The last act of extravagance in this little piece, the return of king and cavalier to the adulteresses, with whom they live very happy ever afterwards, is less out of nature, and is besides justified by its epigrammatic spirit. ↩
That there are some preparations which for a time secure the skin from fire there is no doubt, and we cannot much wonder it should have been believed in a more ignorant age, that what preserved from one danger would preserve from another. In Constantinople, where things have remained (as has been before said) much in the same state as they were in Christendom down to the fifteenth century, a frequent exhibition takes place of dervishes who handle red hot irons with impunity; and every now and then we have some chance performer on the same strange instruments at home.
In these performances there may be some trick, as in the apparent swallowing of molten lead, which is probably some other composite metal capable of fusion by an inferior degree of heat, a thing which is sometimes witnessed in the partial dissolution of an alehouse teaspoon in a hot cup of tea; but making every reasonable allowance for deception, no one can doubt the main fact, who has witnessed these performances, which certainly offer a reasonable ground for believing that all the strange tricks of natural magic which we read of in works of the middle ages were not such mere hocus pocus as our modern natural philosophers would persuade us; and the thing on which I have been commenting may show how oddly secrets may be preserved among the ignorant, which elude all the researches of the educated. ↩
An Italian commentator attacks Ariosto for having first stated that one nameless herb, boiled with rue and ivy, was sufficient for Isabella’s purpose, and then for making her collect many others for this magic bath. I should not have thought the criticism worth notice, if the circumstance did not illustrate a fact in the history of manners, or rather of art. In the earlier ages of Europe, all composers of medicine dealt largely in compound drugs, and never used that on which they most relied without other auxiliary ingredients. The great improvers of medicine were inclined to treat this complication of remedies as an imposture. But better experience seems to prove that our ancestors were right in the principle, however inefficient or erroneous may have been their practice. For it is now well ascertained that the happy union of drugs is one of the most useful points of medicine; and that even preparations of the same ingredient which offend when taken separately, will sometimes produce a beneficial effect when administered in combination. ↩
The English reader can only find some palliation for this passage in the spirit of Ariosto’s age and country. As a specimen, indeed, of the different feeling with which his countrymen have contemplated it, it is enough to translate literally the note of one who has furnished many observations upon the Furioso, not worse than those of other critics. “The poet” (say he) “uses the oath which the Gentiles put into the mouths of the their Gods, in making them swear by the waters of Styx; an oath which was held by them as inviolable. Ariosto poetically puts this into the mouth of the true God, to show the unalterable firmness of his purpose!”
Putting aside these indefensible scandals, it is to be observed that Ariosto too often loses himself when he touches the dangerous chord of compliment; but I can say with truth, that after a long and close consideration of the Furioso, I am convinced little could safely be abridged in this extraordinary poem besides these complimentary effusions. Everything else has its use, and is conducive to some dramatic, if not poetical, effect. After being long afraid of proclaiming so bold a conclusion, I have derived great confidence from finding that such was the opinion of the late Mr. Fox, who used to contend that there was no such thing as an episode to the Purioso; and in the proper estimation of the term he is undoubtedly right, for nothing can be left out or altered, without injury to some other piece of the machinery. This may be extravagant and fantastical, but it is fitted to its ends and coherent in all its varieties. ↩
A ferocious knight, one of the dramatis persona in the Mort Arthur. ↩
Now called the Castle of St. Angelo. ↩
Rodomont. ↩
Orlando. ↩
Orlando. ↩
It is termed Gibletorre in the Diary of Teongue, chaplain of two king’s ships in the Mediterranean in the years 1675–9. In somewhat the same way we say Trafàlgar or Traflagàr, giving the word sometimes a foreign, sometimes an English accentuation. I do not know what Ariosto means by Zizera, and can find no trace of such a town. ↩
“It may not be amiss to take a little retrospect, in order to see how the matter was settled by Agramant, which seems rather to require some explanation. By the first lots that were drawn, the combatants stood thus: first, Rodomont and Rogero: fourth, Mandricardo and Marphisa. The list being prepared for the fight between Rodomont and Mandricardo, while these knights are arming themselves, a new dispute arises between them and Gradasso and Sacripant for Durindana and Frontina, which puts a stop to the expected combat between Rodomont and Mandricardo. Marphisa adds to the confusion by carrying off Brunello prisoner, whom she accuses of stealing her sword; and Rogero seeing the order of the lots disturbed, claims again his horse
