Ariosto forgets that he is making Odorico do what he said Zerbino could not do (and what he would have done if he could), though precisely in the same situation, that is, bound upon a sorry hackney, the ordinary conveyance of malefactors. This and some other similar inadvertencies may seem to make against the care and precision for which I have given the poet credit. But it is in his pictures of passion and manners, and in the general conduct of his story, that these are conspicuous. In mere facts, upon which nothing seems to depend, he is sometimes careless or forgetful. ↩
Orlando. ↩
He means that he had established his claim to it, when he won the other arms of Hector in the castle of the Syrian fairy; as related in the Innamorato. ↩
Having first destined Zerbino’s soul for the myrtle-grove appropriated to departed lovers, Ariosto makes him anticipate his descent into a penal hell; why, except for the purpose of justifying this ardent profession of love, it is difficult to understand. If he had been a Moor, the doctrines of every Christian, in our poet’s age, would, I believe, have assigned him such a hereafter; but he was a Christian prince, and is only known to us for his many virtues, and for being as amiable as he is virtuous. As odd as the supposed sentence passed upon him, is his supposed foppishness, which is traditional in Italy, where Zerbinotto is as universally received an equivalent for a dandy as Gradasso for a bully. But nothing is to be found in justification of this scandal, that I am aware of, either in this work or elsewhere. ↩
Mandricardo and Rodomont. ↩
Mandricardo and Rodomont, in the spirit of gallantry, plighted their troth before Doralice, according to the forms observed before a feudal superior. ↩
At Altaripa, where he had to contend with Guido the savage and the other champions of Pinnabel. ↩
A piece of artillery belonging to his patron, Alphonso of Este, which, we are told, was so denominated. ↩
Falerina made this sword Balisarda, which would cut even enchanted substances, for the purpose mentioned in the text, in a garden in Orgagna; which is the seat of many marvels in the Innamorato. Orlando, however, anticipated her, foiled her enchantments, sacked her garden, and made her prisoner, whom he surprised in the act of looking at herself in the polished surface of the sword which she had manufactured for his destruction. ↩
Such was the usual mode of equipping a knight; whose small shield so disposed was no impediment to the action of either arm when necessary, and could be braced at pleasure. ↩
Ariosto was in his place thinking of his own country mode of birding, in which it is common to take one fowl and use him as a decoy to others. Love takes Richardetto in his net, and instructs him (like a call-bird) how he is to take Flordespina. ↩
The succeeding stanzas (LXV to LXIX) which I have omitted, were (we are assured by the brother of the poet) condemned on that revision of his work which was made by him with a view to a more perfect edition; and this tends strongly to prove that Ariosto must have somewhat outrun the gross and licentious spirit of his age. English critics are disposed to believe that this was much more outrageous in Italy than in England, and the writer of an article upon my translation in the Quarterly Review attributes this to the supposed licentiousness which succeeded the great plague at Florence, Reasoning, however, as all our commentators do, from the great scandal afforded by Italian literature of this period, he overlooks that given by our own writers. Harrington’s translation of the Furioso, dedicated to a virgin queen, is to the full as licentious as his original, and sometimes infinitely more coarse. As a proof of this, he has in the most scandalous episode which is contained in Ariosto’s work used a word so offensive (not printed, indeed, for a blank space is left for it, but indicated by a corresponding double rhyme), that I question whether it would not almost scandalize even the male population of Wapping and St. Giles’s. Nor will the plea of “non meus hic sermo” excuse our poets of that time: for original writers as well as translators may be cited in proof of English delinquency; and Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” presents as many voluptuous pictures as the prose of Boccaccio or the poetry of Ariosto. ↩
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 ↩
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 ↩
This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —Emma Sweeney ↩
Rogero. ↩
Aldigier and Richardetto. ↩
All the commentators have explained this monster to mean Avarice, which had overrun the Christian world. Sir John Harrington, who lived in an
