Please excuse me if this shows up twice.  I've noticed that sometimes
when I use "reply" in my mailer it doesn't (and that seems to be the
case once again so I'm just going to mail this.)


> If we know the edition used by Eliot, what could possibly be the
> justification for using a different edition? I can understand your
> passion for wanting to do everything on the internet, because I too
> like the lazy fantasy of never getting out of one's chair.

You would have a hard time convincing me that Eliot, who knew Latin
and French, would take the English translation at face value.
Especially since the Temple Classics edition provides, I believe,
facing Italian and English renditions (very useful for the lazy.)

So I provided the Italian and, knowing that there aren't many on the
list who know Italian, I provided some other translations also to,
maybe, convince those who don't know it that "cose a pensar mettere in
versi" does not have much to do with making babies (not a very lazy
thing for me to do, I might add.)  I don't know Italian either I must
say, but from some old French and Spanish I just can't see "pensar"
used in Italian for baby-making.  I allowed for Italian speakers to
put me to shame: 

> I doubt that the Italian "pensar" is used or was used in any kind of
> way for physical conception.

I think that Eliot checked the Italian and would not have seen any pun
in it.  If you want to argue that his puns depended on one having a
specific translation of Dante, that is a different matter.

Regards,
   Rick Parker

PS - if you are interested in word-play note the two different forms
of "versi":
    Or convien che Elicona per me versi,
      e Uranie m'aiuti col suo coro
      forti cose a pensar mettere in versi.