Endnotes

1. A second wheat harvest follows closely upon the first in some parts of Tuscany. ↩

2. Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner. ↩

3. Thus translated obscurely, but more accurately, by Huggins:

   Towards the west I came along that strand
   Which does the powerful northern blast command.

   ↩

4. I have used the name by which he is best known in French and English legends. He is called Orlando by Ariosto, and Rotolando by some of the more ancient romancers. His name and signature are said to have been seen in certain charters of Charlemagne. In the Latin Chronicles of the middle ages he is called Rutlandus and Ruitlandus. ↩

5. The Cardinal Ippolito d’Este, son of Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. ↩

6. This Rogero, Ruggiero in the original, is supposed to be Rizieri of Risa, whose name is changed according to the customary transmutation of Venetian letters into their Tuscan equivalents, as z into g. He, however, is said to have flourished before the time of Charlemagne, and to have died childless. The supposed descent of the family of Este from Rizieri, and their pretensions to be of the blood of Charlemagne, for Bradamant was the niece of that emperor, made Ariosto adopt Rogero as the real hero of his poem. ↩

7. Angelica, daughter of Galaphron, king of Cathay, the capital of which was Albracca. ↩

8. Rinaldo, cousin to Orlando, is known by different names, as Renaud and Arnaud. He was eldest son of Amone, in Italian, Aymon, in French, of Monte Albano, or Mont Auban. ↩

9. In the footrace. Dante uses the same comparison in his Inferno, canto XV, the concluding lines.

   “With that he turned, and seemed as one of those
   Who race upon Verona’s spacious plain
   For the green cloth; nor seemed of them who lose,
   But he who the disputed prize will gain.

   ↩

10. Imitated from Virgil, Aeneid II l. 379. ↩

11. He was also called Ferraute and Ferracuto. He is said to have been slain by Orlando, who wounded him in the navel, the only vulnerable part about him. ↩

12. Orlando and Rinaldo. ↩

13. The continuation of an old story, for which see the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo. Argalìa was brother to Angelica. ↩

14. Almonte in the text, called by others Aimonte. For the rest, these stories, though “half told,” develope themselves in the course of the poem. ↩

15. Translated, and with little variation, from Catullus’s beautiful comparison, in his epithalamium on Manlius and Julia. (See Lamb’s translation in Bohn’s edition, p. 228.) ↩

16. Sacripant, who is one of Boiardo’s dramatis personae, figures more especially in the warfare,

    “When Agrican, with all his northern powers,
    Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
    The city of Galaphron; from thence to win
    The fairest of her sex, Angelica,
    His daughter, sought by many prowest knights,
    Both paynim and the peers of Charlemagne.”

    Paradise Regained.

    ↩

17. An Italian commentator writes more than a page to prove that Ariosto must have meant il pino grandissimo, that is, the stone-pine, or Pinus pinea of Linnaeus, with a top like an umbrella; but has omitted the best reason for supposing so; to wit, that it is the only pine common in Italy. ↩

18. Bradamant is also a character in the Innamorato, and her story, which forms one of the prettiest episodes in the work, is afterwards taken up where it was dropped by Boiardo. ↩

19. Bayardo, the famous steed of Rinaldo, is said to have been found by Malagigi, the wizard knight, and cousin to Rinaldo, in a grotto, together with a suit of arms and the sword Fusberta, under the watch of a dragon, whom he charmed. Having obtained the prize, he bestowed it upon Rinaldo. ↩

20. Angelica, then in love with Rinaldo, through the influence of the fountain of Love, and into whose hands Bayardo fell at Albracca, took care of him, and afterwards returned him to his master, who was among her enemies, he being then under the influence of the Fountain of Hate, as is seen in the text.

    One source of love and one of burning hate.

    The idea of these two fountains is perhaps taken from Claudian’s picture of the gardens of Venus (De Nupt. Honor. et Mar. l. 69.):

    Two fountains glitter to the solar beam;
    This spouts a sweet, and that a bitter stream;
    Where Cupid dips his darts, as poets dream.

    The idea of miraculous fountains, (originating probably in the physical effects of some waters,) seems to have been a favourite classical fiction, as exemplified in the two springs in Boeotia, of which one was supposed to increase, and the other to take away, the memory. The belief in these was rife during the middle ages, and indeed extended to a later period; as we find the early discoverers reported, among other wonders, a fountain of youth.

    It is possible, moreover, that with the idea of Claudian’s two fountains may have been mixed up that of Cupid’s two arrows, one of lead and the other of gold; of which the golden one was supposed to instil love, and the leaden hate. ↩

21. Such accusations are frequent in the Innamorato, and seem, as well as the adventure in the Fata Morgana’s garden, where Rinaldo’s rapacious conduct is contrasted with the disinterestedness of Orlando, to justify Sancho in stigmatizing the son of Aymon and his followers as “greater thieves than Cacus.” In fact, Renaud de Montauban, or Rinaldo di Mont’ Albano, appears to have been the governor of a fortress on the Spanish frontier, and was probably distinguished by what may be considered as the most characteristic attribute of a borderer. ↩

22. Fusberta is the name of Rinaldo’s sword. ↩

23. Bradamant. ↩

24. The story of Merlin is so familiar that it stands in no need of comment, and it is scarcely necessary to add, that the account given here of his death does not vary from the ancient romancers’ relations, except in that Ariosto has changed the scene from Britain, the original seat of all sorcery and chivalry, to France. ↩

25. The beginning of this pedigree is, of course, purely ideal. ↩

26. A five-sided instrument, as the name imports, constructed with some mystical reference to the five senses, and considered as the best defence against demons in the act of conjuration, etc. It is termed signum Salamonis by the cabalists, (the Solomon’s seal of which we hear so many wonders in Eastern tales,) and is still relied upon for its powers by the ignorant in Italy, and, probably, elsewhere: though in England it is only known through books. ↩

27. This Rizieri, whom Ariosto calls Ruggiero, died without a son. ↩

28. Pope Adrian called in Pepin to his assistance against Desiderius, the last of the Lombard kings, who was expelled from Italy; and it is for supposed services in this warfare that Rogero, who lived before the time of Charlemagne, is rewarded by that sovereign with the fiefs of Calaon and Este. ↩

29. Uberto, Count of Este and Commacchio. ↩

30. Alberto defeated the Emperor Berengarius the first, who had taken Milan. Hugh, spoken of as bearing the serpents, afterwards the symbol of the duchy, was the son of Albert, as stated in the text. ↩

31. The district of Lombardy, in which are situated Milan, Como, Pavia, Lodi, Novara, and Vercelli, the ancient possessions of the Insubri. Azzo the first succeeded to the government of Milan, but was obliged to fly the persecution of Berengarius, and take refuge with Otho the first Duke of Saxony, taking with him his wife, then big with Albertazzo. ↩

32. Albertazzo is said to have counselled the calling in of Otho, mentioned above, to the attack and discomfiture of the third Berengarius and his son. He married Alda, the daughter of Otho. ↩

33. Gregory V having fled from Rome, where he was insulted by the citizens, took refuge with the Emperor Otho, whereupon another pope was elected, who, in his turn, retired from this Hugh (Ugo), Otho’s general, into the castle of St. Angelo. Hugh replaced Gregory in the papal chair. I cannot, however, explain how he could be said to take Otho as well as Gregory out of the hands of the Romans, as Otho was besieging the castle of St. Angelo. He may indeed be said to have broken up the siege, by removing the cause of it. ↩

34. Hugh and Fulke (Ugo and Fulco) were sons of Albertazzo and Alda, to whose duchy of Saxony, which had devolved to her at the death of her father Otho, Fulke succeeded, making over his possessions in Italy to his brother Hugh. It is from this sucker that the present royal family of England is derived. ↩

35. Azzo II had sons Bertoldo and Albertazzo, who resisted Henry II; in opposition to whom, Rodolph, Duke of Saxony, was chosen. A pitched battle was fought between the rivals, in which Henry was driven out of Italy. On the side of Rodolph was Bertoldo, who figures in the text for his services on that occasion. ↩

36. Rinaldo, son of the fourth Marquis d’Este, fought against the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and Octavian, the antipope, in favour of Alexander III. ↩

37. This Azzo was elected Podestà of Verona. ↩

38. Otho IV. Honorius II. ↩

39. I have preferred English names, or even French, as approaching nearer to our associations, wherever no ridicule attached to them. For this reason I have changed Obizzo (accented as a dactyl in Italian) into its French equivalent. ↩

40. The Lords of Este, siding with the Guelphs, received from the church the duchy of Spoleto. ↩

41. By whom Ezzelino, nicknamed the son of the devil, on account of his monstrous cruelties, was defeated, wounded, and taken. ↩

42. The Emperor Frederick the Second. ↩

43. Ferrara.⁠—I need hardly add that the Po was the supposed scene of Phaethon’s catastrophe, the transformation of his sisters into poplars or larches weeping amber, and of Cygnus into a swan. ↩

44. Aldobrandino of Este, and first Marquis of Ferrara, obliged Otho IV to retire into Germany, who had made war on Pope Innocent IV and driven him into the capital for shelter. Aldobrandino being in want of money to carry on the war, borrowed it of the Florentines, leaving his brother in pledge. ↩

45. This space would, I believe, comprehend the old Exarchate of Ravenna. ↩

46. Rinaldo, the son of Azzo, who was poisoned at Naples, where he was confined by Frederic II. ↩

47. Obizzo, natural son of the last Rinaldo, was legitimated by Pope Innocent III with the consent of the emperor, and succeeded to the inheritance of Ferrara. He conquered Modena and Reggio. ↩

48. In a partial crusade, in the time of Charles II king of the two Sicilies, Azzo was made standard-bearer, and, for his services, obtained the daughter of that king in matrimony. ↩

49. Niccolò d’Este, and Alberto his brother, obtained Faenza, and were successful in their enterprises. ↩

50. Rovigo, called in Latin Rhodigium. ↩

51. Commacchio, a town in the Ferrarese, situated between two branches of the Po; whose inhabitants are said to rejoice in storms, because they drive the fish into their marshes, called in the Venetian dialect (of which the Ferrarese seems only a modification) vali, or valleys. ↩

52. Nicholas being left an infant by his father Alberto’s death, Azzo d’Este, who had been driven from his country, thought of returning, with the assistance of Tydeus, Count of Conio; but was opposed by the child’s guardians, who made Nicholas Lord of Ferrara. He afterwards killed Otho III who had usurped Parma and Reggio⁠—and obtained the grant of those cities by the consent of the inhabitants. ↩

53. Meaning that of the house of Este. ↩

54. Lionel and Borso were the natural sons, and Hercules and Sigismond the legitimate sons of Nicholas; who left his legitimate children under the protection of Lionel, who, seizing the government, drove out the brothers, and reigned in their place. His brother Borso, after the death of Lionel, recalled the banished brothers, and educated them as his own children. ↩

55. Hercules succeeded Borso. He would seem to have been wounded in a battle at Budrìo, where he was an ally of the Venetians, against the Romans, and restored the fortune of the day. Budrìo is a town in the territory of Ravenna. Barco is a place under the walls of Ferrara. ↩

56. Hercules fought in the service of Alphonso, king of the Catalans, when he, I suppose, fought the single combat alluded to in the text. ↩

57. The ensign of Venice. ↩

58. His states escaped the oppression of Charles VIII of France, when he overran the greater part of Italy. ↩

59. Alphonso I the third Duke of Ferrara, and Cardinal Ippolito his brother, both patrons of Ariosto. ↩

60. Meaning Rome. ↩

61. Alphonso being at variance with the pope and the Venetians, the pope obtained from Ferdinand, King of Naples, some Spanish troops, who took Bastìa, which was retaken under the circumstances stated in the text. ↩

62. The Ippolito to whom he dedicates his poem. ↩

63. The Maro, celebrated in the same stanza, in whom Ariosto might seem to have prefigured himself, is averred by a commentator to have been Andrea Marone, a Ferrarese poet of that day, and the conjecture appears strengthened by the honourable mention made of him in the last canto of the Furioso. ↩

64. Barks and galleys taken by horse and foot sound oddly in an Englishman’s ears. The passage alludes to the following exploit. The Venetians going up the Po with a fleet against Alphonso, Cardinal Ippolito went out of the city with some horse and foot, and coming to Volona, a castle near the river, and finding the enemy’s galleys unprovided, most of the crews being on shore, he sank four of them, and took fifteen, with other smaller craft. ↩

65. Hercules the second, fourth duke of Ferrara. ↩

66. Ferrante of Este, natural brother to Alfonso and Ippolito, had conspired with Giulio, his natural brother, to assassinate the duke; but the plot being discovered, they were condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Sir John Harrington tells the following story respecting the origin of this plot. “It happened that Ippolito, and one of these brothers, fell in love with a courtesan, who, showing less affection to Ippolito, was one day very earnestly importuned by him to know what moved her to prefer his brother before him; she answered, it was his beautiful eyes; upon which Ippolito ordered them to be thrust out; but the youth found means to preserve his sight, and, meeting with no redress, by making his complaint to the duke, he, and the other brother here mentioned, conspired to kill him; but, at the time of the execution, their hearts failed them, and the plot being discovered, they were kept in perpetual imprisonment.” ↩

67. Angelica, daughter of Galaphron of Cathay. For this and other thefts of Brunello, see Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato. ↩

68. The winged horse, and indeed everything in the Furioso even to the adventures, has been maintained to be allegorical. An Italian commentator, nearest to the time of Ariosto, pronounces this beast to be a type of Love, reasoning from his wings, his power of transporting man or woman, etc. The whimsical details of his parentage and education are given in stanzas XVIII and XIX. ↩

69. Ariosto is in general so correct in his localities, that I suppose he is right in this assertion, though I was unable to verify it in a mountain-tour which I once made in Tuscany. ↩

70. Agramant. ↩

71. The reader may be tempted to ask why he did not escape before; a thing which seemed as much in his power at one time as at another; but we must not be too jealous about consistencies where magic is concerned. ↩

72. These are all characters in the Innamorato; in which Iroldo and Prasildo are particularly distinguished by their friendship. ↩

73. King Arthur is known to every one as the founder of the round table. Galahalt was a son of Sir Launcelot, who was enamoured of Arthur’s wife, Ganor, or Gineura; but whose constancy to her was surprised by a princess, who, in consequence, gave birth to Galahalt. This knight achieved the quest of the sangreal, or real blood of Christ, as is related in the latter part of the Mort Arthur, where that fine old compilation of romances becomes mystical, Sir Gauvaine was more especially distinguished for his courtesy, and Sir Tristram for the same propensity as ir Launcelot, he being as faithfully attached to Yseult, the wife of King Mark of Cornwall, as Launcelot was to the wife of Arthur, King of Britain. ↩

74. In imitation of Arthur, the romancers attributed also a round table to Charlemagne. ↩

75. Alberto Lavezuola, commenting on this stanza, observes⁠—“It would not appear absolutely true that in other descriptions of animals, man excepted, the male does not sometimes war upon the female, and I have read in a worthy author of a he-bear having beat out the eye of a she-bear with his paw.” It is certain, however, that the savage beast is infinitely more generous on the point in question than the savage man; and Ariosto, in the latitude allowed to poets, seems to have sufficient grounds for his justification. ↩

76. The story of Geneura is familiar to every English reader as forming the plot of Much Ado About Nothing.

    Shakespeare has been by some considered as indebted to Ariosto for this tale; but it is clear that he borrowed from a later transcript of it. I cannot trace it higher than the Italian poet, but should have little doubt that he derived it from some ancient novelist. ↩

77. The faltering voice and pale face are indications of passion sufficiently obvious and common; but I do not recollect any other author who has alluded to the last circumstance in this description⁠—that bitter, poisonous taste, which is sometimes created in the mouth by any painful and unexpected impression. ↩

78. Perhaps suggested by Juvenal (Sat. VIII l. 149):

    “But this is all by night,” the hero cries.
    “Yet the moon sees! Yet the stars stretch their eyes.”

    Bohn’s Trans., p. 433.

    ↩

79. Much importance, during the middle ages, and those which immediately followed, was attached to colours, as emblematical of character or situation. Hence Ariodantes chooses black, and the hue of the “sear and yellow leaf,” as symbolical of his forlorn condition. ↩

80. In the original, Dazia; a name which is given to many northern countries. ↩

81. Translated from Dante’s

    “Ove Ercole segnò li suoi riguardi.”

    ↩

82. “Arethusa was a nymph of Elis, daughter of Oceanus, and one of Diana’s attendants. As she returned one day from hunting, she sat near the Alpheus, and bathed in the stream. The god of the river was enamoured of her, and pursued her, when Arethusa, ready to sink under fatigue, prayed to Diana, who changed her into a fountain. Alpheus immediately mingled his streams with hers, and Diana opened a secret passage under the earth, and under the sea, where the waters of Arethusa disappeared, rising in the island of Ortygia, near Syracuse, in Sicily. The river Alpheus, too, followed her under the sea, and rose also in Ortygia; So that, as mythologists relate, whatever is thrown into the Alpheus in Elis, rises again, after some time, in the fountain of Arethusa near Syracuse.” ↩

83. For the beginning of the first stanza cited, the author is indebted to Dante. See his Inferno, canto XIII. Also where Rogero offers, if in his power, to compensate the myrtle for the injury he had inflicted, Ariosto has followed Dante, describing the same prodigy, in his thirteenth canto. ↩

84. Astolpho’s transformation into a tree is certainly an improvement of the story of Polydore in Virgil, which is ridiculous, if considered as a natural phenomenon. But magic gets rid of all difficulties. Ariosto is supposed to have selected the myrtle as sacred to Venus, and, therefore, figurative of Astolpho’s propensities. ↩

85. Orlando. ↩

86. The ork (orca), as mentioned here and afterwards in canto VIII, is some ideal sea-monster. In a future canto an ork (orco) is described as a cyclops. ↩

87. Everything in Ariosto has been construed into some secret sense. The fishes, described in a preceding stanza, are all said to denote the different conditions of men who are snared by vice, and the whale is interpreted as a fallacious appearance, which is often mistaken for real happiness. ↩

88. For an account of this fairy, see the Innamorato, where she plays a very conspicuous part. ↩

89. Rinaldo. ↩

90. The captain of this strange crew is Indolence, the source of all evils. His various followers, so fantastically and precisely painted, are evidently various vices distinguished by peculiarities which have not been, and perhaps cannot now be, satisfactorily explained. Eriphila, who afterwards appears, is Avarice, who guards the path that leads to pleasure. By the beautiful damsels who employ Rogero to defeat, and not to slay her, and who rescue him from the deformed rabble, against whom he was contending, is signified, we are told, that though a generous disposition will resist foul and undisguised vice, it often yields readily to temptation, which is masked under fairer appearances. ↩

91. Here again colour is significant: green was the symbol of fickleness, as blue was the characteristic of constancy. ↩

92. “Tarda solet magnis rebus inesse fides.”

    Ovid.

    A yet more marked resemblance to this obvious remark is to be found in the first book of the Golden Ass of Apuleius. “Nam et mihi et tibi et cunctis luminibus multa usu evenere vera, quae tamen ignaro relata, fidem perdunt.” ↩

93. In the original flavo (giacinto), which is always interpreted by dictionaries to mean light yellow; but such is not the tint of the jacinth, which may perhaps be considered as tawny, ↩

94. Probably suggested by Horace’s

    “Quale portentum neque militaris
    Daunia in latis alit esculetis,” etc.

    ↩

95. We have here one of those half sneers, in which Ariosto occasionally indulges. Was it justifiable? I have never heard the Italian prelacy accused of avarice, nor does it seem a vice very likely at any time to have been inherent in such a body. ↩

96. Some of the commentators suppose an oversight in this place. They observe that Rogero came away upon the hippogryph apparently without a lance; and enquire where he could find the one he takes. A knight full armed was usually attended by a squire or valet bearing his lance, and therefore, with the critic’s leave, we will suppose that he snatches the lance from an attendant. ↩

97. Harrington, translating from the Italian commentators, tells us, that “in Eriphila, overthrown by Rogero and not killed, we may observe that the liberality which men make great show of in their youthful pleasures, is not the true virtue that doth quite extinguish that monster covetousness.” ↩

98. We have here the personification of pleasure, so common in eastern and western romance; the Circe of the Odyssey, and the Labe of the Arabian knights. ↩

99. I once considered the picture of Alcina, which has been esteemed a model of perfect beauty, as uniting qualities which could hardly be found together; as black eyes and eyebrows and light hair I have, however, seen a portrait, warranted to be an exact resemblance, which is a counterpart to that of Alcina. It is hardly necessary to observe that light hair, from its rarity, is usually esteemed a beauty among the southern people, and hence we read of the Roman ladies supplying themselves with wigs from the heads of the northern barbarians, brought prisoners to Rome. ↩

100. The Latian Lord evidently means Mark Antony; but there is some discussion among the old critics, as to whether he was designated as such, or Julius Caesar, the preceding lover of Cleopatra. Ariosto, like Shakespeare, was thinking of the feasts described by Plutarch. ↩

101. This would seem to have been some favourite game in Ariosto’s age, like our old questions and commands. ↩

102. It was the custom during the middle ages, and continued to later times, to serve cordial or spiced wine upon retiring to rest: this was drunk sometimes in the hall, sometimes in the bedchamber. The draught was termed in French le vin de congé, and in English the wines. ↩

103. This (in the Italian zendado) was a thin species of silk.⁠—See Ducange in vocem Cendalum. The word sendal is of constant occurrence in our old English chronicles and romances. ↩

104. Birding in these and other modes is still a common sport with the Italians, who, moreover, like their ancestors, justly consider the thrush as a dainty. ↩

105. There were many forms for thus obtaining an insight into distant or future events, as the sortes Virgilianae, which we hear were tried so lately as by Charles I. We read in the old Arabian Nights of casting figures in sand for this purpose; but we learn the prettiest conjuration of this kind in the New Arabian Tales, which, though they have been evidently much interpolated, bear strong internal evidence of an Arabian origin. Two damsels, attendant upon an island princess of genie race, and themselves fairies, going in search of succour for their mistress, then besieged by her rebellious subjects, find a young man sleeping on the shore, who, they think, may be fit for their purpose. To ascertain who he is, they fill a shell from the sea, and, having plucked a hair from his head, without waking him, cast it into this water. It immediately becomes troubled, and then, clearing itself, reflects a picture of tents, camels, and horses; showing the stranger to be an Arabian. ↩

106. Farfarello and Alichino are devils in the Inferno of Dante; but Ariosto has taken the i out of Alichino, in order to get him into his verse. Here he has (as on some other occasions) made a sacrifice of propriety to prosody, for Alichino (winged, or rather wingy, from ali) has a meaning in the Inferno, which Alchino has not in the Furioso. ↩

107. In the beginning of the first stanza cited, the reader will recognise an imitation of Homer and Virgil in the mission of Mercury to Ulysses and Aeneas. Indeed, all this description is a mosaic, culled from various authors. ↩

108. I do not know whether what was once called cicisbeism took its rise in Valencia, or whether this verse is only allusive to the general effeminacy of the province. The first supposition appears probable. ↩

109. See Ovid De Arte Am. II 99. ↩

110. Hawking, previously to the importation or diffusion of that species of game which are the creatures of cultivation, was almost confined to the pursuit of aquatic birds, and hence this and the sister art of hunting were, during the middle ages, termed the mysteries of woods and rivers. The importance attached to them, as exemplified by this very denomination, was not only consonant to the habits of such an age, but arose even out of its necessities: for before the introduction of dry forage, which was not of early origin, the woods and water afforded the only fresh food to be procured during the winter season; those who could not procure such an indulgence being obliged to live on salt provisions; and this, probably, was a cause of leprosy during the middle ages. ↩

111. In the original, turbine: which here means a species of involved knot, used formerly in incantation. Perhaps hag-knot, which is still employed in the New Forest to designate the tangles in the manes of wild ponies, which are supposed to have been made by witches, to answer the purpose of stirrups, is its best English equivalent. ↩

112. The reader must recur to the Innamorato for an account of this spear, with which Astolpho worked wonders, and which is one of Boiardo’s happiest instruments. ↩

113. To feel the full force of many of Ariosto’s descriptions, the reader should have visited southern countries. I was first made sensible of the force and truth of the original of this stanza during a hot and lonely ride in Asia Minor, performed under some anxiety of mind as to its result; and I well remember that the chirp of the cicala with which Ariosto finishes his description, was what appeared to me the most vexatious of all the accompaniments of my disagreeable journey. ↩

114. Rinaldo. ↩

115. An ancient commentator tells us Ariosto is here indebted to Ovid’s picture of Europa carried off by the Bull; but he has copied from it few of his details. For some of these, however, he is indirectly indebted to the fable, having evidently borrowed a few touches of Poliziano, who has two stanzas on a group of Europa and the Bull. ↩

116. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

117. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

118. Ptolemy enumerates five Irish isles, and Pliny fifty, as bearing this name. May it not be, as suggested to me, a corruption of Hebrides? ↩

119. Ariosto, perhaps, meant nothing more than the mere passages of Caucasus, which might seem signified by gates, inasmuch as such are called ghauts (meaning the same thing, I believe) in India; and such an expression is used to designate an opening in the hills which divide England and Scotland. ↩

120. Apollonius Rhodius is the inventor of the simile; but it is from Virgil, in his 8th book of the Aeneid, that Ariosto has borrowed his illustration (l. 19⁠–⁠25). ↩

121. This line, in the text,

     Non sperar più gioirne in terra mai,

     is taken, with little variation, from Petrarch’s

     Non sperar più vederla in terra mai;

     but Ariosto could not imitate him without transfusing something of a warmer colouring into his copy. ↩

122. I cannot find to whom this alludes, but we may presume to some paynim vanquished by Orlando in some anterior romance; though we find no mention of any such in the Innamorato. ↩

123. The name of Orlando’s sword. ↩

124. This is quite consonant to the spirit of romances of chivalry, and so is indeed everything in the poems of Boiardo and Ariosto. Thus the Orlando of the Innamorato, fighting with Agrican, grants him respite, that he may rally his troops; and even offers his services for that purpose against the very forces with which he was associated for Agrican’s destruction. Thus Rinaldo, in this poem, when in the execution of an embassy, neglects it, and embarks in an adventure which suspends the execution of a solemn and urgent duty. In the same spirit Orlando even delays his quest of his mistress, to succour this damsel, who was unknown to him; though Ariosto has ingeniously softened the extravagance of his conduct by making him reflect that in this expedition he might also serve his Angelica, ↩

125. Ariosto must here mean one of the many of St. Michael’s seats in Brittany, and not our Cornish “vision of the guarded Mount:” for St. Michael seems to have been a very favourite saint with the Celts of Brittany as well as those of Cornwall. ↩

126. I can no more explain what Ariosto means by these names, which, as having a Welsh or Breton sound, may be supposed real, than former commentators could what Milton had in view when he spoke of Namancos, which he places on the Spanish coast, opposite to St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. But as Namancos has been found in an old map of Spain, so Breac and Landriglier may perhaps be discovered in one of France. ↩

127. This piece of ferocity, which might seem inconsistent with such a character as that of Olympia, in any age, convinces me that this incident of the story, which seems to have been made up of many parts, had a foundation in truth. Credo quia impossibile est. I am, however, unable to discover any traces of it anterior to Ariosto’s poem. At any rate, the reader will regret that such a trait of brutality was either invented or copied by Ariosto. It is, however, a mere act of justice to observe that he seems to have repented making a Judith of Olympia; for among the alterations of the Furioso, vouched by Galasso, as the intended emendations of his brother Ludovico, the original line

     “Io saltai presto e gli segai lagola,”

     is changed to

     “Poi saltò presto e gli segò la gola,”

     the poet thus transferring the consummation of the murder to the servant who had struck down the bridegroom. But even admitting this correction, there is a daring spirit in the woman which is repugnant to our notions of feminine softness, and I cannot help thinking that the interest which she excites, is, in a great degree, owing to the beautiful picture which we have of her when stripped for sacrifice, and fastened to the rock. She is like the Athenian courtesan who, when her cause was going ill, dropped her clothes, and stood naked before her judges. ↩

128. Ariosto is here accurate in his geography, in which he almost always observes that of his age. His precision on such points (as where he illustrates the relative position of Alcina’s and Logistilla’s territories by the boundaries of England and Scotland) is the more remarkable, as he is, I believe, the first among the moderns, who made a study of such proprieties. ↩

129. Volana, not far distant from Ferrara, is one of the mouths of the Po, in which the fish take refuge, and from which their return is intercepted by a net, resembling the Seine. ↩

130. The zimbello of the text is a bird used to decoy others, which, together with the birds first taken, is, in Italy, confined with a string, and by the fowler’s play made to leap up and flutter; which attracts the notice of the wild birds, who join them, and are taken by a claptrap. I have seen this practice in Tuscany, where it is styled the paretajo. It is, I believe, called the roccolo in Lombardy, and is common in Germany, and probably in other parts of the continent. ↩

131. The frog-hunter has changed his weapons, and frogs are now fished for in Italy. ↩

132. I suppose with collars armed with spikes, as may yet be seen on the wolf-dogs in parts of Switzerland. ↩

133. Orlando. ↩

134. Here Ariosto has, I think, improved Ovid’s description, by turning the woodland-birds into halcyons, whose appearance and plaintive cries seem to harmonize more happily with the scene.

     The “old woe,” lamented by them, was the catastrophe which led to the transformation of Ceyx and Alcyone into halcyons. For Ceyx having been drowned in a tempest, and Alcyone having cast herself into the sea upon the body, the gods, compassionating their misfortune, we are told, operated this prodigy in their behalf. ↩

135. Defoe, that true observer of nature, remarks, that every nation has its peculiar sound indicative of pain and grief, and, it may be added, that different ages have also different signs for expressing their emotions, which symbols appear to be purely conventional. Thus clapping of the hands, now a sign of pleasure and approbation, has been used as expressive of pain; and we read in Dante,

     Harsh tongues discordant⁠—horrible discourse⁠—
     Words of despair⁠—fierce accents of despite⁠—
     Sinking of hands⁠—with curses deep and hoarse.

     Inferno III ver. 25⁠–⁠28.

     ↩

136. As things often bear the name of the place from which they are received, and not of the country of which they are the production, articles imported from the East were usually called Alexandrian, when Alexandria was the channel through which flowed the commerce of Asia. For this, see our chronicles and romances. ↩

137. Astolpho. ↩

138. Ariosto in this and a future passage, where he treats of Asiatic countries, seems to have grafted the discoveries of Marco Polo upon the map of Ptolemy. ↩

139. Those who have been taught that the strength of the ancient English armies consisted in their infantry, will be startled at the mention of mounted archers; but Ariosto is here perfectly right. The English archer (at least latterly) was mounted; but made use of his horse only as a vehicle, as originally was the practice of the dragoon, who, when in action, fought as a foot-soldier. The English archers, indeed, were the yeomanry of the country, and wholly unlike the naked rabble of peasants, who composed the infantry of the other European nations. Hence they were allowed one horse per man (as we find in Anderson’s History of Commerce), and sixpence a day, at the time of the battle of Agincourt, being one half of the pay of the esquire or man-at-arms: an allowance which, notwithstanding the depreciation of money, continued to be the stipend of our foot-soldier till within these few years. ↩

140. We have here a short but sufficiently precise description of the chieftain of a clan, whether highlander or borderer: for it is to be observed, that the southern provinces of Scotland, and indeed the neighbouring English counties, afforded the same examples of such a patriarchal species of authority. This seems to have been clearly of Celtic origin: for the English and Scottish borders were, as well as the highlands, peopled by a tribe of this race, the remnants of Arthur’s kingdom, which extended as far as from North Wales to Cumberland in England, and the parallel counties in Scotland. The cause, however, of clanship being maintained in this line, as well as in the Highlands, is probably to be found in the analogous state of society presented by both districts. Such a custom as clanship would hardly be preserved in any country, after the necessity for it had ceased. Now this had ceased under the increasing civilization of the other Celtic provinces; but was yet in force in those, whose pacification had been retarded by moral or physical accidents. In these, clanship was the best protection which could be had in a state of neighbour warfare.

     It may excite surprise that no mention is anywhere made of the Highland garb, which might have been turned to some account in this picture; but it must be recollected that the Highlanders do not appear to have been much considered in the time of Ariosto; and indeed may be said to have first risen into consideration by the glorious part they played in Montrose’s wars. ↩

141. I have here been under the necessity of creating a dukedom. The original says, “Il duca di Trasfordia,” which is clearly an Italianization of the Latin name of Transforthia, applied to a certain district of Scotland, i.e. the parts beyond Forth, for which Albany would be the exact equivalent, but which Ariosto has made another fief; and previously disposed of. I do not know, however, where the term is to be found, except in a document belonging to the college of Glasgow, termed the rector’s book, commencing about the year 1450. Here it is enjoined that the rector be chosen by four nations of the matriculated members; and of these, the third is entitled Natio Transforthiana, and described as including omnes partes extra Fortham et Stirling et exteros. Ariosto, who probably received his accounts of North Britain from Scottish students at Padua, appears to have confused the information which he had derived from them. But that he, in his aera, should have been studious of such points appears to me infinitely more extraordinary, than that he should not have always duly sifted and separated the knowledge which he had acquired. ↩

142. St. Patrick was supposed to have made a cave, through which was a descent into purgatory for the living sinner, who was desirous of expiating his evil deeds while yet in the flesh; and in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh is a curious MS. metrical romance, entitled “Owain Miles,” which contains an account of all the dreadful trials which Sir Owen underwent with this view. Some extracts of this are given in Sir Walter Scott’s Border Minstrelsy. ↩

143. Gourds were apparently in Ariosto’s time used in Italy for the same purpose as corks are at present by us. ↩

144. Xenocrates was a disciple of Plato, famous for his continence. ↩

145. All the adventures contained in this and the following stanza are to be found in Boiardo’s Innamorato, from her first adventure in France and casting the magic sleep upon Malagigi to the stealing of her ring by Brunello in the citadel of Arbracca. ↩

146. Meaning, I suppose, Ovid’s Galataea flying from Polyphemus. ↩

147. There is a propriety observed in this order of words; as in fact the use of artillery did (I believe) spread from the Germans immediately to the Italians, the Venetians first making use of it near Chioza; or Chioggia, in their war with the Genoese. ↩

148. Bombard was, properly speaking, a mortar: culverine, a long piece, which borrowed its denomination from the snake; and saker and falcon light artillery, so called from two species of the hawk. ↩

149. We read in Homer of Neptune’s visits to the blameless Aethiopians; but Ovid’s Metamorphoses were the great mine whence Ariosto drew his mythological materials, and he had probably in his recollection the passage where the gods are described taking refuge in Aethiopia amid the tumults of the Titanic war. ↩

150. Ino, the wife of Athamas, and Melicerta, her son, were changed into deities of the sea. ↩

151. In the system of education pursued during the middle ages, few means were better suited to the end proposed, than the sort of interchange which was made of sons of princes, and gentlemen who, brought up under other roof than that of their father, were bred in a kind of noble apprenticeship to their calling, amid companions of their own age, secure of kindness (because under friendly, if not kindred, tutelage), but removed from all the risks of parental indulgence. ↩

152. Curds are called in Italian giuncate, because carried in baskets made of the bull-rush, or giunco. Hence our word junket, meaning, in its original signification, curd; and, in its secondary, rustic festivity; because curds were formerly the standing dish on such occasions. ↩

153. So ends this beautiful, though strange episode, made up 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. ↩

154. 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. ↩

155. 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!” ↩

156. 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. ↩

157. 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. ↩

158. 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. ↩

159. 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. ↩

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

161. Mongia or Mogia is a seaport town of Galicia. ↩

162. 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. ↩

163. 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 sailors were observing these, whose construction was new to them, and one was heard to say to a comrade: “You see, Jemmy, the saint was no such lubber as we took him for.” ↩

164. I have preserved the most popular reading: but it seems that the old editions read Chiron instead of Charon, (and so too Panizzi). It was not the business of Charon, the ferryman of hell, to keep damned souls in the boiling deeps, but to transport such across them; whereas this is the office assigned by Dante to Chiron, with the centaurs, his companions, who in the seventh circle of hell, watch over lakes of boiling blood, in which are immersed sinners of the description of him in the text. See Dante’s Inferno, canto XII. ↩

165. “The fabulous history of these wars (Charlemagne’s) was probably written towards the close of the eleventh century, by a monk, who thinking it would add dignity to his work to embellish it with a contemporary name, boldly ascribed it to Turpin, who was archbishop of Rheims about the year 773. This is the book so frequently quoted by Ariosto.”

     Ellis’s preface to Way’s Fabliaux.

     ↩

166. Isabella, a lady eminent for her many virtues, daughter of Hercules, duke of Ferrara, sister of Alfonso and Ippolito, and wife of Francisco Gonzaga, lord of Mantua, the city situated on the Minclus “of Ocnus, mother hight,” to wit of Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, otherwise called Bianor, who, after the destruction of Thebes, is said to have fled to Italy, and established herself among the swamps of the Mincius, a place which she found favourable to the prosecution of the arts in which she had been initiated by her father. Here her son Ocnus is said, after his mother’s death, to have founded a small city which he called Mantua, in honour of her memory. Dante’s account of the wanderings and settlement of Manto, which, however, says nothing of Ocnus, and makes Manto a virgin, affords a good specimen of his powers of precise and picturesque local description.⁠—See Inferno, canto XX l. 50, p. 101 of Cary’s translation, Bohn’s edition. ↩

167. Ariosto alludes to the victory gained by Gonzago, duke of Mantua, upon the river Taro, over Charles VII of France, and the expulsion of the French from the kingdom of Naples. ↩

168. I.e. I should embark on a more immeasurable sea than that traversed by the Argonauts: for Typhis was the pilot of the Argo. ↩

169. This was Beatrice, the wife of Ludovico Sforza, who lost his dukedom soon after her death; a circumstance which explains the remainder of the stanza. ↩

170. The Viscontis were lords of Milan, and the snake was the armorial bearing of the Viscontis and Milanese. ↩

171. From India to the straits of Gibraltar. ↩

172. That is to say, shall bear the same name of Beatrice. The one who was to wreathe her hair with Pannonia’s crown was Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand, king of Naples, sister of Leonora, duchess of Ferrara, and wife of Mathias Corvinus, king of Hungary, i.e. Pannonia. The other lady alluded to was Beatrice d’Este, canonized at Rome. ↩

173. Richarda, wife of Nicholas d’Este, found herself in the situation ascribed to her in the text. Her son Hercules, dispossessed of his lordship by Lionello and Borso, was obliged to go into exile, and take refuge with Alphonso of Arragon, but in the end fully recovered his inheritance. ↩

174. The Hercules mentioned in the preceding note, took to wife Leonora, daughter of Ferdinand, king of Arragon, with whom he had taken refuge, which Leonora brought him the Alphonso, Ippolito, and Isabella, celebrated by the poet. ↩

175. Lucretia Borgia was a daughter of Pope Alexander VI, who was three times married, and took for her third husband Alphonso, duke of Ferrara. ↩

176. Renata was daughter of Louis XII of France, and Anne of Bretagne, and daughter-in-law of Lucretia Borgia, since she was married to Hercules the Second, her son, who was lord of Ferrara after the death of his father. ↩

177. Ada was the daughter of Otho, whom we read of as given in wedlock to Albertazo in the third canto, in which the other ladies mentioned in this stanza are also commemorated. ↩

178. Alphonso d’Este, duke of Ferrara; to whom the poet attributes the victory and subsequent capture of Ravenna, held for the pope by Fabrizio Colonna, the struggle being between French and Italians under this leader, and Spaniards and Italians under the command of Gaston de Foix; for, the French troops having given way, Alphonso coming up with a band of gentlemen, again turned the fortunes of the field. ↩

179. The insignia of knighthood conferred by Alphonso upon many of his young followers on the field of battle. “To win his spurs” was almost a proverbial expression; how applied to the Black Prince by our Edward III every one will remember. ↩

180. The golden oak was the bearing of Pope Julius II, who lost Ravenna; and the red and yellow truncheon, we are told, is to be considered as the symbol of Spain. Fabrizio Colonna surrendered to Alphonso on condition he should not be delivered up to his enemies the French; Alphonso resisted their solicitations to consign him to them, and afterwards set him free and restored him to the pope. ↩

181. In the original,

     La gran colonna del nome Romano
     Che voi prendeste e che serbaste intera,

     a play upon the name of Fabrizio Colonna, which is necessarily sacrificed in an English translation. ↩

182. Of Gaston de Foix, the French general, who perished in the field. ↩

183. The allied Spanish and papal army, if victorious, would probably have turned their arms against the dukedom of Ferrara. ↩

184. Brescia was sacked a short time before Ravenna. The fate of this last city terrified Faenza and Rimini into a surrender. Trivulzio may have been well fitted to restrain the excesses of others, but was not himself free from a similar reproach. He was a native of Milan, and banished from thence for his adherence to the Guelph, party. He entered the service of France, and obtained great distinction in the wars of Charles VIII, Louis XII, and Francis I. He was made governor of Milan in 1500, and of Genoa in 1504. But he is accused of a rapacious administration of power, and of a haughty, ungovernable temper, and on this account forfeited the favour of Francis; which is said to have occasioned his death in 1518. His epitaph speaks his character. ↩

185. Ariosto is not more successful than Homer in this catalogue, and the same observation may be made on the review of Tasso, which is only animated by his apostrophe to the Greeks. ↩

186. It is hardly necessary to observe that Sagittarius is the sign into which Chiron is said to have becn translated, and is, therefore, always represented by a Centaur. ↩

187. The account of the conquest of the arms of Hector in the Syrian fairy’s castle is to be found in the Innamorato, where Mandricardo takes the oath specified in the text. ↩

188. Ariosto would appear to have sometimes inserted anecdotes of his age in the Furioso; but these are usually so altered that they are scarcely to be recognised. This is not the case with the present story, the rape of Doralice; in which the poet appears to have figured a similar atrocity and of recent occurrence, perpetrated by Caesar Borgia, near Cesenna, on the shore of the Adriatic, upon an illustrious lady espoused to a Venetian captain, to whom she was journeying, under the escort of a train of nobles and ladies, who were attacked with the same violence that is described in the text. ↩

189. Dante says of this angel, whose figure is represented as sculptured in purgatory,

     “Giurato si saria ch’ ei dicesse Ave.”

     Probably as saluting the Virgin, a favourite subject with the Italian masters. ↩

190. Vertot describes the Maltese as casting hoops charged with wildfire among the Turks at the famous siege: it is said, without any authority for the fact, for which he was perhaps indebted to Ariosto. ↩

191. A marshy place in the Ferrarese. ↩

192. A wooden and movable bartizan, a kind of a stage, moving upon hinges, within the wall of a fortification, which being raised to a horizontal position, served as a means of communication between the towers, and made the bridge spoken of by Ariosto. ↩

193. I have translated the account of this storm very literally; and it is curious, as probably exhibiting the modes of attack and defence practised in the time of Ariosto. It appears, to sum his story in a few words, that the wall on the side where the Moors attacked was surrounded by a wet ditch, through which Rodomont plunged at the head of the storming party, scaled the wall, and carried the bertesca, or wooden platform, placed within it and near its summit. Beyond this work, it seems, was a second wall, or dyke, divided from the first by a dry ditch, into which Rodomont drives his party of assailants, urging them to the assault of the interior wall, and he himself leaping the ditch, and, like Alexander at the siege of Oxydracae, mounting the last defence, and springing from it into the city. His followers, in the meantime, while planting their ladders against the interior wall in this second moat, are consumed by combustibles, with which it had been previously filled by the Parisians. Rodomont, it is to be recollected, had escaped the effects of the explosion by his desperate leap, and is left enclosed in the middle of the city. ↩

194. Rodomont. ↩

195. He alludes to the victory obtained at Francolino, about forty miles above the mouth of the Po; to which he had before referred. ↩

196. Namus. ↩

197. The geography is here woefully confused; and Astolpho cannot be followed even on the map: for east and west are confounded in this course. But reasoning from some of Ariosto’s descriptions, it would seem that he had attempted to graft the discoveries of Marco Polo upon the map of Ptolemy. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the land of Thomas is the Malabar Coast, where St. Thomas, the companion of our Saviour, was supposed to have preached the Gospel, and where Vasco de Gama found a species of Christianity established. ↩

198. The golden Chersonese of Ptolemy has been conjectured to be the kingdom of Sumatra: I think, with reason, nor does the fact of its being an island necessarily militate against such a supposition; for the neck of land, which connects it with terra firma, is very narrow; and navigators have in all ages mistaken peninsulas for islands, and islands for peninsulas. Thus, Van Diemen’s Land was supposed to be a part of the continent of New Holland, till the (comparatively speaking) late penetration of Bass’s Straits. Taprobana is the island of Ceylon, and Cori is, I suppose, Cape Comorin. The sea, which

     “frets between two shores,”

     must be the strait between. Cochin China is here placed at the western instead of the eastern extremity of India; for it must be recollected that Astolpho was directing his flight westward. ↩

199. This is, I suppose, the Ram, in which the sun passes the Equinoctial Line towards the north. ↩

200. Charles the Fifth, who was born at Ghent. ↩

201. The reader will recollect that Columbus expected to reach the East Indies by steering due west, and that America was long considered as the western extremity of the East Indies. ↩

202. The names of Prospero Colonna and the great Pescara are of too frequent occurrence in the history of Charles the Fifth to require a comment. For the youth of Vasto or Guasto, as he is usually called by tramontanes, I do not know how or when he deserved the praise ascribed to him in the succeeding stanza, though he certainly served with much distinction in those Italian wars. ↩

203. The poet alludes to the Emperor Charles V having been conducted by Doria’s galleys from Barcelona to Genoa, from whence he was escorted by him to Bologna, in which town he received from Pope Clement the crown of the empire. He might have made himself arbitrary in Genoa by the assistance of Charles. ↩

204. Meaning England. Astolpho was an Englishman. ↩

205. I will observe, in illustration of these lines, that Charles V conferred on him the principality of Melsi in Puglia. ↩

206. Foscari informs us that a gulf in the Persian sea was so called. ↩

207. The poet must mean Egypt; but I do not know why he styles it the land of heroes: perhaps as the land of the Ptolemies, or perhaps as distinguished by the exploits of the crusaders. ↩

208. The canal by which Trajan connected the Nile and the Red Sea. ↩

209. This distinguished city of Cyprus is now called Leukosìa (Αενκοσία), or at least is so called by the modern Greeks. Nicosià was, however, there is no doubt, its classical designation. It probably bore both names, and the colloquial one has remained at home, while the place is known by another abroad. ↩

210. Immanem velutipecora inter inertia tygrim, etc.

     Virgil, Aeneid IX 730.

     “Like a fierce tiger pent amid the fold.”

     Dryden.

     Virgil makes Aetna the mountain under which Typhoeus is buried; but Petrarch supposes him to have been confined under Ischia. ↩

211. Scotch and English. ↩

212. Ariosto had read of England’s having suffered from pirates, and could form no other notion of these than that of Moorish corsairs. ↩

213. Caius Caligula. ↩

214. “And gilded roofs come tumbling from on high,
     The marks of state and ancient royalty.”

     Virgil (Dryden, B. II).

     ↩

215. Qualis ubì in lucem coluber, etc.

     See Virgil’s description of Pyrrhus in the storm of Troy, of which this stanza is a free translation. Aeneid II 471. ↩

216. So Virgil, Aeneid II 486.

     “The house is fill’d with loud laments and cries;
     And shrieks of women rend the vaulted skies.
     The fearful matrons run from place to place,
     And kiss the thresholds and the posts embrace.”

     Dryden.

     An example of such passionate action, which may appear unnatural to many, was in modern times furnished by the late king and queen of Naples, under circumstances of less excitement, who, when restored by Lord Nelson, ran about their palace at Naples, kissing and embracing the doors. ↩

217. These are all events described in the romances anterior to the Innamorato, and many of them are referred to in that poem. ↩

218. Every one who has been on the Continent, and indeed every one who is conversant with old paintings, may acquire a general idea of such a picture; but it is necessary to have been in Italy to orm to oneself a perfect notion of the details of these scenes, in which Ariosto seems so particularly to delight. So studiously elegant are the townspeople of some parts of the Italian peninsula, that at an annual festival held at a burgh near Rome, where the pavement, as in Damascus, is strewed with foliage, beautiful centrepieces for this green ground are composed with leaves of rich flowers on thin deal planks, and inserted in it at such intervals as to produce the effect of figured carpeting. Ariosto paints these scenes in the true spirit of an Italian. ↩

219. Carpathium, an island between Rhodes and Crete, gave its name to the neighbouring sea. ↩

220. An orc in Ariosto seems intended to convey the idea of some monster like a buggaboo, whose genus and form are not defined by the name. In the tale of Olympia the orc is a sort of whale. Here he is a Cyclops, in consistence with the account given of him in a story of the Innamorato, of which this episode is a continuation. ↩

221. “The poet took this custom of the orc from the cannibals,” says an Italian commentator: but I am ignorant upon what authority he grounds his assertion. On the contrary, one of the fathers talks about certain ancient cannibals, who more especially preferred feeding upon the flesh of woman to that of man. The orc, roc, or rukh, figures largely in the Arabian Nights as a monstrous bird. But it is difficult to suppose that Ariosto had access to these tales. ↩

222. Mandricardo. ↩

223. He alludes to the enterprise against Africa, undertaken and abandoned by Charles V. ↩

224. It is hardly necessary to observe, that when Constantine transferred the seat of empire to Constantinople, the riches left by him formed the endowment of the Latin Church. Ariosto is here evidently indulging in one of his quiet sneers; for, though a catholic, he was no more a papist than Dante. ↩

225. Ogier. ↩

226. This picture of Rodomont, enclosed within the walls of Paris, and swimming the river to free himself from his enemies, is (it is hardly necessary to say) taken, in all its details, from that of Virgil’s Turnus. ↩

227. 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.”

     ↩

228. 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. ↩

229. Mandricardo. ↩

230. Zerbino. ↩

231. Dardinello. ↩

232. 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. ↩

233. From Tripoli of Syria to Tortosa in Phoenicia; the Orthosia of Ptolemy. ↩

234. Cities of Syria, as I am informed by Fornari. ↩

235. Astolpho. ↩

236. Rinaldo. ↩

237. 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. ↩

238. Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩

239. 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. ↩

240. 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. ↩

241. 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. ↩

242. Dardinello. ↩

243. Agramant. ↩

244. 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. ↩

245. 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.”

     ↩

246. Creon, the tyrant of Thebes, prohibited, under pain of death, the burial of Polinices, etc. ↩

247. 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 highest honour. ↩

248. He was one of the most furious of her lovers in the Innamorato. ↩

249. This is also a reference to a story in the Innamorato. ↩

250. Limissò, a city of Cyprus, by Ptolemy called Cario, and Satalia, a royal city, situated upon the shore of Pamphilia, formerly called Attalia. ↩

251. An electric flame, said to be often visible in the Mediterranean, and the warrant of fine weather, when assuming a particular figure. It lights upon the masts and yards. I never saw it in that sea, but have seen it upon the beach in England, flaming on a sailor’s woollen cap, at the first beginning of a thunderstorm, and thus justifying the story of Castor and Pollux. The flame descended upon the boat, as the most natural place to light upon, in the absence of masts and yards. ↩

252. The manoeuvre expressed in these lines would appear to have been a nautical usage in the time of Ariosto, and possibly may be practised still. For the way of a light vessel, with a shallow draft of water, as ships were then constructed, and as many Mediterranean vessels are now, might assuredly be at least somewhat impeded by such a drag as is described. “From him,” meaning St. Elmo, before alluded to, a saint of great Mediterranean, and particularly of great Neapolitan, reputation; to which he has a more especial claim, as the town of Gaeta in that territory possesses his bones. ↩

253. Astolpho. ↩

254. Chace is in tennis somewhat of an equivalent to hazards at billiards, and is a term sanctioned by Shakespeare in his Henry V. ↩

255. Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩

256. Harpalicé was a Thracian virago, who freed her father, made prisoner by the Getae. Virgil, speaking of her, Aeneid XI, 316, says,

     “With such array Harpalicé bestrode
     Her Thracian courser, and outstripp’d the rapid flood.”

     Dryden.

     Camilla has been made too notorious by him in Aeneas’s Italian Wars to require further mention. Sappho has as little need of it. Of the Corinnas (there were three) it is not clear to which Ariosto alludes; probably to her who was the supposed mistress of Ovid, or to the yet more famous woman of that name, who vanquished Pindar in a poetic contest. ↩

257. As we have seen Ariosto, in the preceding canto, making up his fable of the Amazons out of different classical stories, so we may here detect him in the same species of manufacture. We have a jumble and alteration of stories, Messenian, Scythian, and Trojan. Phalantus, who led off the youth that were the offspring of the Spartan ladies’ gallantries, though not during the Trojan war, went straight to Italy, where he founded, or where he restored Tarentum, as stated by the poet. ↩

258. Calisto, daughter of Lycaon, who having been violated by Jupiter, was, by Juno, metamorphosed into a she-bear, and again by Jupiter into the constellation called the Bear, or Bootes’ Wain; and as this constellation only disappears towards morning, the poet designates the dawn by the retreat of Calisto, whom he decribes as turning her plough, instead of her wain, in order to depart: for this constellation taking its name from the position of some of its stars resembling that of oxen in harness, might perhaps as fairly be likened to one as to the other. This story of the Amazons (more especially Guido’s relation) may serve as a specimen of that tone of prosing and repetition with which Ariosto has been reproached. I cannot, however, at all agree with those who condemn him for the “lungaggini” which are usually objected to the Italian writers. I suspect him of much cunning and design in many of his apparent defects, especially in his prosing, and am much pleased to find that I am supported in this opinion by high authority, the late Mr. Fox. ↩

259. Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩

260. Zerbino. ↩

261. Ariosto has taken this incident from the Golden Ass of Apuleius, whom he has copied in many of his details. ↩

262. “Unless you take the say,” is an idiom which shows the occasional necessity for resorting to the time of Elizabeth in search of equivalents for phrases relating to customs now disused. The phrase of to take the ’say (a taste of the meat as a precaution against poison) is common in our old writers. ↩

263. In this stanza, Ariosto has again followed closely in the footsteps of Apuleius. There are, however, many circumstances of invention in this episode, such as the simile of the hawk and dog, etc., which, giving his peculiarity of touch to the picture, show how well he could assimilate and make his own, whatever foreign graces he thought worthy of adoption. I may here remark with what felicity and discrimination he always paints the character of woman; the fidelity and fondness of Isabella, the coquetry of Angelica, the exalted character of Olympia, uncompromising in her love or hate, and the abandoned wickedness of Gabrina, a true though fearful picture of what woman is, when she utterly abandons the reins to her passions. This discrimination appears to me strikingly exemplified in the character of his two viragos. Bradamant and Marphisa, though equally brave, and, by the vagrant and unfeminine life which they lead, equally subjected to the same coarse suspicions, always appear to us in very different lights. The mere circumstance of his having armed one with a golden spear, with which she tilts her enemies out of their saddles, and the other with a sabre to hack and hew, makes all the difference. If one could love an Amazon, it would be Bradamant; but one might as well think of falling in love with Moll of Flanders as with Marphisa. ↩

264. 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. ↩

265. 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. ↩

266. Rogero. ↩

267. 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. ↩

268. 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. ↩

269. Pinnabel. ↩

270. Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩

271. Argalìa. ↩

272. Bradamant’s mother. ↩

273. 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. ↩

274. 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. ↩

275. 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. ↩

276. 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. ↩

277. 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 of scarcity, may find beech leaves boiling in their pots, as an esculent vegetable. ↩

278. 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. ↩

279. Orlando. ↩

280. 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. ↩

281. 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. ↩

282. Mandricardo and Rodomont. ↩

283. Mandricardo and Rodomont, in the spirit of gallantry, plighted their troth before Doralice, according to the forms observed before a feudal superior. ↩

284. At Altaripa, where he had to contend with Guido the savage and the other champions of Pinnabel. ↩

285. A piece of artillery belonging to his patron, Alphonso of Este, which, we are told, was so denominated. ↩

286. 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. ↩

287. 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. ↩

288. 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. ↩

289. 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. ↩

290. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

291. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

292. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

293. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

294. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

295. Rogero. ↩

296. Aldigier and Richardetto. ↩

297. All the commentators have explained this monster to mean Avarice, which had overrun the Christian world. Sir John Harrington, who lived in an age of allegory, says, that Ariosto describes this vice very significantly; he makes “her ugly, because of all vices it is most hateful; ears of an ass, being for the most part ignorant, or at least careless of other men’s good opinions; a wolf in head and breast, namely, ravenous and never satisfied; a lion’s grisly jaw, terrible and devouring; a fox in all the rest, wily and crafty.”

     He might have brought other proofs in support of his opinion, as the scandal which the Beast had brought upon the papal court, and as arrogating to itself the keys of Heaven, etc. in which Ariosto (who, as has been said, though a Catholic, was no Papist) manifestly satirizes the sale of indulgences. To this it may be observed, that many of the hunters seem only to be remarkable for their notable liberality. ↩

298. The citadel of Milan, as we are told. ↩

299. This Bernardo was a cardinal, and author of the comedy called Calandra. Though not born at Bibbiena, a town of Tuscany, he derived his name from this city which he had long inhabited, and was styled il Bibbiena. His paternal name was Divizio. His designation is well known to those conversant with Italian literature. ↩

300. Three distinguished cardinals, Sigismondo Gonzaga, Giovanni Salviati, and Lewis of Arragon. ↩

301. Francis Gonzaga was second of the name, and fourth of the series of Marquises of Mantua. He was much distinguished by his warlike accomplishments as captain of the Venetians, and had a yet better title to respect for the fidelity with which he adhered to his engagements with that people. His son Frederick was also a distinguished leader, and captain general of the Roman church and of the Florentine republic. It has been said that this man, and all who are cited by the poet as hunters of the beast, had the character of liberality. ↩

302. The brother-in-law of Francesco Gonzaga was Alphonso of Este, duke of Ferrara. The son-in-law, who was duke of Urbino, was Francesco Maria della Rovere, nephew of Pope Julius the second, who procured him his wife and his dukedom. ↩

303. Guidobaldo the second, afterwards duke of Urbino, son of Francesco Maria. ↩

304. Of these names were two noble youths, brothers of the family of Flischi at Genoa, of whom Ottobon was an ecclesiastic. These retired into voluntary exile, that they might not draw a war upon their country by a private enmity which they had incurred. ↩

305. Luigi Gonzaga, surnamed Rodomont for his valour, was the son of Ludovico Gonzaga, and called Gazalo from a castle which he held. ↩

306. One Hippolytus the cardinal to whom the poet dedicates his book; the other, son of Alphonso duke of Ferrara, likewise a cardinal. The Hercules were, Hercules Gonzaga, the father of Alphonso duke of Ferrara, and Hercules Gonzaga, cardinal of Mantua. The last Hippolytus was of the family of Medicis, and a cardinal; who died by poison, much lamented for his many virtues. ↩

307. The brother of Lorenzo of Medicis who lost his life by assassination. His son was Pope Clement VII, born a few days after his father’s death. ↩

308. Brother to the duke of Mantua, at one time viceroy of the island of Sicily, and afterwards lieutenant of the duchy of Milan, and general of the imperial army. ↩

309. The famous Andrew Doria, of Genoa. ↩

310. The second Francisco Sforza, son of Ludovico il Moro, who obtained the duchy of Milan. ↩

311. This noble family of the Avali came from Spain, and were of great repute and antiquity. ↩

312. Marquis of Pescara, and son of Alphonso. He was a great commander, and prosperous in every undertaking except at Ravenna, where he was taken prisoner after receiving many wounds. To the study of arms he joined the embellishment of letters; and while prisoner with the French, addressed to his wife Vittoria an elegant dialogue on love. He died in the flower of his age. ↩

313. By the Italians Vasto, cousin to the before-named Francesco, and no less an ornament to the house of Avali. ↩

314. Was born at Cordova in Andalusia, of an ancient and noble family. By his assistance Ferdinand conquered the city of Granada and the kingdom of Naples. He gained the title of Great, and at last died of a fever, in the 72nd year of his age, in the year 1515. ↩

315. William the third marquis of Monferrato, who was rich in every accomplishment of mind and body, and who also died in the flower of his age. ↩

316. Rodomont. ↩

317. It must be recollected that women rode astride, and that the saddles, formerly in use, with a high elevation before and behind, secured the rider as in a box. ↩

318. Mandricardo and Rodomont. ↩

319. Rogero and Marphisa. ↩

320. Orlando and Rinaldo. ↩

321. It may perhaps be well to repeat that in an earlier period of society, skill in physic was often ascribed to magic. Some traces of this may be still found in our medical nomenclature, as in the word carminative, derived from carmen (a charm): and in fact such a belief still lurks in the caste which we may suppose in some points most resembles the general composition of society in an earlier age. Witness the cure of agues by charms, etc. etc. ↩

322. The reader is to recollect that the attack was made on the Christian camp, and that the assailants were penetrating through this to the Moorish camp. ↩

323. Mandricardo. ↩

324. Rinaldo. ↩

325. Agrimant. ↩

326. Red was the colour of Rodomont (as we have seen in a former canto), and the ill dye which this had received, and its faded condition, indicate the feeble and evanescent character of the impression which he had made upon Flordelice. Green (on the significancy of which I have before remarked) was indicative of her light and wanton disposition. ↩

327. Gradasso. ↩

328. Orlando. ↩

329. Rodomont. ↩

330. Marsilius. ↩

331. Agramant. ↩

332. The reader must recur to the Innamorato for all these robberies of Brunello. ↩

333. Rodomont. ↩

334. The Delphic Apollo, whose oracle was famous for the solution of all questions and difficulties. ↩

335. Mandricardo. ↩

336. A Venetian gentleman mentioned by the poet among his friends in the forty-sixth canto, and of whom he has here antedated the existence. This is among the names (in Venetian, Valièr) of the first twelve families of Venice (entitled le dodici famiglie fondatrici di Venezia), respecting which it is a curious fact, that by far the greater portion, that of Valièr or Valerio among the rest, has survived the extinction of the republic. ↩

337. Credeano che da lor si fosse tolto.
     Per gire a Roma, e gito era a Corneto.

     As an exact equivalent, we might say, if the scene were laid in England, that they thought he was gone to London, whereas he had gone to Hornsey. ↩

338. That is, at Sienna and Florence; Sienna being situated upon the Arbia, and Florence upon the Arno. ↩

339. Ariosto seems to have got sight of the story which forms the prologue to the Arabian Nights. ↩

340. Not upon the figured representation of the lamb of God, as the reader might possibly suppose, but upon the host; as appears from a verse in a succeeding stanza.

     Since on the holy wafer he had sworn.

     St. XLIV l. 8.

     ↩

341. I have already observed that serjeant in its general signification formerly meant servant. ↩

342. Lines 7 and 8 were not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

343. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

344. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

345. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

346. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

347. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

348. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

349. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

350. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

351. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

352. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

353. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

354. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

355. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

356. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

357. This verse was not translated by William Stewart Rose. The text in its place is the original Italian from a 1556 edition. —⁠Emma Sweeney ↩

358. Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.

     Hor.

     Though this episode is distinguished by that felicity of expression and neatness of narration so peculiarly characteristic of Ariosto, I cannot think it deserving of all the encomiums which have been bestowed upon it. It is, as I conceive, deficient in that dramatic truth which is equally characteristic of his style, and is generally so well observed by him. What, for instance, can be more extravagant than the conception of the leading incident? We may almost say, that extreme hypocrisy and extreme debauchery are never found together; for there are always some dregs of truth, however muddy, at the bottom of hypocrisy. If this be true, the character of the wife is not in nature; but supposing her character to be in nature, how can we imagine that a husband, who was tied to her apron-string, should never have entertained the least suspicion of her perverse predilection? Is it not yet more extravagant to suppose that this abused husband, who had surprised her in flagranti delicto, and who was at first about to kill both her and her paramour, should be seized with such a sudden qualm of morbid sensibility as not even to disturb her slumbers?

     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. ↩

359. 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. ↩

360. 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. ↩

361. 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. ↩

362. A ferocious knight, one of the dramatis persona in the Mort Arthur. ↩

363. Now called the Castle of St. Angelo. ↩

364. Rodomont. ↩

365. Orlando. ↩

366. Orlando. ↩

367. 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. ↩

368. “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 from Rodomont. Agramant, to settle the first dispute between Rodomont and Mandricardo, orders the cause to be determined by Doralice, who, choosing Mandricardo her former lover, quits the camp with indignation. The list now remained according to the first lots, to be entered by Rogero and Mandricardo, but Gradasso persisting still to claim Durindana from Mandricardo, Agramant proposes that lots should be again drawn to determine whether Rogero or Gradasso should first engage with Mandricardo, and, to prevent future strife, proposes that whoever draws the lot of combat, shall determine both his own claim and the claim of the knight who loses the lot; that when Rogero wins or loses, he shall not only win or lose the eagle for himself, but Gradasso shall, in right of his conquest, or in consequence of his defeat, continue to bear the shield of Hector, or relinquish the claim. In this last disposition of the lots, no provision seems to be made for the termination of Marphisa’s quarrel with Mandricardo.”

     Hoole.

     ↩

369. Orlando. ↩

370. The Roman eagles were black, those borne by Mandricardo and Rogero white. ↩

371. A sphere of fire was supposed in the Ptolemaic system. Hence to reconcile Don Quixote (who is blindfolded) to the probability of his having arrived at a certain height in his imaginary ascent upon the wooden horse Clavileno, a handful of flax is burned under his nose. ↩

372. Hector’s arms were impenetrable, but nothing was impenetrable by Balisarda. Such are the contradictions incidental to the employment of such machinery as that of magic. ↩

373. Vivian and Malagigi. ↩

374. The knight turns out to be Guido the savage, and the lady is apparently his favourite wife Aleria, with whom he escaped from the city of Amazons. We do not learn how he had separated from his companions. ↩

375. During the siege of Albracea, where the Christian knights were engaged on different sides principally through Brunello; who having surprised several of them, compelled his prisoners to take an oath, to defend him against his enemies whomsoever, all of whom he had provoked by his manifold treasons. The occurrences during this famous siege are the most striking passage in the Orlando Innamorata, and present the most singular pictures of passion, picturesque description, and wild buffoonery, which are to be found in Italian romance. ↩

376. Galesus a river of Puglia not far from Tarentum, and Cinyphus a river of Africa. ↩

377. Brandimart. ↩

378. Phaethon. ↩

379. The Innamorata opens with the invasion of France by Gradasso, at the head of a hundred thousand men, for the purpose of obtaining Bayardo and Durindana. In a duel which is to decide his or Rinaldo’s right to the horse, Boyardo, in imitation of Virgil, makes Malagigi decoy his cousin aboard a boat by the appearance of a figure like Gradasso; when the boat leaves the land, of itself, and conveys away Rinaldo. ↩

380. His charger, so called. ↩

381. These were lordships possessed by the House of Maganza, inimical to that of Clermont, as has been seen throughout this poem. ↩

382. The Cadurci, in ancient geography, were a people of Aquitania, situated between the rivers Oldus, running from the north, and the Tarnis from the south. Cahors is the modern name of their capital. ↩

383. Marphisa. ↩

384. I have looked in vain for Bocchus’s city in dictionaries and in Sallust’s history of the Jugurthine war. I must, therefore, be contented with stating from Lempriere that he was “a king of Gaetulia who perfidiously delivered Jugurtha to Sylla, the lieutenant of Marius.” ↩

385. Sir Tristram and Yseult became passionately and exclusively enamoured of each other from having drunk a philtre. ↩

386. In the wish to abridge, as much as possible, what is already too voluminous, I must refer such readers as are uninformed respecting the Greek and Italian masters mentioned in these stanzas, to the Classical Dictionary, or Lives of the Painters by Lanzi or Vassari. ↩

387. In a mountain in Norsia is the Sibyl’s grot or cavern. ↩

388. Maurice, emperor of Constantinople, who by large offers incited Sigisbert to this expedition. ↩

389. One of the passes of the Alps, says an Italian commentator, but says not which. ↩

390. Eutar, king of the Lombards, cut off Sigisbert’s retreat. ↩

391. Clovis, king of France, marched with a great army into Italy against the Lombards, and thought, by taking advantage of the civil discords that sprung up amongst them, to obtain an easy conquest. The duke of Benevento, having few forces to oppose him, feigned at first an intention of attacking him, and then retreating, left his camp full of provisions and wine. The Franks entered the camp, the soldiers gave themselves up to excess till they were intoxicated, and the duke coming upon them in the night, when they were asleep, killed every man. ↩

392. Childibert, uncle of Clovis, desirous of revenging the death of his nephew, sent three generals, with three great armies, into Lombardy, against the duke of Benevento. One general dying, his army joined the other two; but a dreadful distemper breaking out amongst them, and they being disappointed of the succours which they expected from the emperor, the remainder returned home. ↩

393. Stefano the second, being raised to the papal chair, Astolpho, king of Lombardy, disturbed the tranquillity of the church: the pope, endeavouring to conciliate him with gifts, had recourse to Pepin, king of France, for assistance, who passed into Italy, and compelled Alphonso to sue for peace. Pepin having left Italy, Alphonso recommenced hostilities against the pope, and was once more compelled by Pepin to make peace. To Pope Adrian succeeded Leo III, who, being ill treated by the Romans, and threatened with imprisonment, fled to Charlemagne, who sent him with great honours to Rome, and afterwards coming there himself, was anointed by the pontiff emperor of the Romans. ↩

394. Palestina (in Venetian Pelestrina) is an island about six miles beyond Murrano, another islet situated about a mile from Venice, where Le Fornaci (the kilns, or glasshouses) are situated. ↩

395. Lewis of Burgundy, making an expedition into Italy, was conquered by the Emperor Berengarius I and made prisoner, but set at liberty on his taking an oath never more to invade Italy. The Burgundian, afterwards forgetting his oath, renewed hostilities, and being again taken prisoner by Berengarius II, was, as a punishment for his breach of faith, deprived of his sight; and in this condition he returned Ome. ↩

396. Hugh, count of Arles, called in by the Italians to their assistance against the Berengarii: he succeeded greatly at first, but, being afterwards overpowered, was constrained to ask for peace, and retired to Arles, leaving his son, Lothario behind him, who soon after died. ↩

397. Pope Clement IV invited Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Lewis, king of France, against Manfred, an enemy to the church, who had usurped the kingdom of Naples and Sicily. Charles arriving, overthrew Manfred at Benevento, slew him, took possession of Sicily. Conradine, to whom the kingdom belonged in right of succession, brought a force from Germany and engaged Charles, but was defeated, made prisoner, and beheaded. Charles reigned in Sicily, and the French began to exercise great tyranny over the Sicilians, and, among other enormities, committed violence on their women. Hence a plot was concerted all over the island, that as soon as the vesper bell rang, the inhabitants, ready armed, should sally forth from their houses, and fall upon their oppressors. This was put into execution, and eight thousand French were slain to revenge the dishonour offered to the Sicilians in the persons of their wives. ↩

398. The count of Armagnac came with twenty thousand French soldiers in aid of the Florentines and Bolognese, against Galeazzo, duke of Milan, who, having left a numerous garrison in Alexandria, with the rest of his forces attacked the enemy, at the same time that they were attacked by those from the city, and cut all the Franks to pieces; the count dying soon after of his wounds in prison. ↩

399. Joan, queen of Naples, took for her husband James, count of Marca, who was descended from the kings of France, on condition that he should he contented with the title of prince of Tarantò, duke of Calabria, and vicar of the kingdom, and that the administration of public affairs should remain with her. But he, attempting to seize the whole government, calling himself king, she, with the assistance of Francis Sforza, deprived him of all, Ludovico, Rinieri, and John of Anjou, asserting their pretensions to the crown, were severally defeated by Alphonso and Ferrando: these the poet calls the Angioini or Anjouites. ↩

400. Charles VIII, king of France, assisted by Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, a mortal enemy to Alphonso of Arragon, king of Naples, came, with all the French nobility and a vast army, into Italy. Alphonso, giving way to the better fortune of Charles, left the kingdom to his son Ferrando, and retired with his treasures to Sicily. Ferrando, unable to make head against the Franks, was soon divested of all his fortresses and places except the Isle of Ischia, gallantly defended by Inigo del Guasto. At length all the princes of Italy, alarmed at the rapid victories of Charles, entered into a league against him: and the Neapolitans, detesting the haughty government of the Franks, recalled Ferrando, who, assisted by the Venetians, recovered the kingdom. ↩

401. Ischia. ↩

402. Nereus was a Grecian commander, celebrated for the beauty of his person by Homer. Ladas was the name of a messenger of Alexander the Great, remarkable for his swiftness, mentioned by Catullus, Martial, and Solinus. ↩

403. After the departure of Charles VIII, King Ferrando was received into Naples, and only one castle held out for the Franks, when a Moorish slave devised a scheme to introduce the Arragonese into the church of the Santa Croce. This treacherous Moor, calling the marquis one night to a parley on the walls, shot him with an arrow in the throat. ↩

404. Lewis XII, king of France, successor to Charles VIII, and a constant enemy to Ludovico Sforza, had resolved to take from him the government; for which intent he made a league with Pope Alexander VI, with the Venetians, and with Ferrando, king of Spain. He thus drove Ludovico from his government, who fled to the emperor of Germany.

     Under the symbol of a mulberry-tree the poet figures the above-mentioned Ludovico Sforza, who was called il Moro (a mulberry-tree) from the darkness of his complexion. ↩

405. The Swiss, being corrupted by the bribes of the French, betrayed Ludovico to them; who was carried into France, where he died, after five years’ imprisonment. ↩

406. Caesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, who, by the favour of Lewis XII, king of France, took to wife Charlotte d’Alabrette of the blood royal, he having renounced the cardinal’s hat. ↩

407. The saw was the arms of the Bentivogli, and the acorns those of Pope Julius II. ↩

408. The Genoese having created Paulo de Nove doge, a man taken from the dregs of the people, and asserted at the same time that Genoa was not subject to any prince, Lewis marched against them with a powerful army, and the city surrendered to him at discretion. ↩

409. The Venetians sent a numerous army, who engaged the army of the French at Ghiaradada, though contrary to the opinion of the Venetian general. After an obstinate battle, the Venetians were defeated with great loss; the gates of Bergamo, Brescia, and Cremona were thrown open to Lewis; many other places surrendered to him, and he prepared to attack Venice itself. ↩

410. Alphonso, duke of Ferrara. ↩

411. King Lewis, exasperated at being driven out of Italy, made a peace and league with the Venetians, and sent a fresh army against Maximilian Sforza. Maximilian, assisted with the pope’s money, called in the Swiss to his aid, not without risk (as the poet observes), considering the fate of his father; however, joined with these, he attacked and entirely defeated the French army; for which victory the pope bestowed on the Swiss the title of Defenders of the Holy Church. ↩

412. Ferrando, king of Spain, being dead, the Emperor Maximilian invaded Lombardy with fourteen thousand Swiss and seven thousand Belgians, with an intention of laying siege to Milan, defended by Trivulzio and Charles of Bourbon. ↩

413. The Emperor Charles V made a league with Pope Leo, in order to drive the French out of Milan; and restore Francesco Sforza, nephew of the first Francis, and son of Ludovico il Moro. The French were now become odious to the Milanese. Sforza engaging Lantric, put him to flight, and, entering the city by night, was made duke. ↩

414. Venice. ↩

415. The battle of Bicocca was most fatal in its immediate consequences to the Swiss, and in its ultimate consequences to the French.

     King Francis, resolving to recover the duchy of Milan, passed into Lombardy with a great army, when all submitted to him except Pavia. Being attacked in the night by the Marquisses of Pescara and Guasto, he was vanquished and made prisoner, though afterwards set at liberty upon giving up his sons for hostages. ↩

416. Henry VIII of England. ↩

417. The assault of Rome by the constable Bourbon. The kingdom in this canto, and others treating of Italian wars, means Naples. ↩

418. Naples, where Parthenope the syren was said to have been buried. ↩

419. He alludes here to the great naval engagement at Cape d’Orso, between the imperialists and the French, while Naples was besieged, when the French fleet was commanded by Philip Dorea, who held the place of Andrew Dorea, of whom so much is said in the 15th book.

     We have now gone the round of this most wearisome picture-gallery, and are about to escape into the open air. Ariosto has most grievously abused the privilege of poetical prophecy: in his other least successful flights there is some great redeeming grace: in these the beauties are so thinly scattered, that they hardly serve to lead us on to the conclusion. ↩

420. The city of Cyrene was built by Battus. ↩

421. Hoole says that the ancient Nubians, interpreting the Gospel literally, were branded with the cross. ↩

422. It is hardly necessary to observe that this is the king of Abyssinia, who was formerly so called, it is supposed, as uniting the royal and priestly character. Our “Priest” is no doubt a corruption of “presto,” as Prester John is of “Prete janni.” ↩

423. Not only Dante (I believe on authority to be found in the fathers) has assigned a seat to paradise, but it is laid down in the mappa mondo of Fra Mauro, that wonderful monument of genius and industry, in which so many geographical discoveries are anticipated. ↩

424. It is strange that this prophecy should have been interpreted in any other way than as referring to the war and waste wrought by the transalpine nations in Italy; yet (as Mr. Hoole observes) another explanation of the poet’s meaning has been given by the majority of Italian commentators. ↩

425. Who drove the harpies from the table of Phineus, a blind king of Thrace; the story in Ovid which suggested that in the text. ↩

426. Astolpho. ↩

427. It was natural enough for Ariosto to take his idea of hell rather from Boccaccio than from Dante; but Lydia’s story is certainly but a bad imitation of that of Theodore and Honoria. ↩

428. Anaxarete was a girl of Salamis, who so arrogantly despised the addresses of Iphis, a youth of ignoble birth, that the lover hung himself at her door. She saw this sad spectacle without emotion, and was changed into a stone.⁠—See Ovid’s Metamorphoses. ↩

429. Aeneas. ↩

430. It is impossible for the reader who is most incredulous as to allegory not to suspect a mystic meaning in many parts of this canto, in the lines where we are told that the smoke had not alone outwardly stained Astolpho, but had searched even beneath his clothes⁠—in his long search for a fountain in order to cleanse himself preparatory to his journey to Paradise⁠—in his desire to reach heaven⁠—his contempt of earth⁠—and finally his accomplishment of his object through intensity of aspiration. ↩

431. This introduction of St. John, which to us must appear so indecent and extravagant, will probably be attributed by many to the character of the nation, or to that of the religion, to which Ariosto belonged. For myself, I ascribe it simply to the character of his age, and my reason for so doing is, that Harrington, an Englishman and a Protestant, in commenting upon this passage, expresses neither scandal nor surprise; and indeed would seem to have considered it as an edifying allegory. ↩

432. I have before observed that Ariosto, like Dante, was no papist, though a Roman Catholic. ↩

433. Mr. Hoole supposes these lines to have been taken from the Paradiso, canto XIX verse 129, and so they probably were. If so, however, we must admit that Ariosto has given us the husk without the kernel of Dante. The lines of Dante are thus spiritedly given by Mr. Carey:

     The lame one of Jerusalem shall see
     A unit for his virtue, for his vices
     No less a mark than millions.

     ↩

434. The town is Ferrara. ↩

435. Another allusion to the white eagle of the house of Este. ↩

436. It is impossible to read these lines without thinking of something like a corresponding passage in the fifth book of The Paradise Lost, where Raphael, addressing Adam, as St. John does Astolpho, says,

     Though what if Earth
     Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
     Each to other like more than on Earth is thought?

     The followers of the mystic philosophers in the age of Ariosto and that of Milton seem to have believed in the existence of two worlds, one of things and the other of types, perhaps from too literal an interpretation of doctrines which were purely allegorical; and it appears that some of the interpreters of the Pythagorean philosophy imagined the seventh sphere of their master to be the moon (Ariosto’s land of types). It is, at any rate, clear, that much of the mystery of the present canto, the preexistent souls, “the sisters three, and such branches of learning,” savour strongly of Platonic and Pythagorean doctrines. ↩

437. A town situated at the roots of Parnassus. ↩

438. This took its rise from a storybook narration

     Of “the tale of Troy divine,”

     an ignis fatuus which misled many. Hence the attempt to give a different colouring to the Trojan war in the Troilus and Cressida of Shakespeare. For the charge that

     Penelope was but a courtezan,

     Ariosto has older authorities. Her intrigue with Pan was said to have been manifested by its fruits, and more scandal is reported of her in the Classical Dictionary. ↩

439. In rescuing the character of Dido, Ariosto has yet better foundation; since it is agreed that Virgil has overleapt a space of 300 years in order to bring her and Aeneas together. Ariosto probably eulogizes her chastity on the ground of the story of her having killed herself to avoid marrying Iarbas. Hence Petrarch in his triumph of chastity places her among his examples of chaste women. ↩

440. The characterising St. John as an author is to be sure as ridiculous as making St. James a Moor-slayer; but we must recollect that every age, every country, and every sect, entertains motions of persons which must be monstrous in the eyes of those who are not swayed by their partialities. ↩

441. Brandimart. ↩

442. Serpentine. ↩

443. Ferraù. ↩

444. Rinaldo and Orlando. ↩

445. Here again we have more after-inventions about Troy. Respecting the rest of the story, I shall give such scattered lights as I find in Harrington and Hoole, without following the example of the noble founder of an antiquarian book-club, who devoted his time to correcting, or reconciling, the contradictions in Duten’s Genealogy of the Heroes of Romance.

     Harrington only says that his “author here follows not any true story, but a work entitled Almontes, which, notwithstanding, hath some credit, though not much:” but Hoole finds the dramatis personae among those of the Innamorato, and those that “jousted in Aspramont;” and gives the following account of them: “After the Grecians had taken Troy, and put most of their prisoners to the sword, among whom was Polyxena, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, who was sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles; in order entirely to extirpate the race of Hector, they sought for Astyanax, but Andromache, to preserve his life, concealed him in a sepulchre, and took another child in her arms, with whom being found, they were both put to death. In the meantime the real Astyanax was safely conveyed, by a friend of his father, to the island of Sicily, when, being grown to man’s estate, he conquered Corinth and Argos; he established a government at Messina, and married the queen of Syracuse, but was afterward killed by treachery, and his widow being driven from the city by the Greeks, took shelter in Risa, where she was delivered of a son named Polydore, from whom descended Clovis and Constantius. Constantius was the head of the line of Pepin, father of Charlemagne; and from Clovis came Rogero, who married Galaciëlla, daughter of Agolant. Rogero being cruelly murdered and his city destroyed, his wife fled to the coast of Africa, where she was delivered of two children, a boy and a girl, and died soon after; the boy, called Rogero, was brought up by Atlantes, a magician.”⁠—See Orlando Innam. b. II c. I etc.

     Take his further account of Rogero of Risa and Galaciëlla, the father and mother of Ariosto’s hero:

     “When Almontes left the dominions of his father Agolant to revenge the death of King Garnieri on the Christians, he took with him his sister Galaciëlla, a female warrior of great courage, but his brother Troyano remained behind with his father. Almontes and Galaciëlla alternately fought with Rogero of Risa, without victory to any party. Galaciëlla turned Christian and married Rogero; but Bertram, elder natural brother to Rogero, having conceived a passion for his sister-in-law, but unable to corrupt her chastity, he in revenge betrayed the town of Risa to Almontes, who entering by night, put all to the sword. Rogero and his father Rampaldo were killed: but Almontes afterward, repenting of the part which he had acted, caused Bertram to be put to death. Galaciëlla, then big with child, was put on board a vessel with eight attendants, whom she afterwards killed, and landing at a castle, was delivered of two children, and died.”

     Aspramonte, c. IV vi ix, etc.

     “The latter part of this story is differently told by Boardo and Ariosto, who relate that she was exposed alone in an open boat by her brothers, and cast on the coast of Africa.” ↩

446. Marullus Tarchoniata, a Greek, no less skilled in arms than letters; he served in Italy, and married Florentina, daughter of Bartolomeo Scala, a lady of erudition. He lost his life by a fall into a deep pit, and died the same day that Ludovico Sforza fell into the power of the French. Pontano was born at a castle belonging to the duke of Spoleto; his father being killed in an insurrection of the people, he fled, when a youth, to Naples in great poverty, and was received by Antonio Panchernita, secretary to Alphonso of Arragon; he succeeded Panchernita in his office, and married a rich Neapolitan lady: he wrote well in prose and verse, and died at seventy-seven years of age at Napies.

     Tito Vespaniaso Strozzi and Hercules his son. Tito wrote many things, but was excelled by his son Hercules, who was also a great improver of the theatre: he was much addicted to women, which passion at last ended in his death. They both lived at Mantua. Hercules wrote in praise of Isabella, wife to the duke of Mantua.

     Capello, a Venetian gentleman and an excellent Tuscan poet. Bembo, afterwards cardinal; he wrote in prose and verse, and excelled in amorous subjects; which was objected to him when Paul III raised him to the cardinalship.

     That writer, in verse 3, is Count Baldassar Castiglione, who excelled in all the qualities of an accomplished courtier: he wrote a treatise entitled Il Cortigiano (The Courtier).

     Alamanni. Luigi Alamanni, an excellent poet: he lived some time in banishment in France, like another Ovid, where he wrote many things, particularly his Girone il Cortese (Girone the Courteous), a poetical romance.

     Those two, in verse 5, are two of the name of Luigi: Gonzaga, cousin to the duke of Mantua; and Gonzaga, called of Gazalo, for his intrepidity surnamed Rodomont, who afterwards married Isabella. ↩

447. The mighty city is Mantua. ↩

448. This Isabella was daughter of Vespasian Gonzaga, and being promised to signor Luigi of the same family, Pope Clement, exasperated with Luigi for being in arms with the Imperialists at the sack of Rome, endeavoured by every means to make her marry another; but she, neither by threats nor promises, would be ever induced to break the faith that she had plighted. ↩

449. Alluding to her name, Colonna. ↩

450. The castle of this lord of Gazalo was situated not far from the river Oglio. By the neighbouring stream he means the Mincius. Hercules Bentivòglio. Son of Annibale: he wrote eclogues and comedies, and likewise excelled in music: he lived at Ferrara.

     Reynet Trivultio⁠—Giudecco. Renato Trivultio of Milan: he composed in octave stanzas on amorous subjects. Francesco, a Florentine, a good writer in Tuscan verse.

     Molza. Excelled both in Latin and Tuscan verse. ↩

451. Hercules II, then only duke of Carnuti, afterwards duke of Ferrara.

     Mention has already been made of the lord of Guasto: but it should be added, that he too was a poet. ↩

452. Victoria Colonna, a marchioness of Pescara, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, a commander of great courage and conduct: she was wife to Francesco Davolo, marquis of Pescara; she was a lady of consummate genius and piety, and composed many elegant poems in praise of her husband, and other works on religious subjects. ↩

453. Laodamia, wife to Protesilaüs who went to the siege of Troy. He was the first who landed, and fell by the hand of Hector: his dead body being sent home to Laodamia, she expired upon it.

     Evadne, wife of Capaneus, who went to the siege of Thebes: her husband being dead, she threw herself on the funeral pile, and was consumed with him.

     Argìa, daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos, and wife to Polynices. Polynices and his brother, Eteocles, being dead by the hands of each other, Creon forbade them to be buried; but Argìa, accompanied by her sister, Antigone, went in the night to the field of battle, and finding the body of her husband, gave it burial; on which the tyrant commanded Argìa and Antigone to be put to death.

     Arria, wife to Poetus, who was condemned to death for being privy to a conspiracy against the emperor Claudius. Arria, with great intrepidity, drew a dagger, and plunging it into her bosom, presented it to her husband with this expression, “that she died without pain, but the agony she felt was for the death which he must suffer.” ↩

454. Ericthonius, the son of Vulcan, was born with the feet of a dragon, and was given by Pallas, shut up in a chest to be kept by the three daughters of Cecrops, king of Athens, Pandroso, Erse, and Aglauros, with strict orders not to look therein; but Aglauros, through curiosity, opened the chest, and discovered the infant, on which they were all three punished. Ericthonius, when he was grown up, invented the use of the chariot, in order, when he rode therein, to conceal his deformity. ↩

455. The women of the island of Lemnos being jealous that their husbands meant to forsake them for other wives, formed a conspiracy against the men, and at their return massacred them all in one night: Hypermnestra only saved the life of her old father, king Thöas, and sent him in safety from the island. Jason afterwards arriving thither, found with surprise the kingdom only held by women. See Ovid’s Ep. Hypsipile to Jason. ↩

456. In a curious little poem, in which Saladin is made to request knighthood of a Christian prisoner, the latter performs all the previous ceremonies, but stops short of ordination, which, he says, using a very coarse illustration, is too sacred to be conferred upon a heathen. Many other passages might be cited from the literature of the middle ages, in support of Ariosto’s epithet of holy, as applied to orders of knighthood. ↩

457. This story of Olindro and Drusilla is taken from Plutarch, from whom Castiglione has translated it in his Cortigiano. It is likewise told with many circumstances by Apuleius in his Golden Ass: but Ariosto has altered and improved the story. ↩

458. Rove is to shoot with roving arrows, or arrows shot out of the horizontal, in the language of archery; but in that of poetry, it often means simply to shoot with shafts. ↩

459. In the city of the Amazons. ↩

460. The moon. He has in another place termed her the lowest of the planets. ↩

461. Rodomont. ↩

462. Bactros⁠—now Dahesh⁠—a river on the borders of Asiatic Scythia, from which Bactriana derives its name. ↩

463. As the person challenged; but it seems, from another passage, that the selection of the weapons chosen lay afterwards with the challenger. ↩

464. The part of the scythe which corresponds with the reverse of the axe is termed the heel. ↩

465. On the melting of the snow. ↩

466. This was his second invasion of France. The first is commemorated in the Innamorato. ↩

467. Astolpho and Dudon. ↩

468. Astolpho. ↩

469. Aldabella was the sister of Oliviero, and the wife of Orlando, whom the authors of the Innamorato and the Furioso, for obvious reasons, seldom mention as a husband. ↩

470. Oliviero and Brandimart. ↩

471. Solvite me! (the exclamation of Silenus, Virg. Ec. VI l. 24).⁠—This insulated piece of Latin seems very oddly introduced; but, in the learned age of Ariosto, it may have been more familiar to his readers, and had very likely acquired currency in conversation, as certain phrases, derived from the breviary, have at present. Such as: “Annuncio vobis gaudium magnum,” which I have heard, even from a woman, as a proclamation to her guests of the servant’s having told her that dinner was on the table. ↩

472. The Venetian lion. ↩

473. Coperti da testuggini e gatti.

     Machines under cover of which the assailants advanced to a storm, known by the name of the cat and the tortoise in Italian, are called the boar and the sow in the relations of our middle-age warfare. ↩

474. Astolpho. ↩

475. Astolpho. ↩

476. Lewis Sforza (il Moro) and Lewis XII of France. ↩

477. Aetna, as the most prominent part of Sicily. ↩

478. Rogero had vowed to Bradamant, that he would, on the first reasonable pretence, leave Agramant and his evil sect, to serve the God and the king of his fathers. This occasion is afforded him by the perjury of Agramant, whose service he had sworn to renounce, if he should, contrary to his oath, interrupt the duel between himself and Rinaldo. Yet, in spite of all this, we find him sacrificing faith and love to loyalty, and perjuring himself in favour of a perjured king. The thing is worthy of remark, because Rogero is evidently the hero of the poem; and, from the qualities with which Ariosto has generally invested him, we may suppose was intended as his pattern of a preux chevalier. In ascribing to him, therefore, the sentiments and conduct which he exhibits in the text, Ariosto has probably ascribed to him the quality that was most popular in his time, and has thus unwittingly pronounced the most damning satire on the morals of his age. For allegiance to person or party, exclusive of principle, is surely the most vulgar, as well as the most exceptionable, of all generous propensities, and Rogero might probably be outdone in his equivocal generosity by many of the tenants of every gaol in Christendom. ↩

479. Dudon finished his career as a hermit, a very common practice with the supposed knights errant, and, like all the usages of romance, paralleled by many instances in real life during the middle ages. Ariosto’s own age, indeed, furnished the most notable example in the self-seclusion of Charles the Fifth. ↩

480. The thrust was more dangerous than the cut, even in the days of armour, whether directed against mail or plate, because the sword might easily thread the links of the one, and might even pass between the interstices of the other, but to cut through either, and most through plate, was a more difficult operation. ↩

481. Equivi a strano giuoco di sonaglio.

     The Crusca dictionary explains giuoco di sonaglio to be the same thing as gatta cieca, which is our blindman’s buff; and, as striking a helpless person forms a part of this game, the definition assorts very well with the passage before us; but the word sonaglio may lead to the suspicion that the game in question was not the gatta cieca, but the gatto e sorcio of the modern Lombards, which, however, is but a variety of blindman’s buff, and which is played at in this manner:⁠—A person who is blinded, and who is armed with a knotted handkerchief, is fastened to a cord attached to a pivot. Another, who is also blinded, and who is also fastened to the pivot by another cord, has a small bell in his hand, which he occasionally rings, and which serves as a guide to the other, whose business it is to catch him; and who, if he succeeds in this, beats him with his knotted handkerchief. Those who are conversant with rural sports will see in this game some resemblance to the jingling-match of our southwestern counties, like which it is often played in the open air. ↩

482. Icarus or Icarius (by some represented as a son of Bacchus) gave his labourers wine to drink, who, being new to its effects, were intoxicated, and believing themselves poisoned, assassinated him. The story is told with some variations by different authors. ↩

483. The Boi were themselves a Celtic people of Gaul, according to Caesar.

     The considering wine’s keeping good for a single year as a test of its perfection gives us a very sorry idea of Italian wines in the time of Ariosto, and affords a singular contrast to the accounts of the period during which some such wines were formerly preserved, if we can give credit to Pliny. It is true that the greater part of the modern Italian wines will not long retain their flavour; but some (such as the Picolit, made in the province of Friuli, and the vino di Breganza, made in that of Vicenza) will keep for half a century. ↩

484. The first thing that probably will occur to the reader is that Orlando might have seen from the shore whether or no the vessel was alone; but there are parts of Africa (as off the Syrtes, as I am informed) where a person standing on the dry and solid land could not have a distinct view of the extremity of the shallows which border the coast. ↩

485. Brandimart. ↩

486. Astolpho and Sansonetto. ↩

487. That they might not have the rising sun in their faces, a matter of much importance in close combat. Ariosto, like Homer, wisely represents the party to whom he wishes well, as more superior to their enemies in arms and discipline than in courage. ↩

488. The volcanic district of Abano, famous for its mineral waters and muds, lying at the foot of the Euganean Hills, and everywhere intersected by hot streams. ↩

489. Oliviero. ↩

490. Orlando. ↩

491. He is termed a martyr, as dying in a war with the infidels. ↩

492. He commemorates the victory of Alphonso d’Este over the Spaniards, at the taking of Bastìa, a strong fortress on the Po. Alphonso in the attack was wounded by a stone from an engine. ↩

493. Vestidello, the governor of the fort, when taken by the Spaniards, had been slain by them in cold blood.

     He calls them mostly an unchristened train, I suppose, as drawn principally from the Moorish provinces. ↩

494. It would appear from this passage as if the large falcon sometimes struck the smaller one, his companion in the chase, instead of the quarry; which Ariosto attributes to stupidity or jalousie de métier. ↩

495. Ariosto here follows Homer and Virgil, who attribute the same presentiment to Hector and Turnus on the eve of the combat in which they perished. ↩

496. I have taken my reading from the edition printed under Ariosto’s own inspection (which has been carefully followed by Panizzi); viz.

     “Gli vede intorno il campo sanguinoso,”

     which, independently of its authority, I think greatly preferable to that which is the reading of the other editions that have fallen under my observation. These have;

     “Gli vede intorno il capo sanguinoso.”

     ↩

497. In the Italian,

     “Nè men ti raccomando la mia Fiordi⁠—”
     Ma dir nonpuote ligi; e qui finiò.

     I have, though at a miserable distance, followed my author as nearly as the nature of our language will permit,

     “Non ita certandi cupidus quam propter amorem:”

     but feeling how ill I have been able to imitate him, I feel it the more a duty to direct the reader’s attention to the original, begging him to consider the licence with respect to its exquisite effect in this place, not suffering himself to be reasoned out of his feelings, and still less to be laughed out of them by a piece of successful buffoonery. ↩

498. Frederick Fregoso, apparently termed Fulgoso for the introduction of a poor play upon words in the succeeding stanza; as

     “Sì che, o chiaro fulgor de la fulgosa luce.”

     ↩

499. Octavian Fregoso, doge of Genoa, and brother of Frederick. ↩

500. When Angelica loved and Rinaldo hated, Malagigi, then Angelica’s prisoner, was released conditionally, that he might negotiate with his cousin, she promising him final liberty if he brought him to her feet. ↩

501. The principal characteristics of this palace, though the magnificence is exaggerated, may be found in parts, if not in a whole, in some of the old fabrics of Italy, and a stair, or rather inclined plane. The luxury of easy stairs, a most desirable one in a hot country, is more studied by southern than by northern architects. The lofty steeple of St. Mark’s at Venice is ascended with little inconvenience by a series of traverses slightly indented, and the staircase of the Grand Master’s palace at Malta is practicable on ass-back. ↩

502. Daughter of Pope Alexander Borgia, and wife to duke Alphonso. This lady, thus famed for her chastity, was (it will be remembered) taxed with double incest previous to her marriage. A distinguished modern historian (Roscoe) thinks this stanza a refutation of the charge; inasmuch as he argues from it that, if the accusation had been credited in that age, Ariosto would not have dared, in despite of public opinion, to have celebrated her for a virtue so very much out of her way; and to have exalted her above the Lucretia of ancient Rome. As it is a question which concerns an age equally distinguished for rank flattery and rancorous scandal, perhaps either side might be maintained with equal plausibility. ↩

503. Antonio Tebaldéo, a poet in the time of Ariosto; he died of a deep melancholy. When the victorious Charles V returned from his conquest in Africa, and passed in triumph before the house of Tebaldéo, he ordered his doors and windows to be shut, that he might not see him, being offended that he had not taken vengeance for the sack of Rome. Hercules Strozza, of Ferrara, was son of Tito the poet, but excelled his father; his passion for the fair sex was the occasion of his death. He was deeply in love with a noble and beautiful widow named Taurella, whom he married, but was afterwards assassinated by order of his rival, Alphonso, duke of Ferrara. ↩

504. Isabella, daughter of Hercules, duke of Ferrara, and wife to the marquis of Mantua. ↩

505. Both named Gian Jacobi (John James), and Mantuans by birth. Calandra wrote on amorous subjects, in verse and prose. Some editions read Gran Jacobi, but Gian Jacobi is that of the authentic one. ↩

506. Elizabeth was sister to Francesco Gonzago, marquis of Mantua, and wife to Guidobaldo, duke of Urbino. Eleanor, daughter to the beforementioned marquis, and afterwards to Francesco Maria dalle Rovere, who was, by means of Julius II, created duke of Urbino. ↩

507. Sadoletto, first a bishop, and then a cardinal, created by Paul III He published many theological subjects, and was an excellent poet; Bembo called him his colleague, on account of the similarity of their manners. Bembo composed a book in praise of him and the wife of Guidobaldo. Sadoletto was secretary to Pope Leo X, and signed the diploma granted to Ariosto’s poem; he wrote two poems, called “Curtius” and “Laocoön”; he died at Rome, anno 1547, aged 70. ↩

508. Castiglione, of Mantua, author of the Cortegiano; he wrote also Cleopatra in heroic verse; he was sent by Clement ambassador to Charles V, and by him made a bishop. Mutio Aurelio composed many things, being an academician of Rome in the time of Leo X; he was killed by a blow given him by one of his enemies. ↩

509. Natural daughter of the duke of Ferrara, allied by marriage to the family of the Bentivogli of Bologna. ↩

510. Camillo Paleotto, a courier in the court of cardinal Bibiena, of Bologna. ↩

511. Apollo, who, when banished from heaven, kept sheep on the banks of the Amphrysus. ↩

512. The Isaurus, now called La Foglia, runs into the Adriatic near Pesaro; which, it is the vulgar opinion (says an Italian commentator), derived its ancient name of Pisaurum from the Roman gold having been weighed there. ↩

513. Guido Posthumus, who celebrated the praises of Lucretia Bentivoglia. ↩

514. Diana Este, a lady of excellent beauty, but of haughty deportment and manners. ↩

515. Of Ferrara, and a canon of the church, an elegant writer in prose and verse. ↩

516. Parthia and Mauritania. ↩

517. Marco Cavallo, of the city of Ancona; he composed many verses; he was extremely addicted to gaming, and was at last found dead in his bed, with five hundred crowns tied to his arm. The play on words in the original is necessarily lost. ↩

518. Daughter of Hercules of Ferrara. ↩

519. Nicolo di Correggio, held in great esteem by the Italian nobility, and chiefly by Hercules I. He wrote in octave stanzas a poem called Psyche, and another called Aurora. Correggio is the name of the castle held by the illustrious family of the Correggios of Parma. Timotheo Benedèo of Ferrara, a man of literature. ↩

520. The Po, and the poplars into which Phaethon’s sisters were metamorphosed. ↩

521. Hoole observes, hesitatingly, that some think Ariosto may have figured his mistress and himself in these nameless statues. The reader will, I dare say, very unhesitatingly come to this conclusion, But who this mistress was is a more doubtful speculation. Maffei, in his Storia della Letteratura Italiana, remarks, that Baruffaldi, in his life of the poet, and Frizzi, in his Memorie storiche delgi Ariosti, relate that he was privately married to Alessandra Benucci, the widow of Tito Strozzi, and that the verses, on which I am commenting, relate to her. ↩

522. The story of the enchanted cup is to be found in romances and fables; but Ariosto was the first who spiced the draught, seasoning the story with that humour and good sense which are so peculiarly his characteristics. ↩

523. He calls it so either because Mark of Cornwall, the husband of Yseult, was more notorious as the “cuckold king” than his cotemporary Arthur, or (what is more probable) on account of the equivocal meaning of Cornovaglia. ↩

524. Benaeus is the ancient name of the Lago di Garda; the city is Mantua; and the “walls founded by the Agenorian snake” those of Thebes, built by the follower of Cadmus, son of Agenor; viz. those who sprung from the teeth of the serpent which Cadmus had slain. ↩

525. Morgue, the fay, or Morgana, according to the romances of the Round Table, was sister to King Arthur. This story of her may be found in many romances, fabliaux, and ballads; among other collections, in Percy’s Reliques, etc. ↩

526. Ferrara; which, according to common opinion, was founded by fugitive Paduans, the supposed descendants of the followers of Antenor. ↩

527. An island on the Po termed Belvedere, in the time of Ariosto famous for its buildings, gardens, and menageries. ↩

528. The astronomical year beginning with the entrance of the sun into Aries. ↩

529. The island of Phoeacia. ↩

530. Alphonso the first was son of Hercules the first, and father of Hercules the second, dukes of Ferrara. ↩

531. Manto, the daughter of Tiresias, is not represented in mythology as the foundress of Mantua, but as the mother of Ocnus or Bianor, who built, and named, it after her. ↩

532. Not the more famous emperor of that name, but the successor of Justinus the younger, and famous for his immense treasures. ↩

533. Is a torrent that flows into the Reno; which river in this place occupies the ancient channel of that branch of the Po called Primaro, or Po di primaro. ↩

534. This is the navigable canal mentioned by Pliny which was fed by the waters of the Po, and ran from that river to the port of Ravenna. It seems to have been gradually filled up, and no trace of it is found in modern maps. ↩

535. To wit, the garden of Falerina; the destruction of which forms one of the wildest and most beautiful episodes of the Innamorato. ↩

536. Orlando. ↩

537. The Roman emperors were deified as soon as dead; and, as the Grecian emperors were their successors, Ariosto makes Rogero destine the same honours to Leo. ↩

538. Croesus, Dionysius, and Polycrates. ↩

539. Mathias Corvinus. ↩

540. So I translate Novengrado, as this city is called in the original; but I cannot conjecture what place is meant by Beleticche, which is mentioned in the succeeding stanza; and leave it as I find it. ↩

541. Leo’s romantic generosity to Rogero, and injustice and cruelty to his jailer, will, perhaps, to many, hardly seem, consistent with the chivalric character with which Ariosto has invested him; I think, however, to speak familiarly, that the poet knew what he was about, and that the conduct of Leo is not to be considered as unnatural; indeed it differs little from that of the most chivalric of our monarchs upon a very memorable occasion. Leo honours and benefits the knight who has waged desperate war upon his father and himself, and murders the burgher-Castellain, against every principle of justice and humanity. Edward III threatened with death, with the apparent intention of executing his threat, six citizens of Calais, who had done their duty by assisting in the defence of their town against him in legitimate warfare; and afterwards honoured and rewarded a troop of knights who treacherously attacked it, and failed in their enterprise; men whose conduct might have justified his severest rigour on their falling into his power. ↩

542. Pegasus. ↩

543. Cillarus was the horse of Castor, and Arion that of Adrastus. ↩

544. My friend, Mr. Panizzi, has furnished me with most of the following notes. But notwithstanding his learning and industry, well proved by his excellent work on the romantic narrative poetry of the Italians, some of the persons celebrated have escaped even his researches. ↩

545. Of these ladies I know nothing. ↩

546. Veronica da Gambera was daughter of Count Gian-Francesco Gambera, and married to Giberto X, Lord of Correggio, whom she lost nine years after their marriage, when she was scarcely thirty-three years of age. She caused to be engraved on the door of her apartment the two beautiful lines,

     “Ille meos primus qui me sibijunxit amores
     Abstulit, ille habeat secum servetque sepulcro.”

     Virgil, Aeneid IV 28.

     “No! he who had my vows, shall ever have;
     For, whom I lov’d on earth, I worship in the grave.”

     Dryden.

     And she was more firm of purpose than Dido. She governed Correggio during the minority of her two sons, Girolamo and Ippolito. Her letters are remarkable for their easy elegance, and her poetry for its loftiness and vigour of ideas. Her conduct was irreproachable; and she held a literary correspondence with the greatest men of her age, of whom she was a generous patroness. Charles V visited her twice at Correggio. ↩

547. Hippolita Sforza, married to Alessandro Bentivòglio, of Ferrara, and is praised by Bandello (who dedicated to her the first of his novels) as a beautiful and learned woman, capable of appreciating the merit of Latin poetry. He also mentions the literary meetings which were held in her gardens at Milan, her native place.

     Damigella or Domitilla Trivulcia was wife of Francesco Torello, Lord of Montecchiarugolo. She was renowned for her talents, her sweet voice, her knowledge of music, her grace, and her learning, as well as for her rare beauty. ↩

548. Emilia Pia was one of the brightest ornaments of the court of Urbino when it was the asylum of the muses under the Duke Guidobaldo da Montefeltro. Pia was married to Antonio, Count of Montefeltro, the duke’s brother, who left her a widow when very young. She continued to reside at the duke’s court in the most intimate friendship with Elizabetta, his wife, who also was left early a widow. Of the elegance of that refined court, of the accomplishments, beauty, and purity of morals of these two ladies, Castiglione’s Cortigiano may give an idea. See also above, canto XXVI stanzas 49 and 50, and canto XLIII stanza 148.

     I do not know who Margherite, Angela Borgia, and Graziosa were. Since this was written, Mr. Panizzi has added the following note to his edition of Ariosto, published 1834.

     “I am now enabled to give some particulars respecting these ladies of the Correggio family, from the splendid work of Litta Famiglie celebri Italiane. Mamma (see stanza III) was Beatrice, daughter of Niccolò da Correggio, married to Nicola Quirico Sanvitale. One of the following three ladies of the name of Ginevra may be here alluded to by the poet.⁠—1st. Ginevra, daughter of Guido, who married Giovanni, Lord of Bologna, and after his death, Costanzo Vistarini, of Lodi. 2nd. Ginevra, daughter of Niccolò Rangoni, a very accomplished lady, who married Giangaleazzo, son of Niccolò, Lord of Correggio.⁠—3rd. Ginevra, daughter of Giberto X, Lord of Correggio, and of Veronica Gambera, who married Paolo Fregoso. I suppose the latter to be the Ginevra mentioned in the next stanza, she being the youngest. Who the other ladies were can only be guessed. Mamma had two sisters⁠—1st. Isotta, a nun, and a distinguished poetess.⁠—2nd. Eleonora, betrothed to Alberto Pio, but married to Eleuterio Rusca, of Como. Ginevra, daughter of Giberto, had a sister called Costanza, of whom I cannot find any account in history.”

     Richarda here named is not the same lady mentioned above, canto XIII stanza 67. This was Ricciarda, Marchioness of Saluzzo, wife of Niccolò III d’Este. She died in 1474. ↩

549. Diana and Bianca (Blanche) were daughters of Sigismondo of Este; the former married to Uguccione de Gontrari, and the latter to Alberigo Sanseverino, both knights of Ferrara: Sigismondo was son of Niccolò III and of Ricciarda of Saluzzo, his third wife; and from him descended the branch of the Estes, Lords of San Martino in Rio. Diana of Este was mentioned above, canto XLIII stanza 90. ↩

550. I know nothing of this Barbara. The family of the Turchi was, however, an ancient and powerful family at Ferrara.

     Laura I suspect to be Laura Danti, afterwards Laura Eustochia, first the mistress then the third wife of Alfonso I, Duke of Ferrara, Her marriage has been indisputably proved by Muratori; yet, on the plea that this lady was never lawfully wedded to Alfonso, the Popes robbed the House of Este of Ferrara. ↩

551. This is, I think, Ginevra Malatesta, celebrated for her beauty and for the vehement affection which Bernardo Tasso bore to her. She was married to a knight of the family of Obizzi of Ferrara, and on her marriage Tasso wrote a most elegant sonnet. The Malatestas were lords of Rimini or Arimino. ↩

552. I suppose that Ariosto alludes to the lady of Federigo Gonzaga, lord of Bozzolo, whose mother, Francesca Fieschi, as well as the sister, Cammilla Gonzaga, married to the Marquis Tripalda, and the relations, Isabella and Cammilla Gonzaga da Gazzuolo, are celebrated as very accomplished ladies by cotemporary authors. It is, however, difficult to ascertain who were the ladies meant, as the house of Gonzaga, then divided into the branches of Mantova, Bozzolo, Gazzuolo, Luzzara, San Martino, Sabbionetta, etc. counted several ladies of very prominent merits, many of whom bore the same christian name. ↩

553. Four of the noblest families of Italy, and the former one of the oldest in the world. They are still existing, except the last. They were all related to Este, Gonzaga, Montefeltro; and many ladies of those families were celebrated for their accomplishments and beauty in the poet’s time. ↩

554. This lady, celebrated for her learning, and still more for her extraordinary beauty, was married, when very young, to Vespasiano, Colomno, duke of Trajetto and earl of Fondi, who was old and infirm, and very soon afterwards died. Julia, after his death, refused the most splendid offers of marriage, and lived in a secluded manner at Fondi. Ariadeno Barbarossa, the famous pirate, afterwards dey of Tunis, on hearing her beauty so much praised, landed 2,000 men at Fondi one night, in 1534, to carry her off to the Sultan Solyman II. She had scarcely time to jump out of a window and fly from her brutal enemies, and, undressed as she was, succeed in making her escape to the neighbouring mountains. ↩

555. Isabella Colonna, married to Luigi, brother of Giulia Gonzaga, surnamed Rodomonte on account of his bravery. The pope opposed their marriage, but the steady attachment of Isabella triumphed over all obstacles. To this Ariosto has alluded more at length in canto XXXVII stanza 9, et seq. Rodomonte Gonzaga was a great friend of Ariosto, and wrote some stanzas in praise of the Furioso. He was lord of Gazzuolo, and is also mentioned canto XXVI stanza 50. ↩

556. Anna, daughter of Ferrante d’Arragona, duke of Montalto, married to Alfonso Davalo, Marquis Vasto⁠—a great general, a good poet, and a splendid patron of literature, who, on the 18th of October, 1531, settled an annuity of one hundred golden ducats on Ariosto. He is praised more than once in the poem; see canto XV stanza 28; canto XXXIII stanza 24, et seq.; and canto XXXIII stanza 47. ↩

557. Giovanna d’Arragona, married to Ascanio Colonna.

     Vittoria, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, married to Ferdinando Francesco, son of Alfonso Davalo (not the one just mentioned, but an older one), marquis of Pescara. He was one of the greatest generals of his day, and died of the wounds which he received at the battle of Pavia, where he had a great share in the capture of King Francis I of France. There was a scheme set on foot for making him king of Naples. He pretended to acquiesce in some proposals concerning this, only to betray the conspirators and the Italian powers who were privy to it to Charles V. The reciprocal love of Vittoria and Francesco has never been surpassed. In her thirty-third year Vittoria lost her husband; a loss for which she was inconsolable all her life. Her poems are very good, and no lady has ever written better. She was as beautiful and virtuous as accomplished. Hence the infamous Aretino calumniated her. She was in correspondence with all the great geniuses of her age, more particularly with Veronica Gambara, mentioned above. She, as well as her husband, is always mentioned by Ariosto in the highest terms of praise: see canto XXXIII stanzas 47 and 53, and canto XXXVII stanza 16, et seq. ↩

558. Bernardo Accolti, surnamed l’Unico Accolti or l’Unico Aretino, son of the historian Benedetto Accolti, than whom no poet was ever more popular. The poetry he has left does not answer the high reputation he enjoyed. As an improvisatore he must have been much distinguished, since he was admired at the court of Urbino. ↩

559. Benedetto Accolti, bishop of Cadiz, next of Cremona, and afterwards archbishop of Ravenna. He was, together with Sadoleto, secretary to Clement VII, when only twenty-five years of age, and Cardinal when thirty years old. He was long imprisoned by order of Paul III without any one knowing why, and was liberated by the intercession of the cardinal of Mantua, here mentioned, on paying a large fine. Not only was he a good poet, but the liberal patron and warm friend of the greatest men of his day. ↩

560. Ercole Gonzaga, son of Francesco, last marquis, and brother of Federigo, first duke, of Mantua, one of the presidents of the Council of Trent, was “Mantua’s cardinal.”

     Campeggio was Lorenzo Campeggi, from whose family sprang so many learned civilians in the sixteenth century. Lorenzo was professor of law at Padua and Bologna, then (having lost his wife and become a priest) judge of the Rota at Rome, bishop of Feltre, and finally cardinal. Leo X and Clement VII sent him either as legate or as nuncio to the first potentates of Europe. He was twice legate in this country; first from Leo X, then from Clement VII to judge with Wolsey the validity of the marriage of Henry VIII with Catherine of Arragon. ↩

561. Lattanzio Tolommei is characterised by Giovio as “a man as distinguished for his learning and ability of soul, as for his high birth and riches.” I know nothing more of him.

     Claudio Tolommei was a whimsical character. He was doctor of civil law, but, for some unknown reason, insisted on being undoctored and passing through the same formalities with which the degree had been conferred upon him. He tried to bring Italian hexameter and pentameter verses into fashion, and failed. He was of the court of Cardinal Ippolito of Este the younger, nephew of that Cardinal Ippolito to whom Ariosto dedicated his poem.

     Three brothers Capilùpi were contemporaries of Ariosto⁠—Lelio, Ippolito, and Camillo, the first of whom was celebrated for his great skill in composing poems with verses studiously taken from other poets. The brothers Capilùpi were considered good poets themselves, and Ippolito and Camillo enjoyed the reputation of good statesmen and diplomatists.

     Paulo Pansa, of whom Giovio says, “Veluti ab joco ad studia Latinorum, carminum, in quibus serius atque felicius se exercet, ingenium traduxit.” I know nothing more of him.

     Giorgio Trissino (in the original Dresino), the author of Sophonisba and L’Italia Liberata, was the first who attempted to write a tragedy and an epic poem after the classical models. ↩

562. Latino Giovenale de’ Nannetti, praised by Bembo, his friend, as a writer of good Italian verses. His Latin verses are certainly very elegant. He was a learned antiquary and a distinguished diplomatist. After having been nuncio to various courts, he was appointed commissioner for the preservation of antiques at Rome. ↩

563. Pamfilo Sassi, who is said to have died in 1527. Giraldi says of him, “An extempore poet, most rapid in composition, and of memory almost superhuman. In judgment and polish he is less excellent.” ↩

564. Francesco Maria Molza, celebrated for his fondness of the fair sex, his extensive learning, and his truly exquisite poetry, both Latin and Italian. He was the neatest imitator of Tibullus. His name occurs above, canto XXXVII stanza 12. ↩

565. I suspect this Floriano to be Floriano de’ Floriani da Montagnana, who married a lady of the Court Cornaro at Asola, on which occasion Bembo supposes the dialogues to have taken place which he wrote with the title of Asolani. ↩

566. Giulio Cammillo Delminio, who could talk much and say nothing. He boasted of having invented a certain Teatro (nobody ever understood what it was to be) by means of which in a month a person of rank (for Delminio protested he would not teach any other) might learn all that has ever been known, and easily equal the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero. Francis I of France took lessons from him. He imposed upon some, but was little valued by most of his contemporaries. ↩

567. Giovanni Battista Sanga was a good Latin poet, and secretary to Cardinal Bibiena, then to Giberti when Datario, then to Cardinal Salviati, then to Clement VII.

     Francesco Berni, or Berna, a poet very well known. He succeeded Sanga as Giberti’s secretary; and when the latter retired to his diocese of Verona, Berni followed him thither.

     Marc’ Antonio Flamminio, whose lyric Latin verses are by common Italian consent the most exquisite poems in that language written after the middle ages. Flamminio was one of the most amiable men that ever lived. He was a favourite of Leo X, of Giberti, whom he followed to Verona, of Alexander Farnese (Pope Paul III mentioned next), and of Cardinal Polo, who glories in having prevented him from turning Protestant. His death was considered a national calamity. ↩

568. Alessandro Farnese and Marcello Cervini (afterwards Pope Marcello II) formed the princely scheme of publishing, at their own expense, the Greek MSS. of the Vatican Library. They established a press, and called the printer Blado to Rome for that purpose. Farnese was a great patron of literature. When pope, he created cardinals some of the greatest men of his age; amongst others, Contarini, Polo, Bembo, Pio, Sadoleto, his friend Cervini, etc. ↩

569. Tommaso Inghirami, having performed with great applause the part of Phaedra in Seneca’s Hippolitus, was surnamed Fedro. He was a good Latin poet, and librarian to the Vatican. Erasmus says he was called the Cicero of his age.

     Bernardino Cappella, praised as a good Latin poet by Giraldi.

     Evangelista Fausto Maddaleni is mentioned as an elegant Latin poet by Giraldi, who says that he would have done more had not his wife left him little leisure for the muses.

     Cammillo Porzio, or de’ Porcari (not the historian), professor of literature, and a distinguished courtier of Leo X, who made him a bishop.

     Filippo Beroaldo da Bologna the youngest, a Latin poet, and librarian to the Vatican, was surnamed the Bolognese. He died in 1518.

     There were two Maffei from Voltera, called each of them Volterrano⁠—Mario and Raffaelle. I think Ariosto speaks of the former, as he, as well as most of those mentioned in this stanza, were members of the Roman Academy, and are praised by Sadoleto in one of his letters almost in the same order as they are mentioned by Ariosto. ↩

570. Biagio Pallai, who, according to the fashion of the day, on entering the Roman Academy, had his vulgar name changed into the more classically sounding name of Blosio Palladio, was an elegant Latin poet, and one of the heads of the university of Rome, the Sapienza. He was secretary to Popes Clement VII and Paul III, and in the name of the former he wrote the privilege for the corrected edition of Ariosto’s poem of 1532, dated on the 31st of January of that year. He was elected bishop of Foligno by the latter of these popes.

     Giampietro or (as he was called afterwards) Pierio Valeriani was an adherent of the Medici. He enjoyed the favour of Leo X, was elected professor of literature by Clement VII, and then trusted with the education of Ippolito and Alexander de’ Medici, two pupils who did not great credit to their masters. Pierio was a good historian, an elegant Latin poet, and a very learned man.

     Marco Girolamo Vida, bishop of Alba, whose poems “Christiados,” “Scacchia Ludus,” “Ars Poetica,” “Bombices,” are too well known to require any praise. He was called Virgilius redivivus; and, if anything, he may be said to have been excessively Virgilian. His generous disposition rendered him very popular among the poor of his diocese.

     Marco Mussùro, a pupil of John Làscari; a man of extensive learning, rofessor at the university of Padua, and archbishop of Malvasia. A few Latin epigrams only have survived him. Erasmus says that he was “Latinae linguae usque admiraculum doctus: quod vix ulli Graeco contigit.”

     Giovanni Làscari of Constantinople fled to Italy on the conquest of that city by the Turks, and was educated at Padua. His extensive learning and amiable character rendered him a favourite of Lorenzo il Magnifico, Leo X, and Charles VIII, as well as Francis I of France.

     Andrea Navagèro, a learned man, second to none in taste and elegance in his Latin verses, and who died at Blois in France on the 8th of May, 1529. He so much detested Martial’s poetry, on account of its obscenity, that he every year sacrificed to Vulcan a copy (some say more) of his epigrams.

     Andrea Marone, a man who was never equalled for his facility of making good Latin verses impromptu, and whose genius is described by Giovio as incredibile, portentosum. He is mentioned by our poet, above, c. III st. 56, as equal to his namesake Virgil.

     The Monk Sevèro. Perhaps Severo Varino, called also Severo da Piacenza, or da Firenzuola, a learned Benedictine; or Severo da Volterra, a Benedictine also, and a poet, among whose MSS. there were sonnets addressed to Ariosto, as Porcacchi informs us. ↩

571. Alessandro Orològi, a gentleman from Padua: (Fornari). I know nothing more of him.

     Alessandro Guarini, secretary to the Duke of Ferrara. He published an edition of Catullus corrected by his father, with notes of his own.

     Màrio Equicola d’Alvito (and not Olvìto, as all the editions of Ariosto say) took his name from the place of his birth. He wrote a history of Mantua, a treatise on poetry, and another on the nature of love. He was secretary to Isabella d’Este, Marchioness Gonzaga of Mantua, of whom Ariosto makes a splendid panegyric, canto XIII st. 59, et seq., to her husband Francis, and to her son Frederick, with whom Mario was besieged in Pavis.

     Piètro Aretìno. The basest and most impudent wretch that ever lived, author of the Ragionamenti Puliana Errante, etc. He called himself “divino” and “flagello de’ principi,” but none ever flattered them more barefacedly. He attacked in the most scurrilous manner all those from whom he had nothing to fear. He took his name from Arezzo, his native place, being a bastard. His father was, it is said, Luigi Bacci.

     Girolamo Verità is said to have been an elegant poet, and a man fond of scientific pursuits.

     Girolamo Cittadìno was a friend of Bembo, who, in a letter, praises two sonnets of his. He lived at Ferrara, as I learn from Bandello, in the service of Ippolita Sforza, mentioned above, st. 4. Giovio praises him as a good Latin poet.

     Niccolò Leonicèno, a distinguished physician, of great learning, an elegant writer of Latin verses, when young, and of a most pure life. He was one of the first who dared to question the authority of Pliny, and died, 96 years old, at Ferrara, in 1524.

     Giovanni Manardi, a physician of note. He travelled much, and was one of the first who boldly appealed to reason and observation instead of authority, as may be seen from the first of his Epistolarum Medicinalium, already quoted.

     Benedetto Tagliacarne, or Teocrèno (as he chose to call himself), was named tutor to the son of Francis I of France, who appointed him to the bishopric of Grasse. Teocrèno had spoken slightly of Erasmus; and hence we may understand why Olivarius called him a pedant. He is generally considered to have been a learned man.

     Cèlio Calcagnini, a learned man, but an affected writer, highly esteemed by Erasmus. Before Copernicus published his astronomical system in 1543, Calcagnini published a book to demonstrate “quod coelum stet, terra autem moveatur.” Having followed the cardinal d’Este to Hungary, he was appointed professor of literature at Ferrara on his return; whilst Ariosto, who did not like to go, lost his eminence’s good graces. Calcagnini is also praised above, canto XLII st. 90.

     Niccolò Maria, or Mario Panizzato, of Ferrara; a poet of some note, according to Giraldi. He was professor of literature in that city, and it has been said that Ariosto studied under him. ↩

572. Bernardo Capello, a Venetian nobleman, and a pupil of Bembo. He was iniquitously banished by the Council of X on account of his freedom of speech in the senate. He went to Rome, where he was well received by Cardinal Farnese, and died an exile. His lyric poetry is excellent. He was a poet, not a timid imitator of Petrarch.

     Pietro Bembo, a Venetian, whose family ranked among the very first of that proud republic. He was a learned and accomplished man, of a kind and amiable disposition. He wrote the most Ciceronian Latin, and his name stands very high in the annals of Italian literature. He deserves more credit for the patronage which he granted to literature than for his own works. He was, with Sadoleto, secretary to Leo X; and to this excellent colleague he owed his cardinalship, as it was only by his intercession that Paul III was induced to pass over Bembo’s juvenile levities. He was then bishop, first of Gubbio, and afterwards of Bergamo.

     Gaspar Obizzi, a friend of Bembo, who addressed to him his fifty-eighth sonnet, praising his poetry. I do not know whether he was the one who married Ginevra Malatesta, mentioned above, stanza 5.

     Girolamo Fracastòro, whose name is well known as that of a man who in his Latin poem De Morbo Gallico vied with Virgil. Fracastòro was, moreover, a great physician, zoologist, astronomer, and geographer. He is said to have been the first to use a kind of telescope to observe the stars. He was highly respected and esteemed by all those who knew him, for his kind and generous disposition.

     Agostino Bevazzano, or Beazzano, a great friend of Bembo, who introduced him to Leo X, by whom he was patronised. He was an indifferent Italian poet, but wrote very elegant Latin verses.

     Trifon Gabriello, of a patrician family of Venice, is celebrated as a learned and upright man. A sonnet of his to Bembo, which is printed, gives a very poor opinion of his poetical talents. Bernardo Tasso confesses himself highly indebted to his suggestions respecting his poem Amadigi.

     Bernardo Tasso, father of Torquato, a distinguished lyric poet, peculiarly soft and sweet, and the author of a romanesque poem, the Amadigi, in 100 cantos, in which he tried to surpass Ariosto. Although he failed in this, the work is full of poetry. The Furioso, the Innamorato, the Morgante, and the Amadigi are the best poems of this class. The first and last distant “longo intervallo” no doubt. ↩

573. Niccolò Tiepolo, of a patrician family of Venice, was honoured by Pope Julius II, who conferred upon him the degree of doctor with his own hands, as, according to Bembo, in a letter to the duchess of Ferrara, the famous Lucrezia Borgia, he had given proofs “d’essere il più valente disputante e filosofo che per avventura in Italia oggi sia.”

     Niccolò Amanio is mentioned by Bandello in his first novel, who calls him “dotto Dottore e soavissimo poeta.”

     Antonio Fulgoso, or Fregoso, or Campofregoso, of a patrician family of Genoa, and whese relation, Federigo Fulgoso, was mentioned in so friendly and playful a manner by Ariosto, canto XLII stanza 20. Antonio wrote some Latin verses now forgotten, and was surnamed Fileremo, on account of his fondness of seclusion.

     Giovanni Francesco Valerio, an illegitimate son of a nobleman of the patrician family Valerio of Venice. He was a prelate, and was put to death as a traitor to his republic, for having bribed the secretaries of the senate, and communicated the secrets of the state to the Turks. A volume of tales which he wrote was never published; and I consider it fortunate for young readers, as one may deduce from the story of Fiammetta, the merit of which Ariosto attributes to him.⁠—See canto XXVII stanza 137, and canto XXVIII stanza 78. Giovio praises him as a poet.

     Pietro Barignano, a poet, of whom Giovio said, “He is praised for his terse, sweet and flowery diction.” ↩

574. Gian Francesco Pico, Lord of Mirandola, son of the famous Giovanni Pico, had as much talent as his uncle, and used it much better. He was one of the most learned men of his day, and highly esteemed by his cotemporaries.

     Alberto Pio, Lord of Carpi, son of a sister of Giovanni Pico, aunt of Gian Francesco. He was a learned man, and a great patron of literature. His name is connected with that of Erasmus, on account of a theological dispute which took place between them. He was accused of having excited Leo X, to make war on the Duke of Ferrara, who eventually succeeded in depriving Pio of his dominions. It is remarkable that Ariosto, living at the court of Ferrara, could so nobly praise Pio, who appears to have been a great friend of his.

     Jacopo Sannazzaro, who, on entering the academy of Pontano, changed, according to the fashion of the day, his christian name for that of Azzio Sincero. He was one of the first, about the end of the fifteenth century, who returned to the elegance and sweetness of Petrarch’s language. He wrote eclogues, some describing the life and costumes of shepherds, some of fishermen:⁠—but we must remember he spoke of fishermen in the bay of Naples. He was equal to Vida, and some even say to Fracastòro, in his Latin poems, of which that De Partu Virginis is the most celebrated, and very justly so. He died in 1530. ↩

575. Bonaventura Pistofilo, secretary to the Duke of Ferrara, a patron of literature, and a poet. To him Ariosto addresses one of his satires.

     Pietro Martire d’Anghiari, or d’Anghiera, was a celebrated traveller and historian. Here, however, I suppose Ariosto spoke of Girolamo Angeriano, whom, Giovio says, “Amatoria judiciis hominum famae commendata celebrum fecerunt.”

     Pietr’ Antonio and Jacopo Acciajuòli are highly praised by Giraldi; Jacopo more particularly, whose Latin verses were also the subject of Calcagnini’s encomiums. They were of a Florentine family, but had settled at Ferrara.

     Annibal Malaguzzi, from Reggio in Lombardy, where the family still exists, was Ariosto’s first cousin, since Daria, sister of Valerio Malaguzzi, was the poet’s mother. He was an intimate friend of Ariosto, who addressed to him the satire, “Poi che Annibale intendere vuoi come;” and the other, “Da tuttigli altri amici, Annibal, odo.”

     Of this Adoardo I know nothing. ↩

576. Vittor Fausto succeeded Musuro as professor of Greek, and was, moreover, famous for having invented a ship of a large size, properly a galley called quinquereme, of which a description may be found in a letter of Bembo to Barrusio, May 29th, 1529.

     Angiolo Tancredi was professor at the university of Padua, and an intimate friend of Francesco Negro, also a professor there, who afterwards went to the court of the Cardinal d’Este, to whom the Furioso is dedicated. ↩

577. “Egeus, king of Athens, being on his travels entertained at the house of Pittoeus, in Trezene, had an intrigue with Etra, his daughter, and when he departed, left with her his sandals and sword, charging her, if she should be brought to bed of a boy, to send him to Athens with these tokens. She was afterwards delivered of Theseus, who, being grown up, took the sword and sandals deposited with Etra by his father, and went to Athens, where he found all the city in confusion by the machinations of Medea, who, at the arrival of Theseus, made him suspected by Egeus, and persuaded the king to destroy him at a banquet by poison; but fortunately, as the youth reached out his hand to receive the cup, Egeus perceived his sword, and, embracing him, acknowledged him for his son.”

     Hoole.

     ↩

578. Mr. Panizzi seems to be of opinion that Ariosto considered Mongrana as the same as Risa or Reggio. Mongrana, or Reggio, then was the house of Rogero, and Clermont the house of Bradamant. ↩

579. Ariosto, with the romantic writers in general, whenever the siege of Troy is alluded to in his poem, gives the story a partial turn in favour of the Trojans, from whose great hero Rogero is said to derive his origin. In book XXXIV he makes St. John impute the account given by Homer of the Grecian, heroes and heroines to the venality of the poet. He always speaks of the death of Hector as brought about by treachery. To this we may observe, that our great countryman, Shakespeare, whose materials are often drawn from popular stories, particularly from an old storybook of the siege of Troy, has, in his Troilus and Cressida, represented the characters of the Trojans superior to the Greeks, and has made Achilles kill Hector at an unfair advantage. ↩

580. Ariosto here alludes to a story of Helen told by Herodotus, that Paris, returning with Helen from Troy, was received by Proteus, king of Egypt, who afterwards sending away Paris, detained Helen with all her treasure at his court; and Ariosto here relates that she was ransomed by Menelaus for this tent, which he gave to Proteus. ↩

581. Leonora of Arragon, daughter of Ferdinando king of Naples, to whom the poet here gives the title of queen, married to duke Hercules I, by whom she had Hippolito, of Este, Ariosto’s patron, whose birth is here celebrated. ↩

582. Beatrice, sister of Leonora, and wife of the great Matteo Corvino, king of Hungary, being without children, sent for young Hippolito from his parents, who, arriving in Hungary, was received by the king with every mark of esteem and affection. He afterwards made him archbishop of Strigonia, before he was eight years of age. Ludovico Sforza, called Il Moro, the duke of Milan, who had married Beatrice, the sister of Hippolito, hearing of his great virtues, procured for him the bishopric of Milan; after which, being very young, he was created cardinal, and take to assist him in the government. ↩

583. Tommaso Fusco, first tutor to Hippolito, and afterwards his private secretary. Coelio Calcagnino dedicated to him his translation of Lucian. ↩

584. Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, deposed by Louis XII. ↩

585. In the old poem of Aspramonte is a description of the bridal bed of Rogero and Gallicella, the father and mother of Rogero, from which, possibly, Ariosto might take his hint for the pavilion and bed here described. See Aspramonte, c. X. ↩

586. Gryphon and Aquilant. ↩

587. Rodomont. ↩

588. Bradamant. ↩

589. Vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras.

     Virgil, Aeneid XI 831.

     “In her last sigh her struggling soul expires,
     And, murm’ring with disdain, to Stygian sounds retires.”

     Dryden.

     Ariosto is particularly happy (as it appears to me) in this his last imitation, in which he has added the point of Virgil to the more satisfactory conclusion of the modern novelist. He leaves his readers satisfied. Would I could entertain such a hope on thus finishing my task. ↩