now enjoying ease and dignity at the court of Alfonso, compared with the
servitude, or rather the servility, which Hippolito formerly exacted of
his retainers. During this prosperous period of his life, he was
appointed by his patron to a post of honour and difficulty, if not of
emolument, which required the exercise of certain politic talents rarely
possessed by poets, but which he must have possessed in no
inconsiderable measure, judging by the trusts so repeatedly reposed in
him. Graffagnana, a mountainous district lying between Modena and Lucca,
and which had been wrested some years before by the pope from the duke
of Ferrara, threw off the yoke, and returned to its former lord, upon
the demise of Leo X. This tract of debateable land was occupied by a
people proverbially rude, factious, and turbulent among themselves, as
well as refractory towards the ill-established authorities set over them
from time to time by their temporary sovereigns. Hence the woodlands and
glens on the Apennine slopes, where their country was situated, were
infested with banditti; and the inhabitants were embroiled in perpetual
lawsuits before tribunals where little justice was to be obtained, or
else at open variance with their own bands, determining right by might.
To that dreary province, in such a hideous state of affairs, Ariosto was
sent to redress grievances, restore quiet, and advance the
semi-barbarians a step or two in civilisation. This task,--on the face
of it more fitted to the talents of an Orpheus or Amphion, than those of
a modern minstrel; unless, like the one, he was master of the lost art
of teaching stones to build themselves into temples and palaces, or,
like the other, could draw rocks and forests, with their population of
lions and tigers, after him, by the enchantment of his lyre,--he seems
to have accomplished with moderate success among a tribe already
acquainted with his romantic poetry, and prepared to honour the author.
Sir John Harrington says, that "he so orderly governed, and so well
quieted," these riotous hordes by his wisdom and equity, that "he left
them all in good peace and concord; winning not only the love of the
better sort, but also a wonderful reverence of the wilder people, and a
great awe even in robbers and thieves." The latter phrase alludes to a
story which has been differently told, but may be received as
substantially true, of a rencontre which he had with some of his more
uncouth neighbours. One day traversing a forest, accompanied by five or
six horsemen, the little party was startled by the appearance of a body
of armed men breaking cover, and coming suddenly upon them; these
belonged to one of the gangs of brigands, which, under two audacious
leaders--Domenico Marotto and Philippo Pachione--divided the peace of
the country between them, allowing none to each other, and depriving
every one else of it. The expected assailants, however, after curiously
eying the governor and his train, permitted them to pass; which his
excellency was very willing to do, though, as chief magistrate, he had
found a whole nest of outlaws. Having formerly signalised himself in the
river fight with the Venetians, and there being no occasion to exercise
any other than "the better part of valour--discretion"--in this affair,
Ariosto felt his honour as safe as his life, in riding on without
offering molestation where he experienced none. But the captain of the
band, being struck with his superior presence, demanded of the hindmost
of his attendants what was his master's name. "Ludovico Ariosto,"
replied the other: whereupon, galloping up to him, the freebooter hailed
the poet (who expected a very different salutation) with the most
profound respect and courtesy, introducing himself as Philippo Pachione,
and regretting that, from not having previously known his person, he and
his troop had not done due honour to him in passing. He then launched
out into vehement praises of the "Orlando Furioso" (a poem likely enough
to be the delight of such adventurers), and with all humility and
frankness offered his most devoted services to its author. Baretti's
version of the anecdote is to the following effect:--Ariosto one morning
happened to take a walk in his night-gown and slippers beyond the castle
where he resided, fell into a fit of thought, and forgot himself so
much, that step after step he found himself, when he recovered, already
far from home, and surrounded on a sudden by a troop of desperadoes; who
certainly would have ill used, and perhaps murdered him, had not his
face been known by one of the gang, who, informing his comrades that it
was signor Ariosto, the chief of the banditti addressed him with
intrepid gallantry, and told him, that since his excellency was the
author of "Orlando Furioso," he might be sure that none of his company
would injure him, but would see him, on the contrary, safe to the
castle. This they did, entertaining him all the way with the passages
which they most admired in his poem." Ariosto himself seems to allude to
some such circumstance in the Epistle to S. Maleguccio (Satire V.),
written during his residence in Graffagnana.
"Saggio chi dal castel poco si scosta."
"He's wise who strays but little from the castle."
Two of his epistolary Satires are dated from that province; where he
seems to have been as little at home as Ovid in Pontus. In that first
quoted, to Sigismondo Maleguccio, at the end of the first year of his
honourable exile, he says,--
"This is the earliest note, in all the time,
Which I have warbled to the nymphs that guard
The tree, whose leaves I once so long'd to wear:
Such is the strangeness of the place to me,
That I am like a bird, whose cage is changed,
And many a day refrains his wonted song:
My cousin, wonder not that I am mute;
The wonder's greater that I'm not dead with spleen--
Shut as I am, a hundred miles and more,
By Alps and snow, and streams and woods, from her
Who holds alone the reins of my affection."
_Satire V._
Sancho Panza, in his island of Barataria, neither administered justice
more wisely, nor was interrupted more provokingly in his personal
indulgences, than Ariosto in his government of Graffagnana; and,
unfortunately for his comfort, the stronghold of Castelnuovo was not
stormed at midnight by some friendly enemy, nor himself ejected by
violence, to his heart's content. The poet's miserable reign lasted
three long years; while the squire of Don Quixote had the happiness to
be relieved from the cares of state in less than as many days. How unfit
for the management of a brute people he deemed himself, may be judged
from the story with which he closes this epistle.
"Methinks that I resemble the Venetian
To whom the king of Portugal presented
A noble steed of Mauritanian blood;
Who, to do justice to the royal gift,
Nor once considering, that to turn a helm,
And draw a bridle, are two different things,
Mounted aloft, and with both hands held fast
As at a rudder; then in either flank
Cast anchor with his spurs, and bravely mutter'd,
'I'll warrant ye don't fling me overboard.'
The horse, thus handled, bolted off full speed;
Whereat the gallant seaman pull'd the harder,
And deeper struck the rowels sharp as spears,
Till mouth and reins were tinged with blood and foam.
The beast, not knowing which to obey--the points
That urged him on, or curb that held him back--
With a few desperate plunges rid himself
Of his strange rider; who, with shatter'd ribs,
Crack'd collar-bone, head broken, all begrimed
With mud and dirt, and pale with fright, crawl'd off
In no good humour with his majesty,
And, far away, bewail'd his horsemanship.
Well had it been for him, and well for me,
If for his charger he, I for my province,
Had said,--'O king! O duke! I am not worthy
Of such high honour; graciously bestow
Your bounty on some other.'"
While he was here, M. Bonaventura Pistolfo, secretary to Alfonso, wrote
to invite Ariosto to accept a third embassy to Rome; not on a perilous
and temporary errand, but to reside there as the representative of his
sovereign, "for a year or _two_," at the court of Clement VII. The poet,
however, had sagacity enough to decline putting himself again in the way
of Fortune, where, instead of taking him by the hand, on former
occasions, she had only splashed him with the mud from her wheel as it
rolled through the streets, encumbered with aspiring asses in every
stage of transmigration.[106] His correspondent having intimated that,
besides complying with the duke's pleasure at Rome, he might stand a
chance of obtaining great and fat preferments by favour of a member of
the house of Medici, with which he had been so long and courteously
acquainted, then filling the papal chair; since it was more probable
that he should catch, if he fished in a great river, than in an ordinary
stream; he thus replies, in the seventh Satire:--"I thank you, that the
desire is ever fresh with you to promote my interest, and to change me
from a plough-ox into a Barbary steed. You might command me with fire
and sword to serve the duke, not in Rome only, but in France, Spain, or
India; but if you would fain persuade me that honour and riches may be
got in the way you propose, you must find a different bait, to lure your
bird into that net. As for honour, I have already as much as my heart
could wish: it is enough for me that, at home, I can see more then half
a dozen of my neighbours doff their caps when they meet me, because they
know that I sometimes sit at table with the duke, and obtain a trifling
favour which I seek for myself or a friend. Then, if I have honour
enough to satisfy me, I should have abundance of wealth also; and my
desires, which sometimes wander, would be at rest, if I had just so much
that I could live, and be at liberty, without having to ask any thing of
any one: more than this I never hope to attain. But, since so many of my
friends have had the power to do thus much for me, and I still remain in
poverty and dependence, I will not let her[107], who was so backward to
fly out of the box of the imprudent Epimeteus, to lead me by the muzzle
like a buffalo." Towards the close of this epistle, he intimates that it
is some unconfessed affection which draws him so tenderly and
irresistibly towards his native nest; and adds--"It is well for me that
I can hide myself among these mountains, and that your eyes cannot run a
hundred miles after me, to see whether my cheeks be pale or red at this
acknowledgment. Certainly, if you saw my face at the moment I am
writing, far away as I am, it would appear to you as deeply crimsoned as
that of the father canon was, when he let fall, in the market-place, the
wine-flask which he had stolen from a brother, besides the two that he
had drunk. If I were at your elbow, perhaps you would snatch up a cudgel
to bastinado me, for alleging such a crazy reason why I wish not to live
at a distance from you."
The attachment insinuated in the enigmatical lines, of which the above
is a prose version, is with equal ambiguity alluded to in the fourth
Satire, addressed to Annibale Maleguccio, where, excusing himself from
going abroad, on the ground that he preferred pursuing his studies at
home, and confining his voyages and travels, though they extended all
over the world, to the maps and charts of Ptolemy, he breaks off
thus:--"Methinks you smile and say, 'Neither the love of country nor
study, but of a lady, is the cause why you will not move.' I frankly
confess it: now shut your mouth; for I will neither take up sword nor
shield to defend a fib." This jest has been taken in earnest, though no
man in his senses would swear on the word of a poet so uttered. Be that
as it may, it is generally understood that his life was sufficiently
dissolute to warrant his correspondent's suspicion; and to require him,
when so charged, to escape with a pleasantry, though it were accompanied
by a blush.
After three years, being released from the cares of his government,
Ariosto returned, with entire devotion of his time and talents, to the
"sacred college of the Muses;" perfecting his "Orlando" by almost daily
touches, the fruits of habitual meditation upon its multifarious
subjects, to the last year of his life. He likewise revised several
comedies written in his youth, turning them from prose into metre; and
composing others. These were so much admired, that they were often acted
in the court of Alfonso; persons of the highest rank representing the
characters. His earliest and his latest works, therefore, were dramatic,
but certainly not his best: that, indeed, could not be expected;
theatrical performances being comparatively new in Italy, and, in
general, exceedingly crude or exceedingly pedantic. It is said that
Ariosto's plays are yet read with delight by his countrymen: the titles
of them are,--the "Menechini," borrowed from Plautus; "La Cassaria," "I
Suppositi," "La Lena," "Il Negromante," and "La Scholastica;" of which
latter, his brother Gabriele furnished the concluding act, Ludovico
having left it incomplete. A curious anecdote is told of him when a
youth, which is characteristic at once of his phlegm and his acuteness
in the practice of his art.--His father, being displeased by some
juvenile inadvertence, very severely reprimanded him in the presence of
the rest of the family. Ludovico bore the infliction with perfect
composure, neither expressing contrition, nor attempting to justify
himself. When Nicolo had retired, his brother Gabriele remonstrated with
him, both on the imputed fault, and his apparent insensibility of shame
or rebuke. Thereupon the poet so promptly and effectually cleared his
conduct, that his brother, in great astonishment, asked him why he had
not given the same explanation of it to their father. "Because," said
the young dramatist, "I was so busily thinking, all the while, how to
make the best use of what my father said, in my new comedy, in which I
have just such a scene of an old man scolding his boy, that in the
ideal, I forgot the real incident."
His seven Satires were also composed during the latter years of his
life; but, on account of their irreverence towards high personages both
in church and state, they were not published till a convenient time
after his death. They are in the form of epistles; and, in fact, were
written as such, on real occasions, to the several friends addressed in
them. These pieces allude so much to personal and family circumstances,
that Ariosto's biographers are more indebted to them than to any other
equally authentic source for their materials; and it has been for the
like reason, principally, that such copious extracts have been made from
the same valuable documents in the foregoing pages. In these remarkable
effusions of spleen and pleasantry, there is nothing gaudy or
superficial, to attract ordinary readers; nothing forced or unnatural,
to produce ostentatious effect. The thoughts are thick-sown; the diction
seems to be without effort (the result, no doubt, of consummate art),
being pungent and simple, like the best style of conversation, except
when the subject, at rare intervals, becomes poetical--when at once the
swan of Castaly launches upon the stream, swells into beauty, and rows
in gallant state till the water runs shallow again. There is none of the
stern indignation of Juvenal, nor the harshness and obscurity of
Persius, in these productions; yet, lively, sarcastic, and urbane as
they are, there is almost as little resemblance in them to those fine
but high-toned compositions of Horace, which were, unquestionably, our
author's models--though less for imitation than for rivalry. Like every
other species of literature which Ariosto tried, how much soever he may
have adorned all, these bosom-communications to his intimate friends are
not exempt from occasional obscenities, so repulsive and abominable,
that they cannot be commended and dismissed without this mark of infamy,
which no merits can efface.
Whether Ariosto, who, according to all accounts, and the lewdness of his
writings, led no very chaste life, were married or not; and, if married,
to whom; are questions which have puzzled his biographers, and are now
of little moment to be settled: no proof of marriage would redeem his
character, or purify his most beautiful poems from the moral defilement
that cleaves to them. His Muse had the plague, and all her offspring are
diseased. An author is not answerable to posterity for the evil of his
_mortal_ life, but for the profligacy of _that_ life which he lives
through after ages, contaminating by irrepressible and incurable
infection the minds of millions--it may be, till the day of
judgment,--he is amenable even in his grave. It is not necessary to
enter further into judgment with the offender before us in this place.
Married, or not married, Ariosto had two sons, whom he not only openly
avowed as such, but faithfully and affectionately educated them,
according to his knowledge and views of what is good and honourable in
society, for scholars and gentlemen, as he intended them to be. His
epistle to cardinal Bembo (the sixth Satire) is highly creditable to his
parental solicitude for the welfare of his children in this respect:
indeed, he seems to have been exemplary in every relationship of life,
except that which requires personal purity,--a virtue little regarded
either by laymen or ecclesiastics in his day; and, judging by the deeper
taint of their writings, as well as the evidence of their lives, often
held in less esteem by the latter than the former.
Towards the close of the year 1532, Ariosto was seized with illness,
brought on, it was said, by agitation, when the sumptuous theatre
erected by the duke of Ferrara, for the exhibition of his comedies, was
consumed by fire; or, as his physicians, with more probability,
conjectured, by indigestion, from the habit of eating fast, and bolting
his food almost unmasticated. Whatever might have been the cause, the
disorder terminated in his death about the midsummer following.
In the same year that he was thus mortally stricken, he had put his last
hand to the "Orlando Furioso," and left the poem in that form in which
it appears, in forty-six cantos; the five additional ones, which have
always been deemed unworthy of such a connection, having been published
for the first time in 1545, twelve years afterwards. Among what may be
deemed the apocryphal traditions concerning Ariosto, it has been
affirmed and contradicted, with very questionable evidence on either
side, that he received the laurel from the hands of the emperor Charles
V., in the city of Mantua, twelve months before his death. The very
circumstance of a reasonable doubt being raised respecting a fact,
which, if it had occurred, must have been known throughout all Italy,
Germany, France, and Spain, seems almost sufficient to invalidate the
story. One of his biographers (Minchino) says, that when Ariosto felt
the crown upon his brows, placed there by so august a personage, he went
beside himself for joy; and ran about the streets as much out of his
wits, for the time, as his own hero. It may be remarked, that nothing
could have been more out of character than such extravagance in a person
of Ariosto's temperament, who (whatever licence he granted to his Muse
in his writings, or to his passions in secret), in public, always
maintained a dignity and manliness of demeanour, which commanded
respect, and showed that he never forgot his honourable birth, or waved
the consciousness of intellectual superiority; though he was careful
that neither of these advantages should encroach upon the jealous or
vindictive sensibility of others.
Ariosto in person was tall and strong-boned, but stooping a little, and
slow in his gait as well as in all his motions. His countenance, judging
from Titian's portrait,--the lofty forehead a little bald, the black
curled locks behind, and corresponding beard upon a jutting chin, the
elevated brows above the dark bright eyes, the Roman nose, lips
eloquently moulded, teeth "passing even and white," thin cheeks,
complexion slightly olive, long visage, well-proportioned neck, and
shoulders square,--his countenance, with features such as these, might
altogether have been deemed the _beau idéal_ which the first painter
had conceived of the first poet of the age, had not contemporary
testimonies assured us that the whole was not more happily than
correctly copied from the living model.
There is little of tenderness, and less of stern sublimity, in any of
his poems; and yet it is uniformly affirmed that his aspect and manner
were grave, melancholic, and contemplative,--from habit, probably, more
than from nature; for in company he was affable, and his conversation
peculiarly captivating to women, whom, no doubt, he laid himself out to
please, and with whom he was no small favourite. So far, also, as they
could appreciate his merit, and endure that aristocracy of mind which
pressed hard upon the heels of hereditary rank, or mushroom vanity
raised from stercorarious heaps in ecclesiastical hotbeds, his society
was courted by the greatest personages in church and state, including
popes, cardinals, and sovereign princes. Unassuming, but not indifferent
to slights or wrongs from the highest with whom he was associated, he
led, on the whole, a feverish life between resolute poverty and
precarious dependence, with the continual temptation to rise to wealth
by means which he abhorred, and for which he must have abhorred himself
had he stooped to employ them.
Of persons of the other sex, who, from time to time, caught his
wandering affections, the names of two (whether real or disguised) have
been preserved--Alexandra and Guenevra. It is understood that the former
(to whom he may have been privately married) was the mother of his two
sons,--Giambattista, who devoted himself to a military life, and
Virginio, who obtained distinction in literature. For the other lady,
his passion might be no more than a poetical one--she being married, and
a mother, in an honourable family of Florence akin to his own. Finding
her one day adorning a silk coat for one of her children, so as to
resemble armour by the devices--the ground silver, and the embroidery
purple--against a festival spectacle, at which the lad was to figure in
it on Midsummer Eve, he was so inspired by the hand and the needle, that
he celebrated their performance in the twenty-fourth book of the
"Orlando Furioso;" where, describing a wound, "not deep but long,"
received in combat with Mandricardo by Zerbino, from which the blood
trickled over his splendid panoply, the poet introduces the following
admired but frigid simile:--
"Le lucide arme il caldo sangue irriga
Per sino al piè de rubiconda riga.
"Cosi talora un bel purpureo nastro
Ho veduto partir tela d' argento,
Da quella bianca man più ch' alabastro,
Da cui partire il cor spesso mi sento."
"The warm blood, with a crimson rivulet,
Down to the foot his shining armour wet.
"So have I seen a beauteous purple zone
Divide a web of silver, by the art
Of that white hand, outvying Parian stone,
Which oft I feel dividing thus my heart."
This is much more in the strain of fanciful passionless ideality (like
Petrarch's mistress, and his praises of her), than warm, ingenuous,
honest love, "whose dwelling is the heart of man," and whose language is
that of nature, which all may understand who ever knew affection. In the
same vein of ingenious artificial compliment and conceit (often, indeed,
elegant and captivating to the mind at ease, and amusing itself with
love in idleness) are the Elegies, Sonnets, and Madrigals of
Ariosto;--all calculated more to set off the beauties of his Muse than
of his mistress; and rather to command admiration of himself, than to do
honour to her, whom, though a divinity in song, and adored with
magnificent rites, he worships with nearly as little devotion as an idol
deserves. Of the following sonnet (the nineteenth in the series), Paolo
Rolli says, "_non è stata mai scritta poesia più sublime_,"--"poetry
more sublime was never written." It would be hard to persuade any
Englishman of this.
"Chiuso era il Sol da un tenebroso velo,
Che si stendea fino all' estreme sponde
Dell' orizonte, e mormorar le fronde
S' udiano, e tuoni andar scorrendo il cielo.
Di pioggia, in dubbio, o tempestoso gelo,
Stav' io per gire oltre le torbid' onde
Del fiume altier che il gran sepolcro asconde,
Del figlio audace del Signor di Delo:--
"Quando apparir sull' altra ripa il lume
De bei vostr' occhij vidi, e udij parole
Che Leandro potean farmi quel giorno.
E tutto a un tempo i nuvoli d'intorno
Si dileguaro, e si scoperse il Sole,
Tacquero i venti, e tranquillossi 'l fiume."
"The sun was shrouded with a gloomy veil
That reach'd the dim horizon's utmost bound,
The forest leaves were heard to murmur round,
And distant thunder peal'd along the gale.
In doubt I stood, of rain or pelting hail,
By the proud river, rapid and profound,
Wherein Apollo's daring son was drown'd[108],
Afraid to dip the oar or hoist the sail:
"When, from the farther bank, the light I saw
Of your fair eyes, and heard a voice, of power
To make Leander of me in that hour.
At once the clouds their dark array withdraw,
The sun brake forth, the rainbow climb'd the hill,
The winds were silent, and the waters still."
The foregoing version has been rendered as little paraphrastic as might
be (though the eighth line is interpolated); but all rhymed translations
from the Italian, in the same number of lines as the original, must be
encumbered either with additional thought or verbiage--our language
being altogether more brief in syllabic composition.
The society of Ariosto was courted by the learned and the polite; not
for his wit and intelligence only, but for the privilege of hearing his
latest compositions, as they came warm from his mind, or were gradually
wrought to perfection by that patient labour for which he was
distinguished, and to which he is indebted for as much of his glory as
to the creative energy of his genius itself. For when he had originated,
by force of invention, his most admired performances, he never ceased to
improve them afterwards by touches innumerable, exquisite, and
undiscerned by ordinary eyes, till the art which effected the changes at
length disappeared in its own consummation, and those seemed to be the
first thoughts in the first words, which were really the last
transmigrations of the former through the latter. No poet of any age has
more inseparably identified his conceptions with his language than
Ariosto; in fact, his ideas themselves are so vernacular, that they can
scarcely be made to speak any other than their native tongue; they defy
translation. Nothing, indeed, can be easier than to render the literal
meaning in dictionary terms; yet nothing less resembling the original in
all that constitutes its prime excellence--grace, freedom, and
simplicity--can be imagined than these. Of the "Orlando Furioso" there
are three English versions: that by sir John Harrington, in the reign of
queen Elizabeth, is coarse, careless, and unfaithful; that of Hoole,
about fifty years ago, tame, diffuse, and prosaic; the recent one by W.
S. Rose, esq., elegant, spirited, and probably as true to the text as
any readable paraphrase can be under the difficulties aforementioned.
While this magnificently wild and sportive work was in progress, and
after its first publication, during the refining process through which
it was continually passing till the last year of his own life, the poet
was accustomed to read, at the courts of Hippolito and Alfonso, and in
other favoured circles, the cantos as they were produced, revised, or
had received their final polish. This accounts partly for the manner in
which the hundredfold story is told,--not as recorded in a book, but as
delivered spontaneously before princes and prelates, scholars and
gentry, assembled to listen to the marvellous adventures of knights and
ladies, giants and enchanters, from the lips of the gifted narrator.
Ariosto excelled in the practice of reading aloud, whether the subjects
were his own, or those of his illustrious predecessors or
contemporaries; to which his melodious voice, distinct utterance, and
versatile spirit gave peculiar emphasis and animation. This
accomplishment was of great value after the revival of letters, when
books were scarce, and authors depended, for pecuniary recompence, more
upon the gratuities of patrons, than upon honourable profits from
extensive sales of their writings. But though he was thus master of the
rarest art of speech,--good reading, especially of verse, being seldomer
attained (perhaps because it is less duly appreciated) than eloquent
declamation,--he was never forward either to begin, by obtruding it upon
his friends for his own gratification, nor slow to leave off when he had
wearied himself for others. As his ear was nice, and his taste pure in
this respect, he was proportionately offended by indifferent, vulgar, or
boisterous recitation. The story is told of him, that one day, passing a
potter's shop, he heard the unlettered artisan singing, in harsh and
ill-accented numbers, a stave of the "Orlando." According to sir John
Harrington, it was the thirty-second in the first canto[109],--and this
will do as well as any other in a questionable tale,--in which Rinaldo
tries to catch his horse, with as little success as many a groom and
gentleman has done before and since. The poet, as little able to keep
his temper as his hero on the occasion, rushed among the crockery,
smashing now one piece, then another, on the right hand and on the left,
with his walking-stick. The potter, half paralised and half frantic,
hastily, yet hesitatingly, enquired why the gentleman should thus injure
a poor fellow who had done him no harm? No harm, man?" replied the
enraged author, "I am scarcely even with thee yet: I have cracked three
or four wretched jugs of thine, not worth a groat, and thou hast been
mangling and murdering a stanza of mine worth a mark of gold!" Unluckily
for the credit of this sally of professional petulance, the same
anecdote has been told of Camoens, the Portuguese, who lived half a
century later; and something like it of Philoxenus, who lived nearly
2000 years earlier. Yet the tradition concerning Ariosto may be true;
who, remembering the classic precedent, might choose to follow it in a
case where no redress could be looked for, except from taking the law
into his own hands. At the worst, such an outrage must have been a piece
of caustic pleasantry; and it may be taken for granted, that the
sufferer was well compensated for having afforded the poet no very
disagreeable opportunity of indulging his humour; since, however the
learned may pretend to despise the opinions of the multitude, there is
scarcely any proof of fame more flattering to the proudest aspirant,
than a cross-wind of popular applause. Cervantes, who well understood
the secrets of a poet's breast, goes farther, and, with consummate
propriety, makes the student, whose verses had been commended to the
skies by Don Quixote, say within himself,--"How sweet is praise, even
from the lips of a madman!"
Of Ariosto's personal habits, some whimsical peculiarities have been
mentioned, not worth repeating, except to gratify the very natural
curiosity--call it impertinent who will--which most readers feel to
learn all that they can about a favourite author. He himself confesses
that he could scarcely distinguish the different kinds of food; and it
has been already seen that he was in the practice of eating
voraciously.--A friend, who had invited him to an entertainment for the
diversion of the company, ordered a roasted _kite_ to be palmed upon him
for a _partridge_. By the blunder of a servant, the carrion was set
before a nicer guest, who smelled the joke, if he did not relish it, and
the poet escaped the savoury snare.--A stranger, calling upon him once
when he had just sat down to dinner, Ariosto eagerly ate up all the
"short commons" which had been provided, while the other was
entertaining him with most excellent discourse. Being afterwards
reproved by his brother for lack of hospitality, he coolly
replied,--"The loss was the gentleman's own; he should have taken care
of himself." His rudeness and hurry at table were attributed principally
to fits of rumination or absence of mind; and if he sometimes
over-satisfied his appetite, he did not usually indulge it with more
than one meal a day.
Quite in consonance with the poet's reveries were his raptures of
execution. After wandering in a day-dream of thought, he would suddenly
sit down and disburthen his overcharged brain with effusions of song,
that seemed as spontaneous as spring showers that fall in gusts through
broad sunshine, though they have been long collecting in the zenith; or,
he would start from "a brown study" at midnight, and call upon his
servant Gianni to bring pen, ink, and paper immediately, that he might
fix, before they vanished for ever, the imaginations which had charmed
him in his trance. The "Orlando" thus appeared to come to him, canto by
canto, as the Koran to Mahomet; and no doubt the one was as truly
inspired as the other. His early reading had so filled and fertilised
his mind, that he subsisted in thought almost exclusively on the
inexhaustible harvests perpetually produced from the remembrances of
that; and in his latter years was so indolent, or so indifferent a
searcher of the writings of others, that he frequently passed weeks
without turning over the pages of any except his own,--in which, like
the spider, he seemed to have a personal existence; so diffusing himself
through them, that it might be said of him, that, not with a touch only,
"exquisitely fine," he could "feel the whole thread," but also "live
along the line."
In his last hours, he is represented as maintaining his philosophical
tranquillity,--neither affecting stoical sternness, nor the hideous
jocularity of some, who, to hide their misgivings, die "as a fool
dieth." He professed to leave the world without much regret--having
never, indeed, been very well satisfied with his portion in it; and,
believing that in a future state men would know each other, he observed,
that he should be happy to meet many whom he loved, and who had gone
before him. How content to die in the dark are men of the highest
faculties, and otherwise of the most inquisitive minds, who have never
known, or who have rejected, the truth of that Gospel by which life and
immortality were brought to light!
As might be expected on the demise of one so celebrated for genius,
sonnets, elegies, and epitaphs in abundance were composed and published
to his honour. His body was buried in the church of the Benedictines at
Ferrara, when the monks of that order, contrary to their usual reserve,
accompanied the funeral procession: a plain slab of marble being laid
over the grave, was presently over-run with Greek, Latin, and Italian
verses, as the natural products of so poetical a spot. His son Virginio
afterwards prepared a chapel and sepulchre for his parent, in the garden
of the house which he had himself built, and where he had spent many of
his last and happiest days. But the good fathers had such reverence for
the relics of a poet, who certainly was any thing rather than a saint,
and whom no pope would canonise, that they would not allow their
removal. In process of time. Agostino Mosti, a man of letters, who in
early life was a disciple of the deceased, seeing no memorial worthy of
his master's fame erected, at his own expense caused a tablet (worthy at
least of himself) to be placed in the aforesaid church of the
Benedictines, with a bust upon the tomb beneath, and a Latin inscription
by Lorenzo Fiesoli. A monument more superb was erected, nearly a century
later, by Ludovico his grand-nephew, bearing also a Latin inscription.
Neither of these, nor even that which the poet composed in the same
language for himself, need be inserted here; the two former being in the
common-place style of posthumous panegyric, and the latter quaint and
puerile, though of sufficient significance to have been imitated by
Pope, with reckless profaneness, in the ribald lines which he wrote for
himself.
"Under this stone, or under this sill," &c.
The house which he built (as formerly mentioned), with its humble
inscription, is yet shown as a monument more interesting to the eye of
the enthusiastic admirer of the poet, than any marble effigies, however
gorgeously or exquisitely wrought, could be: it brings the spectator
into personal contact with himself, by local and domestic association.
But in this respect, the chair in which he was wont to meditate; and the
inkstand from which he filled his pen to disburthen his thoughts, when
they flowed, as they did at times, like the juice of full ripe grapes
from their own pressure,--if these relics are genuine,--must be
incomparably the most touching and inspiring memorials of his life and
his labours.
Of Ariosto's grand performance, it would be vain to sketch the outline,
or enter into formal criticism here: sufficient indications of the
present biographer's estimate of the author's powers and style of
composition have been already given. It would be idle and hopeless to
censure or carp at particulars, where little can be commended beyond the
talent with which a web of wonders and horrors (the easiest and cheapest
products of invention) has been so skilfully woven into poetical
tapestry, as not only to invest the most preposterous fictions with the
vividness of reality, but to charm or conciliate readers of all classes,
from those of the severest taste to those most akin to mere animal
appetite; disarming the indignation of the former by exquisite
playfulness, and transporting the latter by that marvellous intrepidity
of fibbing to which many a minstrel and romancer was formerly indebted
for his popularity. The fact is, that though, with inimitable gravity,
Ariosto tells story after story (or rather story within story),
deserving no better appellation than that which his patron Hippolito
bestowed upon his fictions when he asked, "_Messer Ludovico, dove avete
cogliate tante coglionere?_" "Where, master Ludovico, have you picked up
so many fooleries?" yet Cervantes himself had not a keener sense of
ridicule, nor in his happiest sallies was he more expert in humour or
irony, than this "prince of liars," as the curate in "Don Quixote"
designates a certain traveller. He describes, indeed, every scene,
event, and character throughout his world of nonentities, as they might
have been described, had they been actual and not imaginary: yet it is
frequently manifest, that, while he appears to be writing romance, he is
composing satire; and though he delights in prodigies for their own
sake, yet, wherever they exceed the _probable of the marvellous_, he is
not only alive to their absurdity, but rejoices to expose it, and turn
extravagance itself into pleasantry.
In canto XXVI., Rinaldo, Ricciardetto, and Ruggiero, assisted by
Marphisa (whom, in her martial accoutrements, they do not perceive to be
a woman of war), massacre, without let or hindrance, two bodies of Moors
and Magauzes, whom they surprise at market together. This, in plain
prose, is the style in which the butchery is described:--"Marphisa, as
she fought by their side, often turned her eyes towards her companions
in arms; and witnessing with wonder their rival achievements, she
extolled them all in turn: but the stupendous prowess of Ruggiero,
especially, appeared to her without example in the world; so that she
was ready to imagine him Mars, who had descended from the fifth heaven
to that quarter. She beheld his terrible strokes; she beheld them
falling never in vain: it seemed as though, against Balisarda (his
sword), iron was paper, and not hard metal; for it split helmets and
strong cuirasses; it cleft riders down to their saddles, throwing one
half of the man on the right hand, the other on the left; and not
stopping there, the same blow slew the horse with his lord. Heads from
their shoulders it hurled into the air, and often cut sheer the trunk
from the loins; five, and even more, with one motion it sometimes
despatched; and if I did not fear that truth would not find credit, but
be taken for a lie, I could tell greater things: it is, therefore,
expedient rather to tell less than I might. The good archbishop Turpin,
who knows very well that he speaks the truth, and leaves every one to
believe it or not as he pleases, relates such marvellous feats of
Ruggiero, that, hearing them repeated, you would say they were
falsehoods. Before Marphisa, every warrior seemed to be ice, and she
consuming flame: nor did she less attract the eyes of Ruggiero towards
herself, than he had won hers to him; and if she deemed him to be Mars,
he might have thought her to be Bellona, had he as well known her to be
a lady as her appearance indicated the contrary. Perhaps the emulation
then begotten between them, was no good thing for those miserable
people, on whose flesh, blood, bones, and sinews, proof was made how
much each could do."
Now, what sympathy can be felt in such unequal conflicts? No more,
verily, than with the fate and fortunes of the elephants and castles,
the kings, queens, bishops, knights, and commonalty on a chess-board, in
a game between an adept and a novice, which is up in a few moments,
neither exalting the winner nor disparaging the loser, nor affecting
life, limb, character, or feeling in regard to one of the puppets
employed in the play. Of the same class are all the combats between
invulnerable heroes, and those who wield weapons of enchantment: the
irresistible spear of Bradamante, that unhorsed every antagonist whom it
touched; the magic horn of Astolpho, that routed armies with a blast;
Ruggiero's veiled shield, the dazzling splendour of which, when suddenly
disclosed, struck with blindness and astonishment all eyes that beheld
it. Of the latter, the author himself grows weary or ashamed, and makes
his hero so too; though, with remarkable dexterity, he turns into a
glorious act of heroic virtue, the voluntary riddance of it by the
indignant Ruggiero, who throws it into a hidden well, in a nameless
forest in an undiscovered land, after having won too cheap a victory by
its accidental exposure. In these two instances (and many others might
be quoted), Ariosto laughs at his own extravagances, with as much
pleasantry as Cervantes himself at those of others: and it may, perhaps,
be affirmed that he does it with more tact and good sense, for it must
be acknowledged that few outrages upon nature in the tales of chivalry,
which the Spaniard justly ridicules, are felt by the reader to be more
improbable than the crazy imitations of them by the knight of La Mancha,
whose pranks could only be attempted by one absolutely insane, and
therefore were as little a fair mark for satire as for censure. Ariosto
has this advantage over Cervantes,--that whatever is great, glorious, or
admirable in romance, he can seriously set forth in all the pomp and
eloquence of verse of the highest species; while whatever is mean,
farcical, or monstrous, he can exhibit in strains of facetiousness, at
once as grave and as poignant as those in which the celebrated assault
on the windmills, the rout of the sheep, or the gross sensuality of
Sancho Panza, are given, without descending into caricature; though no
small portion of his whole poem belongs to the grotesque, and happily
the plan admits of every variety of style from Homer to Lucian.
Neither the dulness nor the licence of allegory can be pleaded in
extenuation of those unnatural circumstances, in which absurdity is at
once exemplified and ridiculed, as though the caprice of genius
delighted as much in the offence against taste as in the castigation of
it. Allegorical, indeed, some of his fancies notoriously are; but those
who have attempted to "moralise" the "fierce wars and faithful loves" of
his song, as many have done (and few more egregiously than sir John
Harrington, in the quaint essay annexed to his barbarous translation),
might have employed their time as profitably in raking moonshine out of
water, which flies off into millions of sparkles the moment it is
disturbed, but is no sooner let alone than it subsides into the quiet
and beautiful image of the orb above, which it showed before. It cannot
be said of Ariosto, as Addison, in a miserable couplet, says of
Spenser--
"His long-spun allegories tiresome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below."
The moral may be there, but it would require a diviner's rod to detect
its presence, and the skill of him who set himself to extract sunbeams
from cucumbers, to draw it thence.
The "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto is a continuation of the "Orlando
Innamorato" of Boiardo, lord of Scandiano, his contemporary, but elder,
the latter having died in the year 1494. The relative circumstances of
the two poems form one of the most curious chapters in the history of
literature. Boiardo's work, in the original, is comparatively little
known, and less read, even in Italy; but it has been made famous
throughout the world, by having given birth to its more illustrious
successor. Whatever were the defects of the one author, or the
excellences of the other, Ariosto was undoubtedly indebted to his
forerunner, not only for many of the most powerful and captivating
fictions of his poem, but for its intelligibility and popularity from
the beginning. The latter was an immense advantage: half of the success
in a race depends upon a good start; the eagle himself cannot rise
from flat ground as from the rock, whence he launches at once into
mid-air. By the "Morgante Maggiore" of Pulci, the legends and songs of
the Provençals, and the pretended chronicle of archbishop Turpin, the
public mind had been familiarised with the traditions concerning Arthur
and his knights of the round table; of Merlin the British enchanter, and
the Lady of the Lake; and of Charlemagne and his peers. Yet it was the
intense interest and curiosity excited by Boiardo's magnificent but
uncompleted plot, which (so far as the principal personages are
concerned), like
"The story of a bear and fiddle,
Begins, but breaks off in the middle"--
it was these which had prepared the eager and delighted multitude of
readers, or rather listeners, for any sequel to his "tales of wonder,"
which should keep up the spirit of the original, and bring it to a
crowning conclusion. These, therefore, with transport proportioned to
their surprise, hailed the appearance of Ariosto's production, when,
after having been long promised, they found that it not only exceeded
their expectations, but eclipsed in splendour, beauty, and variety, the
prototype itself. This was so remarkably the case, that one of the
wittiest and most ingenious of his contemporaries recomposed the whole
of Boiardo's poem; imitating, with farcical extravagance, the fine
raillery and unapproachable humour of Ariosto; and falling in the same
ratio beneath him in elegance, majesty, and grace, when the themes
admitted or required adornment. Thus, by an unexampled fatality, the
"Orlando Innamorato" was outshone by a sequel, and superseded by a
_rifacimento_ (we have no English word to express the renovating
process). Authors themselves have almost universally failed in _second
parts_ to their most successful performances; and as rarely have they
re-written such works, so as to take place of the first form in which
they obtained public favour[110]; yet here, on the one hand, is a second
part, by an imitator, that leaves the original in obscurity, yet covers
it with glory--like Butler's description of die moon's veil--
"Mysterious veil! of brightness made,
At once her lustre and her shade;"
while, on the other hand, we have the example of a new gloss of that
original, by a meddler becoming the substitute for it, like the new skin
of a serpent when the old slough is cast aside.
The mischances of Boiardo's poem ended not here. It was not published
during the author's life, except by oral communication among his
friends; what he had composed, had not received the corrections due to
its worth and his own talents; and the work itself being left imperfect
at the ninth canto, one Nicolo degli Agostini took up the strain there,
and added so much matter as brought the various subjects involved in it
to a consistent termination. A fourth experiment was made upon this
polypus production, which multiplied its vitality the more, the more it
was mangled. Ludovico Dominici recomposed the whole, and printed the
metamorphosis at Venice in 1545: of this, several editions appeared; but
it neither supplanted Berni's, nor even rivalled the original in
popularity. Thus the love and madness of Orlando was conceived, and
partly executed, by one mind; continued to a certain point by another;
new-modelled and incorporated with his own inventions by a third;
re-written by a fourth; but, above all, imitated, completed, and
excelled by a fifth.
The felicity of fortune which distinguished Ariosto's poem, was not less
rare than the eccentric transmigrations to which Boiardo's was
condemned. The "Orlando Furioso" was both an imitation and a sequel of
the "Orlando Innamorato;" yet, contrary to all precedent, and without
example in subsequent literature, the imitation surpassed the original,
and the sequel the first draught. It was the offspring of one mind; it
was produced entire by the inventor, and never altered by any hand but
his own. Yet, after its first completion, it underwent a process of
revisal nearly as long and laborious as that of composition; like a
bird, it arrived not at the perfection of its song, or the full glory of
its plumage, in the breeding season, nor till after its first moulting.
It is strange, that, with all these advantages, there should still
remain several glaring inconsistencies, which one hour's pains would
have removed, had the author been aware of what any ordinary reader
might detect.
The poem consists of the contemporaneous adventures of many knights,
ladies, and other personages, travelling in all lands, known and
unknown, of the old continent, the moon, hell, and purgatory; those of
each individual, in fact, forming a distinct story, begun, dropped,
renewed, or concluded according to the pleasure of the narrator, who
excites and keeps up, by every species of provoking artifice, the
tortured yet unwearying curiosity of his hearers. And these materials,
anomalous as they may seem, and as they are, he moulds and mixes with
inimitable skill, and bodies them forth, as by magic, into such
captivating forms, by varying, interweaving, disentangling, and cutting
short the numberless threads of his many-coloured web, that he fails not
to produce a present effect in every passage, with little recollection
on the reader's part of its agreement with the past, as little regard to
its connection with any thing but itself, and no care whatever about its
future influence on the issue of the whole. The fable is a hydra, of
which the Orlando, whose name it bears, is only one of the heads; and no
otherwise entitled to pre-eminence, than as the hero of some of the most
stupendous, amusing, and puerile events in a series not less
heterogeneous or tragi-comic than the changes and chances of a holiday
pantomime. It cannot be denied that the poem has a beginning and an end,
with a prodigious quantity of action between, as the succession of
pages, and the number of cantos, evince; but to prove that it has a
necessary beginning, a decided progress, and a satisfactory end, would
be a task which the author himself would have laughed to see a critic
employed upon.
A hundred rivers springing from one well-head upon a mountain-top above
the clouds; descending, as the slope broadens, in as many directions;
and varying towards the lowlands with such sinuosities, that whoever
traces one stream, will find it suddenly disappearing under ground;
another emerging at that very point, traversing the surface in a
contrary direction for a while, then dipping in like manner; while a
third, a fourth, a fifth, and onward to the hundredth, in succession, do
the same; each, in the track of the untiring explorer, showing itself
and vanishing again and again, till utterly lost;--such are the
vagaries of this romance of imagination, yet conducted in such organised
confusion, that the mind is bewildered but for a moment, when a fresh
"change comes o'er the spirit of the (poet's) dream," and the reader is
absorbed, borne away, and contented to float along the tide of the tale,
unfinished before, then newly taken up, and never flagging in interest,
nor eventually impaired by all its abrupt discontinuances.
Incoherent, however, as the whole tissue of this and every other romance
of chivalry must be, there is a moral interest in such fables, that lies
deeper than any affected allegory, or the innocent gratification which
marvellous stories will ever supply to human minds, loving and grasping
at whatever is beyond their reach; an appetite for the great, the
glorious, and the unknown, which intimates their spiritual nature, and
their immortal destiny, by desires towards things out of the body,
independent of the material universe, and contrary to the results of
ordinary experience. These fictions, notwithstanding their unnatural and
impossible details, picture real manners, characters, and events, such
as were peculiar to the transition-age of modern society, in the most
civilised regions of the Old World, when the blood of Goths and Vandals
from the north, Greeks and Romans from the south of Europe, Moors from
the west of Africa, and Arabs from the east of Asia, mingled in
confluent streams round the shores of the Mediterranean; when, often
engaging in war, commerce, or political alliances, they gradually
associated their races, and originated new nations according to their
respective localities. Hence the superstitions, customs, languages, and
habits of life among the most heterogeneous tribes, bordering on the
fallen empire of the Cæsars (their common prey), were engrafted upon
those of the refined and intellectual people whom luxury had effeminated
and prepared for subjugation by more enterprising and energetic, though
at best but semi-barbarian, conquerors. Hence we frequently find, in
chivalrous records, the most gross and incongruous stories of Oriental,
African, or Scandinavian growth, allied to archetypes in classical
mythology, or derived from ancient history; and only modified, enriched,
distorted, or aggravated in grandeur, complexity, or terrible beauty, by
those who adopted them,--the rhymers and romancers, even in the rudest
periods, blending all together, or borrowing from each, according to
their fancy. There is scarcely an image, a monster, or an incident in
all their raving chronicles--wild as the dreams of lunatics, or
beautiful as those of infants are supposed to be--which cannot be traced
to Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, or Statius; so narrow is the range of
human invention; and so inextricably connected with what we have heard,
and read, and seen, are all the imaginations or the thoughts of the
heart of the most original genius.
But the champions and the damsels, the giants and enchanters, nay, the
dragons, the hippogriffs, and the demons themselves, in these legends,
are but poetical representations of real classes and characters in
society, such as existed, or were formed by the circumstances of the
times, when war was the business, and gallantry the pastime of life,
among the hybrid populations both of Christian and Mohammedan countries.
The actors in the dramas of romance were, indeed, masked and buskined to
raise them to heroic stature; yet the most disguised of these
personages, in principle, passion, taste, and pursuit, were real men and
women, magnified into monsters, like flies and spiders when looked upon
through the eye-glass of a microscope. Orlando was but an exaggeration
of the chevalier Bayard, as was the British Arthur of the English
Richard, and Charlemagne himself of Francis I.
Ariosto, in following the fashion of contemporaries, lighted upon a
theme to which his wayward and versatile genius was peculiarly adapted,
and which gave it an opportunity of displaying all its peculiarities to
the utmost advantage. Of these, the most enviable and least imitable is
that perfection of art, which he perhaps possessed beyond every other
writer, to say things naturally. All his wonders and prodigies are made
so easy and probable, that to the most fastidious reader, who does not
resolutely resist the spell of the poet, and deprive himself of the
pleasure of being beguiled by it, they appear as they would do if they
were actual events, from the daylight effect of his truth-telling style;
for whenever his delight in the extravagant carries him beyond the
legitimately marvellous, he disarms resentment, and prevents the laugh
against himself by a quiet pleasantry,--becoming himself the Cervantes
of his own Quixotes. Satirists, however, have done little to improve
mankind: they have condemned and promoted vice; they have ridiculed and
recommended folly. Instead of being the most chaste, severe, and
instructive, it is notorious that (with few exceptions) they have been
the most profligate, pernicious, and corrupting of all writers. Many of
the most illustrious deserve to be crowned and decapitated, and their
laurelled heads fixed on poles round the heights of Parnassus, as
warnings to others, while they affect to expose sin, not to betray
virtue; and while they declaim against lewdness, not to become panders
to debauch the young, the innocent, and the unsuspecting. To go no
farther than the example before us. If ever man deserved poetical
honours, Ariosto did; and if ever poet deserved the curse of posterity
for the prostitution of high talents, Ariosto does. Without presuming to
judge him, even for his worst offences, beyond the present world, it had
been better for many of his readers,--why should we not say, at once,
for all of them?--that he had never been born. Whatever be her beauty,
his Muse has a cancerous sore upon her face, which cannot be looked upon
without loathing by any eye, not wilfully blind, where it ought to be
eagle-sighted.
[Footnote 94: History of Leo X. vol. I. p. 91. 4to.]
[Footnote 95: The lightning did not spare the laurelled bust of Ariosto,
on his monument at Ferrara, some years ago; for the wreath (being of
_iron_) was struck off from the marble temples by a flash, which entered
the church during a thunderstorm.]
[Footnote 96: "At Bologna, Michel Angelo erected, in front of the church
of St Petronio, a statue of Julius II. in bronze, which he is said to
have executed so as to express, in the most energetic manner, those
qualities for which he was distinguished; giving grandeur and majesty to
his person, and courage, promptitude, and ferociousness to his
countenance, while even the drapery was remarkable for the boldness and
magnificence of its folds. When Julius saw the model, and observed the
vigour of the attitude, and the energy with which the right arm was
extended, he enquired from the artist, whether he meant to represent him
as dispensing his benediction or his curse. Michel Angelo prudently
replied, that he meant to represent him in the act of admonishing the
citizens of Bologna. In return, the artist requested to know from his
holiness, whether he would have a book in his hand. 'No,' replied
Julius; 'give me a sword, I am no scholar.'"--_Roscoe's Leo X._ vol. IV.
p. 306. 4to edition.]
[Footnote 97: Leo X. vol. II. p. 52.]
[Footnote 98: Ariosto seems to have had a horror of travelling under any
circumstances:--
"Men's tastes are various: one prefers the church,
The camp another; this his native soil,
That foreign countries; as for me, who will
May travel to and fro, to visit France,
Spain, England, Hungary; but I love home.
Lombardy, Rome, and Florence I have seen;
The mountains that divide, and those that gird,
Fair Italy, and either sea that bathes her;
This is enough for me. Without expense
Of innkeepers, I roam with Ptolemy
O'er all the world beside, in peace or war;
I sail on every sea, nor make vain vows
When lightnings flash, for, safe, along the chart,
I see more lands than from the reeling deck."
_Satire IV._]
[Footnote 99: Apollo and the Muses are supposed to speak here, and
Ariosto replies to them.]
[Footnote 100: The cardinal's steward.]
[Footnote 101: "E fin ch'a Roma s'andò a far leone."
_Satire IV._
"a crearlo
Leon d' umile agnel."
_Satire VII._]
[Footnote 102: Annibale Maleguccio, to whom the Satire is addressed.]
[Footnote 103: A serpent, supposed to have horns; probably the hooded
snake of the East Indies,--one of the most venomous and deadly of the
kind: here it is the emblem of avarice.]
[Footnote 104: "Ch' ogni quiete sia, nè ve n' è alcuna."]
[Footnote 105: "Vi si vide anco che ciascun che ascende
Commincia a _inasinir_ le prime membre,
E resta umano quel che a dietro paude."]
[Footnote 106: See the emblem already quoted from Satire VII.]
[Footnote 107: Hope, that remained at the bottom of Pandora's fatal gift
to the brother of Prometheus.]
[Footnote 108: The Po, into which Phaëton was struck from the chariot
of the Sun.]
[Footnote 109: "Non molto va Rinaldo, che si vede
Saltar innanzi il suo destrier feroce:
'Ferma, Bajardo mio, deh! ferme il piede;
Che l'esser senza te troppo mi noce.'
Per questo il destrier sordo a lui non riede,
Anzi più se ne va sempre veloce;
Segue Rinaldo, e d'ira si distrugge:
--Ma sequitiamo Angelica, che fugge."
"Not far hath gone Rinaldo, ere he spies
His fiery steed before him, bounding free:
'Stay, my Bayardo! prythee stay,' he cries;
'For much am I annoy'd for lack of thee.'
Yet the deaf horse returns not, nor replies,
Save with his heels that swift and swifter flee.
Rinaldo follows, fuming in the race,
--But we must give the flying lady chase."]
[Footnote 110: Witness the total miscarriage of Tasso, in his
"Gerusalemme Conquistata," as an improvement upon the "Gerusalemme
Liberata;" and of Akenside, in his philosophic revision of the
"Pleasures of Imagination."]