Friends
HWL. "Prescrizione Nuova per il mal di gola." Autograph manuscript, 13 January 1866.
Longfellow Papers MS Am 1340 (141). Houghton Library. |
Longfellow's versified prescription for his friend James Russell Lowell, who had missed a meeting of the Saturday Club on 10 January 1866 and then, two days later, a dinner at Craigie House, explaining that "my throat's so bad, / I'm not to be had, / Though Horace ask me to dinner" (12 January 1866). In his response, Longfellow reiterated his advice to gargle with red wine: "T'assicuro / E ti giuro, / (Uomo son di mia parola) / Il dolore, / Professore, / Tutto subito s'invola." In Samuel Longfellow's translation: "I assure you / It will cure you / (Me a man of my word you'll own); / Your distress or / Pain, Professor, / All of a sudden will have flown." |