Note by Griffith:
I omit Canto V. which corresponds to chapter XI. in Gorresio’s edition.
That scholar justly observes: “The eleventh chapter, Description of
Evening, is certainly the work of the Rhapsodists and an interpolation of
later date. The chapter might be omitted without any injury to the action
of the poem, and besides the metre, style, conceits and images differ from
the general tenour of the poem; and that continual repetition of the same
sounds at the end of each hemistich which is not exactly rime, but
assonance, reveals the artificial labour of a more recent age.”
The following sample will probably be enough.
Fair shone the moon, as if to lend
His cheering light to guide a friend,
And, circled by the starry host,
Looked down upon the wild sea-coast.
The Vánar cheiftain raised his eyes,
And saw him sailing through the skies
Like a bright swan who joys to take
His pastime on a silver lake;
Fair moon that calms the mourner’s pain.
Heaves up the waters of the main,
And o’er the life beneath him throws
A tender light of soft repose,
The charm that clings to Mandar’s hill,
Gleams in the sea when winds are still,
And decks the lilly’s opening flower,
Showed in that moon her sweetest power.
I am unable to show the difference of style in a translation.