No More Learning

In the year 1469, Boiardo was one of the noblemen who went to meet the
Emperor Frederick the Third on his way to Ferrara, when Duke Borso of
Modena entertained him in that city. Two years afterwards, Borso, who had
been only Marquis of Ferrara, received its ducal title from the Pope; and
on going to Rome to be invested with his new honours, the name of our
poet is again found among the adorners of his state. A few days after his
return home this prince died; and Boiardo, favoured as he had been by
him, appears to have succeeded to a double portion of regard in the
friendship of the new duke, Ercole, who was more of his own age.

During all this period, from his youth to his prime, our author varied
his occupations with Italian and Latin poetry; some of it addressed to a
lady of the name of Antonia Caprara, and some to another, whose name is
thought to have been Rosa; but whether these ladies died, or his love was
diverted elsewhere, he took to wife, in the year 1472, Taddea Gonzaga, of
the noble house of that name, daughter of the Count of Novellara. In the
course of the same year he is supposed to have begun his great poem. A
popular court-favourite, in the prime of life, marrying and commencing
a great poem nearly at one and the same time, presents an image of
prosperity singularly delightful. By this lady Boiardo had two sons and
four daughters. The younger son, Francesco Maria, died in his childhood;
but the elder, Camillo, succeeded to his father's title, and left an heir
to it,--the last, I believe, of the name. The reception given to the
poet's bride, when he took her to Scandiano, is said to have been very
splendid.

In the ensuing year the duke his master took a wife himself. She was
Eleonora, daughter of the King of Naples; and the newly-married poet was
among the noblemen who were sent to escort her to Ferrara. For several
years afterwards, his time was probably filled up with the composition
of the _Orlando Innamorato_, and the entertainments given by a splendid
court. He was appointed Governor of Reggio, probably in 1478. At the
expiration of two or three years he was made Captain of the citadel of
Modena; and in 1482 a war broke out, with the Venetians, in which he took
part, for it interrupted the progress of his poem. In 1484 he returned
to it; but ten years afterwards was again and finally interrupted by the
unprincipled descent of the French on Italy under Charles the Eighth; and
in the December following he died. The _Orlando Innamorato_ was thus left
unfinished. Eight years before his decease the author published what he
had written of it up to that time, but the first complete edition was
posthumous. The poet was writing when the French came: he breaks off with
an anxious and bitter notice of the interruption, though still unable to
deny himself a last word on the episode which he was relating, and a hope
that he should conclude it another time.

"Mentre che io canto, o Dio redentore,
Vedo l'Italia tutta a fiamma e foco,
Per questi Galli, che con gran valore
Vengon, per disertar non so che loco:
Però vi lascio in questo vano amore
Di Fiordespina ardente poco a poco
Un' altra volta, se mi fia concesso,
Racconterovvi il tutto per espresso. "

But while I sing, mine eyes, great God! behold
A flaming fire light all the Italian sky,
Brought by these French, who, with their myriads bold,
Come to lay waste, I know not where or why.
Therefore, at present, I must leave untold
How love misled poor Fiordespina's eye. [2]
Another time, Fate willing, I shall tell,
From first to last, how every thing befell.

Besides the _Orlando Innamorato_, Boiardo wrote a variety of prose works,
a comedy in verse on the subject of Timon, lyrics of great elegance, with
a vein of natural feeling running through them, and Latin poetry of a
like sort, not, indeed, as classical in its style as that of Politian and
the other subsequent revivers of the ancient manner, but perhaps not
the less interesting on that account; for it is difficult to conceive
a thorough copyist in style expressing his own thorough feelings. Mr.
Panizzi, if I am not mistaken, promised the world a collection of the
miscellaneous poems of Boiardo; but we have not yet had the pleasure
of seeing them. In his life of the poet, however, he has given several
specimens, both Latin and Italian, which are extremely agreeable. The
Latin poems consist of ten eclogues and a few epigrams; but the epigrams,
this critic tells us, are neither good nor on a fitting subject, being
satirical sallies against Nicolò of Este, who had attempted to seize on
Ferrara, and been beheaded. Boiardo was not of a nature qualified to
indulge in bitterness. A man of his chivalrous disposition probably
misgave himself while he was writing these epigrams. Perhaps he suffered
them to escape his pen out of friendship for the reigning branch of the
family. But it must be confessed, that some of the best-natured men have
too often lost sight of their higher feelings during the pleasure and
pride of composition.

With respect to the comedy of _Timon_, if the whole of it is written as
well as the concluding address of the misanthrope (which Mr. Panizzi has
extracted into his pages), it must be very pleasant. Timon conceals a
treasure in a tomb, and thinks he has baffled some knaves who had a
design upon it. He therefore takes leave of his audience with the
following benedictions

"Pur ho scacciate queste due formiche,
Che raspavano l' oro alla mia buca,
Or vadan pur, che Dio le malediche.

Cotal fortuna a casa li conduca,
Che lor fiacchi le gambe al primo passo,
E nel secondo l'osso della nuca.

Voi altri, che ascoltate giuso al basso,
Chiedete, se volete alcuna cosa,
Prima ch' io parta, perchè mo vi lasso.

Benchè abbia l'alma irata e disdegnosa,
Da ingiusti oltraggi combattuta e vinta,
A voi già non l'avrò tanto ritrosa.

In me non è pietade al tutto estinta
Faccia di voi la prova chi gli pare,
Sino alla corda, the mi trovo cinta;

Gli presterò, volendosi impiccare. "

So! I've got rid of these two creeping things,
That fain would have scratched up my buried gold.
They're gone; and may the curse of God go with them!
May they reach home dust in good time enough
To break their legs at the first step in doors,
And necks i' the second! --And now then, as to you,
Good audience,--groundlings,--folks who love low places,
You too perhaps would fain get something of me,
Ere I take leave. --Well;--angered though I be,
Scornful and torn with rage at being ground
Into the dust with wrong, I'm not so lost
To all concern and charity for others
As not to be still kind enough to part
With something near to me-something that's wound
About my very self. Here, sirs; mark this;--
_[Untying the cord round his waist_.
Let any that would put me to the test,
Take it with all my heart, and hang themselves.

The comedy of _Timon_, which was chiefly taken from Lucian, and one,
if not more, of Boiardo's prose translations from other ancients, were
written at the request of Duke Ercole, who was a great lover of dramatic
versions of this kind, and built a theatre for their exhibition at an
enormous expense. These prose translations consist of Apuleius's
_Golden Ass_, Herodotus (the Duke's order), the _Golden Ass_ of Lucian,
Xenophon's _Cyropædia_ (not printed), Emilius Probus (also not printed,
and supposed to be Cornelius Nepos), and Riccobaldo's credulous _Historia
Universalis_, with additions. It seems not improbable, that he also
translated Homer and Diodorus; and Doni the bookmaker asserts, that he
wrote a work called the _Testamento dell' Anima_ (the Soul's Testament)
but Mr. Panizzi calls Doni "a barefaced impostor;" and says, that as
the work is mentioned by nobody else, we may be "certain that it never
existed," and that the title was "a forgery of the impudent priest. "

Nothing else of Boiardo's writing is known to exist, but a collection
of official letters in the archives of Modena, which, according to
Tiraboschi, are of no great importance. It is difficult to suppose,
however, that they would not be worth looking at. The author of the
_Orlando Innamorato_ could hardly write, even upon the driest matters
of government, with the aridity of a common clerk. Some little lurking
well-head of character or circumstance, interesting to readers of a later
age, would probably break through the barren ground. Perhaps the letters
went counter to some of the good Jesuit's theology.

Boiardo's prose translations from the authors of antiquity are so scarce,
that Mr. Panizzi himself, a learned and miscellaneous reader, says he
never saw them. I am willing to get the only advantage in my power
over an Italian critic, by saying that I have had some of them in my
hands,--brought there by the pleasant chances of the bookstalls; but I
can give no account of them. A modern critic, quoted by this gentleman
(Gamba, _Testi di Lingua_), calls the version of Apuleius "rude and
curious;"[3] but adds, that it contains "expressions full of liveliness
and propriety. " By "rude" is probably meant obsolete, and comparatively
unlearned. Correctness of interpretation and classical nicety of style
(as Mr. Panizzi observes) were the growths of a later age.

Nothing is told us by his biographers of the person of Boiardo: and it is
not safe to determine a man's _physique_ from his writings, unless
perhaps with respect to the greater or less amount of his animal spirits;
for the able-bodied may write effeminately, and the feeblest supply the
defect of corporal stamina with spiritual. Portraits, however, seem to be
extant. Mazzuchelli discovered that a medal had been struck in the
poet's honour; and in the castle of Scandiano (though "the halls where
knights and ladies listened to the adventures of the Paladin are now
turned into granaries," and Orlando himself has nearly disappeared
from the outside, where he was painted in huge dimensions as
if "entrusted with the wardenship") there was a likeness of Boiardo
executed by Niccolo dell' Abate, together with the principal events of
the _Orlando Innamorato_ and the _Æneid_. But part of these
paintings (Mr. Panizzi tells us) were destroyed, and part removed from
the castle to Modena" to save them from certain loss;" and he does not
add whether the portrait was among the latter.

From anecdotes, however, and from the poet's writings, we gather the
nature of the man; and this appears to have been very amiable. There is
an aristocratic tone in his poem, when speaking of the sort of people of
whom the mass of soldiers is wont to consist; and Foscolo says, that the
Count of Scandiano writes like a feudal lord. But common soldiers are not
apt to be the _elite_ of mankind; neither do we know with how goodnatured
a smile the mention of them may have been accompanied. People often give
a tone to what they read, more belonging to their own minds than the
author's. All the accounts left us of Boiardo, hostile as well as
friendly, prove him to have been an indulgent and popular man. According
to one, he was fond of making personal inquiries among its inhabitants
into the history of his native place; and he requited them so generously
for their information, that it was customary with them to say, when they
wished good fortune to one another, "Heaven send Boiardo to your house! "
There is said to have been a tradition at Scandiano, that having tried in
vain one day, as he was riding out, to discover a name for one of his
heroes, expressive of his lofty character, and the word _Rodamonte_
coming into his head, he galloped back with a pleasant ostentation to his
castle, crying it out aloud, and ordering the bells of the place to be
rung in its holiour; to the astonishment of the good people, who took
"Rodamonte" for some newly-discovered saint. His friend Paganelli of
Modena, who wrote a Latin poem on the _Empire of Cupid_, extolled
the Governor of Reggio for ranking among the deity's most generous
vassals,--one who, in spite of his office of magistrate, looked with
an indulgent eye on errors to which himself was liable, and who was
accustomed to prefer the study of love-verses to that of the law. The
learned lawyer, his countryman Panciroli, probably in resentment, as
Panizzi says, of this preference, accused him of an excess of benignity,
and of being fitter for writing poems than punishing ill deeds; and in
truth, as the same critic observes, "he must have been considered crazy
by the whole tribe of lawyers of that age," if it be true that he
anticipated the opinion of Beccaria, in thinking that no crime ought to
be punished with death.

The great work of this interesting and accomplished person, the _Orlando
Innamorato_, is an epic romance, founded on the love of the great Paladin
for the peerless beauty Angelica, whose name has enamoured the ears of
posterity. The poem introduces us to the pleasantest paths in that track
of reading in which Milton has told us that his "young feet delighted to
wander. " Nor did he forsake it in his age.

"Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp,
When Agrican with all his northern powers
Besieged Albracca, as romances tell,
The city of Gallaphrone, from whence to win
The fairest of her sex, Angelica. "

_Paradise Regained. _

The _Orlando Innamorato_ may be divided into three principal
portions:-the search for Angelica by Orlando and her other lovers; the
siege of her father's city Albracca by the Tartars; and that of Paris
and Charlemagne by the Moors. These, however, are all more or less
intermingled, and with the greatest art; and there are numerous episodes
of a like intertexture. The fairies and fairy-gardens of British romance,
and the fabulous glories of the house of Este, now proclaimed for the
first time, were added by the author to the enchantments of Pulci,
together with a pervading elegance; and had the poem been completed, we
were to have heard again of the traitor Gan of Maganza, for the purpose
of exalting the imaginary founder of that house, Ruggero.

This resuscitation of the Helen of antiquity, under a more seducing form,
was an invention of Boiardo's; so was the subjection of Charles's hero
Orlando to the passion of love; so, besides the heroine and her name,
was that of other interesting characters with beautiful names, which
afterwards figured in Ariosto. This inventive faculty is indeed so
conspicuous in every part of the work, on small as well as great
occasions, in fairy-adventures and those of flesh and blood, that
although the author appears to have had both his loves and his fairies
suggested to him by our romances of Arthur and the Round Table, it
constitutes, next to the pervading elegance above mentioned, his chief
claim to our admiration. Another of his merits is a certain tender
gallantry, or rather an honest admixture of animal passion with
spiritual, also the precursor of the like ingenuous emotions in Ariosto;
and he furthermore set his follower the example, not only of good
breeding, but of a constant heroical cheerfulness, looking with faith on
nature. Pulci has a constant cheerfulness, but not with so much grace and
dignity. Foscolo has remarked, that Boiardo's characters even surpass
those of Ariosto in truth and variety, and that his Angelica more engages
our feelings;[4] to which I will venture to add, that if his style is
less strong and complete, it never gives us a sense of elaboration. I
should take Boiardo to have been the healthier man, though of a less
determined will than Ariosto, and perhaps, on the whole, less robust.
You find in Boiardo almost which Ariosto perfected,--chivalry, battles,
combats, loves and graces, passions, enchantments, classical and romantic
fable, eulogy, satire, mirth, pathos, philosophy. It is like the first
sketch of a great picture, not the worse in some respects for being a
sketch; free and light, though not so grandly coloured. It is the morning
before the sun is up, and when the dew is on the grass. Take the stories
which are translated in the present volume, and you might fancy them all
written by Ariosto, with a difference; the _Death of Agrican_ perhaps
with minuter touches of nature, but certainly not with greater simplicity
and earnestness. In the _Saracen Friends_ there is just Ariosto's balance
of passion and levity; and in the story which I have entitled _Seeing and
Believing_, his exhibition of triumphant cunning. During the lives of
Pulci and Boiardo, the fierce passions and severe ethics of Dante had
been gradually giving way to a gentler and laxer state of opinion before
the progress of luxury; and though Boiardo's enamoured Paladin retains a
kind of virtue not common in any age to the heroes of warfare, the lord
of Scandiano, who appears to have recited his poem, sometimes to his
vassals and sometimes to the ducal circle at court, intimates a smiling
suspicion that such a virtue would be considered a little rude and
obsolete by his hearers. Pulci's wandering gallant, Uliviero, who in
Dante's time would have been a scandalous profligate, had become the
prototype of the court-lover in Boiardo's. The poet, however, in his most
favourite characters, retained and recommended a truer sentiment, as in
the instance of the loves of Brandimart and Fiordelisa; and there is
a graceful cheerfulness in some of his least sentimental ones, which
redeems them from grossness. I know not a more charming fancy in the
whole loving circle of fairy-land, than the female's shaking her long
tresses round Mandricardo, in order to furnish him with a mantle, when he
issues out of the enchanted fountain. [5]

But Boiardo's poem was unfinished: there are many prosaical passages
in it, many lame and harsh lines, incorrect and even ungrammatical
expressions, trivial images, and, above all, many Lombard provincialisms,
which are not in their nature of a "significant or graceful" sort,[6] and
which shocked the fastidious Florentines, the arbiters of Italian taste.
It was to avoid these in his own poetry, that Boiardo's countryman
Ariosto carefully studied the Tuscan dialect, if not visited Florence
itself; and the consequence was, that his greater genius so obscured the
popularity of his predecessor, that a remarkable process, unique in the
history of letters, appears to have been thought necessary to restore
its perusal. The facetious Berni, a Tuscan wit full of genius, without
omitting any particulars of consequence, or adding a single story except
of himself, re-cast the whole poem of Boiardo, altering the diction of
almost every stanza, and supplying introductions to the cantos after the
manner of Ariosto; and the Florentine idiom and unfailing spirit of this
re-fashioner's verse (though, what is very curious, not till after a long
chance of its being overlooked itself, and a posthumous editorship which
has left doubts on the authority of the text) gradually effaced almost
the very mention of the man's name who had supplied him with the whole
staple commodity of his book, with all the heart of its interest, and
with far the greater part of the actual words. The first edition of Berni
was prohibited in consequence of its containing a severe attack on the
clergy; but even the prohibition did not help to make it popular. The
reader may imagine a similar occurrence in England, by supposing that
Dryden had re-written the whole of Chaucer, and that his reconstruction
had in the course of time as much surpassed the original in popularity,
as his version of the _Flower and the Leaf_ did, up to the beginning of
the present century.

I do not mean to compare Chaucer with Boiardo, or Dryden with Berni. Fine
poet as I think Boiardo, I hold Chaucer to be a far finer; and spirited,
and in some respects admirable, as are Dryden's versions of Chaucer, they
do not equal that of Boiardo by the Tuscan. Dryden did not apprehend
the sentiment of Chaucer in any such degree as Berni did that of his
original. Indeed, Mr. Panizzi himself, to whom the world is indebted both
for the only good edition of Boiardo and for the knowledge of the most
curious facts respecting Berni's _rifacimento_, declares himself unable
to pronounce which of the two poems is the better one, the original
Boiardo, or the re-modelled. It would therefore not very well become a
foreigner to give a verdict, even if he were able; and I confess, after
no little consideration (and apart, of course, from questions of dialect,
which I cannot pretend to look into), I feel myself almost entirely at a
loss to conjecture on which side the superiority lies, except in point
of invention and a certain early simplicity. The advantage in those two
respects unquestionably belongs to Boiardo; and a great one it is, and
may not unreasonably be supposed to settle the rest of the question in
his favour; and yet Berni's fancy, during a more sophisticate period of
Italian manners, exhibited itself so abundantly in his own witty poems,
his pen at all times has such a charming facility, and he proved himself,
in his version of Boiardo, to have so strong a sympathy with the
earnestness and sentiment of his original in his gravest moments, that I
cannot help thinking the two men would have been each what the other was
in their respective times;--the Lombard the comparative idler, given more
to witty than serious invention, under a corrupt Roman court; and the
Tuscan the originator of romantic fictions, in a court more suited to him
than the one he avowedly despised. I look upon them as two men singularly
well matched. The nature of the present work does not require, and the
limits to which it is confined do not permit, me to indulge myself in a
comparison between them corroborated by proofs; but it is impossible not
to notice the connexion: and therefore, begging the reader's pardon for
the sorry substitute of affirmative for demonstrative criticism, I may be
allowed to say, that if Boiardo has the praise of invention to himself,
Berni thoroughly appreciated and even enriched it; that if Boiardo has
sometimes a more thoroughly charming simplicity, Berni still appreciates
it so well, that the difference of their times is sufficient to restore
the claim of equality of feeling; and finally, that if Berni strengthens
and adorns the interest of the composition with more felicitous
expressions, and with a variety of lively and beautiful trains of
thought, you feel that Boiardo was quite capable of them all, and might
have done precisely the same had he lived in Berni's age. In the greater
part of the poem the original is altered in nothing except diction,
and often (so at least it seems to me) for no other reason than the
requirements of the Tuscan manner. And this is the case with most of the
noblest, and even the liveliest passages. My first acquaintance, for
example, with the _Orlando Innamorato_ was through the medium of Berni;
and on turning to those stories in his version, which I have translated
from his original for the present volume, I found that every passage but
one, to which I had given a mark of admiration, was the property of the
old poet. That single one, however, was in the exquisitest taste, full of
as deep a feeling as any thing in its company (I have noticed it in the
translated passage). And then, in the celebrated introductions to his
cantos, and the additions to Boiardo's passages of description and
character (those about Rodamonte, for example, so admired by Foscolo), if
Berni occasionally spews a comparative want of faith which you regret, he
does it with a regret on his own part, visible through all his jesting.
Lastly, the singular and indignant strength of his execution often makes
up for the trustingness that he was sorry to miss. If I were asked, in
short, which of the two poems I should prefer keeping, were I compelled
to choose, I should first complain of being forced upon so hard an
alternative, and then, with many a look after Berni, retain Boiardo. The
invention is his; the first earnest impulse; the unmisgivings joy; the
primitive morning breath, when the town-smoke has not polluted the
fields, and the birds are singing their "wood-notes wild. " Besides, after
all, one cannot be _sure_ that Berni could have invented as Boiardo did.
If he could, he would probably have written some fine serious poem of his
own. And Panizzi has observed, with striking and conclusive truth, that
"without Berni the _Orlando Innamorato_ will be read and enjoyed; without
Boiardo not even the name of the poem remains. "[7]

Nevertheless this conclusion need not deprive us of either work. Berni
raised a fine polished edifice, copied and enlarged after that of
Boiardo;--on the other hand, the old house, thank Heaven, remains; and
our best way of settling the question between the two is, to be glad that
we have got both. Let the reader who is rich in such possessions look
upon Berni's as one of his town mansions, erected in the park-like
neighbourhood of some metropolis; and Boiardo's as the ancient country
original of it, embosomed in the woods afar off, and beautiful as the
Enchanted Castle of Claude--

"Lone sitting by the shores of old romance. "

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: The materials for the biography in this notice have been
gathered from Tiraboschi and others, but more immediately from the
copious critical memoir from the pen of Mr. Panizzi, in that gentleman's
admirable edition of the combined poems of Boiardo and Ariosto, in nine
volumes octavo, published by Mr. Pickering. I have been under obligations
to this work in the notice of Pulci, and shall again be so in that of
Boiardo's successor; but I must not a third time run the risk of omitting
to give it my thanks (such as they are), and of earnestly recommending
every lover of Italian poetry, who can afford it, to possess himself of
this learned, entertaining, and only satisfactory edition of either of
the Orlandos. The author writes an English almost as correct as it is
elegant; and he is as painstaking as he is lively. ]

[Footnote 2: She had taken a damsel in male attire for a man]

[Footnote 3: Crescimbeni himself had not seen the translation from
Apuleius, nor, apparently, several others--_Commentari, &c_. vol. ii.
part ii. lib. vii. sect. xi. ]

[Footnote 4: Article on the _Narrative and Romantic Poems of the
Italians_, in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 62, p. 527. ]

[Footnote 5:

"E' suoi capelli a sè sciolse di testa,
Che n'avea molti la dama gioconda;
Ed, abbracciato il cavalier con festa,
Tutto il coperse de la treccia bionda:
Così, nascosi entrambi di tal vesta,
Uscir' di quella fonte e la bell' onda. "

Her locks she loosened from her lovely head,
For many and long had that same lady fair;
And clasping him in mirth as round they spread,
Covered the knight with the sweet shaken hair:
And so, thus both together garmented,
They issued from the fount to the fresh air.

Readers of the _Faerie Queene_ will here see where Spenser has been,
among his other visits to the Bowers of Bliss. ]

[Footnote 6: Foscolo, _ut sup_. p. 528. ]

[Footnote 7: A late amiable man of wit, Mr. Stewart Rose, has given
a prose abstract of Berni's _Orlando Innamorato_, with occasional
versification; but it is hardly more than a dry outline, and was, indeed,
intended only as an introduction to his version of the _Furioso_. A good
idea, however, of one of the phases of Berni's humour may be obtained
from the same gentleman's abridgment of the _Animali Parlanti_ of Casti,
in which he has introduced a translation of the Tuscan's description of
himself and of his way of life, out of his additions to Boiardo's poem.
The verses in the prohibited edition of Berni's _Orlando_, in which he
denounced the corruptions of the clergy, have been published, for the
first time in this country, in the notes to the twentieth canto of Mr.
Panizzi's Boiardo. They have all his peculiar wit, together with a
_Lutheran_ earnestness; and shew him, as that critic observes, to have
been "Protestant at his heart. "

Since writing this note I have called to mind that a translation of
Berni's account of himself is to be found in Mr. Rose's prose abstract of
the _Innamorato. _]


THE ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA.

Argument.

Angelica, daughter of Galafron, king of Cathay, the most beautiful of
womankind, and a possessor of the art of magic, comes, with her brother
Argalia, to the court of Charlemagne under false pretences, in order
to carry away his knights to the country of her father. Her immediate
purpose is defeated, and her brother slain; but all the knights, Orlando
in particular, fall in love with her; and she herself, in consequence of
drinking at an enchanted fountain, becomes in love with Rinaldo. On the
other hand, Rinaldo, from drinking a neighbouring fountain of a reverse
quality, finds his own love converted to loathing. Various adventures
arise out of these circumstances; and the fountains are again drunk, with
a mutual reversal of their effects.

THE ADVENTURES OF ANGELICA

It was the month of May and the feast of Pentecost, and Charlemagne had
ordained a great jousting, which brought into Paris an infinite number of
people, baptised and infidel; for there was truce proclaimed, in order
that every knight might come. There was King Grandonio from Spain, with
his serpent's face; and Ferragus, with his eyes like an eagle; and
Balugante, the emperor's kinsman; and Orlando, and Rinaldo, and Duke
Namo; and Astolfo of England, the handsomest of mankind; and the
enchanter Malagigi; and Isoliero and Salamone; and the traitor Gan, with
his scoundrel followers; and, in short, the whole flower of the chivalry
of the age, the greatest in the world. The tables at which they feasted
were on three sides of the hall, with the emperor's canopy midway at the
top; and at that first table sat crowned heads; and down the table on the
right sat dukes and marquises; and down the table on the left, counts and
cavaliers. But the Saracen nobles, after their doggish fashion, looked
neither for chair nor bench, but preferred a carpet on the floor, which
was accordingly spread for them in the midst.

High sat Charlemagne at the head of his vassals and his Paladins,
rejoicing in the thought of all the great men of which they consisted,
and holding the infidels cheap as the sands which are scattered by the
tempest. To each of his lords, as they drank, he sent round, by his
pages, gifts of enamelled cups of exquisite workmanship; and to every
body some mark of his princely distinction; and so they were all sitting
and hearing music, and feasting off dishes of gold, and talking of lovely
things with low voices,[1] when suddenly there came into the hall four
enormous giants, in the midst of whom was a lady, and behind the lady
there followed a cavalier. She was a very lily of the field, and a rose
of the garden, and a morning-star; in short, so beautiful that the like
had never been seen. There was Galerana in the hall; there was Alda,
the wife of Orlando; and Clarice, and Armellina the kind-hearted, and
abundance of other ladies, all beautiful till she made her appearance;
but after that they seemed nothing. Every Christian knight turned his
face that way; and not a Pagan remained on the floor, but arose and got
as near to her as he could; while she, with a cheerful sweetness, and
a smile fit to enamour a heart of stone, began speaking the following
words:

"High-minded lord, the renown of your worthiness, and the valour of these
your knights, which echoes from sea to sea, encourages me to hope, that
two pilgrims who have come from the ends of the world to behold you, will
not have encountered their fatigue in vain. And to the end that I may not
hold your attention too long with speaking, let me briefly say, that
this knight here, Uberto of the Lion, a prince renowned also for his
achievements, has been wrongfully driven from out his dominions; and that
I, who was driven out with him, am his sister, whose name is Angelica.
Fame has told us of the jousting this day appointed, and of the noble
press of knights here assembled, and how your generous natures care not
to win prizes of gold or jewels, or gifts of cities, but only a wreath of
roses; and so the prince my brother has come to prove his own valour, and
to say, that if any or all of your guests, whether baptised or infidel,
choose to meet him in the joust, he will encounter them one by one, in
the green meadow without the walls, near the place called the Horseblock
of Merlin, by the Fountain of the Pine. And his conditions are
these,--that no knight who chances to be thrown shall have license to
renew the combat in any way whatsoever, but remain a submissive prisoner
in his hands; he, on the other hand, if himself be thrown, agreeing to
take his departure out of the country with his giants, and to leave his
sister, for prize, in the hands of the conqueror. "

Kneeling at the close of these words, the lady awaited the answer of
Charlemagne, and every body gazed on her with astonishment. Orlando
especially, more than all the rest, felt irresistibly drawn towards her,
so that his heart trembled, and he changed countenance. But he felt
ashamed at the same time; and casting his eyes down, he said to himself,
"Ah, mad and unworthy Orlando! whither is thy soul being hurried? I am
drawn, and cannot say nay to what draws me. I reckoned the whole world as
nothing, and now I am conquered by a girl. I cannot get her sweet look
out of my heart. My soul seems to die within me, at the thought of being
without her. It is love that has seized me, and I feel that nothing will
set me free;--not strength, nor courage, nor my own wisdom, nor that of
any adviser. I see the better part, and cleave to the worse. "[2]

Thus secretly in his heart did the frank and noble Orlando lament over
his new feelings; and no wonder; for every knight in the hall was
enamoured of the beautiful stranger, not excepting even old white-headed
Duke Namo. Charlemagne himself did not escape.

All stood for awhile in silence, lost in the delight of looking at
her. The fiery youth Ferragus was the first to exhibit symptoms in his
countenance of uncontrollable passion. He refrained with difficulty from
going up to the giants, and tearing her out of their keeping. Rinaldo
also turned as red as fire; while his cousin Malagigi the enchanter, who
had discovered that the stranger was not speaking truth, muttered softly,
as he looked at her, "Exquisite false creature! I will play thee such a
trick for this, as will leave thee no cause to boast of thy visit. "

Charlemagne, to detain her as long as possible before him, made a speech
in answer, in which he talked and looked, and looked and talked, till
there seemed no end of it. At length, however, the challenge was accepted
in all its forms; and the lady quitted the hall with her brother and the
giants.

She had not yet passed the gates, when Malagigi the enchanter consulted
his books; and that no means might be wanting to complete the
counteraction of what he suspected, he summoned to his aid three spirits
out of the lower regions. But how serious his look turned, how his very
soul within him was shaken, when he discovered that the most dreadful
disasters hung over Charles and his court, and that the sister of the
pretended Uberto was daughter of King Galafron of Cathay, a beauty
accomplished in every species of enchantment, and sent there by her
father on purpose to betray them all! Her brother's name was not Uberto,
but Argalia. Galafron had given him a horse swifter than the wind, an
enchanted sword, a golden lance, also enchanted, which overthrew all whom
it touched,[3] and a ring of a virtue so extraordinary, that if put into
the mouth, it rendered the person invisible, and if worn on the finger,
nullified every enchantment.
But beyond even all this, he gave him his
sister for a companion; rightly judging, that every body that saw her
would fall into the proposal of the joust; and trusting that, at the
close of it, she would bring him the whole court of France into Cathay,
prisoners in her hands.

Such, Malagigi discovered, was the plot of the accursed infidel hound,
King Galafron. [4]

Meantime the pretended Uberto had returned to his station at the
Horseblock of Merlin. He had had a beautiful pavilion pitched there; and
under this pavilion he lay down awhile to refresh himself with sleep. His
sister Angelica lay down also, but in the open air, under the great pine
by the fountain. The four giants kept watch: and as she lay thus asleep,
with her fair head on the grass, she appeared like an angel come down
from heaven.

By this time Malagigi, borne by one of his demons, had arrived in the
same place. He saw the beauty asleep by the flowery water, and the four
giants all wide awake; and he said within his teeth,--" Brute scoundrels,
I will take every one of you into my net without a blow. "

Malagigi took his book, and cast a spell out of it; and in an instant
the whole four giants were buried in sleep. Then, drawing his sword, he
softly approached the young lady, intending to despatch her as quickly:
but seeing her look so lovely as she slept, he paused, and considered
within himself, and resolved to detain her in the same state by
enchantment, so long as it should please him. Laying down the naked sword
in the grass, he again took his book, and read and read on, and still
read on, and fancied he was locking up her senses all the while in a
sleep unwakeable. But the ring of which I have spoken was on her finger.
She had borrowed it of her brother; and a superior power rendered all
other magic of no avail. A touch from Malagigi to prove the force of his
spell awoke her, to the magician's consternation, with a great cry. She
fled into the arms of her brother, whom it aroused; and, by the help of
his sister's knowledge of enchantment, Argalia mastered and bound the
magician. The book was then turned against him, and the place was
suddenly filled with a crowd of his own demons, every one of them crying
out to Angelica, "What commandest thou? "

"Take this man," said Angelica, "and bear him prisoner to the great city
between Tartary and India, where my father Galafron is lord. Present him
to him in my name, and say it was I that took him; and add, that having
so taken the master of the book, I care not for all the other lords of
the court of Charlemagne. "

At the end of these words, and at one and the same instant, the magician
was conveyed to the feet of Galafron in Cathay, and locked up in a rock
under the sea.

In due time the enamoured knights, according to agreement, came to the
spot, for the purpose of jousting with the supposed Uberto, each anxious
to have the first encounter, particularly Orlando, in order that he might
not see the beauty carried off by another. But they were obliged to draw
lots; and thirty other names appeared before his, the first of which was
that of Astolfo the Englishman.

Now Astolfo was son of the king of England; and as I said before, he was
the handsomest man in the world. He was also very rich and well bred, and
loved to dress well, and was as brave as he was handsome; but his success
was not always equal to his bravery. He had a trick of being thrown from
his horse, a failing which he was accustomed to attribute to accident;
and then he would mount again, and be again thrown from the saddle, in
the boldest manner conceivable.

This gallant prince was habited, on the present occasion, in arms worth a
whole treasury. His shield had a border of large pearls; his mail was of
gold; on his helmet was a ruby as big as a chestnut; and his horse was
covered with a cloth all over golden leopards. [5] He issued to the
combat, looking at nobody and fearing nothing; and on his sounding
the horn to battle, Argalia came forth to meet him. After courteous
salutations, the two combatants rushed together; but the moment the
Englishman was touched with the golden lance, his legs flew over his
head.

"Cursed fortune! " cried he, as he lay on the grass; "this is out of all
calculation. But it was entirely owing to the saddle. You can't but
acknowledge, that if I had kept my seat, the beautiful lady would have
been mine. But thus it is when Fortune chooses to befriend infidels! "[6]

The four giants, who had by this time been disenchanted out of their
sleep by Angelica, took up the English prince, and put him in the
pavilion. But when he was stripped of his armour, he looked so handsome,
that the lovely stranger secretly took pity on him, and bade them shew
him all the courtesies that captivity allowed. He was permitted to walk
outside by the fountain; and Angelica, from a dark corner, looked at him
with admiration, as he walked up and down in the moonlight. [7]

The violent Ferragus had the next chance in the encounter, and was thrown
no less speedily than Astolfo; but he did not so easily put up with the
mischance. Crying out, "What are the emperor's engagements to me? " he
rushed with his sword against Argalia, who, being forced to defend himself
unexpectedly, dismounted and set aside his lance, and got so much the
worse of the fight, that he listened to proposals of marriage from
Ferragus to his sister. The beauty, however, not feeling an inclination
to match with so rough and savage-looking a person, was so dismayed at
the offer, that, hastily bidding her brother meet her in the forest of
Arden, she vanished from the sight of both, by means of the enchanted
ring. Argalia, seeing this, took to his horse of swiftness, and dashed
away in the same direction; Ferragus, in distraction, pursued Argalia;
and Astolfo, thus left to himself, took possession of the golden lance,
and again issued forth--not, indeed, with quite his usual confidence of
the result, but determined to run all risks, in any thing that might
ensue, for the sake of the emperor. In fine, to cut this part of the
history short, Charlemagne, finding the lady and her brother gone,
ordered the joust to be restored to its first intention; and Astolfo,
who was as ignorant as the others of the treasure he possessed in the
enchanted lance, unhorsed all comers against him like so many children,
equally to their astonishment and his own.

The Paladin Rinaldo now learnt the issue of the fight between Ferragus
and the stranger, and galloped in a loving agony of pursuit after
the fair fugitive. Orlando learnt the disappearance of Rinaldo, and,
distracted with jealousy, pushed forth in like manner; and at length all
three are in the forest of Arden, hunting about for her who is invisible.

Now in this forest were two enchanted waters, the one a running stream,
and the other a built fountain; the first caused every body who tasted it
to fall in love, and the other (so to speak) to fall _out_ of love; say,
rather, to feel the love turned into hate. To the latter of these two
waters Rinaldo happened to come; and being flushed with heat and anxiety,
he dismounted from his horse, and quenched, in one cold draught, both his
thirst and his passion. So far from loving Angelica as before, or holding
her beauty of any account, he became disgusted with its pursuit, nay,
hated her from the bottom of his heart; and so, in this new state of
mind, and with feelings of lofty contempt, he remounted and rode away,
and happened to come on the bank of the running stream. There, enticed by
the beauty of the place, which was all sweet meadow-ground and bowers of
trees, he again quitted his saddle, and, throwing himself on the ground,
fell fast asleep. Unfortunately for the proud beauty Angelica, or rather
in just punishment for her contempt, her palfrey conducted her to this
very place. The water tempted her to drink, and, dismounting and tying
the animal to one of the trees, she did so, and then cast her eyes on the
sleeping Rinaldo. Love instantly seized her, and she stood rooted to the
spot.

The meadow round about was all full of lilies of the valley and wild
roses. Angelica, not knowing what to do, at length plucked a quantity
of these, and with her white hand she dropped them on the face of the
sleeper. He woke up; and seeing who it was, not only received her
salutations with a change of countenance, but remounting his horse,
galloped away through the thickest part of the forest. In vain the
beautiful creature followed and called after him; in vain asked him what
she had done to be so despised, and entreated him, at any rate, to take
care how he went so fast. Rinaldo disappeared, leaving her to wring her
hands in despair; and she returned in tears to the spot on which she had
found him sleeping. There, in her turn, she herself lay down, pressing
the spot of earth on which he had lain; and so, weeping and lamenting,
yet blessing every flower and bit of grass that he had touched, fell
asleep out of fatigue and sorrow.

As Angelica thus lay, the good or bad fortune of Orlando conducted him to
the same place. The attitude in which she was sleeping was so lovely
that it is not even to be conceived, much less expressed. The very grass
seemed to flower on all sides of her for joy; and the stream, as it
murmured along, to go talking of love. [8] Orlando stood gazing like a man
who had been transported to another sphere. "Am I on earth," thought he,
"or am I in paradise? Surely it is I myself that am sleeping, and this is
my dream. "

But his dream was proved to be none, in a manner which he little desired.
Ferragus, who had slain Argalia, came up raging with jealousy, and a
combat ensued which awoke the sleeper. Terrified at what she beheld, she
rushed to her palfrey; and while the fighters were occupied with one
another, fled away through the forest.

Fast fled the beauty in the direction taken by Rinaldo; nor did she
cease travelling, by one conveyance or another, till she reached her own
country, whither she had sent Malagigi. Him she freed from his prison,
on condition that he would employ his art for the purpose of bringing
Rinaldo to a palace of hers, which she possessed in an island; and
accordingly Rinaldo was inveigled by a spirit into an enchanted barque,
which he found on a sea-shore, and which conveyed him, without any
visible pilot, into Joyous Palace (for so the island was called).

The whole island was a garden, fifteen miles in extent. It was full of
trees and lawns; and on the western side, close to the sea, was the
palace, built of a marble so clear and polished, that it reflected the
landscape round about. Rinaldo, not knowing what to think of his strange
conveyance, lost no time in leaping to shore; upon which a lady made her
appearance, who invited him within. The house was a most beautiful house,
full of rooms adorned with azure and gold, and with noble paintings;
and within as well as without it were the loveliest flowers, the purest
fountains, and a fragrance fit to turn sorrow to joy. The lady led the
knight into an apartment painted with stories, and opening to the garden
through pillars of crystal with golden capitals. Here he found a bevy of
ladies, three of whom were singing in concert, while another played on
some foreign instrument of exquisite accord, and the rest were dancing
round about them. When the ladies beheld him coming, they turned the
dance into a circuit round about himself; and then one of them, in the
sweetest manner, said, "Sir knight, the tables are set, and the hour
for the banquet is come:" and with these words they all drew him, still
dancing, across the lawn in front of the apartment, to a table that was
spread with cloth of gold and fine linen, under a bower of damask roses,
by the side of a fountain. [9]

Four ladies were already seated there, who rose and placed Rinaldo
at their head, in a chair set with pearls. And truly indeed was he
astonished. A repast ensued, consisting of viands the most delicate, and
wines as fragrant as they were fine, drunk out of jewelled cups; and
when it drew towards its conclusion, harps and lutes were heard in the
distance, and one of the ladies said in the knight's ear, "This house,
and all that you see in it, are yours. For you alone was it built, and
the builder is a queen; and happy indeed must you think yourself, for
she loves you, and she is the greatest beauty in the world. Her name is
Angelica. "

The moment Rinaldo heard the name he so detested, disgust and
wretchedness fell upon his heart, notwithstanding the joys around him. He
started up with a changed countenance, and, in spite of all that the lady
could say, broke off across the garden, and never ceased hastening till
he reached the place where he landed. He would have thrown himself into
the sea, rather than stay any longer in that island; but the enchanted
barque was still on the shore. He sprang into it, and attempted instantly
to push off, for he still saw nobody in it but himself; but the barque
for a while resisted his efforts; till, on his feeling a wish to drown
himself, or to do any thing rather than return to that detested house, it
suddenly loosed itself from its moorings, and dashed away with him over
the sea, as if in a fury.

All night did the pilotless barque dash on, till it reached, in the
morning, a distant shore covered with a gloomy forest. Here Rinaldo,
surrounded by enchantments of a very different sort from those which he
had lately resisted, was entrapped into a pit. The pit belonged to a
castle which was hung with human heads, and painted red with blood; and
as the Paladin was calling upon God to help him, a hideous white-headed
old woman, of a spiteful countenance, made her appearance on the edge of
the pit, and told him that he must fight with a monster born of Death and
Desire.

"Be it so," said the Paladin. "Let me but remain armed as I am, and I
fear nothing. " For Rinaldo had with him his renowned sword Fusberta. [10]

The old woman laughed in derision. Rinaldo remained in the den all night,
and next day was taken to a place where a portcullis was lifted up, and
the monster rushed forth. He was a mixture of hog and serpent, larger
than an ox, and not to be looked at without horror. He had eyes like a
traitor, the hands of a man, but clawed, a beard dabbled with blood, a
skin of coarse variegated colours, too hard to be cut through, and two
horns on his temples, which he could turn on all sides of him at his
pleasure, and which were so sharp that they cut like a sword.

Rising on his hind-legs, and opening a mouth six palms in width, this
horrible beast fell heavily on Rinaldo, who was nevertheless quick enough
to give it a blow on the snout which increased its fury. Returning the
knight a tremendous cuff, it seized his coat of mail between breast and
shoulder, and tore away a great strip of it down to the girdle,
leaving the skin bare. Every successive rent and blow was of the like
irresistible violence; and though the Paladin himself never fought with
more force and fury, he lost blood every instant. The monster at length
tearing his sword out of his hand, the Paladin surely began to think that
his last hour was arrived.

Looking about to see what might possibly help him, he observed overhead
a beam sticking out of a wall at the height of some ten feet. He took a
leap more than human; and reaching the beam with his hand, succeeded in
flinging himself up across it. Here he sat for hours, the furious brute
continually trying to reach him. Night-time then came on with a clear
starry sky and moonlight, and the Paladin could discern no way of
escaping, when he heard a sound of something, he knew not what, coming
through the air like a bird. Suddenly a female figure stood on the end of
the beam, holding something in her hand towards him, and speaking in a
loving voice.

It was Angelica, come with means for destroying the monster, and carrying
the knight away.

But the moment Rinaldo saw her, desperate as seemed to be his condition,
he renounced all offers of her assistance; and at length became so
exasperated with her good offices, especially when she opened her arms
and offered to bear him away in them, that he threatened to cast himself
down to the monster if she did not go away. [11]

Angelica, saying that she would lose her life rather than displease him,
descended from the beam; and having given the monster a cake of wax which
fastened up his teeth, and then caught and fixed him in a set of nooses
she had brought for that purpose, took her miserable departure. Rinaldo
upon this got down from the beam himself; and having succeeded, though
with the greatest difficulty, in beating and squeezing the life out of
the monster, dealt such havoc among the people of the castle who
assailed him, that the horrible old woman, whose crimes had made her the
creature's housekeeper, and led her to take delight in its cruelty, threw
herself headlong from a tower. The Paladin then took his way forth,
turning his back on the castle and the sea-shore.

Angelica returned to the capital of her father's dominion, Albracca; and
the pertinacity of others in seeking her love being as great as that of
hers for Rinaldo, she found King Galafron, in a short time, besieged
there for her sake, by the fierce Agrican, king of Tartary.

In a short time a jealous feud sprang up between the loving friends
Rinaldo and Orlando; and Angelica, torn with conflicting emotions, from
her dread on her father's account as well as her own, and her aversion
to every knight but her detester, was at one time compelled to apply to
Orlando for assistance, and at another, being afraid that he would have
the better of Rinaldo in combat, to send him away on a perilous adventure
elsewhere, with a promise of accepting his love should he succeed. [12]
Orlando went, but not before he had slain Agrican and delivered Albracca.
Circumstances, however, again took him with her to a distance, as the
reader will see, ere he could bring her to perform her promise; and the
Paladins in general having again been scattered abroad, it happened that
Rinaldo a second time found himself in the forest of Arden; and here,
without expecting it, he became an altered man; for he now tasted a very
different stream from that which had given him his hate for Angelica;
namely, the one which had made her fall in love with himself. He was led
to do this by a very extraordinary adventure.

In the thick of the forest he had come upon a mead full of flowers, in
which there was a naked youth, singing in the midst of three damsels, who
were naked also, and who were dancing round about him. They had bunches
of flowers in their hands, and garlands on their heads; and as they
were thus delighting themselves, with faces full of love and joy, they
suddenly changed countenance on seeing Rinaldo. "Behold," cried they, "the
traitor! Behold him, villain that he is, and the scorner of all delights!
He has fallen into the net at last. " With these words they fell upon him
with the flowers like so many furies; and tender as such scourges might
be thought, every blow which the roses and violets gave him, every fresh
stroke of the lilies and the hyacinths, smote him to the very heart, and
filled his veins with fire. The flowers in the bands of the nymphs
being exhausted, the youth gave him a blow on the helmet with a tall
garden-lily, which felled him to the earth; and so, taking him by the
legs, and dragging him over the grass, his conqueror went the whole
circuit of the mead with him, the nymphs taking the very garlands off
their heads, and again scourging him with their white and red roses. [13]

At the close of this discipline, which left him more exhausted than
twenty battles, his enemies suddenly developed wings from their
shoulders, the feathers of which were of white and gold and vermilion,
every feather having an eye in it, not like those in the peacock's
feathers, but one full of life and motion, being a female eye, lovely and
gracious. And with these wings they poised themselves a little, and so
sprung up to heaven. [14]

The Paladin, more dead than alive, lay helpless among the flowers, when a
fourth nymph came up to him, of inexpressible beauty. She told him that
he had grievously offended the naked youth, who was no other than Love
himself; and added, that his only remedy was to be penitent, and to drink
of the waters of a stream hard by, which he would find running from the
roots of an olive-tree and a pine. With these words, she vanished in her
turn like the rest; and Rinaldo, dragging himself as well as he could to
the olive and pine, stooped down, and greedily drank of the water. Again
and again he drank, and wished still to be drinking, for it took not only
all pain out of his limbs, but all hate and bitterness out of his soul,
and produced such a remorseful and doating memory of Angelica, that he
would fain have galloped that instant to Cathay, and prostrated himself
at her feet. By degrees he knew the place; and looking round about him,
and preparing to remount his horse, he discerned a knight and a lady in
the distance. The knight was in a coat of armour unknown to him, and the
lady kneeling and drinking at a fountain, which was the one that had
formerly quenched his own thirst; to wit, the Fountain of Disdain.

Alas! it was Angelica herself; and the knight was Orlando. She had
allowed him to bring her into France, ostensibly for the purpose of
wedding him at the court of Charlemagne, whither the hero's assistance
had been called against Agramant king of the Moors, but secretly with the
object of discovering Rinaldo. Rinaldo, behold! is discovered; but the
fatal averse water has been drunk, and Angelica now hates him in turn, as
cordially as he detested her. In vain he accosted her in the humblest and
most repentant manner, calling himself the unworthiest of mankind, and
entreating to be allowed to love her. Orlando, disclosing himself,
fiercely interrupted him; and a combat so terrific ensued, that Angelica
fled away on her palfrey till she came to a large plain, in which she
beheld an army encamped.

The army was Charlemagne's, who had come to meet Rodamonte, one of the
vassals of Agramant. Angelica, in a tremble, related how she had left the
two Paladins fighting in the wood; and Charlemagne, who was delighted to
find Orlando so near him, proceeded thither with his lords, and parting
the combatants by his royal authority, suppressed the dispute between
them for the present, by consigning the object of their contention to the
care of Namo duke of Bavaria, with the understanding that she was to be
the prize of the warrior who should best deserve her in the approaching
battle with the infidels.

[This is the last we hear of Angelica in the unfinished poem of Boiardo.
For the close of her history see its continuation by Ariosto in the
present volume. ]


[Footnote 1: "Con parlar basso e bei ragionamenti. "]

[Footnote 2: _Video meliora, proboque, &c. _ Writers were now beginning
to pride themselves on their classical reading. The present occasion,
it must be owned, was a very good one for introducing the passage from
Horace. The previous words have an affecting ingenuousness; and, indeed,
the whole stanza is beautiful:

"Io non mi posso dal cor dipartire
La dolce vista del viso sereno,
Perch'io mi sento senza lei morire,
E 'l spirto a poco a poco venir meno.
Or non mi vale forza, nè l'ardire
Contra d' amor, the m' ha già posto il freno;
Nè mi giova saper, ne altrui consiglio:
Il meglio veggio, ed al peggior m'appiglio. "

Alas! I cannot, though I shut mine eyes,
Lose the sweet look of that delightful face;
The very soul within me droops and dies,
To think that I may fail to gain her grace.
No strong limbs now, no valour, will suffice
To burst the spell that roots me to the place:
No, nor reflection, nor advice, nor force;
I see the better part, and clasp the worse. ]

[Footnote 3:
[Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou, kai panta krataeseis. ]

"Make war with silver spears, and you'll beat all. "

The reader will note the allegory or not, as he pleases. It is a very
good allegory; but allegory, by the due process of enchantment, becomes
matter of fact; and it is pleasant to take it as such. ]

[Footnote 4: "Rè Galagron, il maledetto cane"]

[Footnote 5: The lions in the shield of England were leopards in the
"olden time," and it is understood, I believe, ought still to be so,--as
Napoleon, with an invidious pedantry, once permitted himself to be angry
enough to inform us. ]

[Footnote 6: The character of Astolfo, the germ of which is in our own
ancient British romances, appears to have been completed by the lively
invention of Boiardo, and is a curious epitome of almost all which has
been discerned in the travelled Englishmen by the envy of poorer and the
wit of livelier foreigners. He has the handsomeness and ostentation of a
Buckingham, the wealth of a Beckford, the generosity of a Carlisle, the
invincible pretensions of a Crichton, the self-commitals and bravery of
a Digby, the lucklessness of a Stuart, and the _nonchalance_ "under
difficulties" of "_Milord What-then_" in Voltaire's _Princess of
Babylon_, where the noble traveller is discovered philosophically reading
the news-paper in his carriage after it was overturned. English beauty,
ever since the days of Pope Gregory, with his pun about Angles and
Angels, has been greatly admired in the south of Europe--not a little,
perhaps, on account of the general fairness of its complexion. I once
heard a fair-faced English gentleman, who would have been thought rather
effeminate looking at home, called an "Angel" by a lady in Genoa. ]

[Footnote 7:

"Stava disciolto, senza guardia alcuna,
Ed intorno a la fonte sollazzava;
Angelica nel lume de la luna,
Quanto potea nascosa, lo mirava. "

There is something wonderfully soft and _lunar_ in the liquid monotony of
the third line. ]

[Footnote 8:

"La qual dormiva in atto tanto adorno,
Che pensar non si può, non ch'io lo scriva
Parea che l'erba a lei fiorisse intorno,
E d'amor ragionasse quella riva. "

Her posture, as she lay, was exquisite
Above all words--nay, thought itself above:
The grass seemed flowering round her in delight,
And the soft river murmuring of love. ]

[Footnote 9: Supremely elegant all this appears to me. ]

[Footnote 10: Sometimes called in the romances _Frusberta_ (query, from
_fourbir_, to burnish; or, _froisser_, to crush? ). The meaning does not
seem to be known. I ought to have observed, in the notes to Pulci, that
the name of Orlando's sword, _Durlindana_ (called also _Durindana,
Durandal_, &c. ), is understood to mean _Hardhitter_. ]

[Footnote 11: The force of aversion was surely never better imagined than
in this scene of the opened arms of beauty, and the knight's preference
of the most odious death. ]

[Footnote 12: Legalised, I presume, by a divorce from the hero's wife,
the fair Alda; who, though she is generally designated by that epithet,
seems never to have had much of his attention. ]

[Footnote 13: This violent effect of weapons so extremely gentle is
beautifully conceived. ]

[Footnote 14: The "female eye, lovely and gracious," is charmingly
painted _per se_, but of this otherwise thoroughly beautiful description
I must venture to doubt, whether _living_ eyes of any sort, instead of
those in the peacock's feathers, are in good taste. The imagination
revolts from life misplaced. ]


THE

DEATH OF AGRICAN

Argument.

Agrican king of Tartary, in love with Angelica, and baffled by the
prowess of the unknown Orlando in his attempts to bring the siege of
Albracca to a favourable conclusion, entices him apart from the battle
into a wood, in the hope of killing him in single combat. The combat is
suspended by the arrival of night-time; and a conversation ensues between
the warriors, which is furiously interrupted by Agrican's discovery of
his rival, and the latter's refusal to renounce his love. Agrican is
slain; and in his dying moments requests baptism at the hand of his
conqueror, who, with great tenderness, bestows it.

THE

DEATH OF AGRICAN.

The siege of Albracca was going on formidably under the command of
Agrican, and the city of Galafron was threatened with the loss of the
monarch's daughter, Angelica, when Orlando, at his earnest prayer, came
to assist him, and changing at once the whole course of the war, threw
the enemy in his turn into transports of anxiety. Wherever the great
Paladin came, pennon and standard fell before him. Men were cut up and
cloven down, at every stroke of his sword; and whereas the Indians had
been in full rout but a moment before, and the Tartars ever on their
flanks, Galafron himself being the swiftest among the spurrers away, it
was now the Tartars that fled for their lives; for Orlando was there, and
a band of fresh knights were about him, and Agrican in vain attempted to
rally his troops. The Paladin kept him constantly in his front, forcing
him to attend to nobody else. The Tartar king, who cared not a button for
Galafron and all his army,[1] provided he could but rid himself of this
terrible knight (whom he guessed at, but did not know), bethought him of
a stratagem. He turned his horse, and made a show of flying in despair.
Orlando dashed after him, as he desired; and Agrican fled till he reached
a green place in a wood, with a fountain in it.

The place was beautiful, and the Tartar dismounted to refresh himself at
the fountain, but without taking off his helmet, or laying aside any of
his armour. Orlando was quickly at his back, crying out, "So bold, and
yet such a fugitive! How could you fly from a single arm, and yet think
to escape? When a man can die with honour, he should be glad to die; for
he may live and fare worse. He may get death and infamy together. "

The Tartar king had leaped on his saddle the moment he saw his enemy; and
when the Paladin had done speaking, he said in a mild voice, "Without
doubt you are the best knight I ever encountered; and fain would I leave
you untouched for your own sake, if you would cease to hinder me from
rallying my people. I pretended to fly, in order to bring you out of the
field. If you insist upon fighting, I must needs fight and slay you; but
I call the sun in the heavens to witness, that I would rather not. I
should be very sorry for your death. "

The County Orlando felt pity for so much gallantry; and he said," The
nobler you shew yourself, the more it grieves me to think, that in dying
without a knowledge of the true faith, you will be lost in the other
world. Let me advise you to save body and soul at once. Receive baptism,
and go your way in peace. "

Agrican looked him in the face, and replied, "I suspect you to be the
Paladin Orlando. If you are, I would not lose this opportunity of
fighting with you, to be king of Paradise. Talk to me no more about your
things of the other world; for you will preach in vain. Each of us for
himself, and let the sword be umpire. "

No sooner said than done.