Perhaps Shakespeare, who was indebted to the Italians for many modes of expression, through contemporary translations, took from this the King of Denmark’s exclamation of
“Oh! my offence is rank; it stinks to heaven.”
I have forborne all remarks upon this allegory of Discord, Pride, Hypocrisy, etc., as a subject which has been too much canvassed to require new comments in a series of notes intended to be less critical than explanatory. But it may be remarked how much of reality as well as of spirit has been given to all these very abstract personages, by the consistency and exactness of the details. ↩
Mandricardo. ↩
Zerbino. ↩
Dardinello. ↩
This servile sort of salutation is said to have originated in the Greek empire. It certainly exists there at present; and I well remember that, riding in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, I had my thigh embraced by a Greek beggar, on whom I had bestowed three or four paras. ↩
From Tripoli of Syria to Tortosa in Phoenicia; the Orthosia of Ptolemy. ↩
Cities of Syria, as I am informed by Fornari. ↩
Astolpho. ↩
Rinaldo. ↩
This adventure, the heads of which are only touched by Ariosto, is fully related in the Innamorato. I may observe, that one of Brunello’s feats of this description, achieved before Albracca, has been imitated in the story of Don Quixote, where Gines de Passamonte steals Sancho’s ass from under him. Indeed Cervantes has drawn many of his incidents from the romance of Boiardo. ↩
Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩
An old commentator says, that Luna was an ancient seaport in the Genoese territory, on the remains of which another town was built, termed Sarazana. Its name is still perpetuated in an Italian marble quarried in its neighbourhood, which is denominated marmo lunense. ↩
The effect of the best sea-air upon modern iron in this country, would be that which the poet attributes to the worst in his southern seas. It is a different thing in the Mediterranean, and there is in Torzelo, an islet of the Adriatic, a church of the middle-ages, with stone window shutters, hung upon iron pivots, which have undergone no oxidation. I do not know from personal observation, that the malaria produces the effect ascribed to it in the text; but think it highly probable, for there are some parts of Venice where plate tarnishes from the effects of the atmosphere; and this is considered by the inhabitants as a test of worse air than what prevails in places where it continues unsoiled. The partial prevalence of the malaria, which is, generally speaking, notorious, is more especially remarkable in Cyprus. ↩
To lower (ammainare) is a common practice in Mediterranean vessels (the masts of which often consist of what appears to be a single stick), and it is a simple and excellent manoeuvre in seas where the squalls are often as sudden and partial as they are impetuous. I was once in the sea of Marmora, then perfectly smooth, in apolacca, which ran two streaks of her deck under water, in a white squall; when at the magic word maînar (the contraction of ammainare) the sails came down bodily upon deck, and the vessel, righting herself, swam upon an upright keel. ↩
Dardinello. ↩
Agramant. ↩
Here we have an imitation of the Nisus and Euryalus of Virgil; whom, indeed, Ariosto has imitated closely in almost all the night adventures which follow. The best, however, the affecting incident of Labretto, is, I believe, entirely his own. ↩
Mount Martyr (Mont Martre) is a suburban town of Paris, and situated a little to the north of it. Mount Lery (Montlheri) is a town, or rather, I believe, a city, with a high tower for its citadel, built also on a mount, about twelve or fourteen miles to the southward of Paris. It is distinguished as having been taken in the Burgundian wars, and as having been a place of battle between the royalists and leaguers. It is, however, yet more familiar to the Parisians from having been celebrated by Boileau, in the opening of the third canto of his Lutrin, who makes it the birthplace of his owl. His lines will be duly estimated by every one who has travelled a long time within sight of a tower, from which it seems impossible to escape, and that of Montlheri may indeed be considered as the most enduringly visible of all towers, being built on an eminence in a country generally flat.
“But frightful night forthwith the shadow of her wings
O’er the vine-covered plain of the Burgundians flings,
T’wards Paris flies again, and, hastening her return,
Mountlery’s famous tower already does discern.
Its walls, whose top withdraws itself from sight, aspire and shroud,
Built on a rocky mound, their turrets in the cloud,
And with their tiresome object still facing him who flies
From far, appear to follow the traveller’s wearied eyes.
A thousand frightful birds, a thousand funeral crows,
Inhabit the dark void these deserted walls enclose.”
Creon, the tyrant of Thebes, prohibited, under pain of death, the burial of Polinices, etc. ↩
Surgery was practised by ladies of the highest birth in Europe during the middle ages, and probably in Asia till a later era; for in the ruder periods of society the useful, and not the ornamental, arts were held in the
