Orlando Furioso

of classical and Gothic fictions, and in which figure the champion of Christendom, and the heathen god Proteus, who is described as exercising all the powers of an angry and puissant divinity. One of the late translators of the Furioso, in commenting upon this canto of his author’s seems here to think him indefensible; and what would justly be thought so glaring an offence against costume in a modern, will probably be deemed in the eyes of many, a defect in Ariosto. But those many, who judge by rule, should, on their own principles, have regard to authority: and by what many and weighty authorities may he not be justified? To come near to our own times; is not the mixture in Lycidas, of “the pilot of the Galilean lake,” and of heathen gods and goddesses, “Sleek Panope, with all her sisters,” and “old Hippotades,” shepherds and bishops, a more anomalous assemblage than that which we find in the story of Olympia? Yet who could wish, except those who pride themselves as philosophical critics, that Milton had conformed to our modern notions of propriety, or who of real poetical feeling subscribes to the censure which Dr. Johnson has pronounced upon this exquisite poem? But if I have been tempted to recur to authority, I ought to confess it is not by authorities that Ariosto is generally to be estimated. He will never relish the Furioso who expects to find in it a series of classical reliefs; let him rather come to it as to the contemplation of a magnificent and fanciful arabesque, in which the natural mingles with the extravagant, and the beautiful with the grotesque. ↩

The ram on which Phryxus escaped from her mother-in-law, and which was afterwards placed in the zodiac, which animal the sun enters in the spring quarter. ↩

This description may surprise those acquainted but with English antiquities, and who know that the floors of our richest nobles, and even those of our kings, were, in Ariosto’s age and long after, covered with rushes, under which the filth and offal of the table was often left to rot. Italy had, however, arrived at as high a pitch of refinement, as may be argued from this stanza, even in the time of Dante; a fact made clear by certain passages in the prose works of that writer, and which were for this purpose cited by Mr. Foscolo in his lectures on Italian literature. What a contrast does she now afford to the times when “wealth was hers!” ↩

Such vows, during the middle ages, were not uncommon even in real life. Thus Froissart tells us of an English knight, who wore one eye covered in consequence of a vow he had made to forego the use of it, till he had taken a certain number of prisoners in the French wars. ↩

It may be objected that, though Angelica might vanish by putting the ring in her mouth, her mare, with an empty saddle, must have remained visible, and that this circumstance should have been attended to and explained. But (as I have said elsewhere) there is no end to such objections where there is a question of magic. ↩

Speaking comparatively, it was only at a late period of society that the doctrines of Islamism came to be understood in the Christian parts of Europe. Till this epoch we find the Mussulmans constantly charged with polytheism, and Termagant, Tervagant, (or, as he is termed in the Italian, Trivigante) is a godhead, frequently associated with Muhammad by the romancers. ↩

The original says each wrinkle of the soul. Though I have ventured to attempt to naturalize many Italian expressions, I thought this too bold to bear translation; but mention it as illustrative of the spirit of Italian poetry, which prefers particularization to general terms in description, and, as in the present case, seeks to give some individuality of feature to the most imaginary portrait. ↩

The poet does not mean Bayonne of Gascony, but Bayonne of Galicia, the capital of his kingdom who made the jousts. ↩

Mongia or Mogia is a seaport town of Galicia. ↩

The gangboard in a galley is laid fore and aft, and on it the rowers pass from stem to stern; a very natural place for securing the mast when unshipped. The castles were wooden imitations of the buildings whose names they bear, and may be seen in the tapestry of the House of Lords representing the defeat of the Spanish Armada. A memorial of the word is still preserved in our term of forecastle. The cutting away such top-lumber would of course tend materially to lighten a vessel in a storm. ↩

The reader will recollect the sailors resorting to the manoeuvre mentioned in the text, in the story of St. Paul’s shipwreck, which may show how common was the practice attributed to the Biscayneer. While I am upon this subject, I cannot resist the temptation of relating a story arising out of it; because it will show how local experience removes difficulties, even of a graver nature than those which I have here attempted to explain. It happened that the lesson, which made part of one Sunday morning’s service, read on board a king’s ship in the Mediterranean, was that in which St. Paul gives a description of this shipwreck; and some of the men were observed to exchange significant glances at the idea of anchoring from the stern in the situation he described. A few days afterwards the ship arrived at the very island which is the supposed scene of the catastrophe, and moored in the port of La Valletta, in which lay some Greek vessels, whose high sterns might have preserved them from the danger incidental to anchoring from such a part. Many of the