Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 37

Quis patre invicto gerit Hercule fortius arma, Mystica quis casto castius Hippolyto?

In another epigram, written on the death of the Cardinal, he pretends that Ippolito, hearing of Alfonso's illness, vowed his own life for his brother's and was accepted. See _Opere Minori_, i. 349.

[603] See _Satires_ ii. vii.; _Capitoli_ i. ii.

[604] Campori, _op. cit._ p. 59.

[605] See _Satire_ iv. 67-72.

[606] See _Satire_ v. 172-204.

[607] This is one of the pretty stories on which some doubt has lately been cast. See Campori, pp. 105-110, for a full discussion of its probable truth.

[608] "Small, but suited to my needs, freehold, not mean, the fruit of my own earnings." His son Virginio subst.i.tuted another inscription which may still be seen upon the little house-front: _Sic domus haec Areostea propitios habeat deos olim ut Pindarica_--"May this house of Ariosto have G.o.ds propitious as of old the house of Pindar."

[609] The date is uncertain. It was not before 1522, perhaps even so late as 1527.

[610] xv. 28; x.x.xiii. 24.

[611] See Panizzi, _op. cit._ vol. vi. p. cxix. for a description of these verbal changes.

[612] See especially _Satire_ ii. 28-51, and _Capitolo_ i.

[613] "Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa," etc., _Op. Min._ i. 365.

[614] See the _Opere Minori_, vol. i. p. 336. Also Carducci's eloquent defense of these Horatian verses in his essay, _Delle Poesie Latine di L. Ariosto_ (Bologna, Zanich.e.l.li, 1876), p. 82. The latter treatise is a learned criticism of Ariosto's Latin poetry from a point of view somewhat too indulgent to Ariosto as a poet and a man. Carducci, for example, calls the four Alcaic stanzas in question "una cosellina quasi perfetta," though they contain three third lines like these:

Furore militis tremendo....

Jacentem aquae ad murmur cadentis....

Mec.u.mque cespite hoc rec.u.mbens.

Ariosto was but second-rate among the Latin versifiers of his century.

It must, however, be added that his Latin poems were written in early manhood and only published after his death by Giambattista Pigna, in 1553.

[615] _Op. Min._ vol. i. p. 333:

Quid nostra an Gallo regi an servire Latino, Si sit idem hinc atque hinc non leve servitium?

Barbaricone esse est pejus sub nomine, quam sub Moribus? At ducibus, Dii, date digna malis.

What Ariosto thought about the Italian despots finds full expression in the _Cinque Canti_, ii. 5, 6, where he protests that Caligula, Nero, Phalaris, Dionysius and Creon were surpa.s.sed by them in cruelty and crime.

[616] I have followed the order of Lemonnier's edition, vol. i. of _Opere Minori_, Florence, 1857. But the dates of composition are uncertain, and it may be doubted whether Ariosto's own autograph can be taken as the basis of a chronological arrangement. Much obscurity rests upon these poems. We do not know, for instance, whether they were sent to the friends addressed in them by name, or whether the author intended them for publication. The student may profitably consult upon these points the lithographed facsimile of the autograph, published at Bologna by Zanich.e.l.li in 1875. Meanwhile it is enough to mention that the first epistle was addressed to Messer Gala.s.so Ariosto, the poet's brother, the second to Messer Alessandro Ariosto and Messer Lodovico da Bagno, the third and fourth to Messer Annibale Maleguccio, the fifth to Messer Sismondo Maleguccio, the sixth to Messer Buonaventura Pistofilo, and the seventh to Monsignore Pietro Bembo.

[617] The first and second _Capitoli_, upon the irksome and exhausting service of the Cardinal, as dangerous to Ariosto's health as it was irritating to his temper, should be read side by side with this Epistle.

[618] See above, p. 505, for Ariosto's liking for turnips. He ate them with vinegar and wine sauce.

[619] Compare the apologue of the gourd and the pear-tree in the sixth Satire (55-114). It is to the same effect, but even plainer.

[620] The word I have translated "magpie" is _gaza_ in the autograph.

This has been interpreted as a slip of the pen for _ganza_; but it may be a Lombardism for _gazza_. In the latter case we should translate it "magpie," in the former "sweetheart." I prefer to read _gazza_, as the ironical a.n.a.logy between a magpie and a poet is characteristic of Ariosto.

[621] The irony of this pa.s.sage is justly celebrated. After all his hopes and all the pontiff's promises, the poet gets a kiss, a trifling favor, and has to trudge down from the Vatican to his inn. The _mezza bolla_ is supposed to refer to the fine for entrance on the little benefice of Sant'Agata, half of which Leo remitted.

[622] The third elegy is a beautiful lamentation over his separation from his mistress. Written to ease his heart in solitude, it is more impa.s.sioned and less guarded than the epistle.

[623] It may be interesting to compare this scarcely disguised satire with the official flatteries of _Canzone_ ii. and _Elegies_ i., xiv., where Ariosto praises the Medici, and especially Lorenzo, as the saviours of Florence, the honor of Italy.

[624] 22-69.

[625] As when, for instance, he calls the sun in the first _Canzone_, "l'omicida lucido d'Achille." Several of the sonnets are artificial in their tropes.

[626] De Sanctis, ii.

[627] See especially the lines ent.i.tled _De sua ipsius mobilitate_.

[628] See Sonnets xii. xi. xxvi. xxiii.

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

_Note on Italian Heroic Verse._

(See above, p. 24.)

The Italian hendecasyllable is an accentual iambic line of five feet with one unaccented syllable over and included in the rhyme. Thus the first line of the _Inferno_ may be divided:--

Nel mez|zo del | cammin | di nos|tra vita.

When the verse is so constructed, it is said to be _piano_, the rhyme being what in English we call double. When the rhyme is single, the verse is _tronco_, and the rhythm corresponds to that of our heroic, as in the following instance (_Par._ xxv. 102):

Il ver|no avreb|be un me|se d'un | sol d.

When the rhyme is treble, the verse is _sdrucciolo_, of which form this is a specimen (_Par._ xxvi. 78):

Che ri|fulge|va piu | di mil|le milia.

It is clear that the quality of the verse is not affected by the number of syllables in the rhyme; and the line is called hendecasyllabic because _versi piani_ are immeasurably more frequent and more agreeable to the ear than either _versi tronchi_ or _sdruccioli_.

If we inquire into the origin of the meter, the first remark we have to make is that lines of similar construction were used by poets of Provence. Dante, for example, quotes (_De Vulg. Eloq._ ii. 2) from Bertram: