 1885, 43 Pike 1881, 44 Fletcher 1931, 45 Cayley 1851, 46 Langdon 1918, 47 Mandelbaum 1980. Transcripted without asking or checking by Majena Mafe 2008, after reading each passage once, typing it down out along the path with one finger by the light of the dark without looking ahead...whilst sitting halfway in a dark-tree’d place halfway along. Repeaten the repeat repeatedly.
Text references
Bergville, Caroline. Fig. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2005.
Dante. The Divine Comedy pt. 1 Inferno-Canto 1-(1-3)
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che la diritta via era smarrita
Fraser, Kathleen. Translating the Unspeakable, Poetry and the Innovative Necessity, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2000.
Images of the ‘dark forest’ by majena mafe