Tomorrow on this site I begin giving away books to the AuthorBuzz Dear Reader contestants. While we wait with bated breath for the first name to be revealed, I’ve had a good starting question – why is my email greyhoundverona, not masterverona?
The answer is both short and convoluted. Short version – it was an early title of the book – THE GREYHOUND OF VERONA. And an even earlier title (the one it still is in my head) was the Italian version of the word GREYHOUND, which is IL VELTRO.
IL VELTRO has another meaning, too – it translates in slang to "the bastard."
Here begins the convoluted part. In the very opening canto to Dante’s DIVINE COMEDY, he’s faced with a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. The last one frightens him terribly, and when the spirit of Virgil comes to rescue him, the dead poet makes a prophecy about a savior who will come to restore Italy (and the world):
‘It is another path you must follow,’
he answered, when he saw me weeping,
‘If you would flee this wild and savage place:
For that beast that moves you to cry out
Lets no man pass her way,
But so besets him that she slays him.
Her nature is so vicious and malign
Her greedy appitite is never sated –
After feeding she is hungrier than ever.
Many are the creatures she mates with,
and there will yet be more, until the Greyhound
shall come who’ll make her die in pain.’
L’Inferno
Canto I, 91-102
The identity of the ‘Greyhound’ has been debated ever since the poem was first read. Some say it was the Emperor Heinrich, whom Dante adored. Some say it was Dante himself. Some say it’s deliberately vague. And some say that figure was Cangrande della Scala, the Prince of Verona.
The question of that prophecy is rather important in the novel, as is the fate of a bastard child. So, in a book where both ‘greyhound’ and ‘bastard’ play large roles, IL VELTRO was the perfect title.
For an Italian audience.
So it became THE GREYHOUND OF VERONA. Which started my wife whispering in my ear each night as I went to sleep, "Honey – why is the bus going to Verona?"
So the title became THE MASTER OF VERONA. (applause) Thank you. Thank you.
Cheers, and see you tomorrow with the first name!
DB
