Origin of the phrase please? Is it Dante or did he pick it from something else? And is there a “correct” variation of it? I’ve seen it as:
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here
Welcome to Wal*Mart
Abandon every hope, ye who enter here
All hope abandon, ye who enter here
Is it just a judgement thing on the part of the translator?
It’s from Dante’s Inferno, the first part of his Divine Comedy, and, of course, it’s engraved over the Gates of Hell.
Various folks have, over the years, offered variations on this, or its interpretations. My favorite is the the “Don Juan in Hell” section in George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman.
In answer to your questions, the variations are the translatyor’s attempts to be accurate, or perhaps true to the original intent, or to break the mold set by previous tranlations and make it seem new.
The usual translation seems appropriate. The “all” modifies “hope”, not “ye”. And even the use of “ye” is appropriate – the Italian “voi” is the “familiar you” that “ye” is supposed to be the English equivalent of (even if it no longer carries that implication, but rather suggests Quakers or something to modern ears).
as far as I knnow, it’s original with Dante.
“Before you enter the security arch, please put your pocket contents, your carry-on bag, and all your hope on the conveyor belt. You may be required to remove your shoes. If you are carrying Sierra Mist, your security staff will drink it for you. Thank you for your patience.”
What happens in the Shaw play?
snort
Well done.
In Act III, one character dreams of Don Juan in hell. Don Juan has encountered an elderly woman who is sure there has been a mistake and that she is supposed to be in heaven. As it happens, when Don Juan had been alive a great many years before, he had slain the woman’s father in a duel for having sullied her honor. Now, Don Juan is in the prime of life (as when he died), the woman is aged, (as when she died), and her father is in his 60s (as when he died), but is further, a statue, ambiguously in both heaven and hell, because the statue-from-life presented his best appearance.
The three meet and begin to talk, with the (now) elderly woman slowly recognizing each of the gentlemen. When it dawns on her that she is in hell, she and her father have this exchange:
Man and Superman, Act III (Dream starts around verse 147; Statue appears in verse 246; the above quote appears in verse 263.)
Dear Lord.
I found this while closing down my search. I may have to get one of these:
Certainly not for yourself! :eek:
Cite? Because if Wikipedia is to be believed (and this article matches what I remember hearing elsewhere), ye isn’t a familiar form of you, but rather the nominative (subject) case of this pronoun. As far as I know, the familiar second person singular pronoun was thou (or thee in the accusative – object – case). You could be right, though, so if you have a cite to back you up I’d be interested.
You know, now I want an Unknown Kadath Mountaneering Club t-shirt.
There are slightly different versions of the Italian.
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
I see Dante’s original manuscript has not survived.
Don’t the changed letters also change the meanings of the words? Or are these just alternate forms in medieval Italian?
Even with some modification to tense or mood or something (if the spellings actually had significance), the text clearly puts the command to abandon together with the word hope, modified by the adjective all in one clause, set off by a comma, then addresses its audience as you who (are or are about to) enter in a separate clause. “All” continues to modify “hope,” regardless of the inflections applied to the words.
I remember reading a short story about a computer programmed to invoke demons. The punch line of the story was : Abandon all hope, ye who press enter here
The spelling ogne speranza is medieval. The spelling ogni speranza is modernized. Ogni is an invariable adjective meaning “all, every,” and (importantly) only used with the singular. The only word in the sentence it can modify is “hope,” as you’ve said above.
As for “voi,” it does mean “you” in the informal plural. Italian distinguishes between both singular / plural and formal / informal.
tu (cognate with thou): singular informal
Lei: singular formal
voi (cognate w/ Fr. vous): plural informal. People who’ve studied French have a hard time with this.
Loro: plural formal.
For the “all you who enter” thing: Italian often uses “voi altri” in the same way that Spanish uses “vosotros” or Southern English uses “y’all.” It’s not a good translation of ogni, but it may be a translator’s attempt to represent the plurality of the voi of the original. “Ognuno di voi” is how you would say “all of you.”
Abandon every hope, y’all that’s comin’ in.
Smack! …is how you would say “EACH of you.” “All of you” is *voi tutti * or tutti di voi.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if we’re talking about the plural form, shouldn’t that be “all y’all”?
Dante is generally thought to be the start of modern formal Italian, .
Contemporary Italian does retain many alternate forms. A lot of these are dialects however. I like to think of Dante’s alternatives as his working notes.
One day at the Royal Mail sorting office I once worked at some bright spark nailed that slogan over the main doors.
Management were not amused, we were 
Sounds like Shaw was continuing El Convidado de Piedra by Tirso de Molina, the first Don Juan play. Just mentioning it in case any of our Spanish students or someone who likes to read theater wants to give it a look, I know there’s translations to English.