She was the only one of the fifty sisters, daughters of Danaus, who spared her husband, when the others, at the instigation of the father, murdered theirs. ↩
The fact of Ardennes being the name of a forest in France, and Arden in English, is to be explained by their Celtic derivation, ar, great, and denne, a wood. Hence Denney-walk in the New Forest, etc. ↩
Rogero. ↩
It is hardly necessary to observe that Vallombroza is a convent in the Apennines: since it has been made almost as familiar to English, as it is to Italian ears, by the poetry of Milton. ↩
This is in the true spirit of romance, and romance was but an exaggerated picture of real life, as it existed during the middle ages. Mr. Ellis, in his preface to Way’s Fabliaux, observes: “The reader, who is accustomed to the regularity of civilized life, cannot survey without astonishment the detail of confusion that prevailed in those times of feudal barbarism. The universal fondness for the pleasures of the chase, and the general contempt for agriculture, had converted a considerable part of Europe into forests; and the same solitude which gave an asylum to the beasts of the field, afforded security to large bands of robbers, who were generally sure of purchasing, by a participation of their plunder, the protection and assistance of the little tyrants in their neighbourhood. At every bridge and on every road, enormous tolls were exacted; and passengers were often plundered by the castellains through whose territories they passed.” I will only add to this statement, that, reasoning from the spirit of the age, as exemplified in Jocular Tenures, it does not seem improbable that ridiculous and degrading usages should have been enforced upon travellers at bridges, etc.; and it is probable that the romancers had some sort of foundation for this, as well as for their other incidents in real life. ↩
Pinnabel. ↩
Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩
Argalìa. ↩
Bradamant’s mother. ↩
Such oaths are common in romance, and were not once without example in real history. Froissart speaks of seeing certain English nobles with one eye blinded with a patch, which they had sworn not to uncover till they should have made a certain number of prisoners in the French wars. ↩
Though this assertion is in character with Mandricardo, there is no colour for it in the story of the Innamorato. Agrican, king of Tartary, and the father of Mandricardo, who is one of the most distinguished heroes of that poem, was slain by Orlando in single combat. Having fought during the greater part of a day, the two duellists were interrupted by night, and lay down, side by side, for the purpose of repose. Entering now into conversation,
“Fast they carped and courteously,
Of deeds of arms and of venerie,” etc.
in the true spirit of knights-errant. Unfortunately, however, they were of less endurance in the wars of words than in that of blows, and each feeling himself less capable of maintaining his opinion by sayings than doings, was impatient to renew the battle. The battle was renewed, and Agrican, after many vicissitudes of fortune, mortally wounded. Orlando had by this time sufficiently inculcated the necessity of baptism, which Agrican had before contemptuously refused; and the conquerer, alighting from his horse, administers this rite, with a tenderness which forms a whimsical contrast to the other part of the adventure. ↩
Two hinds contending for the mead’s boundary, may appear a more natural image to an Englishman, unless conversant with a water-meadow-district, than their contending for the water’s right, but to an Italian must appear to the full as probable a cause of quarrel. And Mr. Forsyth (the acute author of Remarks Upon Italy) would derive rivalry (rivalitas) from the river quarrels of the ancient inhabitants of Italy. ↩
It may be here remarked that the poet has given great effect to Ariosto’s picture of Orlando’s madness, by laying his scene in the spot which he has chosen. Upon the same principle, he has sent Mandricardo and Doralice to consummate their loves in a rustic retirement; and while the solitude of the country gives more relief to pictures of passions or manners, in works of fiction, it would seem that it charmed us also by the mere repose which it affords. Don Quixote is never so interesting as at the Duke’s, nor the Spectator as at Sir Roger de Coverley’s. Shakespeare, when he has almost worn out Falstaff, presents him to us as fresh as ever, eating a dish of caraways and pippins in Master Shallow’s orchard; and though hardly anything remarkable is said or done by either of them, we delight in watching Gil Blas and Scipio at Lirias, and contemplate them with pleasure when taking their siesta under its shades. ↩
The sweet acorns, among which is that of the ilex, are a common article of food with the peasantry in some parts of southern Europe; and the reader will recollect the letter of the duchess in Don Quixote to Sancho’s wife, desiring a supply. It was this which led the poets to suppose them the exclusive food of man during the golden age. They are not, after all, so bad a substitute for something better, as might be conceived; and the mountain peasantry of warm countries (to their praise be it spoken!) will accommodate themselves to worse provision. The inhabitants of the Tuscan Apennines make the fruit of the wild chestnut (I am not sure that it is the same as our horse chestnut) and ground pulse into bread; and the traveller, in a season
