"
The giant, finding himself thus insulted, ran in a fury to his weapons;
and returning to Orlando, slung at him a large stone, which struck him
on the head with such force, as not only made his helmet ring again, but
felled him to the earth.
The giant, finding himself thus insulted, ran in a fury to his weapons;
and returning to Orlando, slung at him a large stone, which struck him
on the head with such force, as not only made his helmet ring again, but
felled him to the earth.
Stories from the Italian Poets
There are no such devils as these in
Dante; though Milton has something like them:
"Devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds: men only disagree. "
It is supposed that the character of Ashtaroth, which is a very new
and extraordinary one, and does great honour to the daring goodness
of Pulci's imagination, was not lost upon Milton, who was not only
acquainted with the poem, but expressly intimates the pleasure he took
in it. [11] Rinaldo advises this devil, as Burns did Lucifer, to "take a
thought and mend. " Ashtaroth, who had been a seraph, takes no notice of
the advice, except with a waving of the recollection of happier times.
He bids the hero farewell, and says he has only to summon him in order
to receive his aid. This retention of a sense of his former angelical
dignity has been noticed by Foscolo and Panizzi, the two best writers on
these Italian poems. [12] A Calvinist would call the expression of the
sympathy "hardened. " A humanist knows it to be the result of a spirit
exquisitely softened. An unbounded tenderness is the secret of all that
is beautiful in the serious portion of our author's genius. Orlando's
good-natured giant weeps even for the death of the scoundrel Margutte;
and the awful hero himself, at whose death nature is convulsed and the
heavens open, begs his dying horse to forgive him if ever he has wronged
it.
A charm of another sort in Pulci, and yet in most instances, perhaps,
owing the best part of its charmingness to its being connected with the
same feeling, is his wit. Foscolo, it is true, says it is, in general,
more severe than refined; and it is perilous to differ with such a
critic on such a point; for much of it, unfortunately, is lost to a
foreign reader, in consequence of its dependance on the piquant old
Tuscan idiom, and on popular sayings and allusions. Yet I should think
it impossible for Pulci in general to be severe at the expense of some
more agreeable quality; and I am sure that the portion of his wit most
obvious to a foreigner may claim, if not to have originated, at least
to have been very like the style of one who was among its declared
admirers,--and who was a very polished writer,--Voltaire. It consists in
treating an absurdity with an air as if it were none; or as if it had
been a pure matter of course, erroneously mistaken for an absurdity.
Thus the good abbot, whose monastery is blockaded by the giants (for the
virtue and simplicity of his character must be borne in mind), after
observing that the ancient fathers in the desert had not only locusts to
eat, but manna, which he has no doubt was rained down on purpose from
heaven, laments that the "relishes" provided for himself and his
brethren should have consisted of "showers of stones. " The stones, while
the abbot is speaking, come thundering down, and he exclaims, "For God's
sake, knight, come in, for the manna is falling! " This is exactly in the
style of the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_. So when Margutte is asked
what he believes in, and says he believes in "neither black nor blue,"
but in a good capon, "whether roast or boiled," the reader is forcibly
reminded of Voltaire's Traveller, _Scarmentado_, who, when he is desired
by the Tartars to declare which of their two parties he is for, the
party of the black-mutton or the white-mutton, answers, that the dish is
"equally indifferent to him, provided it is tender. " Voltaire, however,
does injustice to Pulci, when he pretends that in matters of belief he
is like himself,--a mere scoffer. The friend of Lucrezia Tornabuoni has
evidently the tenderest veneration for all that is good and lovely in
the Catholic faith; and whatever liberties he might have allowed himself
in professed _extravaganzas_, when an age without Church-authority
encouraged them, and a reverend canon could take part in those (it must
be acknowledged) unseemly "high jinks," he never, in the _Morgante_,
when speaking in his own person, and not in that of the worst
characters, intimates disrespect towards any opinion which he did not
hold to be irrelevant to a right faith. It is observable that his freest
expressions are put in the mouth of the giant Margutte, the lowest
of these characters, who is an invention of the author's, and a most
extraordinary personage. He is the first unmitigated blackguard in
fiction, and is the greatest as well as first. Pulci is conjectured,
with great probability, to have designed him as a caricature of some
real person; for Margutte is a Greek who, in point of morals, has been
horribly brought up, and some of the Greek refugees in Italy were
greatly disliked for the cynicism of their manners and the grossness of
their lives. Margutte is a glutton, a drunkard, a liar, a thief, and
a blasphemer. He boasts of having every vice, and no virtue except
fidelity; which is meant to reconcile Morgante to his company; but
though the latter endures and even likes it for his amusement, he gives
him to understand that he looks on his fidelity as only securable by
the bastinado, and makes him the subject of his practical jokes. The
respectable giant Morgante dies of the bite of a crab, as if to spew on
what trivial chances depends the life of the strongest. Margutte laughs
himself to death at sight of a monkey putting his boots on and off; as
though the good-natured poet meant at once to express his contempt of
a merely and grossly anti-serious mode of existence, and his
consideration, nevertheless, towards the poor selfish wretch who had had
no better training.
To this wit and this pathos let the reader add a style of singular ease
and fluency,--rhymes often the most unexpected, but never at a loss,--a
purity of Tuscan acknowledged by every body, and ranking him among the
authorities of the language,--and a modesty in speaking of his own
pretensions equalled only by his enthusiastic extolments of genius in
others; and the reader has before him the lively and affecting, hopeful,
charitable, large-hearted Luigi Pulci, the precursor, and in some
respects exemplar, of Ariosto, and, in Milton's opinion, a poet worth
reading for the "good use" that may be made of him. It has been
strangely supposed that his friend Politian, and Ficino the Platonist,
not merely helped him with their books (as he takes a pride in telling
us), but wrote a good deal of the latter part of the Morgante,
particularly the speculations in matters of opinion. As if (to say
nothing of the difference of style) a man of genius, however lively, did
not go through the gravest reflections in the course of his life, or
could not enter into any theological or metaphysical question, to which
he chose to direct his attention. Animal spirits themselves are too
often but a counterbalance to the most thoughtful melancholy; and one
fit of jaundice or hypochondria might have enabled the poet to see more
visions of the unknown and the inscrutable in a single day, than perhaps
ever entered the imagination of the elegant Latin scholar, or even the
disciple of Plato.
[Footnote 1: _Literature of the South of Europe_, Thomas Roscoe's
Translation, vol. ii. p. 54. For the opinions of other writers, here and
elsewhere alluded to, see Tiraboschi (who is quite frightened at him),
_Storia della Poesia Italiana_, cap. v. sect. 25; Gravina, who is more
so, _Della Ragion Poetica_ (quoted in Ginguéné, as below); Crescimbeni,
_Commentari Intorno all' Istoria della Poesia_, &c. lib. vi. cap. 3
(Mathias's edition), and the biographical additions to the same work,
4to, Rome, 1710, vol. ii. part ii. p. 151, where he says that Pulci was
perhaps the "modestest sad most temperate writer" of his age ("il pin
modesto e moderato"); Ginguéné, _Histoire Littéraire d'Italie_, tom. iv.
p. 214; Foscolo, in the _Quarterly Review_, as further on; Panizzi on
the _Romantic Poetry of the Italians_, ditto; Stebbing, _Lives of the
Italian Poets_, second edition, vol, i. ; and the first volume of _Lives
of Literary and Scientific Men_, in _Lardner's Cyclopædia_. ]
[Footnote 2: Canto xxv. The passage will be found in the present
volume. ]
[Footnote 3: Id. And this also. ]
[Footnote 4: Canto xxvii. stanza 2.
"S' altro ajuto qui non si dimostra,
Sarà pur tragedía la istoria nostra.
Ed io pur commedía pensato avea
Iscriver del mio Carlo finalmente,
Ed _Alcuin_ così mi promettea," &c. ]
[Footnote 5:
"In fine to adorerai l'Ariosto, tu ammirerei il Tasso, ma tu amerai il
Pulci. "--_Parn. Ital_. vol. ix. p. 344. ]
[Footnote 6: Ellis's _Specimens of Early English Poetical Romances_,
vol. ii. p. 287; and Panizzi's _Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry
of the Italians_; in his edition of Boiardo and Ariosto, vol. i. p.
113. ]
[Footnote 7: _De Vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi Historia_, &c. cap. xviii.
p. 39 (Ciampi's edition). The giant in Turpin is named Ferracutus, or
Fergus. He was of the race of Goliath, had the strength of forty men,
and was twenty cubits high. During the suspension of a mortal combat
with Orlando, they discuss the mysteries of the Christian faith, which
its champion explains by a variety of similes and the most beautiful
beggings of the question; after which the giant stakes the credit of
their respective beliefs on the event of their encounter. ]
[Footnote 8: Canto xix. st. 21. ]
[Footnote 9: When a proper name happens to be a part of the tautology,
the look is still more extraordinary. Orlando is remonstrating with
Rinaldo on his being unseasonably in love:
"Ov' è, Rinaldo, la tua gagliardia?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo sommo potere?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo senno di pria?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo antivedere?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, la tua fantasia?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, l' arme e 'l tuo destriere?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, la tua gloria e fama?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo core? a la dama. "
Canto xvi. st. 50.
Oh where, Rinaldo, is thy gagliardize?
Oh where, Rinaldo, is thy might indeed?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy repute for wise?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy sagacious heed?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy free-thoughted eyes?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy good arms and steed?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy renown and glory?
Oh where, Rinaldo, _thou? _--In a love-story.
The incessant repetition of the names in the burdens of modern songs
is hardly so bad as this. The single line questions and answers in the
Greek drama were nothing to it. Yet there is a still more extraordinary
play upon words in canto xxiii. st. 49, consisting of the description
of a hermitage. It is the only one of the kind which I remember in the
poem, and would have driven some of our old hunters after alliteration
mad with envy:--
"La _casa cosa_ parea _bretta_ e _brutta_,
_Vinta_ dal _vento_; e la _notta_ e la _notte_
_Stilla_ le _stelle_, ch' a _tetto_ era _tutto_:
Del _pane appena_ ne _dette_ ta' _dotte_.
_Pere_ avea _pure_, e qualche _fratta frutta_;
E _svina_ e _svena_ di _botto_ una _botte_
_Poscia_ per _pesci lasche_ prese a _l'esca_;
Ma il _letto allotta_ a la _frasca_ fu _fresca_. "
This _holy hole_ was a vile _thin_-built _thing_,
_Blown_ by the _blast_; the _night nought_ else o'erhead
But _staring stars_ the _rude roof_ entering;
Their _sup_ of _supper_ was no _splendid spread_;
_Poor pears_ their fare, and such-_like libelling_
Of quantum suff;--their _butt_ all _but_;--_bad bread_;--
A _flash_ of _fish_ instead of _flush_ of _flesh_;
Their bed a _frisk al-fresco_, _freezing fresh_.
Really, if Sir Philip Sidney and other serious and exquisite gentlemen
had not sometimes taken a positively grave interest in the like pastimes
of paronomasia, one should hardly conceive it possible to meet with
them even in tragi-comedy. Did Pulci find these also in his
ballad-authorities? If his Greek-loving critics made objections here,
they had the advantage of him: unless indeed they too, in their
Alexandrian predilections, had a sneaking regard for certain shapings
of verse into altars and hatchets, such as have been charged upon
Theocritus himself, and which might be supposed to warrant any other
conceit on occasion. ]
[Footnote 10: See, in the original, the story of Meridiana, canto vii.
King Manfredonio has come in loving hostility against her to endeavour
to win her affection by his prowess. He finds her assisted by the
Paladins, and engaged by her own heart to Uliviero; and in he despair of
his discomfiture, expresses a wish to die by her hand. Meridiana, with
graceful pity, begs his acceptance of a jewel, and recommends him to
go home with his army; to which he grievingly consents. This indeed is
beautiful; and perhaps I ought to have given an abstract of it, as a
specimen of what Pulci could have done in this way, had he chosen. ]
[Footnote 11: "Perhaps it was from that same politic drift that the
devil whipt St. Jerome in a lenten dream for reading Cicero; or else it
was a fantasm bred by the fever which had then seized him. For had an
angel been his discipliner, unless it were for dwelling too much upon
Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading and not the vanity, it had
been plainly partial; first to correct him for grave Cicero, and not
for scurrile Plautus, whom he confesses to have been reading not long
before; next, to correct him only, and let so many more ancient fathers
wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a
tutoring apparition; insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may
be made of Margites, a sportful poem, not now extant, writ by Homer;
and why not then of Morgante, an Italian romance much to the same
purpose? "--_Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed
Printing_, Prose Works, folio, 1697, p. 378. I quote the passage
as extracted by Mr. Merivale in the preface to his "Orlando in
Roncesvalles,"--_Poems_, vol. ii. p. 41. ]
[Footnote 12: Ut sup. p. 222. Foscolo's remark is to be found in his
admirable article on the _Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians_,
in the _Quarterly Review_, vol. xxi. p. 525. ]
* * * * *
HUMOURS OF GIANTS
Twelve Paladins had the Emperor Charlemagne in his court; and the most
wise and famous of them was Orlando. It is of him I am about to speak,
and of his friend Morgante, and of Gan the traitor, who beguiled him to
his death in Roncesvalles, where he sounded his horn so mightily after
the dolorous rout.
It was Easter, and Charles had all his court with him in Paris, making
high feast and triumph. There was Orlando, the first among them, and
Ogier the Dane, and Astolfo the Englishman, and Ansuigi; and there came
Angiolin of Bayonne, and Uliviero, and the gentle Berlinghieri; and
there was also Avolio and Avino, and Otho of Normandy, and Richard, and
the wise Namo, and the aged Salamon, and Walter of Monlione, and Baldwin
who was the son of the wretched Gan. The good emperor was too happy, and
oftentimes fairly groaned for joy at seeing all his Paladins together.
Now Morgante, the only surviving brother, had a palace made, after
giant's fashion, of earth, and boughs, and shingles, in which he shut
himself up at night. Orlando knocked, and disturbed him from his sleep,
so that he came staring to the door like a madman, for he had had a
bewildering dream.
"Who knocks there? " quoth he.
"You will know too soon," answered Orlando; "I am come to make you do
penance for your sins, like your brothers. Divine Providence has sent me
to avenge the wrongs of the monks upon the whole set of you. Doubt it
not; for Passamonte and Alabastro are already as cold as a couple of
pilasters. ".
"Noble knight," said Morgante, "do me no ill; but if you are a
Christian, tell me in courtesy who you are. "
"I will satisfy you of my faith," replied Orlando; "I adore Christ; and
if you please, you may adore him also. "
"I have had a strange vision," replied Morgante, with a low voice was
assailed by a dreadful serpent, and called upon Mahomet in vain; then I
called upon your God who was crucified, and he succoured me, and I was
delivered from the serpent; so I am disposed to become a Christian. "
"If you keep in this mind," returned Orlando, "you shall worship the
true God, and come with me and be my companion, and I will love you with
perfect love. Your idols are false and vain; the true God is the God of
the Christians. Deny the unjust and villanous worship of your Mahomet,
and be baptised in the name of my God, who alone is worthy. "
"I am content," said Morgante.
Then Orlando embraced him, and said, "I will lead you to the abbey. "
"Let us go quickly," replied Morgante, for he was impatient to make his
peace with the monks.
Orlando rejoiced, saying, "My good brother, and devout withal, you must
ask pardon of the abbot; for God has enlightened you, and accepted you,
and he would have you practise humility. "
"Yes," said Morgante, "thanks to you, your God shall henceforth be my
God. Tell me your name, and afterwards dispose of me as you will. " And
he told him that he was Orlando.
But Fortune stands watching in secret to baffle our designs. While
Charles was thus hugging himself with delight, Orlando governed every
thing at court, and this made Gan burst with envy; so that he began one
day talking with Charles after the following manner--"Are we always to
have Orlando for our master? I have thought of speaking to you about it
a thousand times. Orlando has a great deal too much presumption. Here
are we, counts, dukes, and kings, at your service, but not at his; and
we have resolved not to be governed any longer by one so much younger
than ourselves. You began in Aspramont to give him to understand how
valiant he was, and that he did great things at that fountain; whereas,
if it had not been for the good Gerard, I know very well where the
victory would have been. The truth is, he has an eye upon the crown.
This, Charles, is the worthy who has deserved so much! All your generals
are afflicted at it. As for me, I shall repass those mountains over
which I came to you with seventy-two counts. Do you take him for a
Mars? "
Orlando happened to hear these words as he sat apart, and it displeased
him with the lord of Pontiers that he should speak so, but much more
that Charles should believe him. He would have killed Gan, if Uliviero
had not prevented him and taken his sword out of his hand; nay, he would
have killed Charlemagne; but at last he went from Paris by himself,
raging with scorn and grief. He borrowed, as he went, of Ermillina
the wife of Ogier, the Dane's sword Cortana and his horse Rondel, and
proceeded on his way to Brava. His wife, Alda the Fair, hastened to
embrace him; but while she was saying, "Welcome, my Orlando," he was
going to strike her with his sword, for his head was bewildered, and he
took her for the traitor. The fair Alda marvelled greatly, but Orlando
recollected himself, and she took hold of the bridle, and he leaped from
his horse, and told her all that had passed, and rested himself with her
for some days.
He then took his leave, being still carried away by his disdain, and
resolved to pass over into Heathendom; and as he rode, he thought, every
step of the way, of the traitor Gan; and so, riding on wherever the road
took him, he reached the confines between the Christian countries and
the Pagan, and came upon an abbey, situate in a dark place in a desert.
Now above the abbey was a great mountain, inhabited by three fierce
giants, one of whom was named Passamonte, another Alabastro, and the
third Morgante; and these giants used to disturb the abbey by throwing
things down upon it from the mountain with slings, so that the poor
little monks could not go out to fetch wood or water. Orlando knocked,
but nobody would open till the abbot was spoken to. At last the abbot
came himself, and opening the door bade him welcome. The good man told
him the reason of the delay, and said that since the arrival of the
giants they had been so perplexed that they did not know what to do.
"Our ancient fathers in the desert," quoth he, "were rewarded according
to their holiness. It is not to be supposed that they lived only upon
locusts; doubtless, it also rained manna upon them from heaven; but
here one is regaled with stones, which the giants pour on us from the
mountain. These are our nice bits and relishes. The fiercest of the
three, Morgante, plucks up pines and other great trees by the roots, and
casts them on us. " While they were talking thus in the cemetery, there
came a stone which seemed as if it would break Rondel's back.
"For God's sake, cavalier," said the abbot, "come in, for the manna is
falling. "
"My dear abbot," answered Orlando, "this fellow, methinks, does not wish
to let my horse feed; he wants to cure him of being restive; the stone
seems as if it came from a good arm. " "Yes," replied the holy father,
"I did not deceive you. I think, some day or other, they will cast the
mountain itself on us. "
Orlando quieted his horse, and then sat down to a meal; after which he
said, "Abbot, I must go and return the present that has been made to my
horse. " The abbot with great tenderness endeavoured to dissuade him, but
in vain; upon which he crossed him on the forehead, and said, "Go, then;
and the blessing of God be with you. "
Orlando scaled the mountain, and came where Passamonte was, who, seeing
him alone, measured him with his eyes, and asked him if he would
stay with him for a page, promising to make him comfortable. "Stupid
Saracen," said Orlando, "I come to you, according to the will of God, to
be your death, and not your foot-boy. You have displeased his servants
here, and are no longer to be endured, dog that you are!
"
The giant, finding himself thus insulted, ran in a fury to his weapons;
and returning to Orlando, slung at him a large stone, which struck him
on the head with such force, as not only made his helmet ring again, but
felled him to the earth. Passamonte thought he was dead. "What could
have brought that paltry fellow here? " said he, as he turned away. But
Christ never forsakes his followers. While Passamonte was going away,
Orlando recovered, and cried aloud, "How now, giant? do you fancy you
have killed me? Turn back, for unless you have wings, your escape is
out of the question, dog of a renegade! " The giant, greatly marvelling,
turned back; and stooping to pick up a stone, Orlando, who had Cortana
naked in his hand, cleft his skull; upon which, cursing Mahomet, the
monster tumbled, dying and blaspheming, to the ground. Blaspheming fell
the sour-hearted and cruel wretch; but Orlando, in the mean while,
thanked the Father and the Word.
The Paladin went on, seeking for Alabastro, the second giant; who, when
he saw him, endeavoured to pluck up a great piece of stony earth by the
roots. "Ho, ho! " cried Orlando, "you too are for throwing stones,
are you? " Then Alabastro took his sling, and flung at him so large a
fragment as forced Orlando to defend himself, for if it had struck him,
he would no more have needed a surgeon;[1] but collecting his strength,
he thrust his sword into the giant's breast, and the loggerhead fell
dead.
"Blessed Jesus be thanked," said the giant, "for I have always heard you
called a perfect knight; and as I said, I will follow you all my life
long. "
And so conversing, they went together towards the abbey; and by the way
Orlando talked with Morgante of the dead giants, and sought to comfort
him, saying they had done the monks a thousand injuries, and "our
Scripture says the good shall be rewarded and the evil punished, and we
must submit to the will of God. The doctors of our Church," continued
he, "are all agreed, that if those who are glorified in heaven were to
feel pity for their miserable kindred who lie in such horrible confusion
in hell, their beatitude would come to nothing; and this, you see, would
plainly be unjust on the part of God. But such is the firmness of their
faith, that what appears good to him appears good to them. Do what he
may, they hold it to be done well, and that it is impossible for him to
err; so that if their very fathers and mothers are suffering everlasting
punishment, it does not disturb them an atom. This is the custom, I
assure you, in the choirs above. "[2]
"A word to the wise," said Morgante; "you shall see if I grieve for my
brethren, and whether or no I submit to the will of God, and behave
myself like an angel. So dust to dust; and now let us enjoy ourselves. I
will cut off their hands, all four of them, and take them to these holy
monks, that they may be sure they are dead, and not fear to go out
alone into the desert. They will then be certain also that the Lord has
purified me, and taken me out of darkness, and assured to me the kingdom
of heaven. " So saying, the giant cut off the hands of his brethren, and
left their bodies to the beasts and birds.
They went to the abbey, where the abbot was expecting Orlando in great
anxiety; but the monks not knowing what had happened, ran to the abbot
in great haste and alarm, saying, "Will you suffer this giant to come
in? " And when the abbot saw the giant, he changed countenance. Orlando,
perceiving him thus disturbed, made haste and said, "Abbot, peace be
with you! The giant is a Christian; he believes in Christ, and has
renounced his false prophet, Mahomet. " And Morgante shewing the hands in
proof of his faith, the abbot thanked Heaven with great contentment of
mind.
The abbot did much honour to Morgante, comparing him with St. Paul; and
they rested there many days. One day, wandering over the house, they
entered a room where the abbot kept a quantity of armour; and Morgante
saw a bow which pleased him, and he fastened it on. Now there was in
the place a great scarcity of water; and Orlando said, like his good
brother, "Morgante, I wish you would fetch us some water. " "Command me
as you please," said he; and placing a great tub on his shoulders, he
went towards a spring at which he had been accustomed to drink, at the
foot of the mountain. Having reached the spring, he suddenly heard a
great noise in the forest. He took an arrow from the quiver, placed it
in the bow, and raising his head, saw a great herd of swine rushing
towards the spring where he stood. Morgante shot one of them clean
through the head, and laid him sprawling. Another, as if in revenge, ran
towards the giant, without giving him time to use a second arrow; so he
lent him a cuff on the head which broke the bone, and killed him also;
which stroke the rest seeing fled in haste through the valley. Morgante
then placed the tub full of water upon one of his shoulders, and the
two porkers on the other, and returned to the abbey which was at some
distance, without spilling a drop.
The monks were delighted to see the fresh water, but still more the
pork; for there is no animal to whom food comes amiss. They let their
breviaries therefore go to sleep a while, and fell heartily to work, so
that the cats and dogs had reason to lament the polish of the bones.
"But why do we stay here doing nothing? " said Orlando one day to
Morgante; and he shook hands with the abbot, and told him he must take
his leave. "I must go," said he, "and make up for lost time. I ought to
have gone long ago, my good father; but I cannot tell you what I feel
within me, at the content I have enjoyed here in your company. I shall
bear in mind and in heart with me for ever the abbot, the abbey, and
this desert, so great is the love they have raised in me in so short a
time. The great God, who reigns above, must thank you for me, in his
own abode. Bestow on us your benediction, and do not forget us in your
prayers. "
When the abbot heard the County Orlando talk thus, his heart melted
within him for tenderness, and he said, "Knight, if we have failed in
any courtesy due to your prowess and great gentleness (and indeed what
we have done has been but little), pray put it to the account of our
ignorance, and of the place which we inhabit. We are but poor men of
the cloister, better able to regale you with masses and orisons and
paternosters, than with dinners and suppers. You have so taken this
heart of mine by the many noble qualities I have seen in you, that I
shall be with you still wherever you go; and, on the other hand, you
will always be present here with me. This seems a contradiction; but you
are wise, and will take my meaning discreetly. You have saved the very
life and spirit within us; for so much perplexity had those giants cast
about our place, that the way to the Lord among us was blocked up. May
He who sent you into these woods reward the justice and piety by which
we are delivered from our trouble. Thanks be to him and to you. We shall
all be disconsolate at your departure. We shall grieve that we cannot
detain you among us for months and years; but you do not wear these
weeds; you bear arms and armour; and you may possibly merit as well in
carrying those, as in wearing this cap. You read your Bible, and your
virtue has been the means of shewing the giant the way to heaven. Go in
peace then, and prosper, whoever you may be. I do not seek your name;
but if ever I am asked who it was that came among us, I shall say that
it was an angel from God. If there is any armour or other thing that you
would have, go into the room where it is, and take it. "
"If you have any armour that would suit my companion," replied Orlando,
"that I will accept with pleasure. "
"Come and see," said the abbot; and they went to a room that was full of
armour. Morgante looked all about, but could find nothing large enough,
except a rusty breast-plate, which fitted him marvellously. It had
belonged to an enormous giant, who was killed there of old by Orlando's
father, Milo of Angrante. There was a painting on the wall which told
the whole story: how the giant had laid cruel and long siege to the
abbey; and how he had been overthrown at last by the great Milo. Orlando
seeing this, said within himself: "O God, unto whom all things are
known, how came Milo here, who destroyed this giant? " And reading
certain inscriptions which were there, he could no longer keep a firm
countenance, but the tears ran down his cheeks.
When the abbot saw Orlando weep, and his brow redden, and the light of
his eyes become child-like for sweetness, he asked him the reason; but,
finding him still dumb with emotion, he said, "I do not know whether you
are overpowered by admiration of what is painted in this chamber. You
must know that I am of high descent, though not through lawful wedlock.
I believe I may say I am nephew or sister's son to no less a man than
that Rinaldo, who was so great a Paladin in the world, though my own
father was not of a lawful mother. Ansuigi was his name; my own, out in
the world, was Chiaramonte; and this Milo was my father's brother. Ah,
gentle baron, for blessed Jesus' sake, tell me what name is yours! "
Orlando, all glowing with affection, and bathed in tears, replied, "My
dear abbot and cousin, he before you is your Orlando. " Upon this, they
ran for tenderness into each other's arms, weeping on both sides with
a sovereign affection, too high to be expressed. The abbot was so
over-joyed, that he seemed as if he would never have done embracing
Orlando. "By what fortune," said the knight, "do I find you in this
obscure place? Tell me, my dear abbot, how was it you became a monk, and
did not follow arms, like myself and the rest of us? "
"It is the will of God," replied the abbot, hastening to give his
feelings utterance. "Many and divers are the paths he points out for us
by which to arrive at his city; some walk it with the sword--some with
pastoral staff. Nature makes the inclination different, and therefore
there are different ways for us to take: enough if we all arrive safely
at one and the same place, the last as well as the first. We are all
pilgrims through many kingdoms. We all wish to go to Rome, Orlando;
but we go picking out our journey through different roads. Such is the
trouble in body and soul brought upon us by that sin of the old apple.
Day and night am I here with my book in hand--day and night do you ride
about, holding your sword, and sweating oft both in sun and shadow; and
all to get round at last to the home from which we departed--I say, all
out of anxiety and hope to get back to our home of old. " And the giant
hearing them talk of these things, shed tears also.
The Paladin and the giant quitted the abbey, the one on horseback and
the other on foot, and journeyed through the desert till they came to
a magnificent castle, the door of which stood open. They entered, and
found rooms furnished in the most splendid manner--beds covered with
cloth of gold, and floors rejoicing in variegated marbles. There was
even a feast prepared in the saloon, but nobody to eat it, or to speak
to them.
Orlando suspected some trap, and did not quite like it; but Morgante
thought nothing worth considering but the feast. "Who cares for the
host," said he, "when there's such a dinner? Let us eat as much as we
can, and bear off the rest. I always do that when I have the picking of
castles. "
They accordingly sat down, and being very hungry with their day's
journey, devoured heaps of the good things before them, eating with all
the vigour of health, and drinking to a pitch of weakness. [3] They sat
late in this manner enjoying themselves, and then retired for the night
into rich beds.
But what was their astonishment in the morning at finding that they
could not get out of the place! There was no door. All the entrances had
vanished, even to any feasible window.
"We must be dreaming," said Orlando.
"My dinner was no dream, I'll swear," said the giant. "As for the rest,
let it be a dream if it pleases. "
Continuing to search up and down, they at length found a vault with
a tomb in it; and out of the tomb came a voice, saying, "You must
encounter with me, or stay here for ever. Lift, therefore, the stone
that covers me. "
"Do you hear that? " said Morgante; "I'll have him out, if it's the devil
himself. Perhaps it's two devils, Filthy-dog and Foul-mouth, or Itching
and Evil-tail. "[4]
"Have him out," said Orlando, "whoever he is, even were it as many
devils as were rained out of heaven into the centre. "
Morgante lifted up the stone, and out leaped, surely enough, a devil in
the likeness of a dried-up dead body, black as a coal. Orlando seized
him, and the devil grappled with Orlando. Morgante was for joining him,
but the Paladin bade him keep back. It was a hard struggle, and
the devil grinned and laughed, till the giant, who was a master of
wrestling, could bear it no longer: so he doubled him up, and, in spite
of all his efforts, thrust him back into the tomb.
"You'll never get out," said the devil, "if you leave me shut up. "
"Why not? " inquired the Paladin.
"Because your giant's baptism and my deliverance must go together,"
answered the devil. "If he is not baptised, you can have no deliverance;
and if I am not delivered, I can prevent it still, take my word for it. "
Orlando baptised the giant. The two companions then issued forth,
and hearing a mighty noise in the house, looked back, and saw it all
vanished.
"I could find it in my heart," said Morgante, "to go down to those same
regions below, and make all the devils disappear in like manner. Why
shouldn't we do it? We'd set free all the poor souls there. Egad, I'd
cut off Minos's tail--I'd pull out Charon's beard by the roots--make a
sop of Phlegyas, and a sup of Phlegethon--unseat Pluto,--kill Cerberus
and the Furies with a punch of the face a-piece--and set Beelzebub
scampering like a dromedary. "
"You might find more trouble than you wot of," quoth Orlando, "and get
worsted besides. Better keep the straight path, than thrust your head
into out-of-the-way places. "
Morgante took his lord's advice, and went straightforward with him
through many great adventures, helping him with loving good-will as
often as he was permitted, sometimes as his pioneer, and sometimes as
his finisher of troublesome work, such as a slaughter of some thousands
of infidels. Now he chucked a spy into a river--now felled a rude
ambassador to the earth (for he didn't stand upon ceremony)--now cleared
a space round him in battle with the clapper of an old bell which he had
found at the monastery--now doubled up a king in his tent, and bore him
away, tent and all, and a Paladin with him, because he would not let the
Paladin go.
In the course of these services, the giant was left to take care of a
lady, and lost his master for a time; but the office being at an end, he
set out to rejoin him, and, arriving at a cross-road, met with a very
extraordinary personage.
This was a giant huger than himself, swarthy-faced, horrible, brutish.
He came out of a wood, and appeared to be journeying somewhere.
Morgante, who had the great bell-clapper in his hand above-mentioned,
struck it on the ground with astonishment, as much as to say, "Who the
devil is this? " and then set himself on a stone by the way-side to
observe the creature.
"What's your name, traveller? " said Morgante, as it came up.
"My name's Margutte," said the phenomenon. "I intended to be a giant
myself, but altered my mind, you see, and stopped half-way; so that I am
only twenty feet or so. "
"I'm glad to see you," quoth his brother-giant. "But tell me, are you
Christian or Saracen? Do you believe in Christ or in _Apollo_? "
"To tell you the truth," said the other, "I believe neither in black
nor blue, but in a good capon, whether it be roast or boiled. I
believe sometimes also in butter, and, when I can get it, in new wine,
particularly the rough sort; but, above all, I believe in wine that's
good and old. Mahomet's prohibition of it is all moonshine. I am the
son, you must know, of a Greek nun and a Turkish bishop; and the first
thing I learned was to play the fiddle. I used to sing Homer to it.
I was then concerned in a brawl in a mosque, in which the old bishop
somehow happened to be killed; so I tied a sword to my side, and went to
seek my fortune, accompanied by all the possible sins of Turk and Greek.
People talk of the seven deadly sins; but I have seventy-seven that
never quit me, summer or winter; by which you may judge of the amount
of my venial ones. I am a gambler, a cheat, a ruffian, a highwayman, a
pick-pocket, a glutton (at beef or blows); have no shame whatever; love
to let every body know what I can do; lie, besides, about what I can't
do; have a particular attachment to sacrilege; swallow perjuries like
figs; never give a farthing to any body, but beg of every body, and
abuse them into the bargain; look upon not spilling a drop of liquor as
the chief of all the cardinal virtues; but must own I am not much given
to assassination, murder being inconvenient; and one thing I am bound to
acknowledge, which is, that I never betrayed a messmate. "
"That's as well," observed Morgante; "because you see, as you don't
believe in any thing else, I'd have you believe in this bell-clapper of
mine. So now, as you have been candid with me, and I am well instructed
in your ways, we'll pursue our journey together. "
The best of giants, in those days, were not scrupulous in their modes of
living; so that one of the best and one of the worst got on pretty well
together, emptying the larders on the road, and paying nothing but
douses on the chops. When they could find no inn, they hunted elephants
and crocodiles. Morgante, who was the braver of the two, delighted to
banter, and sometimes to cheat, Margutte; and he ate up all the fare;
which made the other, notwithstanding the credit he gave himself for
readiness of wit and tongue, cut a very sorry figure, and seriously
remonstrate: "I reverence you," said Margutte, "in other matters; but in
eating, you really don't behave well. He who deprives me of my share at
meals is no friend; at every mouthful of which he robs me, I seem to
lose an eye. I'm for sharing every thing to a nicety, even if it be no
better than a fig. "
"You are a fine fellow," said Morgante; "you gain upon me very much. You
are 'the master of those who know. '"[6]
So saying, he made him put some wood on the fire, and perform a hundred
other offices to render every thing snug; and then he slept: and next
day he cheated his great scoundrelly companion at drink, as he had
done the day before at meat; and the poor shabby devil complained; and
Morgante laughed till he was ready to burst, and again and again always
cheated him.
There was a levity, nevertheless, in Margutte, which restored his
spirits on the slightest glimpse of good fortune; and if he realised a
hearty meal, he became the happiest, beastliest, and most confident of
giants. The companions, in the course of their journey, delivered a
damsel from the clutches of three other giants. She was the daughter of
a great lord; and when she got home, she did honour to Morgante as to
an equal, and put Margutte into the kitchen, where he was in a state of
bliss. He did nothing but swill, stuff, surfeit, be sick, play at dice,
cheat, filch, go to sleep, guzzle again, laugh, chatter, and tell a
thousand lies.
Morgante took leave of the young lady, who made him rich presents.
Margutte, seeing this, and being always drunk and impudent, daubed his
face like a Christmas clown, and making up to her with a frying-pan in
his hand, demanded "something for the cook. " The fair hostess gave him
a jewel; and the vagabond skewed such a brutal eagerness in seizing it
with his filthy hands, and making not the least acknowledgment, that
when they got out of the house, Morgante was ready to fell him to the
earth. He called him scoundrel and poltroon, and said he had disgraced
him for ever.
"Softly! " said the brute-beast. "Didn't you take me with you, knowing
what sort of fellow I was? Didn't I tell you I had every sin and shame
under heaven; and have I deceived you by the exhibition of a single
virtue? "
Morgante could not help laughing at a candour of this excessive nature.
So they went on their way till they came to a wood, where they rested
themselves by a fountain, and Margutte fell fast asleep. He had a pair
of boots on, which Morgante felt tempted to draw off, that he might see
what he would do on waking. He accordingly did so, and threw them to a
little distance among the bushes. The sleeper awoke in good time,
and, looking and searching round about, suddenly burst into roars of
laughter. A monkey had got the boots, and sat pulling them on and off,
making the most ridiculous gestures. The monkey busied himself, and the
light-minded drunkard laughed; and at every fresh gesticulation of the
new boot-wearer, the laugh grew louder and more tremendous, till at
length it was found impossible to be restrained. The glutton had a
laughing-fit. In vain he tried to stop himself; in vain his fingers
would have loosened the buttons of his doublet, to give his lungs room
to play. They couldn't do it; so he laughed and roared till he burst.
The snap was like the splitting of a cannon. Morgante ran up to him, but
it was of no use. He was dead.
Alas! it was not the only death; it was not even the most trivial cause
of a death. Giants are big fellows, but Death's a bigger, though he may
come in a little shape. Morgante had succeeded in joining his master.
He helped him to take Babylon; he killed a whale for him at sea that
obstructed his passage; he played the part of a main-sail during a
storm, holding out his arms and a great hide; but on coming to shore,
a crab bit him in the heel; and behold the lot of the great giant--he
died! He laughed, and thought it a very little thing, but it proved a
mighty one.
"He made the East tremble," said Orlando; "and the bite of a crab has
slain him! "
O life of ours, weak, and a fallacy! [7]
Orlando embalmed his huge friend, and had him taken to Babylon, and
honourably interred; and, after many an adventure, in which he regretted
him, his own days were closed by a far baser, though not so petty a
cause.
How shall I speak of it? exclaims the poet. How think of the horrible
slaughter about to fall on the Christians and their greatest men, so
that not a dry eye shall be left in France? How express my disgust at
the traitor Gan, whose heart a thousand pardons from his sovereign, and
the most undeserved rescues of him by the warrior he betrayed, could not
shame or soften? How mourn the weakness of Charles, always deceived by
him, and always trusting? How dare to present to my mind the good,
the great, the ever-generous Orlando, brought by the traitor into the
doleful pass of Roncesvalles and the hands of myriads of his enemies, so
that even his superhuman strength availed not to deliver him out of the
slaughterhouse, and he blew the blast with his dying breath, which was
the mightiest, the farthest heard, and the most melancholy sound that
ever came to the ears of the undeceived?
Gan was known well to every body but his confiding sovereign. The
Paladins knew him well; and in their moments of indignant disgust often
told him so, though they spared him the consequences of his misdeeds,
and even incurred the most frightful perils to deliver him out of the
hands of his enemies. But he was brave; he was in favour with the
sovereign, who was also their kinsman; and they were loyal and loving
men, and knew that the wretch envied them for the greatness of their
achievements, and might do the state a mischief; so they allowed
themselves to take a kind of scornful pleasure in putting up with him.
Their cousin Malagigi, the enchanter, had himself assisted Gan, though
he knew him best of all, and had prophesied that the innumerable
endeavours of his envy to destroy his king and country would bring some
terrible evil at last to all Chistendom.
Dante; though Milton has something like them:
"Devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds: men only disagree. "
It is supposed that the character of Ashtaroth, which is a very new
and extraordinary one, and does great honour to the daring goodness
of Pulci's imagination, was not lost upon Milton, who was not only
acquainted with the poem, but expressly intimates the pleasure he took
in it. [11] Rinaldo advises this devil, as Burns did Lucifer, to "take a
thought and mend. " Ashtaroth, who had been a seraph, takes no notice of
the advice, except with a waving of the recollection of happier times.
He bids the hero farewell, and says he has only to summon him in order
to receive his aid. This retention of a sense of his former angelical
dignity has been noticed by Foscolo and Panizzi, the two best writers on
these Italian poems. [12] A Calvinist would call the expression of the
sympathy "hardened. " A humanist knows it to be the result of a spirit
exquisitely softened. An unbounded tenderness is the secret of all that
is beautiful in the serious portion of our author's genius. Orlando's
good-natured giant weeps even for the death of the scoundrel Margutte;
and the awful hero himself, at whose death nature is convulsed and the
heavens open, begs his dying horse to forgive him if ever he has wronged
it.
A charm of another sort in Pulci, and yet in most instances, perhaps,
owing the best part of its charmingness to its being connected with the
same feeling, is his wit. Foscolo, it is true, says it is, in general,
more severe than refined; and it is perilous to differ with such a
critic on such a point; for much of it, unfortunately, is lost to a
foreign reader, in consequence of its dependance on the piquant old
Tuscan idiom, and on popular sayings and allusions. Yet I should think
it impossible for Pulci in general to be severe at the expense of some
more agreeable quality; and I am sure that the portion of his wit most
obvious to a foreigner may claim, if not to have originated, at least
to have been very like the style of one who was among its declared
admirers,--and who was a very polished writer,--Voltaire. It consists in
treating an absurdity with an air as if it were none; or as if it had
been a pure matter of course, erroneously mistaken for an absurdity.
Thus the good abbot, whose monastery is blockaded by the giants (for the
virtue and simplicity of his character must be borne in mind), after
observing that the ancient fathers in the desert had not only locusts to
eat, but manna, which he has no doubt was rained down on purpose from
heaven, laments that the "relishes" provided for himself and his
brethren should have consisted of "showers of stones. " The stones, while
the abbot is speaking, come thundering down, and he exclaims, "For God's
sake, knight, come in, for the manna is falling! " This is exactly in the
style of the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_. So when Margutte is asked
what he believes in, and says he believes in "neither black nor blue,"
but in a good capon, "whether roast or boiled," the reader is forcibly
reminded of Voltaire's Traveller, _Scarmentado_, who, when he is desired
by the Tartars to declare which of their two parties he is for, the
party of the black-mutton or the white-mutton, answers, that the dish is
"equally indifferent to him, provided it is tender. " Voltaire, however,
does injustice to Pulci, when he pretends that in matters of belief he
is like himself,--a mere scoffer. The friend of Lucrezia Tornabuoni has
evidently the tenderest veneration for all that is good and lovely in
the Catholic faith; and whatever liberties he might have allowed himself
in professed _extravaganzas_, when an age without Church-authority
encouraged them, and a reverend canon could take part in those (it must
be acknowledged) unseemly "high jinks," he never, in the _Morgante_,
when speaking in his own person, and not in that of the worst
characters, intimates disrespect towards any opinion which he did not
hold to be irrelevant to a right faith. It is observable that his freest
expressions are put in the mouth of the giant Margutte, the lowest
of these characters, who is an invention of the author's, and a most
extraordinary personage. He is the first unmitigated blackguard in
fiction, and is the greatest as well as first. Pulci is conjectured,
with great probability, to have designed him as a caricature of some
real person; for Margutte is a Greek who, in point of morals, has been
horribly brought up, and some of the Greek refugees in Italy were
greatly disliked for the cynicism of their manners and the grossness of
their lives. Margutte is a glutton, a drunkard, a liar, a thief, and
a blasphemer. He boasts of having every vice, and no virtue except
fidelity; which is meant to reconcile Morgante to his company; but
though the latter endures and even likes it for his amusement, he gives
him to understand that he looks on his fidelity as only securable by
the bastinado, and makes him the subject of his practical jokes. The
respectable giant Morgante dies of the bite of a crab, as if to spew on
what trivial chances depends the life of the strongest. Margutte laughs
himself to death at sight of a monkey putting his boots on and off; as
though the good-natured poet meant at once to express his contempt of
a merely and grossly anti-serious mode of existence, and his
consideration, nevertheless, towards the poor selfish wretch who had had
no better training.
To this wit and this pathos let the reader add a style of singular ease
and fluency,--rhymes often the most unexpected, but never at a loss,--a
purity of Tuscan acknowledged by every body, and ranking him among the
authorities of the language,--and a modesty in speaking of his own
pretensions equalled only by his enthusiastic extolments of genius in
others; and the reader has before him the lively and affecting, hopeful,
charitable, large-hearted Luigi Pulci, the precursor, and in some
respects exemplar, of Ariosto, and, in Milton's opinion, a poet worth
reading for the "good use" that may be made of him. It has been
strangely supposed that his friend Politian, and Ficino the Platonist,
not merely helped him with their books (as he takes a pride in telling
us), but wrote a good deal of the latter part of the Morgante,
particularly the speculations in matters of opinion. As if (to say
nothing of the difference of style) a man of genius, however lively, did
not go through the gravest reflections in the course of his life, or
could not enter into any theological or metaphysical question, to which
he chose to direct his attention. Animal spirits themselves are too
often but a counterbalance to the most thoughtful melancholy; and one
fit of jaundice or hypochondria might have enabled the poet to see more
visions of the unknown and the inscrutable in a single day, than perhaps
ever entered the imagination of the elegant Latin scholar, or even the
disciple of Plato.
[Footnote 1: _Literature of the South of Europe_, Thomas Roscoe's
Translation, vol. ii. p. 54. For the opinions of other writers, here and
elsewhere alluded to, see Tiraboschi (who is quite frightened at him),
_Storia della Poesia Italiana_, cap. v. sect. 25; Gravina, who is more
so, _Della Ragion Poetica_ (quoted in Ginguéné, as below); Crescimbeni,
_Commentari Intorno all' Istoria della Poesia_, &c. lib. vi. cap. 3
(Mathias's edition), and the biographical additions to the same work,
4to, Rome, 1710, vol. ii. part ii. p. 151, where he says that Pulci was
perhaps the "modestest sad most temperate writer" of his age ("il pin
modesto e moderato"); Ginguéné, _Histoire Littéraire d'Italie_, tom. iv.
p. 214; Foscolo, in the _Quarterly Review_, as further on; Panizzi on
the _Romantic Poetry of the Italians_, ditto; Stebbing, _Lives of the
Italian Poets_, second edition, vol, i. ; and the first volume of _Lives
of Literary and Scientific Men_, in _Lardner's Cyclopædia_. ]
[Footnote 2: Canto xxv. The passage will be found in the present
volume. ]
[Footnote 3: Id. And this also. ]
[Footnote 4: Canto xxvii. stanza 2.
"S' altro ajuto qui non si dimostra,
Sarà pur tragedía la istoria nostra.
Ed io pur commedía pensato avea
Iscriver del mio Carlo finalmente,
Ed _Alcuin_ così mi promettea," &c. ]
[Footnote 5:
"In fine to adorerai l'Ariosto, tu ammirerei il Tasso, ma tu amerai il
Pulci. "--_Parn. Ital_. vol. ix. p. 344. ]
[Footnote 6: Ellis's _Specimens of Early English Poetical Romances_,
vol. ii. p. 287; and Panizzi's _Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry
of the Italians_; in his edition of Boiardo and Ariosto, vol. i. p.
113. ]
[Footnote 7: _De Vita Caroli Magni et Rolandi Historia_, &c. cap. xviii.
p. 39 (Ciampi's edition). The giant in Turpin is named Ferracutus, or
Fergus. He was of the race of Goliath, had the strength of forty men,
and was twenty cubits high. During the suspension of a mortal combat
with Orlando, they discuss the mysteries of the Christian faith, which
its champion explains by a variety of similes and the most beautiful
beggings of the question; after which the giant stakes the credit of
their respective beliefs on the event of their encounter. ]
[Footnote 8: Canto xix. st. 21. ]
[Footnote 9: When a proper name happens to be a part of the tautology,
the look is still more extraordinary. Orlando is remonstrating with
Rinaldo on his being unseasonably in love:
"Ov' è, Rinaldo, la tua gagliardia?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo sommo potere?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo senno di pria?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo antivedere?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, la tua fantasia?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, l' arme e 'l tuo destriere?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, la tua gloria e fama?
Ov' è, Rinaldo, il tuo core? a la dama. "
Canto xvi. st. 50.
Oh where, Rinaldo, is thy gagliardize?
Oh where, Rinaldo, is thy might indeed?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy repute for wise?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy sagacious heed?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy free-thoughted eyes?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy good arms and steed?
Oh where, Rinaldo, thy renown and glory?
Oh where, Rinaldo, _thou? _--In a love-story.
The incessant repetition of the names in the burdens of modern songs
is hardly so bad as this. The single line questions and answers in the
Greek drama were nothing to it. Yet there is a still more extraordinary
play upon words in canto xxiii. st. 49, consisting of the description
of a hermitage. It is the only one of the kind which I remember in the
poem, and would have driven some of our old hunters after alliteration
mad with envy:--
"La _casa cosa_ parea _bretta_ e _brutta_,
_Vinta_ dal _vento_; e la _notta_ e la _notte_
_Stilla_ le _stelle_, ch' a _tetto_ era _tutto_:
Del _pane appena_ ne _dette_ ta' _dotte_.
_Pere_ avea _pure_, e qualche _fratta frutta_;
E _svina_ e _svena_ di _botto_ una _botte_
_Poscia_ per _pesci lasche_ prese a _l'esca_;
Ma il _letto allotta_ a la _frasca_ fu _fresca_. "
This _holy hole_ was a vile _thin_-built _thing_,
_Blown_ by the _blast_; the _night nought_ else o'erhead
But _staring stars_ the _rude roof_ entering;
Their _sup_ of _supper_ was no _splendid spread_;
_Poor pears_ their fare, and such-_like libelling_
Of quantum suff;--their _butt_ all _but_;--_bad bread_;--
A _flash_ of _fish_ instead of _flush_ of _flesh_;
Their bed a _frisk al-fresco_, _freezing fresh_.
Really, if Sir Philip Sidney and other serious and exquisite gentlemen
had not sometimes taken a positively grave interest in the like pastimes
of paronomasia, one should hardly conceive it possible to meet with
them even in tragi-comedy. Did Pulci find these also in his
ballad-authorities? If his Greek-loving critics made objections here,
they had the advantage of him: unless indeed they too, in their
Alexandrian predilections, had a sneaking regard for certain shapings
of verse into altars and hatchets, such as have been charged upon
Theocritus himself, and which might be supposed to warrant any other
conceit on occasion. ]
[Footnote 10: See, in the original, the story of Meridiana, canto vii.
King Manfredonio has come in loving hostility against her to endeavour
to win her affection by his prowess. He finds her assisted by the
Paladins, and engaged by her own heart to Uliviero; and in he despair of
his discomfiture, expresses a wish to die by her hand. Meridiana, with
graceful pity, begs his acceptance of a jewel, and recommends him to
go home with his army; to which he grievingly consents. This indeed is
beautiful; and perhaps I ought to have given an abstract of it, as a
specimen of what Pulci could have done in this way, had he chosen. ]
[Footnote 11: "Perhaps it was from that same politic drift that the
devil whipt St. Jerome in a lenten dream for reading Cicero; or else it
was a fantasm bred by the fever which had then seized him. For had an
angel been his discipliner, unless it were for dwelling too much upon
Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading and not the vanity, it had
been plainly partial; first to correct him for grave Cicero, and not
for scurrile Plautus, whom he confesses to have been reading not long
before; next, to correct him only, and let so many more ancient fathers
wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a
tutoring apparition; insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may
be made of Margites, a sportful poem, not now extant, writ by Homer;
and why not then of Morgante, an Italian romance much to the same
purpose? "--_Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed
Printing_, Prose Works, folio, 1697, p. 378. I quote the passage
as extracted by Mr. Merivale in the preface to his "Orlando in
Roncesvalles,"--_Poems_, vol. ii. p. 41. ]
[Footnote 12: Ut sup. p. 222. Foscolo's remark is to be found in his
admirable article on the _Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians_,
in the _Quarterly Review_, vol. xxi. p. 525. ]
* * * * *
HUMOURS OF GIANTS
Twelve Paladins had the Emperor Charlemagne in his court; and the most
wise and famous of them was Orlando. It is of him I am about to speak,
and of his friend Morgante, and of Gan the traitor, who beguiled him to
his death in Roncesvalles, where he sounded his horn so mightily after
the dolorous rout.
It was Easter, and Charles had all his court with him in Paris, making
high feast and triumph. There was Orlando, the first among them, and
Ogier the Dane, and Astolfo the Englishman, and Ansuigi; and there came
Angiolin of Bayonne, and Uliviero, and the gentle Berlinghieri; and
there was also Avolio and Avino, and Otho of Normandy, and Richard, and
the wise Namo, and the aged Salamon, and Walter of Monlione, and Baldwin
who was the son of the wretched Gan. The good emperor was too happy, and
oftentimes fairly groaned for joy at seeing all his Paladins together.
Now Morgante, the only surviving brother, had a palace made, after
giant's fashion, of earth, and boughs, and shingles, in which he shut
himself up at night. Orlando knocked, and disturbed him from his sleep,
so that he came staring to the door like a madman, for he had had a
bewildering dream.
"Who knocks there? " quoth he.
"You will know too soon," answered Orlando; "I am come to make you do
penance for your sins, like your brothers. Divine Providence has sent me
to avenge the wrongs of the monks upon the whole set of you. Doubt it
not; for Passamonte and Alabastro are already as cold as a couple of
pilasters. ".
"Noble knight," said Morgante, "do me no ill; but if you are a
Christian, tell me in courtesy who you are. "
"I will satisfy you of my faith," replied Orlando; "I adore Christ; and
if you please, you may adore him also. "
"I have had a strange vision," replied Morgante, with a low voice was
assailed by a dreadful serpent, and called upon Mahomet in vain; then I
called upon your God who was crucified, and he succoured me, and I was
delivered from the serpent; so I am disposed to become a Christian. "
"If you keep in this mind," returned Orlando, "you shall worship the
true God, and come with me and be my companion, and I will love you with
perfect love. Your idols are false and vain; the true God is the God of
the Christians. Deny the unjust and villanous worship of your Mahomet,
and be baptised in the name of my God, who alone is worthy. "
"I am content," said Morgante.
Then Orlando embraced him, and said, "I will lead you to the abbey. "
"Let us go quickly," replied Morgante, for he was impatient to make his
peace with the monks.
Orlando rejoiced, saying, "My good brother, and devout withal, you must
ask pardon of the abbot; for God has enlightened you, and accepted you,
and he would have you practise humility. "
"Yes," said Morgante, "thanks to you, your God shall henceforth be my
God. Tell me your name, and afterwards dispose of me as you will. " And
he told him that he was Orlando.
But Fortune stands watching in secret to baffle our designs. While
Charles was thus hugging himself with delight, Orlando governed every
thing at court, and this made Gan burst with envy; so that he began one
day talking with Charles after the following manner--"Are we always to
have Orlando for our master? I have thought of speaking to you about it
a thousand times. Orlando has a great deal too much presumption. Here
are we, counts, dukes, and kings, at your service, but not at his; and
we have resolved not to be governed any longer by one so much younger
than ourselves. You began in Aspramont to give him to understand how
valiant he was, and that he did great things at that fountain; whereas,
if it had not been for the good Gerard, I know very well where the
victory would have been. The truth is, he has an eye upon the crown.
This, Charles, is the worthy who has deserved so much! All your generals
are afflicted at it. As for me, I shall repass those mountains over
which I came to you with seventy-two counts. Do you take him for a
Mars? "
Orlando happened to hear these words as he sat apart, and it displeased
him with the lord of Pontiers that he should speak so, but much more
that Charles should believe him. He would have killed Gan, if Uliviero
had not prevented him and taken his sword out of his hand; nay, he would
have killed Charlemagne; but at last he went from Paris by himself,
raging with scorn and grief. He borrowed, as he went, of Ermillina
the wife of Ogier, the Dane's sword Cortana and his horse Rondel, and
proceeded on his way to Brava. His wife, Alda the Fair, hastened to
embrace him; but while she was saying, "Welcome, my Orlando," he was
going to strike her with his sword, for his head was bewildered, and he
took her for the traitor. The fair Alda marvelled greatly, but Orlando
recollected himself, and she took hold of the bridle, and he leaped from
his horse, and told her all that had passed, and rested himself with her
for some days.
He then took his leave, being still carried away by his disdain, and
resolved to pass over into Heathendom; and as he rode, he thought, every
step of the way, of the traitor Gan; and so, riding on wherever the road
took him, he reached the confines between the Christian countries and
the Pagan, and came upon an abbey, situate in a dark place in a desert.
Now above the abbey was a great mountain, inhabited by three fierce
giants, one of whom was named Passamonte, another Alabastro, and the
third Morgante; and these giants used to disturb the abbey by throwing
things down upon it from the mountain with slings, so that the poor
little monks could not go out to fetch wood or water. Orlando knocked,
but nobody would open till the abbot was spoken to. At last the abbot
came himself, and opening the door bade him welcome. The good man told
him the reason of the delay, and said that since the arrival of the
giants they had been so perplexed that they did not know what to do.
"Our ancient fathers in the desert," quoth he, "were rewarded according
to their holiness. It is not to be supposed that they lived only upon
locusts; doubtless, it also rained manna upon them from heaven; but
here one is regaled with stones, which the giants pour on us from the
mountain. These are our nice bits and relishes. The fiercest of the
three, Morgante, plucks up pines and other great trees by the roots, and
casts them on us. " While they were talking thus in the cemetery, there
came a stone which seemed as if it would break Rondel's back.
"For God's sake, cavalier," said the abbot, "come in, for the manna is
falling. "
"My dear abbot," answered Orlando, "this fellow, methinks, does not wish
to let my horse feed; he wants to cure him of being restive; the stone
seems as if it came from a good arm. " "Yes," replied the holy father,
"I did not deceive you. I think, some day or other, they will cast the
mountain itself on us. "
Orlando quieted his horse, and then sat down to a meal; after which he
said, "Abbot, I must go and return the present that has been made to my
horse. " The abbot with great tenderness endeavoured to dissuade him, but
in vain; upon which he crossed him on the forehead, and said, "Go, then;
and the blessing of God be with you. "
Orlando scaled the mountain, and came where Passamonte was, who, seeing
him alone, measured him with his eyes, and asked him if he would
stay with him for a page, promising to make him comfortable. "Stupid
Saracen," said Orlando, "I come to you, according to the will of God, to
be your death, and not your foot-boy. You have displeased his servants
here, and are no longer to be endured, dog that you are!
"
The giant, finding himself thus insulted, ran in a fury to his weapons;
and returning to Orlando, slung at him a large stone, which struck him
on the head with such force, as not only made his helmet ring again, but
felled him to the earth. Passamonte thought he was dead. "What could
have brought that paltry fellow here? " said he, as he turned away. But
Christ never forsakes his followers. While Passamonte was going away,
Orlando recovered, and cried aloud, "How now, giant? do you fancy you
have killed me? Turn back, for unless you have wings, your escape is
out of the question, dog of a renegade! " The giant, greatly marvelling,
turned back; and stooping to pick up a stone, Orlando, who had Cortana
naked in his hand, cleft his skull; upon which, cursing Mahomet, the
monster tumbled, dying and blaspheming, to the ground. Blaspheming fell
the sour-hearted and cruel wretch; but Orlando, in the mean while,
thanked the Father and the Word.
The Paladin went on, seeking for Alabastro, the second giant; who, when
he saw him, endeavoured to pluck up a great piece of stony earth by the
roots. "Ho, ho! " cried Orlando, "you too are for throwing stones,
are you? " Then Alabastro took his sling, and flung at him so large a
fragment as forced Orlando to defend himself, for if it had struck him,
he would no more have needed a surgeon;[1] but collecting his strength,
he thrust his sword into the giant's breast, and the loggerhead fell
dead.
"Blessed Jesus be thanked," said the giant, "for I have always heard you
called a perfect knight; and as I said, I will follow you all my life
long. "
And so conversing, they went together towards the abbey; and by the way
Orlando talked with Morgante of the dead giants, and sought to comfort
him, saying they had done the monks a thousand injuries, and "our
Scripture says the good shall be rewarded and the evil punished, and we
must submit to the will of God. The doctors of our Church," continued
he, "are all agreed, that if those who are glorified in heaven were to
feel pity for their miserable kindred who lie in such horrible confusion
in hell, their beatitude would come to nothing; and this, you see, would
plainly be unjust on the part of God. But such is the firmness of their
faith, that what appears good to him appears good to them. Do what he
may, they hold it to be done well, and that it is impossible for him to
err; so that if their very fathers and mothers are suffering everlasting
punishment, it does not disturb them an atom. This is the custom, I
assure you, in the choirs above. "[2]
"A word to the wise," said Morgante; "you shall see if I grieve for my
brethren, and whether or no I submit to the will of God, and behave
myself like an angel. So dust to dust; and now let us enjoy ourselves. I
will cut off their hands, all four of them, and take them to these holy
monks, that they may be sure they are dead, and not fear to go out
alone into the desert. They will then be certain also that the Lord has
purified me, and taken me out of darkness, and assured to me the kingdom
of heaven. " So saying, the giant cut off the hands of his brethren, and
left their bodies to the beasts and birds.
They went to the abbey, where the abbot was expecting Orlando in great
anxiety; but the monks not knowing what had happened, ran to the abbot
in great haste and alarm, saying, "Will you suffer this giant to come
in? " And when the abbot saw the giant, he changed countenance. Orlando,
perceiving him thus disturbed, made haste and said, "Abbot, peace be
with you! The giant is a Christian; he believes in Christ, and has
renounced his false prophet, Mahomet. " And Morgante shewing the hands in
proof of his faith, the abbot thanked Heaven with great contentment of
mind.
The abbot did much honour to Morgante, comparing him with St. Paul; and
they rested there many days. One day, wandering over the house, they
entered a room where the abbot kept a quantity of armour; and Morgante
saw a bow which pleased him, and he fastened it on. Now there was in
the place a great scarcity of water; and Orlando said, like his good
brother, "Morgante, I wish you would fetch us some water. " "Command me
as you please," said he; and placing a great tub on his shoulders, he
went towards a spring at which he had been accustomed to drink, at the
foot of the mountain. Having reached the spring, he suddenly heard a
great noise in the forest. He took an arrow from the quiver, placed it
in the bow, and raising his head, saw a great herd of swine rushing
towards the spring where he stood. Morgante shot one of them clean
through the head, and laid him sprawling. Another, as if in revenge, ran
towards the giant, without giving him time to use a second arrow; so he
lent him a cuff on the head which broke the bone, and killed him also;
which stroke the rest seeing fled in haste through the valley. Morgante
then placed the tub full of water upon one of his shoulders, and the
two porkers on the other, and returned to the abbey which was at some
distance, without spilling a drop.
The monks were delighted to see the fresh water, but still more the
pork; for there is no animal to whom food comes amiss. They let their
breviaries therefore go to sleep a while, and fell heartily to work, so
that the cats and dogs had reason to lament the polish of the bones.
"But why do we stay here doing nothing? " said Orlando one day to
Morgante; and he shook hands with the abbot, and told him he must take
his leave. "I must go," said he, "and make up for lost time. I ought to
have gone long ago, my good father; but I cannot tell you what I feel
within me, at the content I have enjoyed here in your company. I shall
bear in mind and in heart with me for ever the abbot, the abbey, and
this desert, so great is the love they have raised in me in so short a
time. The great God, who reigns above, must thank you for me, in his
own abode. Bestow on us your benediction, and do not forget us in your
prayers. "
When the abbot heard the County Orlando talk thus, his heart melted
within him for tenderness, and he said, "Knight, if we have failed in
any courtesy due to your prowess and great gentleness (and indeed what
we have done has been but little), pray put it to the account of our
ignorance, and of the place which we inhabit. We are but poor men of
the cloister, better able to regale you with masses and orisons and
paternosters, than with dinners and suppers. You have so taken this
heart of mine by the many noble qualities I have seen in you, that I
shall be with you still wherever you go; and, on the other hand, you
will always be present here with me. This seems a contradiction; but you
are wise, and will take my meaning discreetly. You have saved the very
life and spirit within us; for so much perplexity had those giants cast
about our place, that the way to the Lord among us was blocked up. May
He who sent you into these woods reward the justice and piety by which
we are delivered from our trouble. Thanks be to him and to you. We shall
all be disconsolate at your departure. We shall grieve that we cannot
detain you among us for months and years; but you do not wear these
weeds; you bear arms and armour; and you may possibly merit as well in
carrying those, as in wearing this cap. You read your Bible, and your
virtue has been the means of shewing the giant the way to heaven. Go in
peace then, and prosper, whoever you may be. I do not seek your name;
but if ever I am asked who it was that came among us, I shall say that
it was an angel from God. If there is any armour or other thing that you
would have, go into the room where it is, and take it. "
"If you have any armour that would suit my companion," replied Orlando,
"that I will accept with pleasure. "
"Come and see," said the abbot; and they went to a room that was full of
armour. Morgante looked all about, but could find nothing large enough,
except a rusty breast-plate, which fitted him marvellously. It had
belonged to an enormous giant, who was killed there of old by Orlando's
father, Milo of Angrante. There was a painting on the wall which told
the whole story: how the giant had laid cruel and long siege to the
abbey; and how he had been overthrown at last by the great Milo. Orlando
seeing this, said within himself: "O God, unto whom all things are
known, how came Milo here, who destroyed this giant? " And reading
certain inscriptions which were there, he could no longer keep a firm
countenance, but the tears ran down his cheeks.
When the abbot saw Orlando weep, and his brow redden, and the light of
his eyes become child-like for sweetness, he asked him the reason; but,
finding him still dumb with emotion, he said, "I do not know whether you
are overpowered by admiration of what is painted in this chamber. You
must know that I am of high descent, though not through lawful wedlock.
I believe I may say I am nephew or sister's son to no less a man than
that Rinaldo, who was so great a Paladin in the world, though my own
father was not of a lawful mother. Ansuigi was his name; my own, out in
the world, was Chiaramonte; and this Milo was my father's brother. Ah,
gentle baron, for blessed Jesus' sake, tell me what name is yours! "
Orlando, all glowing with affection, and bathed in tears, replied, "My
dear abbot and cousin, he before you is your Orlando. " Upon this, they
ran for tenderness into each other's arms, weeping on both sides with
a sovereign affection, too high to be expressed. The abbot was so
over-joyed, that he seemed as if he would never have done embracing
Orlando. "By what fortune," said the knight, "do I find you in this
obscure place? Tell me, my dear abbot, how was it you became a monk, and
did not follow arms, like myself and the rest of us? "
"It is the will of God," replied the abbot, hastening to give his
feelings utterance. "Many and divers are the paths he points out for us
by which to arrive at his city; some walk it with the sword--some with
pastoral staff. Nature makes the inclination different, and therefore
there are different ways for us to take: enough if we all arrive safely
at one and the same place, the last as well as the first. We are all
pilgrims through many kingdoms. We all wish to go to Rome, Orlando;
but we go picking out our journey through different roads. Such is the
trouble in body and soul brought upon us by that sin of the old apple.
Day and night am I here with my book in hand--day and night do you ride
about, holding your sword, and sweating oft both in sun and shadow; and
all to get round at last to the home from which we departed--I say, all
out of anxiety and hope to get back to our home of old. " And the giant
hearing them talk of these things, shed tears also.
The Paladin and the giant quitted the abbey, the one on horseback and
the other on foot, and journeyed through the desert till they came to
a magnificent castle, the door of which stood open. They entered, and
found rooms furnished in the most splendid manner--beds covered with
cloth of gold, and floors rejoicing in variegated marbles. There was
even a feast prepared in the saloon, but nobody to eat it, or to speak
to them.
Orlando suspected some trap, and did not quite like it; but Morgante
thought nothing worth considering but the feast. "Who cares for the
host," said he, "when there's such a dinner? Let us eat as much as we
can, and bear off the rest. I always do that when I have the picking of
castles. "
They accordingly sat down, and being very hungry with their day's
journey, devoured heaps of the good things before them, eating with all
the vigour of health, and drinking to a pitch of weakness. [3] They sat
late in this manner enjoying themselves, and then retired for the night
into rich beds.
But what was their astonishment in the morning at finding that they
could not get out of the place! There was no door. All the entrances had
vanished, even to any feasible window.
"We must be dreaming," said Orlando.
"My dinner was no dream, I'll swear," said the giant. "As for the rest,
let it be a dream if it pleases. "
Continuing to search up and down, they at length found a vault with
a tomb in it; and out of the tomb came a voice, saying, "You must
encounter with me, or stay here for ever. Lift, therefore, the stone
that covers me. "
"Do you hear that? " said Morgante; "I'll have him out, if it's the devil
himself. Perhaps it's two devils, Filthy-dog and Foul-mouth, or Itching
and Evil-tail. "[4]
"Have him out," said Orlando, "whoever he is, even were it as many
devils as were rained out of heaven into the centre. "
Morgante lifted up the stone, and out leaped, surely enough, a devil in
the likeness of a dried-up dead body, black as a coal. Orlando seized
him, and the devil grappled with Orlando. Morgante was for joining him,
but the Paladin bade him keep back. It was a hard struggle, and
the devil grinned and laughed, till the giant, who was a master of
wrestling, could bear it no longer: so he doubled him up, and, in spite
of all his efforts, thrust him back into the tomb.
"You'll never get out," said the devil, "if you leave me shut up. "
"Why not? " inquired the Paladin.
"Because your giant's baptism and my deliverance must go together,"
answered the devil. "If he is not baptised, you can have no deliverance;
and if I am not delivered, I can prevent it still, take my word for it. "
Orlando baptised the giant. The two companions then issued forth,
and hearing a mighty noise in the house, looked back, and saw it all
vanished.
"I could find it in my heart," said Morgante, "to go down to those same
regions below, and make all the devils disappear in like manner. Why
shouldn't we do it? We'd set free all the poor souls there. Egad, I'd
cut off Minos's tail--I'd pull out Charon's beard by the roots--make a
sop of Phlegyas, and a sup of Phlegethon--unseat Pluto,--kill Cerberus
and the Furies with a punch of the face a-piece--and set Beelzebub
scampering like a dromedary. "
"You might find more trouble than you wot of," quoth Orlando, "and get
worsted besides. Better keep the straight path, than thrust your head
into out-of-the-way places. "
Morgante took his lord's advice, and went straightforward with him
through many great adventures, helping him with loving good-will as
often as he was permitted, sometimes as his pioneer, and sometimes as
his finisher of troublesome work, such as a slaughter of some thousands
of infidels. Now he chucked a spy into a river--now felled a rude
ambassador to the earth (for he didn't stand upon ceremony)--now cleared
a space round him in battle with the clapper of an old bell which he had
found at the monastery--now doubled up a king in his tent, and bore him
away, tent and all, and a Paladin with him, because he would not let the
Paladin go.
In the course of these services, the giant was left to take care of a
lady, and lost his master for a time; but the office being at an end, he
set out to rejoin him, and, arriving at a cross-road, met with a very
extraordinary personage.
This was a giant huger than himself, swarthy-faced, horrible, brutish.
He came out of a wood, and appeared to be journeying somewhere.
Morgante, who had the great bell-clapper in his hand above-mentioned,
struck it on the ground with astonishment, as much as to say, "Who the
devil is this? " and then set himself on a stone by the way-side to
observe the creature.
"What's your name, traveller? " said Morgante, as it came up.
"My name's Margutte," said the phenomenon. "I intended to be a giant
myself, but altered my mind, you see, and stopped half-way; so that I am
only twenty feet or so. "
"I'm glad to see you," quoth his brother-giant. "But tell me, are you
Christian or Saracen? Do you believe in Christ or in _Apollo_? "
"To tell you the truth," said the other, "I believe neither in black
nor blue, but in a good capon, whether it be roast or boiled. I
believe sometimes also in butter, and, when I can get it, in new wine,
particularly the rough sort; but, above all, I believe in wine that's
good and old. Mahomet's prohibition of it is all moonshine. I am the
son, you must know, of a Greek nun and a Turkish bishop; and the first
thing I learned was to play the fiddle. I used to sing Homer to it.
I was then concerned in a brawl in a mosque, in which the old bishop
somehow happened to be killed; so I tied a sword to my side, and went to
seek my fortune, accompanied by all the possible sins of Turk and Greek.
People talk of the seven deadly sins; but I have seventy-seven that
never quit me, summer or winter; by which you may judge of the amount
of my venial ones. I am a gambler, a cheat, a ruffian, a highwayman, a
pick-pocket, a glutton (at beef or blows); have no shame whatever; love
to let every body know what I can do; lie, besides, about what I can't
do; have a particular attachment to sacrilege; swallow perjuries like
figs; never give a farthing to any body, but beg of every body, and
abuse them into the bargain; look upon not spilling a drop of liquor as
the chief of all the cardinal virtues; but must own I am not much given
to assassination, murder being inconvenient; and one thing I am bound to
acknowledge, which is, that I never betrayed a messmate. "
"That's as well," observed Morgante; "because you see, as you don't
believe in any thing else, I'd have you believe in this bell-clapper of
mine. So now, as you have been candid with me, and I am well instructed
in your ways, we'll pursue our journey together. "
The best of giants, in those days, were not scrupulous in their modes of
living; so that one of the best and one of the worst got on pretty well
together, emptying the larders on the road, and paying nothing but
douses on the chops. When they could find no inn, they hunted elephants
and crocodiles. Morgante, who was the braver of the two, delighted to
banter, and sometimes to cheat, Margutte; and he ate up all the fare;
which made the other, notwithstanding the credit he gave himself for
readiness of wit and tongue, cut a very sorry figure, and seriously
remonstrate: "I reverence you," said Margutte, "in other matters; but in
eating, you really don't behave well. He who deprives me of my share at
meals is no friend; at every mouthful of which he robs me, I seem to
lose an eye. I'm for sharing every thing to a nicety, even if it be no
better than a fig. "
"You are a fine fellow," said Morgante; "you gain upon me very much. You
are 'the master of those who know. '"[6]
So saying, he made him put some wood on the fire, and perform a hundred
other offices to render every thing snug; and then he slept: and next
day he cheated his great scoundrelly companion at drink, as he had
done the day before at meat; and the poor shabby devil complained; and
Morgante laughed till he was ready to burst, and again and again always
cheated him.
There was a levity, nevertheless, in Margutte, which restored his
spirits on the slightest glimpse of good fortune; and if he realised a
hearty meal, he became the happiest, beastliest, and most confident of
giants. The companions, in the course of their journey, delivered a
damsel from the clutches of three other giants. She was the daughter of
a great lord; and when she got home, she did honour to Morgante as to
an equal, and put Margutte into the kitchen, where he was in a state of
bliss. He did nothing but swill, stuff, surfeit, be sick, play at dice,
cheat, filch, go to sleep, guzzle again, laugh, chatter, and tell a
thousand lies.
Morgante took leave of the young lady, who made him rich presents.
Margutte, seeing this, and being always drunk and impudent, daubed his
face like a Christmas clown, and making up to her with a frying-pan in
his hand, demanded "something for the cook. " The fair hostess gave him
a jewel; and the vagabond skewed such a brutal eagerness in seizing it
with his filthy hands, and making not the least acknowledgment, that
when they got out of the house, Morgante was ready to fell him to the
earth. He called him scoundrel and poltroon, and said he had disgraced
him for ever.
"Softly! " said the brute-beast. "Didn't you take me with you, knowing
what sort of fellow I was? Didn't I tell you I had every sin and shame
under heaven; and have I deceived you by the exhibition of a single
virtue? "
Morgante could not help laughing at a candour of this excessive nature.
So they went on their way till they came to a wood, where they rested
themselves by a fountain, and Margutte fell fast asleep. He had a pair
of boots on, which Morgante felt tempted to draw off, that he might see
what he would do on waking. He accordingly did so, and threw them to a
little distance among the bushes. The sleeper awoke in good time,
and, looking and searching round about, suddenly burst into roars of
laughter. A monkey had got the boots, and sat pulling them on and off,
making the most ridiculous gestures. The monkey busied himself, and the
light-minded drunkard laughed; and at every fresh gesticulation of the
new boot-wearer, the laugh grew louder and more tremendous, till at
length it was found impossible to be restrained. The glutton had a
laughing-fit. In vain he tried to stop himself; in vain his fingers
would have loosened the buttons of his doublet, to give his lungs room
to play. They couldn't do it; so he laughed and roared till he burst.
The snap was like the splitting of a cannon. Morgante ran up to him, but
it was of no use. He was dead.
Alas! it was not the only death; it was not even the most trivial cause
of a death. Giants are big fellows, but Death's a bigger, though he may
come in a little shape. Morgante had succeeded in joining his master.
He helped him to take Babylon; he killed a whale for him at sea that
obstructed his passage; he played the part of a main-sail during a
storm, holding out his arms and a great hide; but on coming to shore,
a crab bit him in the heel; and behold the lot of the great giant--he
died! He laughed, and thought it a very little thing, but it proved a
mighty one.
"He made the East tremble," said Orlando; "and the bite of a crab has
slain him! "
O life of ours, weak, and a fallacy! [7]
Orlando embalmed his huge friend, and had him taken to Babylon, and
honourably interred; and, after many an adventure, in which he regretted
him, his own days were closed by a far baser, though not so petty a
cause.
How shall I speak of it? exclaims the poet. How think of the horrible
slaughter about to fall on the Christians and their greatest men, so
that not a dry eye shall be left in France? How express my disgust at
the traitor Gan, whose heart a thousand pardons from his sovereign, and
the most undeserved rescues of him by the warrior he betrayed, could not
shame or soften? How mourn the weakness of Charles, always deceived by
him, and always trusting? How dare to present to my mind the good,
the great, the ever-generous Orlando, brought by the traitor into the
doleful pass of Roncesvalles and the hands of myriads of his enemies, so
that even his superhuman strength availed not to deliver him out of the
slaughterhouse, and he blew the blast with his dying breath, which was
the mightiest, the farthest heard, and the most melancholy sound that
ever came to the ears of the undeceived?
Gan was known well to every body but his confiding sovereign. The
Paladins knew him well; and in their moments of indignant disgust often
told him so, though they spared him the consequences of his misdeeds,
and even incurred the most frightful perils to deliver him out of the
hands of his enemies. But he was brave; he was in favour with the
sovereign, who was also their kinsman; and they were loyal and loving
men, and knew that the wretch envied them for the greatness of their
achievements, and might do the state a mischief; so they allowed
themselves to take a kind of scornful pleasure in putting up with him.
Their cousin Malagigi, the enchanter, had himself assisted Gan, though
he knew him best of all, and had prophesied that the innumerable
endeavours of his envy to destroy his king and country would bring some
terrible evil at last to all Chistendom.
