Orlando. ↩
The ork (orca), as mentioned here and afterwards in canto VIII, is some ideal sea-monster. In a future canto an ork (orco) is described as a cyclops. ↩
Everything in Ariosto has been construed into some secret sense. The fishes, described in a preceding stanza, are all said to denote the different conditions of men who are snared by vice, and the whale is interpreted as a fallacious appearance, which is often mistaken for real happiness. ↩
For an account of this fairy, see the Innamorato, where she plays a very conspicuous part. ↩
Rinaldo. ↩
The captain of this strange crew is Indolence, the source of all evils. His various followers, so fantastically and precisely painted, are evidently various vices distinguished by peculiarities which have not been, and perhaps cannot now be, satisfactorily explained. Eriphila, who afterwards appears, is Avarice, who guards the path that leads to pleasure. By the beautiful damsels who employ Rogero to defeat, and not to slay her, and who rescue him from the deformed rabble, against whom he was contending, is signified, we are told, that though a generous disposition will resist foul and undisguised vice, it often yields readily to temptation, which is masked under fairer appearances. ↩
Here again colour is significant: green was the symbol of fickleness, as blue was the characteristic of constancy. ↩
“Tarda solet magnis rebus inesse fides.”
Ovid.
A yet more marked resemblance to this obvious remark is to be found in the first book of the Golden Ass of Apuleius. “Nam et mihi et tibi et cunctis luminibus multa usu evenere vera, quae tamen ignaro relata, fidem perdunt.” ↩
In the original flavo (giacinto), which is always interpreted by dictionaries to mean light yellow; but such is not the tint of the jacinth, which may perhaps be considered as tawny, ↩
Probably suggested by Horace’s
“Quale portentum neque militaris
Daunia in latis alit esculetis,” etc.
We have here one of those half sneers, in which Ariosto occasionally indulges. Was it justifiable? I have never heard the Italian prelacy accused of avarice, nor does it seem a vice very likely at any time to have been inherent in such a body. ↩
Some of the commentators suppose an oversight in this place. They observe that Rogero came away upon the hippogryph apparently without a lance; and enquire where he could find the one he takes. A knight full armed was usually attended by a squire or valet bearing his lance, and therefore, with the critic’s leave, we will suppose that he snatches the lance from an attendant. ↩
Harrington, translating from the Italian commentators, tells us, that “in Eriphila, overthrown by Rogero and not killed, we may observe that the liberality which men make great show of in their youthful pleasures, is not the true virtue that doth quite extinguish that monster covetousness.” ↩
We have here the personification of pleasure, so common in eastern and western romance; the Circe of the Odyssey, and the Labe of the Arabian knights. ↩
I once considered the picture of Alcina, which has been esteemed a model of perfect beauty, as uniting qualities which could hardly be found together; as black eyes and eyebrows and light hair I have, however, seen a portrait, warranted to be an exact resemblance, which is a counterpart to that of Alcina. It is hardly necessary to observe that light hair, from its rarity, is usually esteemed a beauty among the southern people, and hence we read of the Roman ladies supplying themselves with wigs from the heads of the northern barbarians, brought prisoners to Rome. ↩
The Latian Lord evidently means Mark Antony; but there is some discussion among the old critics, as to whether he was designated as such, or Julius Caesar, the preceding lover of Cleopatra. Ariosto, like Shakespeare, was thinking of the feasts described by Plutarch. ↩
This would seem to have been some favourite game in Ariosto’s age, like our old questions and commands. ↩
It was the custom during the middle ages, and continued to later times, to serve cordial or spiced wine upon retiring to rest: this was drunk sometimes in the hall, sometimes in the bedchamber. The draught was termed in French le vin de congé, and in English the wines. ↩
This (in the Italian zendado) was a thin species of silk.—See Ducange in vocem Cendalum. The word sendal is of constant occurrence in our old English chronicles and romances. ↩
Birding in these and other modes is still a common sport with the Italians, who, moreover, like their ancestors, justly consider the thrush as a dainty. ↩
There were many forms for thus obtaining an insight into distant or future events, as the sortes Virgilianae, which we hear were tried so lately as by Charles I. We read in the old Arabian Nights of casting figures in sand for this purpose; but we learn the prettiest conjuration of this kind in the New Arabian Tales, which, though they have been evidently much interpolated, bear strong internal evidence of an Arabian origin. Two damsels, attendant upon an island princess of genie race, and themselves fairies, going in search of succour for their mistress, then besieged by her rebellious subjects, find a young man sleeping on the shore, who, they think, may be fit for their purpose. To ascertain who he
