Farfarello and Alichino are devils in the Inferno of Dante; but Ariosto has taken the i out of Alichino, in order to get him into his verse. Here he has (as on some other occasions) made a sacrifice of propriety to prosody, for Alichino (winged, or rather wingy, from ali) has a meaning in the Inferno, which Alchino has not in the Furioso. ↩
In the beginning of the first stanza cited, the reader will recognise an imitation of Homer and Virgil in the mission of Mercury to Ulysses and Aeneas. Indeed, all this description is a mosaic, culled from various authors. ↩
I do not know whether what was once called cicisbeism took its rise in Valencia, or whether this verse is only allusive to the general effeminacy of the province. The first supposition appears probable. ↩
See Ovid De Arte Am. II 99. ↩
Hawking, previously to the importation or diffusion of that species of game which are the creatures of cultivation, was almost confined to the pursuit of aquatic birds, and hence this and the sister art of hunting were, during the middle ages, termed the mysteries of woods and rivers. The importance attached to them, as exemplified by this very denomination, was not only consonant to the habits of such an age, but arose even out of its necessities: for before the introduction of dry forage, which was not of early origin, the woods and water afforded the only fresh food to be procured during the winter season; those who could not procure such an indulgence being obliged to live on salt provisions; and this, probably, was a cause of leprosy during the middle ages. ↩
In the original, turbine: which here means a species of involved knot, used formerly in incantation. Perhaps hag-knot, which is still employed in the New Forest to designate the tangles in the manes of wild ponies, which are supposed to have been made by witches, to answer the purpose of stirrups, is its best English equivalent. ↩
The reader must recur to the Innamorato for an account of this spear, with which Astolpho worked wonders, and which is one of Boiardo’s happiest instruments. ↩
To feel the full force of many of Ariosto’s descriptions, the reader should have visited southern countries. I was first made sensible of the force and truth of the original of this stanza during a hot and lonely ride in Asia Minor, performed under some anxiety of mind as to its result; and I well remember that the chirp of the cicala with which Ariosto finishes his description, was what appeared to me the most vexatious of all the accompaniments of my disagreeable journey. ↩
Rinaldo. ↩
An ancient commentator tells us Ariosto is here indebted to Ovid’s picture of Europa carried off by the Bull; but he has copied from it few of his details. For some of these, however, he is indirectly indebted to the fable, having evidently borrowed a few touches of Poliziano, who has two stanzas on a group of Europa and the Bull. ↩
This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —Emma Sweeney ↩
This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —Emma Sweeney ↩
Ptolemy enumerates five Irish isles, and Pliny fifty, as bearing this name. May it not be, as suggested to me, a corruption of Hebrides? ↩
Ariosto, perhaps, meant nothing more than the mere passages of Caucasus, which might seem signified by gates, inasmuch as such are called ghauts (meaning the same thing, I believe) in India; and such an expression is used to designate an opening in the hills which divide England and Scotland. ↩
Apollonius Rhodius is the inventor of the simile; but it is from Virgil, in his 8th book of the Aeneid, that Ariosto has borrowed his illustration (l. 19–25). ↩
This line, in the text,
Non sperar più gioirne in terra mai,
is taken, with little variation, from Petrarch’s
Non sperar più vederla in terra mai;
but Ariosto could not imitate him without transfusing something of a warmer colouring into his copy. ↩
I cannot find to whom this alludes, but we may presume to some paynim vanquished by Orlando in some anterior romance; though we find no mention of any such in the Innamorato. ↩
The name of Orlando’s sword. ↩
This is quite consonant to the spirit of romances of chivalry, and so is indeed everything in the poems of Boiardo and Ariosto. Thus the Orlando of the Innamorato, fighting with Agrican, grants him respite, that he may rally his troops; and even offers his services for that purpose against the very forces with which he was associated for Agrican’s destruction. Thus Rinaldo, in this poem, when in the execution of an embassy, neglects it, and embarks in an adventure which suspends the execution of a solemn and urgent duty. In the same spirit Orlando even delays his quest of his mistress, to succour this damsel, who was unknown to him; though Ariosto has ingeniously softened the extravagance of his conduct by making him reflect that in
