The Elegia of Madonna Fiammetta Sent by Her to Women in Love.

Two new translations of Boccaccio's Elegia have come out in recent years. The translators aim both to contribute to the decade's translation at last of many of Boccaccio's less well-known works, and also to cater to the market in feminist studies for books by or about women. Both intend to be useful in the classroom, and Payne and Olsen hope to interest a popular readership as well. The two translations differ in their principles of translation, their Italian texts, and their introductions.

The Causa-Steindler and Mauch translation (University of Chicago Press, 1990) is based on the more recent editions of Maier and Segre; Payne and Olsen have used instead the older but still widely accepted text edited by Bianchi, Salinari and Sapegno. Both translations append a glossary of classical names and include some bibliography, though the Causa-Steindler bibliography is considerably more extensive.

Causa-Steindler and Mauch, besides offering in a standard introduction a biography of the author and the sources and influences of the text, present the book as a psychological novel and Fiammetta as "an outspoken feminist" (xvii), a reading I find dubious. Payne and Olsen, omitting the usual introductory topics, focus instead on the connection of this work to other works by Boccaccio, and conclude, in quite an opposite reading, that Fiammetta "represents the antifeminist stereotype of the sensual woman, the fallen Eve" (3). Indeed, they offer their translation as a contribution to the history of medieval misogynist literature. Their reading follows the lead of Hollander and Smarr, whom they frequently cite. They note, in support of their position, that although the Elegia is in many ways the reverse of the Filostrato, Fiammetta is portrayed just as negatively as Criseida; betrayer or betrayed, the woman is always wrong.

The principles of translation explicitly aim at being easily readable by American undergraduates, at the sacrifice of Boccaccio's complex sentence structures, which the Causa-Steindler and Mauch translation sought to preserve. Unfortunately, the result, while generally in an accessible modern English, alters not only the structure of Boccaccio's sentences but, more importantly, their sense. Thus, for example, just on the opening page, we find: "my reason for weeping grows rather than diminishes through long habit. Therefore, noble ladies, . . . it pleases me to tell my story and, if I can, to make you compassionate" (13). Lost here is the connective (accio che) which indicates that Fiammetta is seeking to create compassion in order to increase her own reason for weeping, since, as she has just commented, people lament even more when they realize they are pitied.

Other errors follow rather thickly. "I reject men as much as I can: . . . I would hear disdainful laughter rather than see pitying tears because I would imagine other men to be like him" (13). Rather, Fiammetta is saying that she wants to keep her book away from men because they are more likely to scoff than to pity her. Below on the same page we read "if your fortunes are stable like mine;" but Fiammetta has said "poco stabile" i.e., unstable. Other portions of the book, though not free from occasional flaws (e.g., "Ne prima il concreato furore trapassava, che le lagrime abbondevolissimamente per gli occhi uscissero" becomes "The fury thus created did not pass, but the tears flowed from my eyes abundantly" [56]), are generally better translated than this opening section, but such details are important for any classroom use of this text. In sum, the translation, while frequently all right, is simply not reliable.

The combination of a less accurate translation and the high price of the Peter Lang edition would make me avoid ordering this text for students. However, I would also warn students for whom I ordered the Causa-Steindler and Mauch translation, which is on the whole quite good, not to pay too much attention to their interpretation of the work, or else to take a good look at Payne's and Olsen's as well.

Janet L. Smarr UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, URBANA-CHAMPAIGN