"
For nearly thirty years Ariosto changed and polished these lines,
so that the edition of 1532 is quite different from that of 1516.
For nearly thirty years Ariosto changed and polished these lines,
so that the edition of 1532 is quite different from that of 1516.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v02 - Aqu to Bag
729 (#139) ############################################
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
729
Paternosters, and silly Old World ceremonies; I mun never
pare my nails on a Friday, nor begin a journey on Childermas
Day; and I mun stand becking and binging as I gang out and
into the hall. Tell him he may e'en gang his get; I'll have
nothing to do with him; I'll stay like the poor country mouse,
in my awn habitation. »
So Peg talked; but for all that, by the interposition of good
friends, and by many a bonny thing that was sent, and many
more that were promised Peg, the matter was concluded, and
Peg taken into the house upon certain articles [the Act of Tol-
eration is referred to]; one of which was that she might have
the freedom of Jack's conversation, and might take him for bet-
ter or for worse if she pleased; provided always he did not come
into the house at unseasonable hours and disturb the rest of the
old woman, John's mother.
OF THE RUDIMENTS OF MARTIN'S LEARNING
From Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus ›
MRS
RS. SCRIBLERUS considered it was now time to instruct him
in the fundamentals of religion, and to that end took no
small pains in teaching him his catechism. But Cornelius
looked upon this as a tedious way of instruction, and therefore
employed his head to find out more pleasing methods, the better
to induce him to be fond of learning. He would frequently carry
him to the puppet-show of the creation of the world, where the
child, with exceeding delight, gained a notion of the history of
the Bible. His first rudiments in profane history were acquired
by seeing of raree-shows, where he was brought acquainted with
all the princes of Europe. In short, the old gentleman so con-
trived it to make everything contribute to the improvement of
his knowledge, even to his very dress. He invented for him a
geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints
of that science, and likewise some knowledge of the commerce of
different nations. He had a French hat with an African feather,
Holland shirts, Flanders lace, English clothes lined with Indian
silk, his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish: he was
made to observe this, and daily catechized thereupon, which his
father was wont to call "traveling at home. " He never gave
him a fig or an orange but he obliged him to give an account
## p. 730 (#140) ############################################
730
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
from what country it came. In natural history he was much
assisted by his curiosity in sign-posts; insomuch that he hath
often confessed he owed to them the knowledge of many creat-
ures which he never found since in any author, such as white
lions, golden dragons, etc. He once thought the same of green
men, but had since found them mentioned by Kercherus, and
verified in the history of William of Newburg.
His disposition to the mathematics was discovered very early,
by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter, and inter-
secting them at equal angles, so as to form the whole superficies
into squares.
But in the midst of all these improvements a stop
was put to his learning the alphabet, nor would he let him pro-
ceed to the letter D, till he could truly and distinctly pronounce
C in the ancient manner, at which the child unhappily boggled
for near three months. He was also obliged to delay his learn-
ing to write, having turned away the writing-master because he
knew nothing of Fabius's waxen tables.
Cornelius having read and seriously weighed the methods by
which the famous Montaigne was educated, and resolving in some
degree to exceed them, resolved he should speak and learn noth-
ing but the learned languages, and especially the Greek; in which
he constantly eat and drank, according to Homer. But what
most conduced to his easy attainment of this language was his
love of gingerbread: which his father observing, caused to be
stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet; and the child the
very first day eat as far as Iota. By his particular application to
this language above the rest, he attained so great a proficiency
therein, that Gronovius ingenuously confesses he durst not confer
with this child in Greek at eight years old; and at fourteen he
composed a tragedy in the same language, as the younger Pliny
had done before him.
He learned the Oriental languages of Erpenius, who resided
some time with his father for that purpose. He had so early a
relish for the Eastern way of writing, that even at this time he
composed (in imitation of it) A Thousand and One Arabian
Tales,' and also the 'Persian Tales,' which have been since
translated into several languages, and lately into our own with
particular elegance by Mr. Ambrose Philips. In this work of his
childhood he was not a little assisted by the historical traditions
of his nurse.
## p. 731 (#141) ############################################
731
OTOKO
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
HE legend of the Argonauts relates to the story of a band of
heroes who sailed from Thessaly to Ea, the region of the
Sun-god on the remotest shore of the Black Sea, in quest
of a Golden Fleece. The ship Argo bore the heroes, under the com-
mand of Jason, to whom the task had been assigned by his uncle
Pelias. Pelias was the usurper of his nephew's throne; and for Jason,
on his coming to man's estate, he devised the perilous adventure of
fetching the golden fleece of the Speaking Ram which many years
before had carried Phrixus to Ea, or Colchis. Fifty of the most
distinguished Grecian heroes came to Jason's aid, while Argus, the
son of Phrixus, under the guidance of Athena, built the ship, insert-
ing in the prow, for prophetic advice and furtherance, a piece of
the famous talking oak of Dodona. Tiphys was the steersman, and
Orpheus joined the crew to enliven the weariness of their sea-life
with his harp.
The heroes came first to Lemnos, where the women had risen in
revolt and slain fathers, brothers, and husbands.
Here the voyagers
lingered almost a year; but at last, having taken leave, they came
to the southern coast of Propontis, where the Doliones dwelt under
King Cyzicus. Their kind entertainment among this people was
marred by ill-fate; for having weighed anchor in the night, they
were driven back by a storm, and being mistaken for foes, were
fiercely attacked. Cyzicus himself fell by the hand of Jason. They
next touched at the country of the Bebrycians, where the hero Pol-
lux overcame the king in a boxing-match and bound him to a tree;
and thence to Salmydessus, to consult the soothsayer Phineus. In
gratitude for their freeing him from the Harpies, who, as often as
his table was set, descended out of the clouds upon his food and
defiled it, the prophet directed them safe to Colchis. The heroes
rowing with might, thus passed the Symplegades, two cliffs which
opened and shut with such swift violence that a bird could scarce fly
through the passage. The rocks were held apart with the help of
Athena, and from that day they became fixed and harmless. Fur-
ther on, they came in sight of Mount Caucasus, saw the eagle which
preyed on the vitals of Prometheus, and heard the sufferer's woeful
cries. So their journey was accomplished, and they arrived at Ea
and the palace of King Eetes.
When the king heard the errand of the heroes he was moved
against them, and refused to give up the fleece except on terms
## p. 732 (#142) ############################################
732
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
which he thought Jason durst not comply with. Two bulls, snorting
fire, with feet of brass, Jason was required to yoke, and with them
plow a field and sow the land with dragon's teeth. Here the heav-
enly powers came to the hero's aid, and Hera and Athena prayed
Aphrodite to send the shaft of Cupid upon Medea, the youthful
daughter of the king. Thus it came about that Medea conceived a
great passion for the young hero, and with the magic which she
knew she made for him a salve. The salve rendered his body invul-
nerable. He yoked the bulls, and ploughed the field, and sowed the
dragon's teeth. A crop of armed men sprang from the sowing, but
Jason, prepared for this marvel by Medea, threw among them a stone
which she had given him, whereupon they fell upon and slew one
another.
But Eetes still refused to fetch the fleece, plotting secretly to
burn the Argo and kill the heroic Argonauts. Medea came to their
succor, and by her black art lulled to sleep the dragon which guarded
the fleece. They seized the pelt, boarded the Argo, and sailed away,
taking Medea with them. When her father followed in pursuit, in
the madness of her love for Jason she slew her brother whom she
had with her, and strewed the fragments of his body upon the wave.
The king stopped to recover them and give them burial, and thus
the Argonauts escaped. But the anger of the gods at this horrible
murder led the voyagers in expiation a wearisome way homeward.
For they sailed through the waters of the Adriatic, the Nile, the
circumfluous stream of the earth, passed Scylla and Charybdis and
the Island of the Sun, to Crete and Ægina and many lands, before
the Argo rode once more in Thessalian waters.
The legend is one of the oldest and most familiar tales of Greece.
Whether it is all poetic myth, or had a certain foundation in fact, it
is impossible now to say. The date, the geography, the heroes, are
mythical; and as in the Homeric poems, the supernatural and seem-
ing historical are so blended that the union is indissoluble by any
analysis yet found. The theme has touched the imagination of poets
from the time of Apollonius Rhodius, who wrote the 'Argonautica'
and went to Alexandria B. C. 194 to take care of the great library
there, to William Morris, who published his 'Life and Death of Jason'
in 1867. Mr. Morris's version of the contest of Orpheus with the
Sirens is given to illustrate the reality of the old legends to the
Greeks themselves. Jason's later life, his putting away of Medea, his
marriage with Glauce, and the revenge of the deserted princess, fur-
nish the story of the greatest of the plays of Euripides.
## p. 733 (#143) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
733
THE VICTORY OF ORPHEUS
From The Life and Death of Jason'
The Sirens:
H, HAPPY Seafarers are ye,
And surely all your ills are past,
And toil upon the land and sea,
Since ye are brought to us at last.
O"
To you the fashion of the world,
Wide lands laid waste, fair cities burned,
And plagues, and kings from kingdoms hurled,
Are naught, since hither ye have turned.
For as upon this beach we stand,
And o'er our heads the sea-fowl flit,
Our eyes behold a glorious land,
And soon shall ye be kings of it.
Orpheus:
A little more, a little more,
O carriers of the Golden Fleece,
A little labor with the oar,
Before we reach the land of Greece.
E'en now perchance faint rumors reach
Men's ears of this our victory,
And draw them down unto the beach
To gaze across the empty sea.
But since the longed-for day is nigh,
And scarce a god could stay us now,
Why do ye hang your heads and sigh,
And still go slower and more slow?
The Sirens:
Ah, had ye chanced to reach the home
Your fond desires were set upon,
Into what troubles had ye come!
What barren victory had ye won!
But now, but now, when ye have lain
Asleep with us a little while
Beneath the washing of the main,
How calm shall be your waking smile!
## p. 734 (#144) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
734
For ye shall smile to think of life
That knows no troublous change or fear,
No unavailing bitter strife,
That ere its time brings trouble near.
Orpheus:
Is there some murmur in your ears,
That all that we have done is naught,
And nothing ends our cares and fears,
Till the last fear on us is brought?
The Sirens:
Alas! and will ye stop your ears,
In vain desire to do aught,
And wish to live 'mid cares and fears,
Until the last fear makes you naught?
Orpheus:
Is not the May-time now on earth,
When close against the city wall
The folk are singing in their mirth,
While on their heads the May flowers fall?
The Sirens:
Yes, May is come, and its sweet breath
Shall well-nigh make you weep to-day,
And pensive with swift-coming death
Shall ye be satiate of the May.
Orpheus:
Shall not July bring fresh delight,
As underneath green trees ye sit,
And o'er some damsel's body white,
The noon-tide shadows change and flit?
The Sirens:
No new delight July shall bring,
But ancient fear and fresh desire;
And spite of every lovely thing,
Of July surely shall ye tire.
Orpheus:
And now when August comes on thee,
And 'mid the golden sea of corn
The merry reapers thou mayst see,
Wilt thou still think the earth forlorn?
## p. 735 (#145) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
735
The Sirens:
Set flowers on thy short-lived head,
And in thine heart forgetfulness
Of man's hard toil, and scanty bread,
And weary of those days no less.
Orpheus:
Or wilt thou climb the sunny hill,
In the October afternoon,
To watch the purple earth's blood fill
The gray vat to the maiden's tune?
The Sirens:
When thou beginnest to grow old,
Bring back remembrance of thy bliss
With that the shining cup doth hold,
And weary helplessly of this.
Orpheus:
Or pleasureless shall we pass by
The long cold night and leaden day,
That song and tale and minstrelsy
Shall make as merry as the May?
The Sirens:
List then, to-night, to some old tale
Until the tears o'erflow thine eyes;
But what shall all these things avail,
When sad to-morrow comes and dies?
Orpheus:
And when the world is born again,
And with some fair love, side by side,
Thou wanderest 'twixt the sun and rain,
In that fresh love-begetting tide;
Then, when the world is born again,
And the sweet year before thee lies,
Shall thy heart think of coming pain,
Or vex itself with memories?
The Sirens:
Ah! then the world is born again
With burning love unsatisfied,
And new desires fond and vain,
And weary days from tide to tide.
## p. 736 (#146) ############################################
736
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Ah! when the world is born again,
A little day is soon gone by,
When thou, unmoved by sun or rain,
Within a cold straight house shall lie.
Therewith they ceased awhile, as languidly
The head of Argo fell off toward the sea,
And through the water she began to go;
For from the land a fitful wind did blow,
That, dallying with the many-colored sail,
Would sometimes swell it out and sometimes fail,
As nigh the east side of the bay they drew;
Then o'er the waves again the music flew.
The Sirens:
Think not of pleasure short and vain,
Wherewith, 'mid days of toil and pain,
With sick and sinking hearts ye strive
To cheat yourselves that ye may live
With cold death ever close at hand.
Think rather of a peaceful land,
The changeless land where ye may be
Roofed over by the changeful sea.
Orpheus:
And is the fair town nothing then,
The coming of the wandering men
With that long talked-of thing and strange.
And news of how the kingdoms change,
The pointed hands, and wondering
At doers of a desperate thing?
Push on, for surely this shall be
Across a narrow strip of sea.
The Sirens:
Alas! poor souls and timorous,
Will ye draw nigh to gaze at us
And see if we are fair indeed?
For such as we shall be your meed,
There, where our hearts would have you go.
And where can the earth-dwellers show
In any land such loveliness
As that wherewith your eyes we bless,
O wanderers of the Minyæ,
Worn toilers over land and sea?
## p. 737 (#147) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Orpheus:
Fair as the lightning 'thwart the sky,
As sun-dyed snow upon the high
Untrodden heaps of threatening stone
The eagle looks upon alone,
Oh, fair as the doomed victim's wreath,
Oh, fair as deadly sleep and death,
What will ye with them, earthly men,
To mate your threescore years and ten?
Toil rather, suffer and be free,
Betwixt the green earth and the sea.
The Sirens:
If ye be bold with us to go,
Things such as happy dreams may show
Shall your once heavy lids behold
About our palaces of gold;
Where waters 'neath the waters run,
And from o'erhead a harmless sun
Gleams through the woods of chrysolite.
There gardens fairer to the sight
Than those of the Phæacian king
Shall ye behold; and, wondering,
Gaze on the sea-born fruit and flowers,
And thornless and unchanging bowers,
Whereof the May-time knoweth naught.
So to the pillared house being brought,
Poor souls, ye shall not be alone,
For o'er the floors of pale blue stone
All day such feet as ours shall pass,
And 'twixt the glimmering walls of glass,
Such bodies garlanded with gold,
So faint, so fair, shall ye behold,
And clean forget the treachery
Of changing earth and tumbling sea.
Orpheus:
Oh the sweet valley of deep grass,
Where through the summer stream doth pass,
In chain of shadow, and still pool,
From misty morn to evening cool;
Where the black ivy creeps and twines
O'er the dark-armed, red-trunkèd pines,
737
II-47
## p. 738 (#148) ############################################
738
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Whence clattering the pigeon flits,
Or brooding o'er her thin eggs sits,
And every hollow of the hills
With echoing song the mavis fills.
There by the stream, all unafraid,
Shall stand the happy shepherd maid,
Alone in first of sunlit hours;
Behind her, on the dewy flowers,
Her homespun woolen raiment lies,
And her white limbs and sweet gray eyes
Shine from the calm green pool and deep,
While round about the swallows sweep,
Not silent; and would God that we,
Like them, were landed from the sea.
The Sirens:
Shall we not rise with you at night,
Up through the shimmering green twilight,
That maketh there our changeless day,
Then going through the moonlight gray,
Shall we not sit upon these sands,
To think upon the troublous lands
Long left behind, where once ye were,
When every day brought change and fear!
There, with white arms about you twined,
And shuddering somewhat at the wind
That ye rejoiced erewhile to meet,
Be happy, while old stories sweet,
Half understood, float round your ears,
And fill your eyes with happy tears.
Ah! while we sing unto you there,
As now we sing, with yellow hair
Blown round about these pearly limbs,
While underneath the gray sky swims
The light shell-sailor of the waves,
And to our song. from sea-filled caves
Booms out an echoing harmony,
Shall ye not love the peaceful sea?
Orpheus:
Nigh the vine-covered hillocks green,
In days agone, have I not seen
The brown-clad maidens amorous,
Below the long rose-trellised house,
## p. 739 (#149) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Dance to the querulous pipe and shrill,
When the gray shadow of the hill
Was lengthening at the end of day?
Not shadowy or pale were they,
But limbed like those who 'twixt the trees
Follow the swift of goddesses.
Sunburnt they are somewhat, indeed,
To where the rough brown woolen weed
Is drawn across their bosoms sweet,
Or cast from off their dancing feet;
But yet the stars, the moonlight gray,
The water wan, the dawn of day,
Can see their bodies fair and white
As hers, who once, for man's delight,
Before the world grew hard and old,
Came o'er the bitter sea and cold;
And surely those that met me there
Her handmaidens and subjects were;
And shame-faced, half-repressed desire
Had lit their glorious eyes with fire,
That maddens eager hearts of men.
Oh, would that I were with them when
The risen moon is gathering light,
And yellow from the homestead white
The windows gleam; but verily
This waits us o'er a little sea.
The Sirens:
Come to the land where none grows old,
And none is rash or over-bold
Nor any noise there is or war,
Or rumor from wild lands afar,
Or plagues, or birth and death of kings;
No vain desire of unknown things
Shall vex you there, no hope or fear
Of that which never draweth near;
But in that lovely land and still
Ye may remember what ye will,
And what ye will, forget for aye.
So while the kingdoms pass away,
Ye sea-beat hardened toilers erst,
Unresting, for vain fame athirst,
Shall be at peace for evermore,
With hearts fulfilled of Godlike lore,
739
## p. 740 (#150) ############################################
740
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
And calm, unwavering Godlike love,
No lapse of time can turn or move.
There, ages after your fair fleece
Is clean forgotten, yea, and Greece
Is no more counted glorious,
Alone with us, alone with us,
Alone with us, dwell happily,
Beneath our trembling roof of sea.
Orpheus:
Ah! do ye weary of the strife,
And long to change this eager life
For shadowy and dull hopelessness,
Thinking indeed to gain no less
Than this, to die, and not to die,
To be as if ye ne'er had been,
Yet keep your memory fresh and green,
To have no thought of good or ill,
Yet keep some thrilling pleasure still?
Oh, idle dream! Ah, verily
If it shall happen unto me
That I have thought of anything,
When o'er my bones the sea-fowl sing,
And I lie dead, how shall I pine
For those fresh joys that once were mine,
On this green fount of joy and mirth,
The ever young and glorious earth;
Then, helpless, shall I call to mind
Thoughts of the flower-scented wind,
The dew, the gentle rain at night,
The wonder-working snow and white,
The song of birds, the water's fall,
The sun that maketh bliss of all;
Yea, this our toil and victory,
The tyrannous and conquered sea.
The Sirens:
Ah, will ye go, and whither then
Will ye go from us, soon to die,
To fill your threescore years and ten
With many an unnamed misery?
And this the wretchedest of all,
That when upon your lonely eyes
The last faint heaviness shall fall,
Ye shall bethink you of our cries.
## p. 740 (#151) ############################################
## p. 740 (#152) ############################################
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LUDOVICO ARIOSTO.
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## p. 740 (#154) ############################################
DOV COAT OSTO.
## p. 741 (#155) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
741
Come back, nor, grown old, seek in vain
To hear us sing across the sea;
Come back, come back, come back again,
Come back, O fearful Minyæ!
Orpheus:
Ah, once again, ah, once again,
The black prow plunges through the sea;
Nor yet shall all your toil be vain,
Nor ye forget, O Minyæ!
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
(1474-1533)
BY L. OSCAR KUHNS
MONG the smaller principalities of Italy during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, none was more brilliant than the
court of Ferrara, and none more intimately connected with
the literature of the times. Here, on September 8th, 1474, was born
Ludovico Ariosto, the great poet of the Renaissance. Here, like
Boiardo before him and Tasso after him, he lived and wrote; and it
was to the family of Este that he dedicated that poem in which are
seen, as in a mirror, the gay life, the intellectual brilliancy, and the
sensuous love for beauty which mark the age. At seventeen he
began the study of the law, which he soon abandoned for the charms
of letters. Most of his life was passed in the service first of Cardinal
d'Este, and afterward of the Duke of Ferrara. But the courtier never
overcame the poet, who is said to have begun the famous Orlando
Furioso at the age of thirty, and never to have ceased the effort to
improve it.
>
The literary activity of Ariosto showed itself in the composition of
comedies and satires, as well as in that of his immortal epic. The
comedies were written for the court theatre of Ferrara, to which he
seems to have had some such relation as that of Goethe to the theatre
at Weimar.
The later comedies are much better than the early ones,
which are but little more than translations from Plautus and Terence.
In general, however, the efforts of Ariosto in this direction are far
less important than the 'Orlando' or the 'Satires. At the first
appearance of his plays they were enormously successful, and the
poet was hailed as a great dramatic genius. But these comedies are
## p. 742 (#156) ############################################
742
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
interesting to-day chiefly from the fact that Ariosto was one of the
very first of the writers of modern comedy, and was the leader of
that movement in Italy and France which prepared the way for
Molière.
Of more importance than the comedies, and second only in interest
to the Orlando,' are the 'Satires,' seven in number, the first written
in 1517 and the last in 1531, thus representing the maturer life of the
poet. Nearly everything we know of Ariosto's character is taken
from this source. He reveals himself in them as a man who excites
neither our highest admiration nor our contempt. He was not born
to be a statesman, nor a courtier, nor a man of affairs; and his life
as ambassador of Cardinal Ippolito, and as captain of Garafagno, was
not at all to his liking. His one longing through all the busy years
of his life was for a quiet home, where he could live in liberty and
enjoy the comforts of cultured leisure. A love of independence was
a marked trait of his character, and it must often have galled him to
play the part he did at the court of Ferrara. As a satirist he was
no Juvenal or Persius. He was not stirred to profound indignation
by the evils about him, of which there were enough in that brilliant
but corrupt age. He discussed in easy, familiar style, the foibles of
his fellow-men, and especially the events of his own life and the
traits of his own character.
The same views of life, the same tolerant temper, which are seen
in the 'Satires,' form an important part of the 'Orlando Furioso,'
where they take the form of little dissertations, introduced at the
beginning of a canto, or scattered through the body of the poem.
These reflections are full of practical sense and wisdom, and remind
us of the familiar conversation with the reader which forms so great
a charm in Thackeray's novels.
In the Italian Renaissance there is a curious mingling of classical
and romantic influences, and the generation which gave itself up pass-
ionately to the study of Greek and Latin still read with delight the
stories of the Paladins of Charlemagne and the Knights of the Round
Table. What Sir Thomas Malory had done in English prose, Boiardo
did in Latin poetry. When Ariosto entered the service of Cardinal
Ippolito, every one was reading the Orlando Innamorato,' and the
young poet soon fell under the charm of these stories; so that when
the inward impulse which all great poets feel toward the work of
creation came to him, he took the material already at hand and con-
tinued the story of Orlando. ' With a certain skill and inventiveness,
Boiardo had mingled together the epic cycles of Arthur and Charle-
magne. He had shown the Saracen host under King Agramante
driving the army of Charlemagne before them, until the Christians
had finally been shut up within the walls of Paris. It was at this
## p. 743 (#157) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
743
critical moment in his poem that Boiardo died. Ariosto took up the
story where he had left it, and carried it on until the final defeat of
Agramante, and his death at the hands of Orlando in the desert island.
But we must not think that the 'Orlando Furioso' has one definite
plot. At first reading we are confused by the multiplicity of incident,
by the constant change of scene, and by the breaking off of one
story to make place for another. In a single canto the scene changes
from France to Africa, and by means of winged horses tremendous
distances are traveled over in a day. On closer examination we find
that this confusion is only apparent. The poet himself is never con-
fused, but with sure hand he manipulates the many-colored threads
which are 'wrought into the fabric of the poem. The war between
the Saracens and the Christians is a sort of background or stage; a
rallying point for the characters. In reality it attracts but slightly
our attention or interest. Again, Orlando's love for Angelica, and his
madness, although the latter gave the title to the book, and both
afford some of the finest episodes,- have no organic connection with
the whole. The real subject, if any there be, is the loves of Rug-
giero and Bradamante. These are the supposed ancestors of the
house of Este, and it is with their final union, after many vicissitudes,
that the poem ends.
But the real purpose of Ariosto was to amuse the reader by count-
less stories of romantic adventure. It was not as a great creative
genius, as the inventor of new characters, as the earnest and philo-
sophical reformer, that he appears to mankind, but as the supreme
artist. Ariosto represents in its highest development that love for
form, that perfection of style, which is characteristic of the Latin
races as distinguished from the Teutonic. It is this that makes the
'Orlando Furioso' the great epic of the Renaissance, and that caused
Galileo to bestow upon the poet the epithet "divine.
"
For nearly thirty years Ariosto changed and polished these lines,
so that the edition of 1532 is quite different from that of 1516. The
stanzas in which the poem is written are smooth and musical, the
language is so chosen as always to express the exact shade of
thought, the interest never flags. What seems the arbitrary breaking
off of a story before its close is really the art of the poet; for he
knows, were each episode to be told by itself, we should have only a
string of novelle, and not the picture he desired to paint,- that of the
world of chivalry, with its knights-errant in search of adventures, its
damsels in distress, its beautiful gardens and lordly palaces, its her-
mits and magicians, its hippogriffs and dragons, and all the parapher-
nalia of magic art.
Ariosto's treatment of chivalry is peculiar to himself. Spenser in
the sixteenth century, and Lord Tennyson in our own day, pictured
## p. 744 (#158) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
744
its virtues and noble aspirations. In his immortal Don Quixote,'
Cervantes held its extravagances up to ridicule. In Ariosto's day no
one believed any longer in the heroes or the ideals of chivalry, nor
did the poet himself; hence there is an air of unreality about the
poem. The figures that pass before us, although they have certain
characteristics of their own, are not real beings, but those that dwell
in a land of fancy. As the poet tells these stories of a bygone age,
a smile of irony plays upon his face; he cannot take them seriously;
and while he never goes so far as to turn into ridicule the ideals of
chivalry, yet, in such episodes as the prodigious exploits of Rodo-
monte within the walls of Paris, and the voyage of Astolfo to the
moon, he does approach dangerously near to the burlesque.
We are not inspired by large and noble thoughts in reading the
'Orlando Furioso. ' We are not deeply stirred by pity or terror. Νο
lofty principles are inculcated. Even the pathetic scenes, such as the
death of Zerbino and Isabella, stir no real emotion in us, but we
experience a sense of the artistic effect of a poetic death.
It is not often, in these days of the making of many books of
which there is no end, that one has time to read a poem which is
longer than the Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' together. But there is a
compelling charm about the 'Orlando,' and he who sits down to read
it with serious purpose will soon find himself under the spell of an
attraction which comes from unflagging interest and from perfec-
tion of style and construction. No translation can convey an adequate
sense of this beauty of color and form; but the versions of William
Stewart Rose, here cited, suggest the energy, invention, and intensity
of the epic.
In 1532 Ariosto published his final edition of the poem, now en-
larged to forty-six cantos, and retouched from beginning to end. He
died not long afterward, in 1533, and was buried in the church of
San Benedetto, where a magnificent monument marks his resting-
place.
1. Oscar Kuhne.
## p. 745 (#159) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
745
THE FRIENDSHIP OF MEDORO AND CLORIDANE
From Orlando Furioso,' Cantos 18 and 19
TWO
wo Moors among the Paynim army were,
From stock obscure in Ptolomita grown;
Of whom the story, an example rare
Of constant love, is worthy to be known.
Medore and Cloridane were named the pair;
Who, whether Fortune pleased to smile or frown,
Served Dardinello with fidelity,
And late with him to France had crost the sea.
Of nimble frame and strong was Cloridane,
Throughout his life a follower of the chase.
A cheek of white, suffused with crimson grain,
Medoro had, in youth, a pleasing grace;
Nor bound on that emprize, 'mid all the train,
Was there a fairer or more jocund face.
Crisp hair he had of gold, and jet-black eyes;
And seemed an angel lighted from the skies.
These two were posted on a rampart's height,
With more to guard the encampment from surprise,
When 'mid the equal intervals, at night,
Medoro gazed on heaven with sleepy eyes.
In all his talk, the stripling, woeful wight,
Here cannot choose, but of his lord devise,
The royal Dardinel; and evermore
Him left unhonored on the field, deplore.
Then, turning to his mate, cries, "Cloridane,
I cannot tell thee what a cause of woe
It is to me, my lord upon the plain
Should lie, unworthy food for wolf or crow!
Thinking how still to me he was humane,
Meseems, if in his honor I forego
This life of mine, for favors so immense
I shall but make a feeble recompense.
"That he may not lack sepulture, will I
Go forth, and seek him out among the slain;
And haply God may will that none shall spy
Where Charles's camp lies hushed. Do thou remain;
That, if my death be written in the sky,
Thou may'st the deed be able to explain.
## p. 746 (#160) ############################################
746
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
So that if Fortune foil so far a feat,
The world, through Fame, my loving heart may weet. »
Amazed was Cloridane a child should show
Such heart, such love, and such fair loyalty;
And fain would make the youth his thought forego,
Whom he held passing dear: but fruitlessly
Would move his steadfast purpose; for such woe
Will neither comforted nor altered be.
Medoro is disposed to meet his doom,
Or to inclose his master in the tomb.
Seeing that naught would bend him, naught would move,
"I too will go," was Cloridane's reply:
"In such a glorious act myself will prove;
As well such famous death I covet, I.
What other thing is left me, here above,
Deprived of thee, Medoro mine? To die
With thee in arms is better, on the plain,
Than afterwards of grief, shouldst thou be slain. "
And thus resolved, disposing in their place
Their guard's relief, depart the youthful pair,
Leave fosse and palisade, and in small space
Are among ours, who watch with little care;
Who, for they little fear the Paynim race,
Slumber with fires extinguished everywhere.
'Mid carriages and arms they lie supine,
Up to the eyes immersed in sleep and wine.
A moment Cloridano stopt, and cried,
"Not to be lost are opportunities.
This troop, by whom my master's blood was shed,
Medoro, ought not I to sacrifice?
Do thou, lest any one this way be led,
Watch everywhere about, with ears and eyes;
For a wide way, amid the hostile horde,
I offer here to make thee with my sword. "
So said he, and his talk cut quickly short,
Coming where learned Alpheus slumbered nigh;
Who had the year before sought Charles's court,
In med'cine, magic, and astrology
Well versed: but now in art found small support,
Or rather found that it was all a lie.
He had foreseen that he his long-drawn life
Should finish on the bosom of his wife.
## p. 747 (#161) ############################################
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747
And now the Saracen with wary view
Had pierced his weasand with the pointed sword.
Four others he near that Diviner slew,
Nor gave the wretches time to say a word.
Sir Turpin in his story tells not who,
And Time has of their names effaced record.
Palidon of Moncalier next he speeds;
One who securely sleeps between two steeds.
Rearing th' insidious blade, the pair are near
The place where round King Charles's pavilion
Are tented warlike paladin and peer,
Guarding the side that each is camped upon,
When in good time the Paynims backward steer,
And sheathe their swords, the impious slaughter done;
Deeming impossible, in such a number,
But they must light on one who does not slumber.
And though they might escape well charged with prey,
To save themselves they think sufficient gain.
Thither by what he deems the safest way
(Medoro following him) went Cloridane
Where in the field, 'mid bow and falchion lay,
And shield and spear, in pool of purple stain,
Wealthy and poor, the king and vassal's corse,
And overthrown the rider and his horse.
The silvery splendor glistened yet more clear,
There where renowned Almontes's son lay dead.
Faithful Medoro mourned his master dear,
Who well agnized the quartering white and red,
With visage bathed in many a bitter tear
(For he a rill from either eyelid shed),
And piteous act and moan, that might have whist
The winds, his melancholy plaint to list;
But with a voice supprest—not that he aught
Regards if any one the noise should hear,
Because he of his life takes any thought,
Of which loathed burden he would fain be clear;
But lest his being heard should bring to naught
The pious purpose which has brought them here
The youths the king upon their shoulders stowed;
And so between themselves divide the load.
## p. 748 (#162) ############################################
748
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Hurrying their steps, they hastened, as they might,
Under the cherished burden they conveyed;
And now approaching was the lord of light,
To sweep from heaven the stars, from earth the shade,
When good Zerbino, he whose valiant sprite
Was ne'er in time of need by sleep down-weighed,
From chasing Moors all night, his homeward way
Was taking to the camp at dawn of day.
He has with him some horsemen in his train,
That from afar the two companions spy.
Expecting thus some spoil or prize to gain,
They, every one, toward that quarter hie.
"Brother, behoves us," cried young Cloridane,
"To cast away the load we bear, and fly;
For 'twere a foolish thought (might well be said)
To lose two living men, to save one dead;"
And dropt the burden, weening his Medore
Had done the same by it, upon his side;
But that poor boy, who loved his master more,
His shoulders to the weight alone applied:
Cloridane hurrying with all haste before,
Deeming him close behind him or beside;
Who, did he know his danger, him to save
A thousand deaths, instead of one, would brave.
The closest path, amid
gray,
To save himself, pursued the youth forlorn;
But all his schemes were marred by the delay
Of that sore weight upon his shoulders borne.
The place he knew not, and mistook the way,
And hid himself again in sheltering thorn.
Secure and distant was his mate, that through
The greenwood shade with lighter shoulders flew.
So far was Cloridane advanced before,
He heard the boy no longer in the wind;
But when he marked the absence of Medore,
It seemed as if his heart was left behind.
"Ah! how was I so negligent," (the Moor
Exclaimed) "so far beside myself, and blind,
That, I, Medoro, should without thee fare,
Nor know when I deserted thee or where? »
## p. 749 (#163) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
749
So saying, in the wood he disappears,
Plunging into the maze with hurried pace;
And thither, whence he lately issued, steers,
And, desperate, of death returns in trace.
Cries and the tread of steeds this while he hears,
And word and threat of foeman, as in chase;
Lastly Medoro by his voice is known,
Disarmed, on foot, 'mid many horse, alone.
A hundred horsemen who the youth surround,
Zerbino leads, and bids his followers seize
The stripling; like a top the boy turns round
And keeps him as he can: among the trees,
Behind oak, elm, beech, ash, he takes his ground,
Nor from the cherished load his shoulders frees.
Wearied, at length, the burden he bestowed
Upon the grass, and stalked about his load.
As in her rocky cavern the she-bear,
With whom close warfare Alpine hunters wage,
Uncertain hangs about her shaggy care,
And growls in mingled sound of love and rage,
To unsheath her claws, and blood her tushes bare,
Would natural hate and wrath the beast engage;
Love softens her, and bids from strife retire,
And for her offspring watch, amid her ire.
Cloridane, who to aid him knows not how,
And with Medoro willingly would die,
But who would not for death this being forego,
Until more foes than one should lifeless lie,
Ambushed, his sharpest arrow to his bow
Fits, and directs it with so true an eye,
The feathered weapon bores a Scotchman's brain,
And lays the warrior dead upon the plain.
Together, all the others of the band
Turned thither, whence was shot the murderous reed;
Meanwhile he launched another from his stand,
That a new foe might by the weapon bleed,
Whom (while he made of this and that demand,
And loudly questioned who had done the deed)
The arrow reached-transfixed the wretch's throat
And cut his question short in middle note.
## p. 750 (#164) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
750
Zerbino, captain of those horse, no more
Can at the piteou sight his wrath refrain;
In furious heat he springs upon Medore,
Exclaiming, "Thou of this shalt bear the pain. "
One hand he in his locks of golden ore
Enwreaths, and drags him to himself amain;
But as his eyes that beauteous face survey,
Takes pity on the boy, and does not slay.
To him the stripling turns, with suppliant cry,
And, "By thy God, sir knight," exclaims, "I pray,
Be not so passing cruel, nor deny
That I in earth my honored king may lay:
No other grace I supplicate, nor I
This for the love of life, believe me, say.
So much, no longer, space of life I crave,
As may suffice to give my lord a grave.
"And if you needs must feed the beast and bird,
Like Theban Creon, let their worst be done
Upon these limbs; so that by me interred
In earth be those of good Almontes's son. "
Medoro thus his suit, with grace, preferred,
And words to move a mountain; and so won
Upon Zerbino's mood, to kindness turned,
With love and pity he all over burned.
This while, a churlish horseman of the band,
Who little deference for his lord confest,
His lance uplifting, wounded overhand
The unhappy suppliant in his dainty breast.
Zerbino, who the cruel action scanned,
Was deeply stirred, the rather that, opprest,
And livid with the blow the churl had sped,
Medoro fell as he was wholly dead.
The Scots pursue their chief, who pricks before,
Through the deep wood, inspired by high disdain,
When he has left the one and the other Moor,
This dead, that scarce alive, upon the plain.
There for a mighty space lay young Medore,
Spouting his life-blood from so large a vein
He would have perished, but that thither made
A stranger, as it chanced, who lent him aid.
## p. 751 (#165) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
THE SAVING OF MEDORO
From Orlando Furioso,' Canto 19
Y CHANCE arrived a damsel at the place,
Β΄ Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear)
Of royal presence and of beauteous face,
And lofty manners, sagely debonnair.
Her have I left unsung so long a space,
That you will hardly recognize the fair
Angelica: in her (if known not) scan
The lofty daughter of Catay's great khan.
Angelica, when she had won again
The ring Brunello had from her conveyed,
So waxed in stubborn pride and haught disdain,
She seemed to scorn this ample world, and strayed
Alone, and held as cheap each living swain,
Although amid the best by fame arrayed;
Nor brooked she to remember a gallant
In Count Orlando or King Sacripant:
And above every other deed repented,
That good Rinaldo she had loved of yore;
And that to look so low she had consented,
(As by such choice dishonored) grieved her sore.
Love, hearing this, such arrogance resented,
And would the damsel's pride endure no more.
Where young Medoro lay he took his stand,
And waited her, with bow and shaft in hand.
When fair Angelica the stripling spies,
Nigh hurt to death in that disastrous fray,
Who for his king, that there unsheltered lies,
More sad than for his own misfortune lay,
She feels new pity in her bosom rise,
Which makes its entry in unwonted way.
Touched was her naughty heart, once hard and curst,
And more when he his piteous tale rehearsed.
751
And calling back to memory her art,
For she in Ind had learned chirurgery,
(Since it appears such studies in that part
Worthy of praise and fame are held to be,
And, as an heirloom, sires to sons impart,
With little aid of books, the mystery,)
## p. 752 (#166) ############################################
752
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Disposed herself to work with simples' juice,
Till she in him should healthier life produce.
And recollects an herb had caught her sight
In passing thither, on a pleasant plain:
What (whether dittany or pancy hight)
I know not; fraught with virtue to restrain
The crimson blood forth-welling, and of might
To sheathe each perilous and piercing pain.
She found it near, and having pulled the weed,
Returned to seek Medoro on the mead.
Returning, she upon a swain did light,
Who was on horseback passing through the wood.
Strayed from the lowing herd, the rustic wight
A heifer missing for two days pursued.
Him she with her conducted, where the might
Of the faint youth was ebbing with his blood:
Which had the ground about so deeply dyed
Life was nigh wasted with the gushing tide.
Angelica alights upon the ground,
And he, her rustic comrade, at her hest.
She hastened 'twixt two stones the herb to pound,
Then took it, and the healing juice exprest:
With this did she foment the stripling's wound,
And even to the hips, his waist and breast;
And (with such virtue was the salve endued)
It stanched his life-blood, and his strength renewed.
• And into him infused such force again,
That he could mount the horse the swain conveyed;
But good Medoro would not leave the plain
Till he in earth had seen his master laid.
He, with the monarch, buried Cloridane,
And after followed whither pleased the maid.
Who was to stay with him, by pity led,
Beneath the courteous shepherd's humble shed.
Nor would the damsel quit the lowly pile
(So she esteemed the youth) till he was sound;
Such pity first she felt, when him erewhile
She saw outstretched and bleeding on the ground.
Touched by his mien and manners next, a file
She felt corrode her heart with secret wound;
She felt corrode her heart, and with desire,
By little and by little warmed, took fire.
## p. 753 (#167) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
The shepherd dwelt between two mountains hoar,
In goodly cabin, in the greenwood shade,
With wife and children; in short time before,
The brand-new shed had builded in the glade.
Here of his grisly wound the youthful Moor
Was briefly healed by the Catayan maid;
But who in briefer space, a sorer smart
Than young Medoro's, suffered at her heart.
[She pines for love of him, and at length makes her love known.
solemnize their marriage, and remain a month there with great happiness. ]
Amid such pleasures, where, with tree o'ergrown,
Ran stream, or bubbling fountain's wave did spin,
On bark or rock, if yielding were the stone,
The knife was straight at work, or ready pin.
And there, without, in thousand places lone,
And in as many places graved, within,
Medoro and Angelica were traced,
In divers ciphers quaintly interlaced.
When she believed they had prolonged their stay
More than enow, the damsel made design
In India to revisit her Catay,
And with its crown Medoro's head entwine.
She had upon her wrist an armlet, gay
With costly gems, in witness and in sign
Of love to her by Count Orlando borne,
And which the damsel for long time had worn.
No love which to the paladin she bears,
But that it costly is and wrought with care,
This to Angelica so much endears,
That never more esteemed was matter rare;
This she was suffered, in the isle of tears,
I know not by what privilege, to wear,
When, naked, to the whale exposed for food
By that inhospitable race and rude.
753
She, not possessing wherewithal to pay
The kindly couple's hospitality,—
Served by them in their cabin, from the day
She there was lodged, with such fidelity,-
Unfastened from her arm the bracelet gay,
And bade them keep it for her memory.
Departing hence, the lovers climb the side
Of hills, which fertile France from Spain divide.
They
II-48
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LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
754
THE MADNESS OF ORLANDO
From Orlando Furioso,' Canto 23
HE course in pathless woods, which without rein
THE The Tartar's charger had pursued astray,
Made Roland for two days, with fruitless pain,
Follow him, without tidings of his way.
Orlando reached a rill of crystal vein,
On either bank of which a meadow lay;
Which, stained with native hues and rich, he sees,
And dotted o'er with fair and many trees.
The mid-day fervor made the shelter sweet
To hardy herd as well as naked swain;
So that Orlando well beneath the heat
Some deal might wince, opprest with plate and chain.
He entered for repose the cool retreat,
And found it the abode of grief and pain;
And place of sojourn more accursed and fell
On that unhappy day, than tongue can tell.
Turning him round, he there on many a tree
Beheld engraved, upon the woody shore,
What as the writing of his deity
He knew, as soon as he had marked the lore.
This was a place of those described by me,
Whither oft-times, attended by Medore,
From the near shepherd's cot had wont to stray
The beauteous lady, sovereign of Catay.
In a hundred knots, amid these green abodes,
In a hundred parts, their ciphered names are dight;
Whose many letters are so many goads,
Which Love has in his bleeding heart-core pight.
He would discredit in a thousand modes,
That which he credits in his own despite ;
And would perforce persuade himself, that rind
Other Angelica than his had signed.
"And yet I know these characters," he cried,
"Of which I have so many read and seen;
By her may this Medoro be belied,
And me, she, figured in the name, may mean. "
Feeding on such like phantasies, beside
The real truth, did sad Orlando lean
## p. 755 (#169) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
755
Upon the empty hope, though ill contented,
Which he by self-illusions had fomented.
But stirred and aye rekindled it, the more
That he to quench the ill suspicion wrought,
Like the incautious bird, by fowler's lore,
Hampered in net or lime; which, in the thought
To free its tangled pinions and to soar,
By struggling is but more securely caught.
Orlando passes thither, where a mountain
O'erhangs in guise of arch the crystal fountain.
Here from his horse the sorrowing county lit,
And at the entrance of the grot surveyed
A cloud of words, which seemed but newly writ,
And which the young Medoro's hand had made.
On the great pleasure he had known in it,
This sentence he in verses had arrayed;
Which to his tongue, I deem, might make pretense
To polished phrase; and such in ours the sense:—
༥
Gay plants, green herbage, rill of limpid vein,
And, grateful with cool shade, thou gloomy cave,
Where oft, by many wooed with fruitless pain,
Beauteous Angelica, the child of grave
King Galaphron, within my arms has lain;
For the convenient harborage you gave,
I, poor Medoro, can but in my lays,
As recompense, forever sing your praise.
"And any loving lord devoutly pray,
Damsel and cavalier, and every one,
Whom choice or fortune hither shall convey,
Stranger or native, -to this crystal run,
Shade, caverned rock, and grass, and plants, to say,
'Benignant be to you the fostering sun
And moon, and may the choir of nymphs provide,
That never swain his flock may hither guide. '»
――――
In Arabic was writ the blessing said,
Known to Orlando like the Latin tongue,
Who, versed in many languages, best read
Was in this speech; which oftentimes from wrong
And injury and shame had saved his head,
What time he roved the Saracens among.
## p. 756 (#170) ############################################
756
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
But let him boast not of its former boot,
O'erbalanced by the present bitter fruit.
Three times, and four, and six, the lines impressed
Upon the stone that wretch perused, in vain
Seeking another sense than was expressed,
And ever saw the thing more clear and plain;
And all the while, within his troubled breast,
He felt an icy hand his heart-core strain.
With mind and eyes close fastened on the block,
At length he stood, not differing from the rock.
Then well-nigh lost all feeling; so a prey
Wholly was he to that o'ermastering woe.
This is a pang, believe the experienced say
Of him who speaks, which does all griefs outgo.
His pride had from his forehead passed away,
His chin had fallen upon his breast below;
Nor found he, so grief-barred each natural vent,
Moisture for tears, or utterance for lament.
Stifled within, the impetuous sorrow stays,
Which would too quickly issue; so to abide
Water is seen, imprisoned in the vase,
Whose neck is narrow and whose swell is wide;
What time, when one turns up the inverted base,
Toward the mouth, so hastes the hurrying tide,
And in the strait encounters such a stop,
It scarcely works a passage, drop by drop.
He somewhat to himself returned, and thought
How possibly the thing might be untrue:
That some one (so he hoped, desired, and sought
To think) his lady would with shame pursue;
Or with such weight of jealousy had wrought
To whelm his reason, as should him undo;
And that he, whosoe'er the thing had planned,
Had counterfeited passing well her hand.
With such vain hope he sought himself to cheat,
And manned some deal his spirits and awoke;
Then prest the faithful Brigliadoro's seat,
As on the sun's retreat his sister broke.
Not far the warrior had pursued his beat,
Ere eddying from a roof he saw the smoke:
Heard noise of dog and kine, a farm espied,
And thitherward in quest of lodging hied.
## p. 757 (#171) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
757
Languid, he lit, and left his Brigliador
To a discreet attendant; one undrest
His limbs, one doffed the golden spurs he wore,
And one bore off, to clean, his iron vest.
This was the homestead where the young Medore
Lay wounded, and was here supremely blest.
Orlando here, with other food unfed,
Having supt full of sorrow, sought his bed.
Little availed the count his self-deceit;
For there was one who spake of it unsought:
The shepherd-swain, who to allay the heat
With which he saw his guest so troubled, thought
The tale which he was wonted to repeat-
Of the two lovers- to each listener taught;
A history which many loved to hear,
He now, without reserve, 'gan tell the peer.
"How at Angelica's persuasive prayer,
He to his farm had carried young Medore,
Grievously wounded with an arrow; where
In little space she healed the angry sore.
But while she exercised this pious care,
Love in her heart the lady wounded more,
And kindled from small spark so fierce a fire,
She burnt all over, restless with desire;
"Nor thinking she of mightiest king was born,
Who ruled in the East, nor of her heritage,
Forced by too puissant love, had thought no scorn
To be the consort of a poor foot-page. "
His story done, to them in proof was borne
The gem, which, in reward for harborage,
To her extended in that kind abode,
Angelica, at parting, had bestowed.
In him, forthwith, such deadly hatred breed
That bed, that house, that swain, he will not stay
Till the morn break, or till the dawn succeed,
Whose twilight goes before approaching day.
In haste, Orlando takes his arms and steed,
And to the deepest greenwood wends his way.
And when assured that he is there alone,
Gives utterance to his grief in shriek and groan.
## p. 758 (#172) ############################################
758
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Never from tears, never from sorrowing,
He paused; nor found he peace by night or day;
He fled from town, in forest harboring,
And in the open air on hard earth lay.
He marveled at himself, how such a spring
Of water from his eyes could stream away,
And breath was for so many sobs supplied;
And thus oft-times, amid his mourning, cried:
-:
"I am not - am not what I seem to sight:
What Roland was, is dead and under ground,
Slain by that most ungrateful lady's spite,
Whose faithlessness inflicted such a wound.
Divided from the flesh, I am his sprite,
Which in this hell, tormented, walks its round,
To be, but in its shadow left above,
A warning to all such as trust in love. "
All night about the forest roved the count,
And, at the break of daily light, was brought
By his unhappy fortune to the fount,
Where his inscription young Medoro wrought.
To see his wrongs inscribed upon that mount
Inflamed his fury so, in him was naught
But turned to hatred, frenzy, rage, and spite;
Nor paused he more, but bared his falchion bright,
Cleft through the writing; and the solid block,
Into the sky, in tiny fragments sped.
Woe worth each sapling and that caverned rock
Where Medore and Angelica were read!
So scathed, that they to shepherd or to flock
Thenceforth shall never furnish shade or bed.
And that sweet fountain, late so clear and pure,
From such tempestous wrath was ill secure.
So fierce his rage, so fierce his fury grew,
That all obscured remained the warrior's sprite;
Nor, for forgetfulness, his sword he drew,
Or wondrous deeds, I trow, had wrought the knight;
But neither this, nor bill, nor axe to hew,
Was needed by Orlando's peerless might.
He of his prowess gave high proofs and full,
Who a tall pine uprooted at a pull.
## p. 759 (#173) ############################################
ARISTOPHANES
He many others, with as little let
As fennel, wall-wort-stem, or dill uptore;
And ilex, knotted oak, and fir upset,
And beech and mountain ash, and elm-tree hoar.
He did what fowler, ere he spreads his net,
Does, to prepare the champaign for his lore,
By stubble, rush, and nettle stalk; and broke,
Like these, old sturdy trees and stems of oak.
The shepherd swains, who hear the tumult nigh,
Leaving their flocks beneath the greenwood tree,
Some here, some there, across the forest hie,
And hurry thither, all, the cause to see.
But I have reached such point, my history,
If I o'erpass this bound, may irksome be.
And I my story will delay to end
Rather than by my tediousness offend.
ARISTOPHANES
(B. C. 448-380? )
BY PAUL SHOREY
759
HE birth-year of Aristophanes is placed about 448 B. C. , on
the ground that he is said to have been almost a boy when
his first comedy was presented in 427. His last play, the
'Plutus,' was produced in 388, and there is no evidence that he long
survived this date. Little is known of his life beyond the allusions,
in the Parabases of the 'Acharnians,' 'Knights,' and 'Wasps,' to his
prosecution by Cleon, to his own or his father's estate at Ægina, and
to his premature baldness. He left three sons who also wrote
comedies.
Aristophanes is the sole extant representative of the so-called Old
Comedy of Athens; a form of dramatic art which developed obscurely
under the shadow of Attic Tragedy in the first half of the fifth cen-
tury B. C. , out of the rustic revelry of the Phallic procession and
Comus song of Dionysus, perhaps with some outside suggestions from
the Megarian farce and its Sicilian offshoot, the mythological court
comedy of Epicharmus. The chief note of this older comedy for the
ancient critics was its unbridled license of direct personal satire and
invective. Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, says Horace, assailed
with the utmost freedom any one who deserved to be branded with
infamy. This old political Comedy was succeeded in the calmer times
## p. 760 (#174) ############################################
760
ARISTOPHANES
that followed the Peloponnesian War by the so-called Middle Comedy
(390-320) of Alexis, Antiphanes, Strattis, and some minor men; which
insensibly passed into the New Comedy (320-250) of Menander and
Philemon, known to us in the reproductions of Terence. And this
new comedy, which portrayed types of private life instead of satiriz-
ing noted persons by name, and which, as Aristotle says, produced
laughter by innuendo rather than by scurrility, was preferred to the
"terrible graces" of her elder sister by the gentle and refined Plu-
tarch, or the critic who has usurped his name in the 'Comparison of
Aristophanes and Menander. ' The old Attic Comedy has been vari-
ously compared to Charivari, Punch, the comic opera of Offenbach,
and a Parisian 'revue de fin d'année. '
There is no good modern analogue. It is
not our comedy of manners, plot, and situ-
ation; nor yet is it mere buffoonery. It is
a peculiar mixture of broad political, social,
and literary satire, and polemical discus-
sion of large ideas, with the burlesque and
licentious extravagances that were deemed
the most acceptable service at the festival
of the laughter-loving, tongue-loosening god
of the vine.
The typical plan of an Aristophanic com-
edy is very simple. The protagonist under-
takes in all apparent seriousness to give a
local habitation and a body to some ingen-
ious fancy, airy speculation, or bold metaphor: as for example, the
procuring of a private peace for a citizen who is weary of the priva-
tions of war; or the establishment of a city in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
where the birds shall regulate things better than the featherless
biped, man; or the restoration of the eyesight of the proverbially
blind god of Wealth.
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
729
Paternosters, and silly Old World ceremonies; I mun never
pare my nails on a Friday, nor begin a journey on Childermas
Day; and I mun stand becking and binging as I gang out and
into the hall. Tell him he may e'en gang his get; I'll have
nothing to do with him; I'll stay like the poor country mouse,
in my awn habitation. »
So Peg talked; but for all that, by the interposition of good
friends, and by many a bonny thing that was sent, and many
more that were promised Peg, the matter was concluded, and
Peg taken into the house upon certain articles [the Act of Tol-
eration is referred to]; one of which was that she might have
the freedom of Jack's conversation, and might take him for bet-
ter or for worse if she pleased; provided always he did not come
into the house at unseasonable hours and disturb the rest of the
old woman, John's mother.
OF THE RUDIMENTS OF MARTIN'S LEARNING
From Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus ›
MRS
RS. SCRIBLERUS considered it was now time to instruct him
in the fundamentals of religion, and to that end took no
small pains in teaching him his catechism. But Cornelius
looked upon this as a tedious way of instruction, and therefore
employed his head to find out more pleasing methods, the better
to induce him to be fond of learning. He would frequently carry
him to the puppet-show of the creation of the world, where the
child, with exceeding delight, gained a notion of the history of
the Bible. His first rudiments in profane history were acquired
by seeing of raree-shows, where he was brought acquainted with
all the princes of Europe. In short, the old gentleman so con-
trived it to make everything contribute to the improvement of
his knowledge, even to his very dress. He invented for him a
geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints
of that science, and likewise some knowledge of the commerce of
different nations. He had a French hat with an African feather,
Holland shirts, Flanders lace, English clothes lined with Indian
silk, his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish: he was
made to observe this, and daily catechized thereupon, which his
father was wont to call "traveling at home. " He never gave
him a fig or an orange but he obliged him to give an account
## p. 730 (#140) ############################################
730
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
from what country it came. In natural history he was much
assisted by his curiosity in sign-posts; insomuch that he hath
often confessed he owed to them the knowledge of many creat-
ures which he never found since in any author, such as white
lions, golden dragons, etc. He once thought the same of green
men, but had since found them mentioned by Kercherus, and
verified in the history of William of Newburg.
His disposition to the mathematics was discovered very early,
by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter, and inter-
secting them at equal angles, so as to form the whole superficies
into squares.
But in the midst of all these improvements a stop
was put to his learning the alphabet, nor would he let him pro-
ceed to the letter D, till he could truly and distinctly pronounce
C in the ancient manner, at which the child unhappily boggled
for near three months. He was also obliged to delay his learn-
ing to write, having turned away the writing-master because he
knew nothing of Fabius's waxen tables.
Cornelius having read and seriously weighed the methods by
which the famous Montaigne was educated, and resolving in some
degree to exceed them, resolved he should speak and learn noth-
ing but the learned languages, and especially the Greek; in which
he constantly eat and drank, according to Homer. But what
most conduced to his easy attainment of this language was his
love of gingerbread: which his father observing, caused to be
stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet; and the child the
very first day eat as far as Iota. By his particular application to
this language above the rest, he attained so great a proficiency
therein, that Gronovius ingenuously confesses he durst not confer
with this child in Greek at eight years old; and at fourteen he
composed a tragedy in the same language, as the younger Pliny
had done before him.
He learned the Oriental languages of Erpenius, who resided
some time with his father for that purpose. He had so early a
relish for the Eastern way of writing, that even at this time he
composed (in imitation of it) A Thousand and One Arabian
Tales,' and also the 'Persian Tales,' which have been since
translated into several languages, and lately into our own with
particular elegance by Mr. Ambrose Philips. In this work of his
childhood he was not a little assisted by the historical traditions
of his nurse.
## p. 731 (#141) ############################################
731
OTOKO
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
HE legend of the Argonauts relates to the story of a band of
heroes who sailed from Thessaly to Ea, the region of the
Sun-god on the remotest shore of the Black Sea, in quest
of a Golden Fleece. The ship Argo bore the heroes, under the com-
mand of Jason, to whom the task had been assigned by his uncle
Pelias. Pelias was the usurper of his nephew's throne; and for Jason,
on his coming to man's estate, he devised the perilous adventure of
fetching the golden fleece of the Speaking Ram which many years
before had carried Phrixus to Ea, or Colchis. Fifty of the most
distinguished Grecian heroes came to Jason's aid, while Argus, the
son of Phrixus, under the guidance of Athena, built the ship, insert-
ing in the prow, for prophetic advice and furtherance, a piece of
the famous talking oak of Dodona. Tiphys was the steersman, and
Orpheus joined the crew to enliven the weariness of their sea-life
with his harp.
The heroes came first to Lemnos, where the women had risen in
revolt and slain fathers, brothers, and husbands.
Here the voyagers
lingered almost a year; but at last, having taken leave, they came
to the southern coast of Propontis, where the Doliones dwelt under
King Cyzicus. Their kind entertainment among this people was
marred by ill-fate; for having weighed anchor in the night, they
were driven back by a storm, and being mistaken for foes, were
fiercely attacked. Cyzicus himself fell by the hand of Jason. They
next touched at the country of the Bebrycians, where the hero Pol-
lux overcame the king in a boxing-match and bound him to a tree;
and thence to Salmydessus, to consult the soothsayer Phineus. In
gratitude for their freeing him from the Harpies, who, as often as
his table was set, descended out of the clouds upon his food and
defiled it, the prophet directed them safe to Colchis. The heroes
rowing with might, thus passed the Symplegades, two cliffs which
opened and shut with such swift violence that a bird could scarce fly
through the passage. The rocks were held apart with the help of
Athena, and from that day they became fixed and harmless. Fur-
ther on, they came in sight of Mount Caucasus, saw the eagle which
preyed on the vitals of Prometheus, and heard the sufferer's woeful
cries. So their journey was accomplished, and they arrived at Ea
and the palace of King Eetes.
When the king heard the errand of the heroes he was moved
against them, and refused to give up the fleece except on terms
## p. 732 (#142) ############################################
732
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
which he thought Jason durst not comply with. Two bulls, snorting
fire, with feet of brass, Jason was required to yoke, and with them
plow a field and sow the land with dragon's teeth. Here the heav-
enly powers came to the hero's aid, and Hera and Athena prayed
Aphrodite to send the shaft of Cupid upon Medea, the youthful
daughter of the king. Thus it came about that Medea conceived a
great passion for the young hero, and with the magic which she
knew she made for him a salve. The salve rendered his body invul-
nerable. He yoked the bulls, and ploughed the field, and sowed the
dragon's teeth. A crop of armed men sprang from the sowing, but
Jason, prepared for this marvel by Medea, threw among them a stone
which she had given him, whereupon they fell upon and slew one
another.
But Eetes still refused to fetch the fleece, plotting secretly to
burn the Argo and kill the heroic Argonauts. Medea came to their
succor, and by her black art lulled to sleep the dragon which guarded
the fleece. They seized the pelt, boarded the Argo, and sailed away,
taking Medea with them. When her father followed in pursuit, in
the madness of her love for Jason she slew her brother whom she
had with her, and strewed the fragments of his body upon the wave.
The king stopped to recover them and give them burial, and thus
the Argonauts escaped. But the anger of the gods at this horrible
murder led the voyagers in expiation a wearisome way homeward.
For they sailed through the waters of the Adriatic, the Nile, the
circumfluous stream of the earth, passed Scylla and Charybdis and
the Island of the Sun, to Crete and Ægina and many lands, before
the Argo rode once more in Thessalian waters.
The legend is one of the oldest and most familiar tales of Greece.
Whether it is all poetic myth, or had a certain foundation in fact, it
is impossible now to say. The date, the geography, the heroes, are
mythical; and as in the Homeric poems, the supernatural and seem-
ing historical are so blended that the union is indissoluble by any
analysis yet found. The theme has touched the imagination of poets
from the time of Apollonius Rhodius, who wrote the 'Argonautica'
and went to Alexandria B. C. 194 to take care of the great library
there, to William Morris, who published his 'Life and Death of Jason'
in 1867. Mr. Morris's version of the contest of Orpheus with the
Sirens is given to illustrate the reality of the old legends to the
Greeks themselves. Jason's later life, his putting away of Medea, his
marriage with Glauce, and the revenge of the deserted princess, fur-
nish the story of the greatest of the plays of Euripides.
## p. 733 (#143) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
733
THE VICTORY OF ORPHEUS
From The Life and Death of Jason'
The Sirens:
H, HAPPY Seafarers are ye,
And surely all your ills are past,
And toil upon the land and sea,
Since ye are brought to us at last.
O"
To you the fashion of the world,
Wide lands laid waste, fair cities burned,
And plagues, and kings from kingdoms hurled,
Are naught, since hither ye have turned.
For as upon this beach we stand,
And o'er our heads the sea-fowl flit,
Our eyes behold a glorious land,
And soon shall ye be kings of it.
Orpheus:
A little more, a little more,
O carriers of the Golden Fleece,
A little labor with the oar,
Before we reach the land of Greece.
E'en now perchance faint rumors reach
Men's ears of this our victory,
And draw them down unto the beach
To gaze across the empty sea.
But since the longed-for day is nigh,
And scarce a god could stay us now,
Why do ye hang your heads and sigh,
And still go slower and more slow?
The Sirens:
Ah, had ye chanced to reach the home
Your fond desires were set upon,
Into what troubles had ye come!
What barren victory had ye won!
But now, but now, when ye have lain
Asleep with us a little while
Beneath the washing of the main,
How calm shall be your waking smile!
## p. 734 (#144) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
734
For ye shall smile to think of life
That knows no troublous change or fear,
No unavailing bitter strife,
That ere its time brings trouble near.
Orpheus:
Is there some murmur in your ears,
That all that we have done is naught,
And nothing ends our cares and fears,
Till the last fear on us is brought?
The Sirens:
Alas! and will ye stop your ears,
In vain desire to do aught,
And wish to live 'mid cares and fears,
Until the last fear makes you naught?
Orpheus:
Is not the May-time now on earth,
When close against the city wall
The folk are singing in their mirth,
While on their heads the May flowers fall?
The Sirens:
Yes, May is come, and its sweet breath
Shall well-nigh make you weep to-day,
And pensive with swift-coming death
Shall ye be satiate of the May.
Orpheus:
Shall not July bring fresh delight,
As underneath green trees ye sit,
And o'er some damsel's body white,
The noon-tide shadows change and flit?
The Sirens:
No new delight July shall bring,
But ancient fear and fresh desire;
And spite of every lovely thing,
Of July surely shall ye tire.
Orpheus:
And now when August comes on thee,
And 'mid the golden sea of corn
The merry reapers thou mayst see,
Wilt thou still think the earth forlorn?
## p. 735 (#145) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
735
The Sirens:
Set flowers on thy short-lived head,
And in thine heart forgetfulness
Of man's hard toil, and scanty bread,
And weary of those days no less.
Orpheus:
Or wilt thou climb the sunny hill,
In the October afternoon,
To watch the purple earth's blood fill
The gray vat to the maiden's tune?
The Sirens:
When thou beginnest to grow old,
Bring back remembrance of thy bliss
With that the shining cup doth hold,
And weary helplessly of this.
Orpheus:
Or pleasureless shall we pass by
The long cold night and leaden day,
That song and tale and minstrelsy
Shall make as merry as the May?
The Sirens:
List then, to-night, to some old tale
Until the tears o'erflow thine eyes;
But what shall all these things avail,
When sad to-morrow comes and dies?
Orpheus:
And when the world is born again,
And with some fair love, side by side,
Thou wanderest 'twixt the sun and rain,
In that fresh love-begetting tide;
Then, when the world is born again,
And the sweet year before thee lies,
Shall thy heart think of coming pain,
Or vex itself with memories?
The Sirens:
Ah! then the world is born again
With burning love unsatisfied,
And new desires fond and vain,
And weary days from tide to tide.
## p. 736 (#146) ############################################
736
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Ah! when the world is born again,
A little day is soon gone by,
When thou, unmoved by sun or rain,
Within a cold straight house shall lie.
Therewith they ceased awhile, as languidly
The head of Argo fell off toward the sea,
And through the water she began to go;
For from the land a fitful wind did blow,
That, dallying with the many-colored sail,
Would sometimes swell it out and sometimes fail,
As nigh the east side of the bay they drew;
Then o'er the waves again the music flew.
The Sirens:
Think not of pleasure short and vain,
Wherewith, 'mid days of toil and pain,
With sick and sinking hearts ye strive
To cheat yourselves that ye may live
With cold death ever close at hand.
Think rather of a peaceful land,
The changeless land where ye may be
Roofed over by the changeful sea.
Orpheus:
And is the fair town nothing then,
The coming of the wandering men
With that long talked-of thing and strange.
And news of how the kingdoms change,
The pointed hands, and wondering
At doers of a desperate thing?
Push on, for surely this shall be
Across a narrow strip of sea.
The Sirens:
Alas! poor souls and timorous,
Will ye draw nigh to gaze at us
And see if we are fair indeed?
For such as we shall be your meed,
There, where our hearts would have you go.
And where can the earth-dwellers show
In any land such loveliness
As that wherewith your eyes we bless,
O wanderers of the Minyæ,
Worn toilers over land and sea?
## p. 737 (#147) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Orpheus:
Fair as the lightning 'thwart the sky,
As sun-dyed snow upon the high
Untrodden heaps of threatening stone
The eagle looks upon alone,
Oh, fair as the doomed victim's wreath,
Oh, fair as deadly sleep and death,
What will ye with them, earthly men,
To mate your threescore years and ten?
Toil rather, suffer and be free,
Betwixt the green earth and the sea.
The Sirens:
If ye be bold with us to go,
Things such as happy dreams may show
Shall your once heavy lids behold
About our palaces of gold;
Where waters 'neath the waters run,
And from o'erhead a harmless sun
Gleams through the woods of chrysolite.
There gardens fairer to the sight
Than those of the Phæacian king
Shall ye behold; and, wondering,
Gaze on the sea-born fruit and flowers,
And thornless and unchanging bowers,
Whereof the May-time knoweth naught.
So to the pillared house being brought,
Poor souls, ye shall not be alone,
For o'er the floors of pale blue stone
All day such feet as ours shall pass,
And 'twixt the glimmering walls of glass,
Such bodies garlanded with gold,
So faint, so fair, shall ye behold,
And clean forget the treachery
Of changing earth and tumbling sea.
Orpheus:
Oh the sweet valley of deep grass,
Where through the summer stream doth pass,
In chain of shadow, and still pool,
From misty morn to evening cool;
Where the black ivy creeps and twines
O'er the dark-armed, red-trunkèd pines,
737
II-47
## p. 738 (#148) ############################################
738
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Whence clattering the pigeon flits,
Or brooding o'er her thin eggs sits,
And every hollow of the hills
With echoing song the mavis fills.
There by the stream, all unafraid,
Shall stand the happy shepherd maid,
Alone in first of sunlit hours;
Behind her, on the dewy flowers,
Her homespun woolen raiment lies,
And her white limbs and sweet gray eyes
Shine from the calm green pool and deep,
While round about the swallows sweep,
Not silent; and would God that we,
Like them, were landed from the sea.
The Sirens:
Shall we not rise with you at night,
Up through the shimmering green twilight,
That maketh there our changeless day,
Then going through the moonlight gray,
Shall we not sit upon these sands,
To think upon the troublous lands
Long left behind, where once ye were,
When every day brought change and fear!
There, with white arms about you twined,
And shuddering somewhat at the wind
That ye rejoiced erewhile to meet,
Be happy, while old stories sweet,
Half understood, float round your ears,
And fill your eyes with happy tears.
Ah! while we sing unto you there,
As now we sing, with yellow hair
Blown round about these pearly limbs,
While underneath the gray sky swims
The light shell-sailor of the waves,
And to our song. from sea-filled caves
Booms out an echoing harmony,
Shall ye not love the peaceful sea?
Orpheus:
Nigh the vine-covered hillocks green,
In days agone, have I not seen
The brown-clad maidens amorous,
Below the long rose-trellised house,
## p. 739 (#149) ############################################
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Dance to the querulous pipe and shrill,
When the gray shadow of the hill
Was lengthening at the end of day?
Not shadowy or pale were they,
But limbed like those who 'twixt the trees
Follow the swift of goddesses.
Sunburnt they are somewhat, indeed,
To where the rough brown woolen weed
Is drawn across their bosoms sweet,
Or cast from off their dancing feet;
But yet the stars, the moonlight gray,
The water wan, the dawn of day,
Can see their bodies fair and white
As hers, who once, for man's delight,
Before the world grew hard and old,
Came o'er the bitter sea and cold;
And surely those that met me there
Her handmaidens and subjects were;
And shame-faced, half-repressed desire
Had lit their glorious eyes with fire,
That maddens eager hearts of men.
Oh, would that I were with them when
The risen moon is gathering light,
And yellow from the homestead white
The windows gleam; but verily
This waits us o'er a little sea.
The Sirens:
Come to the land where none grows old,
And none is rash or over-bold
Nor any noise there is or war,
Or rumor from wild lands afar,
Or plagues, or birth and death of kings;
No vain desire of unknown things
Shall vex you there, no hope or fear
Of that which never draweth near;
But in that lovely land and still
Ye may remember what ye will,
And what ye will, forget for aye.
So while the kingdoms pass away,
Ye sea-beat hardened toilers erst,
Unresting, for vain fame athirst,
Shall be at peace for evermore,
With hearts fulfilled of Godlike lore,
739
## p. 740 (#150) ############################################
740
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
And calm, unwavering Godlike love,
No lapse of time can turn or move.
There, ages after your fair fleece
Is clean forgotten, yea, and Greece
Is no more counted glorious,
Alone with us, alone with us,
Alone with us, dwell happily,
Beneath our trembling roof of sea.
Orpheus:
Ah! do ye weary of the strife,
And long to change this eager life
For shadowy and dull hopelessness,
Thinking indeed to gain no less
Than this, to die, and not to die,
To be as if ye ne'er had been,
Yet keep your memory fresh and green,
To have no thought of good or ill,
Yet keep some thrilling pleasure still?
Oh, idle dream! Ah, verily
If it shall happen unto me
That I have thought of anything,
When o'er my bones the sea-fowl sing,
And I lie dead, how shall I pine
For those fresh joys that once were mine,
On this green fount of joy and mirth,
The ever young and glorious earth;
Then, helpless, shall I call to mind
Thoughts of the flower-scented wind,
The dew, the gentle rain at night,
The wonder-working snow and white,
The song of birds, the water's fall,
The sun that maketh bliss of all;
Yea, this our toil and victory,
The tyrannous and conquered sea.
The Sirens:
Ah, will ye go, and whither then
Will ye go from us, soon to die,
To fill your threescore years and ten
With many an unnamed misery?
And this the wretchedest of all,
That when upon your lonely eyes
The last faint heaviness shall fall,
Ye shall bethink you of our cries.
## p. 740 (#151) ############################################
## p. 740 (#152) ############################################
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LUDOVICO ARIOSTO.
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## p. 740 (#154) ############################################
DOV COAT OSTO.
## p. 741 (#155) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
741
Come back, nor, grown old, seek in vain
To hear us sing across the sea;
Come back, come back, come back again,
Come back, O fearful Minyæ!
Orpheus:
Ah, once again, ah, once again,
The black prow plunges through the sea;
Nor yet shall all your toil be vain,
Nor ye forget, O Minyæ!
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
(1474-1533)
BY L. OSCAR KUHNS
MONG the smaller principalities of Italy during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, none was more brilliant than the
court of Ferrara, and none more intimately connected with
the literature of the times. Here, on September 8th, 1474, was born
Ludovico Ariosto, the great poet of the Renaissance. Here, like
Boiardo before him and Tasso after him, he lived and wrote; and it
was to the family of Este that he dedicated that poem in which are
seen, as in a mirror, the gay life, the intellectual brilliancy, and the
sensuous love for beauty which mark the age. At seventeen he
began the study of the law, which he soon abandoned for the charms
of letters. Most of his life was passed in the service first of Cardinal
d'Este, and afterward of the Duke of Ferrara. But the courtier never
overcame the poet, who is said to have begun the famous Orlando
Furioso at the age of thirty, and never to have ceased the effort to
improve it.
>
The literary activity of Ariosto showed itself in the composition of
comedies and satires, as well as in that of his immortal epic. The
comedies were written for the court theatre of Ferrara, to which he
seems to have had some such relation as that of Goethe to the theatre
at Weimar.
The later comedies are much better than the early ones,
which are but little more than translations from Plautus and Terence.
In general, however, the efforts of Ariosto in this direction are far
less important than the 'Orlando' or the 'Satires. At the first
appearance of his plays they were enormously successful, and the
poet was hailed as a great dramatic genius. But these comedies are
## p. 742 (#156) ############################################
742
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
interesting to-day chiefly from the fact that Ariosto was one of the
very first of the writers of modern comedy, and was the leader of
that movement in Italy and France which prepared the way for
Molière.
Of more importance than the comedies, and second only in interest
to the Orlando,' are the 'Satires,' seven in number, the first written
in 1517 and the last in 1531, thus representing the maturer life of the
poet. Nearly everything we know of Ariosto's character is taken
from this source. He reveals himself in them as a man who excites
neither our highest admiration nor our contempt. He was not born
to be a statesman, nor a courtier, nor a man of affairs; and his life
as ambassador of Cardinal Ippolito, and as captain of Garafagno, was
not at all to his liking. His one longing through all the busy years
of his life was for a quiet home, where he could live in liberty and
enjoy the comforts of cultured leisure. A love of independence was
a marked trait of his character, and it must often have galled him to
play the part he did at the court of Ferrara. As a satirist he was
no Juvenal or Persius. He was not stirred to profound indignation
by the evils about him, of which there were enough in that brilliant
but corrupt age. He discussed in easy, familiar style, the foibles of
his fellow-men, and especially the events of his own life and the
traits of his own character.
The same views of life, the same tolerant temper, which are seen
in the 'Satires,' form an important part of the 'Orlando Furioso,'
where they take the form of little dissertations, introduced at the
beginning of a canto, or scattered through the body of the poem.
These reflections are full of practical sense and wisdom, and remind
us of the familiar conversation with the reader which forms so great
a charm in Thackeray's novels.
In the Italian Renaissance there is a curious mingling of classical
and romantic influences, and the generation which gave itself up pass-
ionately to the study of Greek and Latin still read with delight the
stories of the Paladins of Charlemagne and the Knights of the Round
Table. What Sir Thomas Malory had done in English prose, Boiardo
did in Latin poetry. When Ariosto entered the service of Cardinal
Ippolito, every one was reading the Orlando Innamorato,' and the
young poet soon fell under the charm of these stories; so that when
the inward impulse which all great poets feel toward the work of
creation came to him, he took the material already at hand and con-
tinued the story of Orlando. ' With a certain skill and inventiveness,
Boiardo had mingled together the epic cycles of Arthur and Charle-
magne. He had shown the Saracen host under King Agramante
driving the army of Charlemagne before them, until the Christians
had finally been shut up within the walls of Paris. It was at this
## p. 743 (#157) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
743
critical moment in his poem that Boiardo died. Ariosto took up the
story where he had left it, and carried it on until the final defeat of
Agramante, and his death at the hands of Orlando in the desert island.
But we must not think that the 'Orlando Furioso' has one definite
plot. At first reading we are confused by the multiplicity of incident,
by the constant change of scene, and by the breaking off of one
story to make place for another. In a single canto the scene changes
from France to Africa, and by means of winged horses tremendous
distances are traveled over in a day. On closer examination we find
that this confusion is only apparent. The poet himself is never con-
fused, but with sure hand he manipulates the many-colored threads
which are 'wrought into the fabric of the poem. The war between
the Saracens and the Christians is a sort of background or stage; a
rallying point for the characters. In reality it attracts but slightly
our attention or interest. Again, Orlando's love for Angelica, and his
madness, although the latter gave the title to the book, and both
afford some of the finest episodes,- have no organic connection with
the whole. The real subject, if any there be, is the loves of Rug-
giero and Bradamante. These are the supposed ancestors of the
house of Este, and it is with their final union, after many vicissitudes,
that the poem ends.
But the real purpose of Ariosto was to amuse the reader by count-
less stories of romantic adventure. It was not as a great creative
genius, as the inventor of new characters, as the earnest and philo-
sophical reformer, that he appears to mankind, but as the supreme
artist. Ariosto represents in its highest development that love for
form, that perfection of style, which is characteristic of the Latin
races as distinguished from the Teutonic. It is this that makes the
'Orlando Furioso' the great epic of the Renaissance, and that caused
Galileo to bestow upon the poet the epithet "divine.
"
For nearly thirty years Ariosto changed and polished these lines,
so that the edition of 1532 is quite different from that of 1516. The
stanzas in which the poem is written are smooth and musical, the
language is so chosen as always to express the exact shade of
thought, the interest never flags. What seems the arbitrary breaking
off of a story before its close is really the art of the poet; for he
knows, were each episode to be told by itself, we should have only a
string of novelle, and not the picture he desired to paint,- that of the
world of chivalry, with its knights-errant in search of adventures, its
damsels in distress, its beautiful gardens and lordly palaces, its her-
mits and magicians, its hippogriffs and dragons, and all the parapher-
nalia of magic art.
Ariosto's treatment of chivalry is peculiar to himself. Spenser in
the sixteenth century, and Lord Tennyson in our own day, pictured
## p. 744 (#158) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
744
its virtues and noble aspirations. In his immortal Don Quixote,'
Cervantes held its extravagances up to ridicule. In Ariosto's day no
one believed any longer in the heroes or the ideals of chivalry, nor
did the poet himself; hence there is an air of unreality about the
poem. The figures that pass before us, although they have certain
characteristics of their own, are not real beings, but those that dwell
in a land of fancy. As the poet tells these stories of a bygone age,
a smile of irony plays upon his face; he cannot take them seriously;
and while he never goes so far as to turn into ridicule the ideals of
chivalry, yet, in such episodes as the prodigious exploits of Rodo-
monte within the walls of Paris, and the voyage of Astolfo to the
moon, he does approach dangerously near to the burlesque.
We are not inspired by large and noble thoughts in reading the
'Orlando Furioso. ' We are not deeply stirred by pity or terror. Νο
lofty principles are inculcated. Even the pathetic scenes, such as the
death of Zerbino and Isabella, stir no real emotion in us, but we
experience a sense of the artistic effect of a poetic death.
It is not often, in these days of the making of many books of
which there is no end, that one has time to read a poem which is
longer than the Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' together. But there is a
compelling charm about the 'Orlando,' and he who sits down to read
it with serious purpose will soon find himself under the spell of an
attraction which comes from unflagging interest and from perfec-
tion of style and construction. No translation can convey an adequate
sense of this beauty of color and form; but the versions of William
Stewart Rose, here cited, suggest the energy, invention, and intensity
of the epic.
In 1532 Ariosto published his final edition of the poem, now en-
larged to forty-six cantos, and retouched from beginning to end. He
died not long afterward, in 1533, and was buried in the church of
San Benedetto, where a magnificent monument marks his resting-
place.
1. Oscar Kuhne.
## p. 745 (#159) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
745
THE FRIENDSHIP OF MEDORO AND CLORIDANE
From Orlando Furioso,' Cantos 18 and 19
TWO
wo Moors among the Paynim army were,
From stock obscure in Ptolomita grown;
Of whom the story, an example rare
Of constant love, is worthy to be known.
Medore and Cloridane were named the pair;
Who, whether Fortune pleased to smile or frown,
Served Dardinello with fidelity,
And late with him to France had crost the sea.
Of nimble frame and strong was Cloridane,
Throughout his life a follower of the chase.
A cheek of white, suffused with crimson grain,
Medoro had, in youth, a pleasing grace;
Nor bound on that emprize, 'mid all the train,
Was there a fairer or more jocund face.
Crisp hair he had of gold, and jet-black eyes;
And seemed an angel lighted from the skies.
These two were posted on a rampart's height,
With more to guard the encampment from surprise,
When 'mid the equal intervals, at night,
Medoro gazed on heaven with sleepy eyes.
In all his talk, the stripling, woeful wight,
Here cannot choose, but of his lord devise,
The royal Dardinel; and evermore
Him left unhonored on the field, deplore.
Then, turning to his mate, cries, "Cloridane,
I cannot tell thee what a cause of woe
It is to me, my lord upon the plain
Should lie, unworthy food for wolf or crow!
Thinking how still to me he was humane,
Meseems, if in his honor I forego
This life of mine, for favors so immense
I shall but make a feeble recompense.
"That he may not lack sepulture, will I
Go forth, and seek him out among the slain;
And haply God may will that none shall spy
Where Charles's camp lies hushed. Do thou remain;
That, if my death be written in the sky,
Thou may'st the deed be able to explain.
## p. 746 (#160) ############################################
746
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
So that if Fortune foil so far a feat,
The world, through Fame, my loving heart may weet. »
Amazed was Cloridane a child should show
Such heart, such love, and such fair loyalty;
And fain would make the youth his thought forego,
Whom he held passing dear: but fruitlessly
Would move his steadfast purpose; for such woe
Will neither comforted nor altered be.
Medoro is disposed to meet his doom,
Or to inclose his master in the tomb.
Seeing that naught would bend him, naught would move,
"I too will go," was Cloridane's reply:
"In such a glorious act myself will prove;
As well such famous death I covet, I.
What other thing is left me, here above,
Deprived of thee, Medoro mine? To die
With thee in arms is better, on the plain,
Than afterwards of grief, shouldst thou be slain. "
And thus resolved, disposing in their place
Their guard's relief, depart the youthful pair,
Leave fosse and palisade, and in small space
Are among ours, who watch with little care;
Who, for they little fear the Paynim race,
Slumber with fires extinguished everywhere.
'Mid carriages and arms they lie supine,
Up to the eyes immersed in sleep and wine.
A moment Cloridano stopt, and cried,
"Not to be lost are opportunities.
This troop, by whom my master's blood was shed,
Medoro, ought not I to sacrifice?
Do thou, lest any one this way be led,
Watch everywhere about, with ears and eyes;
For a wide way, amid the hostile horde,
I offer here to make thee with my sword. "
So said he, and his talk cut quickly short,
Coming where learned Alpheus slumbered nigh;
Who had the year before sought Charles's court,
In med'cine, magic, and astrology
Well versed: but now in art found small support,
Or rather found that it was all a lie.
He had foreseen that he his long-drawn life
Should finish on the bosom of his wife.
## p. 747 (#161) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
747
And now the Saracen with wary view
Had pierced his weasand with the pointed sword.
Four others he near that Diviner slew,
Nor gave the wretches time to say a word.
Sir Turpin in his story tells not who,
And Time has of their names effaced record.
Palidon of Moncalier next he speeds;
One who securely sleeps between two steeds.
Rearing th' insidious blade, the pair are near
The place where round King Charles's pavilion
Are tented warlike paladin and peer,
Guarding the side that each is camped upon,
When in good time the Paynims backward steer,
And sheathe their swords, the impious slaughter done;
Deeming impossible, in such a number,
But they must light on one who does not slumber.
And though they might escape well charged with prey,
To save themselves they think sufficient gain.
Thither by what he deems the safest way
(Medoro following him) went Cloridane
Where in the field, 'mid bow and falchion lay,
And shield and spear, in pool of purple stain,
Wealthy and poor, the king and vassal's corse,
And overthrown the rider and his horse.
The silvery splendor glistened yet more clear,
There where renowned Almontes's son lay dead.
Faithful Medoro mourned his master dear,
Who well agnized the quartering white and red,
With visage bathed in many a bitter tear
(For he a rill from either eyelid shed),
And piteous act and moan, that might have whist
The winds, his melancholy plaint to list;
But with a voice supprest—not that he aught
Regards if any one the noise should hear,
Because he of his life takes any thought,
Of which loathed burden he would fain be clear;
But lest his being heard should bring to naught
The pious purpose which has brought them here
The youths the king upon their shoulders stowed;
And so between themselves divide the load.
## p. 748 (#162) ############################################
748
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Hurrying their steps, they hastened, as they might,
Under the cherished burden they conveyed;
And now approaching was the lord of light,
To sweep from heaven the stars, from earth the shade,
When good Zerbino, he whose valiant sprite
Was ne'er in time of need by sleep down-weighed,
From chasing Moors all night, his homeward way
Was taking to the camp at dawn of day.
He has with him some horsemen in his train,
That from afar the two companions spy.
Expecting thus some spoil or prize to gain,
They, every one, toward that quarter hie.
"Brother, behoves us," cried young Cloridane,
"To cast away the load we bear, and fly;
For 'twere a foolish thought (might well be said)
To lose two living men, to save one dead;"
And dropt the burden, weening his Medore
Had done the same by it, upon his side;
But that poor boy, who loved his master more,
His shoulders to the weight alone applied:
Cloridane hurrying with all haste before,
Deeming him close behind him or beside;
Who, did he know his danger, him to save
A thousand deaths, instead of one, would brave.
The closest path, amid
gray,
To save himself, pursued the youth forlorn;
But all his schemes were marred by the delay
Of that sore weight upon his shoulders borne.
The place he knew not, and mistook the way,
And hid himself again in sheltering thorn.
Secure and distant was his mate, that through
The greenwood shade with lighter shoulders flew.
So far was Cloridane advanced before,
He heard the boy no longer in the wind;
But when he marked the absence of Medore,
It seemed as if his heart was left behind.
"Ah! how was I so negligent," (the Moor
Exclaimed) "so far beside myself, and blind,
That, I, Medoro, should without thee fare,
Nor know when I deserted thee or where? »
## p. 749 (#163) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
749
So saying, in the wood he disappears,
Plunging into the maze with hurried pace;
And thither, whence he lately issued, steers,
And, desperate, of death returns in trace.
Cries and the tread of steeds this while he hears,
And word and threat of foeman, as in chase;
Lastly Medoro by his voice is known,
Disarmed, on foot, 'mid many horse, alone.
A hundred horsemen who the youth surround,
Zerbino leads, and bids his followers seize
The stripling; like a top the boy turns round
And keeps him as he can: among the trees,
Behind oak, elm, beech, ash, he takes his ground,
Nor from the cherished load his shoulders frees.
Wearied, at length, the burden he bestowed
Upon the grass, and stalked about his load.
As in her rocky cavern the she-bear,
With whom close warfare Alpine hunters wage,
Uncertain hangs about her shaggy care,
And growls in mingled sound of love and rage,
To unsheath her claws, and blood her tushes bare,
Would natural hate and wrath the beast engage;
Love softens her, and bids from strife retire,
And for her offspring watch, amid her ire.
Cloridane, who to aid him knows not how,
And with Medoro willingly would die,
But who would not for death this being forego,
Until more foes than one should lifeless lie,
Ambushed, his sharpest arrow to his bow
Fits, and directs it with so true an eye,
The feathered weapon bores a Scotchman's brain,
And lays the warrior dead upon the plain.
Together, all the others of the band
Turned thither, whence was shot the murderous reed;
Meanwhile he launched another from his stand,
That a new foe might by the weapon bleed,
Whom (while he made of this and that demand,
And loudly questioned who had done the deed)
The arrow reached-transfixed the wretch's throat
And cut his question short in middle note.
## p. 750 (#164) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
750
Zerbino, captain of those horse, no more
Can at the piteou sight his wrath refrain;
In furious heat he springs upon Medore,
Exclaiming, "Thou of this shalt bear the pain. "
One hand he in his locks of golden ore
Enwreaths, and drags him to himself amain;
But as his eyes that beauteous face survey,
Takes pity on the boy, and does not slay.
To him the stripling turns, with suppliant cry,
And, "By thy God, sir knight," exclaims, "I pray,
Be not so passing cruel, nor deny
That I in earth my honored king may lay:
No other grace I supplicate, nor I
This for the love of life, believe me, say.
So much, no longer, space of life I crave,
As may suffice to give my lord a grave.
"And if you needs must feed the beast and bird,
Like Theban Creon, let their worst be done
Upon these limbs; so that by me interred
In earth be those of good Almontes's son. "
Medoro thus his suit, with grace, preferred,
And words to move a mountain; and so won
Upon Zerbino's mood, to kindness turned,
With love and pity he all over burned.
This while, a churlish horseman of the band,
Who little deference for his lord confest,
His lance uplifting, wounded overhand
The unhappy suppliant in his dainty breast.
Zerbino, who the cruel action scanned,
Was deeply stirred, the rather that, opprest,
And livid with the blow the churl had sped,
Medoro fell as he was wholly dead.
The Scots pursue their chief, who pricks before,
Through the deep wood, inspired by high disdain,
When he has left the one and the other Moor,
This dead, that scarce alive, upon the plain.
There for a mighty space lay young Medore,
Spouting his life-blood from so large a vein
He would have perished, but that thither made
A stranger, as it chanced, who lent him aid.
## p. 751 (#165) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
THE SAVING OF MEDORO
From Orlando Furioso,' Canto 19
Y CHANCE arrived a damsel at the place,
Β΄ Who was (though mean and rustic was her wear)
Of royal presence and of beauteous face,
And lofty manners, sagely debonnair.
Her have I left unsung so long a space,
That you will hardly recognize the fair
Angelica: in her (if known not) scan
The lofty daughter of Catay's great khan.
Angelica, when she had won again
The ring Brunello had from her conveyed,
So waxed in stubborn pride and haught disdain,
She seemed to scorn this ample world, and strayed
Alone, and held as cheap each living swain,
Although amid the best by fame arrayed;
Nor brooked she to remember a gallant
In Count Orlando or King Sacripant:
And above every other deed repented,
That good Rinaldo she had loved of yore;
And that to look so low she had consented,
(As by such choice dishonored) grieved her sore.
Love, hearing this, such arrogance resented,
And would the damsel's pride endure no more.
Where young Medoro lay he took his stand,
And waited her, with bow and shaft in hand.
When fair Angelica the stripling spies,
Nigh hurt to death in that disastrous fray,
Who for his king, that there unsheltered lies,
More sad than for his own misfortune lay,
She feels new pity in her bosom rise,
Which makes its entry in unwonted way.
Touched was her naughty heart, once hard and curst,
And more when he his piteous tale rehearsed.
751
And calling back to memory her art,
For she in Ind had learned chirurgery,
(Since it appears such studies in that part
Worthy of praise and fame are held to be,
And, as an heirloom, sires to sons impart,
With little aid of books, the mystery,)
## p. 752 (#166) ############################################
752
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Disposed herself to work with simples' juice,
Till she in him should healthier life produce.
And recollects an herb had caught her sight
In passing thither, on a pleasant plain:
What (whether dittany or pancy hight)
I know not; fraught with virtue to restrain
The crimson blood forth-welling, and of might
To sheathe each perilous and piercing pain.
She found it near, and having pulled the weed,
Returned to seek Medoro on the mead.
Returning, she upon a swain did light,
Who was on horseback passing through the wood.
Strayed from the lowing herd, the rustic wight
A heifer missing for two days pursued.
Him she with her conducted, where the might
Of the faint youth was ebbing with his blood:
Which had the ground about so deeply dyed
Life was nigh wasted with the gushing tide.
Angelica alights upon the ground,
And he, her rustic comrade, at her hest.
She hastened 'twixt two stones the herb to pound,
Then took it, and the healing juice exprest:
With this did she foment the stripling's wound,
And even to the hips, his waist and breast;
And (with such virtue was the salve endued)
It stanched his life-blood, and his strength renewed.
• And into him infused such force again,
That he could mount the horse the swain conveyed;
But good Medoro would not leave the plain
Till he in earth had seen his master laid.
He, with the monarch, buried Cloridane,
And after followed whither pleased the maid.
Who was to stay with him, by pity led,
Beneath the courteous shepherd's humble shed.
Nor would the damsel quit the lowly pile
(So she esteemed the youth) till he was sound;
Such pity first she felt, when him erewhile
She saw outstretched and bleeding on the ground.
Touched by his mien and manners next, a file
She felt corrode her heart with secret wound;
She felt corrode her heart, and with desire,
By little and by little warmed, took fire.
## p. 753 (#167) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
The shepherd dwelt between two mountains hoar,
In goodly cabin, in the greenwood shade,
With wife and children; in short time before,
The brand-new shed had builded in the glade.
Here of his grisly wound the youthful Moor
Was briefly healed by the Catayan maid;
But who in briefer space, a sorer smart
Than young Medoro's, suffered at her heart.
[She pines for love of him, and at length makes her love known.
solemnize their marriage, and remain a month there with great happiness. ]
Amid such pleasures, where, with tree o'ergrown,
Ran stream, or bubbling fountain's wave did spin,
On bark or rock, if yielding were the stone,
The knife was straight at work, or ready pin.
And there, without, in thousand places lone,
And in as many places graved, within,
Medoro and Angelica were traced,
In divers ciphers quaintly interlaced.
When she believed they had prolonged their stay
More than enow, the damsel made design
In India to revisit her Catay,
And with its crown Medoro's head entwine.
She had upon her wrist an armlet, gay
With costly gems, in witness and in sign
Of love to her by Count Orlando borne,
And which the damsel for long time had worn.
No love which to the paladin she bears,
But that it costly is and wrought with care,
This to Angelica so much endears,
That never more esteemed was matter rare;
This she was suffered, in the isle of tears,
I know not by what privilege, to wear,
When, naked, to the whale exposed for food
By that inhospitable race and rude.
753
She, not possessing wherewithal to pay
The kindly couple's hospitality,—
Served by them in their cabin, from the day
She there was lodged, with such fidelity,-
Unfastened from her arm the bracelet gay,
And bade them keep it for her memory.
Departing hence, the lovers climb the side
Of hills, which fertile France from Spain divide.
They
II-48
## p. 754 (#168) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
754
THE MADNESS OF ORLANDO
From Orlando Furioso,' Canto 23
HE course in pathless woods, which without rein
THE The Tartar's charger had pursued astray,
Made Roland for two days, with fruitless pain,
Follow him, without tidings of his way.
Orlando reached a rill of crystal vein,
On either bank of which a meadow lay;
Which, stained with native hues and rich, he sees,
And dotted o'er with fair and many trees.
The mid-day fervor made the shelter sweet
To hardy herd as well as naked swain;
So that Orlando well beneath the heat
Some deal might wince, opprest with plate and chain.
He entered for repose the cool retreat,
And found it the abode of grief and pain;
And place of sojourn more accursed and fell
On that unhappy day, than tongue can tell.
Turning him round, he there on many a tree
Beheld engraved, upon the woody shore,
What as the writing of his deity
He knew, as soon as he had marked the lore.
This was a place of those described by me,
Whither oft-times, attended by Medore,
From the near shepherd's cot had wont to stray
The beauteous lady, sovereign of Catay.
In a hundred knots, amid these green abodes,
In a hundred parts, their ciphered names are dight;
Whose many letters are so many goads,
Which Love has in his bleeding heart-core pight.
He would discredit in a thousand modes,
That which he credits in his own despite ;
And would perforce persuade himself, that rind
Other Angelica than his had signed.
"And yet I know these characters," he cried,
"Of which I have so many read and seen;
By her may this Medoro be belied,
And me, she, figured in the name, may mean. "
Feeding on such like phantasies, beside
The real truth, did sad Orlando lean
## p. 755 (#169) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
755
Upon the empty hope, though ill contented,
Which he by self-illusions had fomented.
But stirred and aye rekindled it, the more
That he to quench the ill suspicion wrought,
Like the incautious bird, by fowler's lore,
Hampered in net or lime; which, in the thought
To free its tangled pinions and to soar,
By struggling is but more securely caught.
Orlando passes thither, where a mountain
O'erhangs in guise of arch the crystal fountain.
Here from his horse the sorrowing county lit,
And at the entrance of the grot surveyed
A cloud of words, which seemed but newly writ,
And which the young Medoro's hand had made.
On the great pleasure he had known in it,
This sentence he in verses had arrayed;
Which to his tongue, I deem, might make pretense
To polished phrase; and such in ours the sense:—
༥
Gay plants, green herbage, rill of limpid vein,
And, grateful with cool shade, thou gloomy cave,
Where oft, by many wooed with fruitless pain,
Beauteous Angelica, the child of grave
King Galaphron, within my arms has lain;
For the convenient harborage you gave,
I, poor Medoro, can but in my lays,
As recompense, forever sing your praise.
"And any loving lord devoutly pray,
Damsel and cavalier, and every one,
Whom choice or fortune hither shall convey,
Stranger or native, -to this crystal run,
Shade, caverned rock, and grass, and plants, to say,
'Benignant be to you the fostering sun
And moon, and may the choir of nymphs provide,
That never swain his flock may hither guide. '»
――――
In Arabic was writ the blessing said,
Known to Orlando like the Latin tongue,
Who, versed in many languages, best read
Was in this speech; which oftentimes from wrong
And injury and shame had saved his head,
What time he roved the Saracens among.
## p. 756 (#170) ############################################
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LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
But let him boast not of its former boot,
O'erbalanced by the present bitter fruit.
Three times, and four, and six, the lines impressed
Upon the stone that wretch perused, in vain
Seeking another sense than was expressed,
And ever saw the thing more clear and plain;
And all the while, within his troubled breast,
He felt an icy hand his heart-core strain.
With mind and eyes close fastened on the block,
At length he stood, not differing from the rock.
Then well-nigh lost all feeling; so a prey
Wholly was he to that o'ermastering woe.
This is a pang, believe the experienced say
Of him who speaks, which does all griefs outgo.
His pride had from his forehead passed away,
His chin had fallen upon his breast below;
Nor found he, so grief-barred each natural vent,
Moisture for tears, or utterance for lament.
Stifled within, the impetuous sorrow stays,
Which would too quickly issue; so to abide
Water is seen, imprisoned in the vase,
Whose neck is narrow and whose swell is wide;
What time, when one turns up the inverted base,
Toward the mouth, so hastes the hurrying tide,
And in the strait encounters such a stop,
It scarcely works a passage, drop by drop.
He somewhat to himself returned, and thought
How possibly the thing might be untrue:
That some one (so he hoped, desired, and sought
To think) his lady would with shame pursue;
Or with such weight of jealousy had wrought
To whelm his reason, as should him undo;
And that he, whosoe'er the thing had planned,
Had counterfeited passing well her hand.
With such vain hope he sought himself to cheat,
And manned some deal his spirits and awoke;
Then prest the faithful Brigliadoro's seat,
As on the sun's retreat his sister broke.
Not far the warrior had pursued his beat,
Ere eddying from a roof he saw the smoke:
Heard noise of dog and kine, a farm espied,
And thitherward in quest of lodging hied.
## p. 757 (#171) ############################################
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
757
Languid, he lit, and left his Brigliador
To a discreet attendant; one undrest
His limbs, one doffed the golden spurs he wore,
And one bore off, to clean, his iron vest.
This was the homestead where the young Medore
Lay wounded, and was here supremely blest.
Orlando here, with other food unfed,
Having supt full of sorrow, sought his bed.
Little availed the count his self-deceit;
For there was one who spake of it unsought:
The shepherd-swain, who to allay the heat
With which he saw his guest so troubled, thought
The tale which he was wonted to repeat-
Of the two lovers- to each listener taught;
A history which many loved to hear,
He now, without reserve, 'gan tell the peer.
"How at Angelica's persuasive prayer,
He to his farm had carried young Medore,
Grievously wounded with an arrow; where
In little space she healed the angry sore.
But while she exercised this pious care,
Love in her heart the lady wounded more,
And kindled from small spark so fierce a fire,
She burnt all over, restless with desire;
"Nor thinking she of mightiest king was born,
Who ruled in the East, nor of her heritage,
Forced by too puissant love, had thought no scorn
To be the consort of a poor foot-page. "
His story done, to them in proof was borne
The gem, which, in reward for harborage,
To her extended in that kind abode,
Angelica, at parting, had bestowed.
In him, forthwith, such deadly hatred breed
That bed, that house, that swain, he will not stay
Till the morn break, or till the dawn succeed,
Whose twilight goes before approaching day.
In haste, Orlando takes his arms and steed,
And to the deepest greenwood wends his way.
And when assured that he is there alone,
Gives utterance to his grief in shriek and groan.
## p. 758 (#172) ############################################
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LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Never from tears, never from sorrowing,
He paused; nor found he peace by night or day;
He fled from town, in forest harboring,
And in the open air on hard earth lay.
He marveled at himself, how such a spring
Of water from his eyes could stream away,
And breath was for so many sobs supplied;
And thus oft-times, amid his mourning, cried:
-:
"I am not - am not what I seem to sight:
What Roland was, is dead and under ground,
Slain by that most ungrateful lady's spite,
Whose faithlessness inflicted such a wound.
Divided from the flesh, I am his sprite,
Which in this hell, tormented, walks its round,
To be, but in its shadow left above,
A warning to all such as trust in love. "
All night about the forest roved the count,
And, at the break of daily light, was brought
By his unhappy fortune to the fount,
Where his inscription young Medoro wrought.
To see his wrongs inscribed upon that mount
Inflamed his fury so, in him was naught
But turned to hatred, frenzy, rage, and spite;
Nor paused he more, but bared his falchion bright,
Cleft through the writing; and the solid block,
Into the sky, in tiny fragments sped.
Woe worth each sapling and that caverned rock
Where Medore and Angelica were read!
So scathed, that they to shepherd or to flock
Thenceforth shall never furnish shade or bed.
And that sweet fountain, late so clear and pure,
From such tempestous wrath was ill secure.
So fierce his rage, so fierce his fury grew,
That all obscured remained the warrior's sprite;
Nor, for forgetfulness, his sword he drew,
Or wondrous deeds, I trow, had wrought the knight;
But neither this, nor bill, nor axe to hew,
Was needed by Orlando's peerless might.
He of his prowess gave high proofs and full,
Who a tall pine uprooted at a pull.
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ARISTOPHANES
He many others, with as little let
As fennel, wall-wort-stem, or dill uptore;
And ilex, knotted oak, and fir upset,
And beech and mountain ash, and elm-tree hoar.
He did what fowler, ere he spreads his net,
Does, to prepare the champaign for his lore,
By stubble, rush, and nettle stalk; and broke,
Like these, old sturdy trees and stems of oak.
The shepherd swains, who hear the tumult nigh,
Leaving their flocks beneath the greenwood tree,
Some here, some there, across the forest hie,
And hurry thither, all, the cause to see.
But I have reached such point, my history,
If I o'erpass this bound, may irksome be.
And I my story will delay to end
Rather than by my tediousness offend.
ARISTOPHANES
(B. C. 448-380? )
BY PAUL SHOREY
759
HE birth-year of Aristophanes is placed about 448 B. C. , on
the ground that he is said to have been almost a boy when
his first comedy was presented in 427. His last play, the
'Plutus,' was produced in 388, and there is no evidence that he long
survived this date. Little is known of his life beyond the allusions,
in the Parabases of the 'Acharnians,' 'Knights,' and 'Wasps,' to his
prosecution by Cleon, to his own or his father's estate at Ægina, and
to his premature baldness. He left three sons who also wrote
comedies.
Aristophanes is the sole extant representative of the so-called Old
Comedy of Athens; a form of dramatic art which developed obscurely
under the shadow of Attic Tragedy in the first half of the fifth cen-
tury B. C. , out of the rustic revelry of the Phallic procession and
Comus song of Dionysus, perhaps with some outside suggestions from
the Megarian farce and its Sicilian offshoot, the mythological court
comedy of Epicharmus. The chief note of this older comedy for the
ancient critics was its unbridled license of direct personal satire and
invective. Eupolis, Cratinus, and Aristophanes, says Horace, assailed
with the utmost freedom any one who deserved to be branded with
infamy. This old political Comedy was succeeded in the calmer times
## p. 760 (#174) ############################################
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ARISTOPHANES
that followed the Peloponnesian War by the so-called Middle Comedy
(390-320) of Alexis, Antiphanes, Strattis, and some minor men; which
insensibly passed into the New Comedy (320-250) of Menander and
Philemon, known to us in the reproductions of Terence. And this
new comedy, which portrayed types of private life instead of satiriz-
ing noted persons by name, and which, as Aristotle says, produced
laughter by innuendo rather than by scurrility, was preferred to the
"terrible graces" of her elder sister by the gentle and refined Plu-
tarch, or the critic who has usurped his name in the 'Comparison of
Aristophanes and Menander. ' The old Attic Comedy has been vari-
ously compared to Charivari, Punch, the comic opera of Offenbach,
and a Parisian 'revue de fin d'année. '
There is no good modern analogue. It is
not our comedy of manners, plot, and situ-
ation; nor yet is it mere buffoonery. It is
a peculiar mixture of broad political, social,
and literary satire, and polemical discus-
sion of large ideas, with the burlesque and
licentious extravagances that were deemed
the most acceptable service at the festival
of the laughter-loving, tongue-loosening god
of the vine.
The typical plan of an Aristophanic com-
edy is very simple. The protagonist under-
takes in all apparent seriousness to give a
local habitation and a body to some ingen-
ious fancy, airy speculation, or bold metaphor: as for example, the
procuring of a private peace for a citizen who is weary of the priva-
tions of war; or the establishment of a city in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
where the birds shall regulate things better than the featherless
biped, man; or the restoration of the eyesight of the proverbially
blind god of Wealth.
