by Walter K. Kelly.
Originally published in The National Magazine (National Magazine Company) #2 (Dec 1856).
It is a good horse that never stumbles. To which some add, and "A good wife that never grumbles."—None are faultless. The priest errs at the altar, say the Italians: Erra il prete all’ altare. A member of the Parliament of Toulouse, apologising to the king or his minister for the judicial murder of Calas perpetrated by that body, quoted the proverb, Il n’y a si bon cheval qui ne bronche,—It is a good horse, &c. He was answered: A horse, granted; but the whole stable!
Well begun is half done.—Tersely translated from the Horatian pentameter, Dimidium facti qui bene cœpit habet. "A beard lathered is half shaved," say the Spaniards, "The main work is to begin" (French). In an article on the "Philosophy of Proverbs," the author of the Curiosities of Literature gives an example from the Italian which seems of peculiar interest, "for it 1s perpetuated by Dante, and is connected with the character of Milton." Besides these distinctions it has a third (not surmised by Disraeli), as a linguistic curiosity; for though it consists of but four words, and those among the commonest in the language, its literal meaning is undetermined, and diametrically opposite interpretations have been given of it even by native authorities. Cosa fatta capo ha is the proverb in question, which some understand as signifying, "A deed done has an end." It is thus rendered by Torriano, in 1666; whilst Giusti, in 1853, explains it as meaning, "A deed done has a beginning," or in other words, if you would accomplish any thing, you must not content yourself with pondering over it for ever, but must proceed to action. Such another instance of divided opinion respecting the import of four familiar words in a simply-constructed sentence is probably not to be found in the history of modern languages.
This proverb is the "bad word" to which tradition ascribes the origin of the civil wars that long desolated Tuscany. When Buondelmonte broke his engagement with a lady of the Amadei family and married another, the kinsmen of the injured lady assembled to consider how they should deal with the offender. They inclined to pass sentence of death upon him; but their fear of the evils that might ensue from that decision long held them in suspense. At last, Mosca Lamberti cried out, that "those who talk of many things effect nothing," quoting, says Macchiavelli, "that trite and common adage, Cosa fatta capo ha." This decided the question. Buondelmonte was murdered; and the deed immediately involved Florence in those miserable conflicts of Guelphs and Ghibellines, from which she had stood aloof until then. The "bad word" uttered by Mosca been immortalised by Dante (Inferno, xxviii.), and various rendered by his English translators. Cary presents the passage thus:
"Then one
Maim’d of each hand uplifted in the gloom
The bleeding stumps, that they with gory spots
Sullied his face, and cried, 'Remember thee
Of Mosca too—I who, alas, exclaimed,
The deed once done, there is an end—that proved
A seed of sorrow to the Tuscan race.'"
Wright's version is:
"Then one deprived of both his hands, who stood
Lifting the bleeding stumps amid the dim
Dense air, so that his face was stained with blood.
Cried, 'In thy mind let Mosca bear a place,
Who said, alas, Deed done is well begun,—
Words fraught with evil to the Tuscan race.'"
Disraeli adopts Cary’s interpretation of the proverb, and does not seem to suspect that it can have any other. Milton appears to have used it in the same sense. "When deeply engaged," says Disraeli, "in writing The Defence of the People, and warned that it might terminate in his blindness, he resolutely concluded his work, exclaiming with great magnanimity, although the fatal prognostication had been accomplished, Cosa fatta capo ha! Did this proverb also influence his decision on that great national event, when the most honest-minded fluctuated between doubts and fears?"