Chapter VII: Pulci and Boiardo (3)

[532] It is called _Morgante Maggiore_ because the part relating to him was published separately under the title of _Morgante_. This character Pulci derived from the MS. poem called by Signor Rajna the _Orlando_ to distinguish it. In the year 1500 we find one of the Baglioni called Morgante which proves perhaps the popularity of this giant.

[533] Canto xxv. 73-78. The locust-tree, according to the tradition of the South, served Judas when he hanged himself. Northern fancy reserved this honor for the elder, not perhaps without a poetic sense of the outcast existence of the plant and its worthlessness for any practical use. On the same locust-tree Marsilio was afterwards suspended (c. xxvii. 267). The description of the blasted pleasure-garden in the latter passage is also very striking. For the translation of these passages see Appendix.

[534] xxvii. 5-7 and 47. Note in particular (translated in Appendix):

Rispose Baldovin: Se il padre mio
Ci ha qui condotti come traditore,
S'io posso oggi campar, pel nostro Iddio,
Con questa spada passerogli il core!
Ma traditore, Orlando, non son io,
Ch'io t'ho seguito con perfetto amore;
Non mi potresti dir maggiore ingiuria!
Poi si straccio la vesta con gran furia,
E disse: Io tornero nella battaglia,
Poi che tu m'hai per traditore scorto;
Io non son traditor, se Dio mi vaglia,
Non mi vedrai piu oggi se non morto!
E inverso l'oste de' Pagan si scaglia,
Dicendo sempre: Tu m'hai fatto torto!
Orlando si pentea d'aver cio detto
Che disperato vide il giovinetto.

[535] Of all the Paladins only Orlando is uniformly courteous to Charlemagne. When Rinaldo dethrones the Emperor and flies to his cousin (c. xi. 114), Orlando makes him return to his obedience (_ib._ 127). See, too, c. xxv. 100:

Or oltre in Roncisvalle Orlando va,
Per obbedir, com'e' fe' sempre, Carlo.

[536] xxvi. 126:

Rinaldo, quando e' fu nella battaglia,
Gli parve esser in ciel tra' cherubini
Tra suoni e canti.

[537] Canto xxvi. 24-39. These two touches, out of many that are noble, might be chosen:

Stasera in paradiso cenerete;
Come disse quel Greco anticamente
Lieto a' suoi gia, ma disse--Nello inferno:

and

La morte e da temere, o la partita,
Quando l'anima e 'l corpo muore insieme;
Ma se da cosa finita a infinita
Si va qui in ciel fra tante diademe,
Questo e cambiar la vita a miglior vita.

[538] This pervasive doubt finds its noblest and deepest expression in some lines spoken by Orlando just before engaging in the fight at Roncesvalles (xxvi. 31):

Tutte cose mortal vanno ad un segno;
Mentre l'una sormonta, un'altra cade:
Cosi fia forse di Cristianitade.

This is said not from the hero's but the author's point of view. Pomponazzi afterwards gave philosophical utterance to the same disbelief in the permanence of Christianity.

[539] Canto xxvii. 172.

[540] _Ibid._ 196.

[541] _Ibid._ 198.

[542] Canto xxvi. 91.

[543] Canto xxvi. 89.

[544] Canto xxv. 217, 218.

[545] Canto xviii. 114, _et seq._

[546] I have placed in the Appendix a rough plaster cast rather than a true copy of Margutte's admirable comic autobiography. My stanzas cannot pretend to exactitude of rendering or interpretation. The _Morgante_ has hitherto been very imperfectly edited; and there are many passages in this speech which would, I believe, puzzle a good Florentine scholar, and which, it is probable, I have misread.

[547] Canto xix. 148.

[548] Cantos xxv. xxvi.

[549] xxv. 119. This distinction between the fallen angels and the _spiriti folletti_ deserves to be noticed. The latter were light and tricksy spirits, on whom not even a magician could depend. Marsilio sent two of them in a magic mirror to Charlemagne (xxv. 92), and Astarotte warned Malagigi expressly against their vanity (xxv. 160, 161). Fairies, _feux follets_, and the lying spirits of modern spiritualists seem to be of this family. Translations from Astarotte's dialogue will be found in the Appendix.

[550] xxv. 159, 208.

[551] xxv. 161; xxvi. 83.

[552] Canto xxv. 141-158; translation in Appendix.

[553] _Ibid._ 233.

[554] _Ibid._ 284.

[555] _Doctor Faustus_, act i. Scene with Mephistophilis in a Franciscan's habit.

[556] The scene in the banquet-hall at Saragossa (xxv. 292-305) is very similar to some of the burlesque scenes in _Doctor Faustus_.

[557] xxv. 228-231. Astarotte's discourses upon theology and physical geography are so learned that this part of the _Morgante_ was by Tasso ascribed to Ficino. It is not improbable that Pulci derived some of the ideas from Ficino, but the style is entirely his own. The sonnets he exchanged with Franco prove, moreover, that he was familiar with the treatment of grave themes in a burlesque style. In acknowledging the help of Poliziano he is quite frank (xxv. 115-117, 169; xxviii. 138-149). What that help exactly was, we do not know. But there is nothing whatever to justify the tradition that Poliziano was the real author of the _Morgante_. Probably he directed Pulci's reading; and I think it not impossible, judging by one line in Canto xxv. (stanza 115, line 4), that he directed Pulci's attention to the second of the two poems out of which the narrative was wrought. If we were to ascribe all the passages in the _Morgante_ that display curious knowledge to Pulci's friends, we might claim the discourse on the antipodes for Toscanelli and the debates on the angelic nature for Palmieri. Such criticism is, however, far-fetched and laboriously hypothetical. Pulci lived in an intellectual atmosphere highly charged with speculation of all kinds, and his poem reflected the opinion of his age. His own methods of composition and the relation in which he stood to other poets of the age are explained in two passages of the _Morgante_ (xxv. 117, xxviii. 138-149), where he disclaims all share of humanistic erudition, and expresses his indifference to the solemn academies of the learned. See translation in Appendix.

[558] xxvi. 82-88. We may specially note these phrases:

Astarotte, e' mi duole
Il tuo partir, quanto fussi fratello;
E nell'inferno ti credo che sia
Gentilezza, amicizia e cortesia.

* * * * *

Che di servirti non mi fia fatica;
E basta solo Astarotte tu dica,
Ed io ti sentiro sin dello inferno.

[559] Book II. canto viii. 1. All references will be made to Panizzi's edition of the _Orlando Innamorato_, London, Pickering, 1830.

[560] _Sonetti e Canzone [sic] del poeta clarissimo Matteo Maria Boiardo Conte di Scandiano_, Milano, 1845. The descriptions of natural beauty, especially of daybreak and the morning star, of dewy meadows, and of flowers, in which these lyrics abound, are very charming and at all points worthy of the fresh delightful inspiration of Boiardo's epic verse. Nor are they deficient in metrical subtlety; notice especially the intricate rhyming structure of a long Canto, pp. 44-49.

[561] See above, p. 15.

[562] See the exordium to the second Book, where it appears that the gentle poet caressed a vain hope that the peace of Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century was destined to revive chivalry.

[563] See the opening of Book II. Canto xviii. where Boiardo compares the Courts of Arthur and of Charlemagne.

[564] The acute and learned critic Pio Rajna, whose two massive works of scholarlike research, _I Reali di Francia_ (Bologna, 1872), and _Le Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso_ (Firenze, 1876), have thrown a flood of light upon Chivalrous Romance literature in Italy, is at pains to prove that the _Orlando Innamorato_ contains a vein of conscious humor. See _Le Fonti_, etc., pp. 24-27. I agree with him that Boiardo treated his subject playfully. But it must be remembered that he was far from wishing to indulge a secret sarcasm like Ariosto, or to make open fun of chivalry like Fortiguerra.

[565]

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.

Compare II. xxxi. 50; III. i. 2.

[566] Orlando was not handsome (II. iii. 63):

avea folte le ciglia,
E l'un de gli occhi alquanto stralunava.

[567] See his prayer, II. xxix. 36, 37.

[568] See the description of him in the tournament (I. ii. 63, iii. 4), when he saves the honor of Christendom to the surprise of everybody including himself. Again (I. vii. 45-65), when he defies and overthrows Gradasso, and liberates Charles from prison. The irony of both situations reveals a master's hand.

[569] For instance, when he attacks Argalia with his sword, contrary to stipulation, after being unhorsed by him (I. i. 71-73). The fury of Ferraguto in this scene is one of Boiardo's most brilliant episodes.

[570] His epithets are always _fiorito_, _fior di cortesia_, _di franchezza fiore_, etc. For the effect of his beauty, see II. xxi. 49, 50. The education of Ruggiero by Atalante was probably suggested to Boiardo by the tale of Cheiron and Achilles. See II. i. 74, 75.

[571] See II. i. 56, for Rodamonte's first appearance; for his atheism, II. iii. 22:

Che sol il mio buon brando e l'armatura
E la mazza, ch'io porto, e 'l destrier mio
E l'animo, ch'io ho, sono il mio Dio.

[572] II. iii. 40.

[573] In Bello's _Mambriano_, for instance, we have a very lively picture of the amorous and vain Astolfo. Pulci supplies us with even a more impressive Orlando than Boiardo's hero, while his Amazonian heroines, Meridiana and Antea, are at least rough sketches for Marfisa. It was Boiardo's merit to have grasped these characters and drawn them with a fullness of minute detail that enhances their vitality.

[574] Her arts and their success are splendidly set forth, I. xxv. xxvi.

[575] In proem to II. xii., Boiardo makes an excuse, imitated by Ariosto to his lady for this bad treatment of women.

[576] Leodilla's story is found in I. xxi. xxii. xxiv. 14-17, 44.

[577] I. iii. 47-50.

[578] I. xxii. 24-27; I. xix. 60-65.

[579] I. xvii. 21, 22.

[580] II. vii. 50.

[581] II. xii. 14, _et seq._

[582] I. xvi. 36-44; xviii. 39-47; xix. 15, 16.

[583] I. v. 7-12; xix. 47; ix. 55-57.

[584] I. xviii. 39-47.

[585] I. xxv. 13, 14.

[586] I. xxvii. 15-22; xxviii. 4-11.

[587] II. vi. 7-15, 28-42; II. iv. 24-39; II. xiii. 20-23; I. xxv. 38.

[588] I. xxiii. 38, 47; xxvi. 28.

[589] I. xxiii. 6.

[590] Burne Jones, in his _Pan and Syrinx_, offers a parallel.

[591] II. xv. 43 _et seq._

[592] II. xvii. 49 _et seq._

[593] See II. xxxi. xlv.; III. i. ii.

[594] See I. viii. 56 _et seq._ The whole tale of Grifone and Marchino in that Canto is horrible.

[595] On Ariosto's treatment of Boiardo's characters there is much excellent criticism in Pio Rajna's _Le Fonti dell'Orlando Furioso_ (Firenze, Sansoni, 1876), pp. 43-53.

[596] I do not mean that other poets--Pulci and Bello, for example--had not interwoven episodical _novelle_. The latter's poem of _Mambriano_ owes all its interest to the episodes, and many of its introductory reflections are fair specimens of the discursive style. But the peculiarity of Boiardo, as followed by Ariosto, consisted in the art of subordinating these subsidiary motives to the main design. Neither Pulci nor Bello showed any true sense of poetical unity. It may here be parenthetically remarked that Francesco Bello, a native of Ferrara, called Il Cieco because of his blindness, recited his _Mambriano_ at the Mantuan Court of the Gonzagas. It was not printed till after his death in 1509. This poem consists of a series of tales, loosely stitched together, each canto containing just enough to stimulate the attention of an idle audience. Rinaldo, Astolfo, and Mambriano, king of Bithynia, play prominent parts in the action.