Nature shows forth her treasure. Lo! the marquis who lacks no point of honor. Blest the age, and happy they who shall live in a world so free! In his time the golden lilies shall be joined to that white eagle whose home is in heaven; and his domain shall be the flower of Italy from the one fair seacoast to the other.
And if the other son of Amphitryon, who there appears in habit of a duke, has as much mind to seize dominion as he has to follow good and flee evil, all the birds—not to say the men who act in this great play—would flock to obey him. But why should I gaze further into the future? Thou destroyest Africa, King Agramante (II. xxi. 54-59).
With reminiscence, perhaps, of Dante, this is obviously patterned on Vergil. The historical vision of the house of Este has its model in the vision of the Augustans. Encomium with Boiardo is neither so frequent nor so fulsome as it was to become with Ariosto and with Spenser. Was that, perhaps, one reason for his double eclipse? He was first superseded by Ariosto and then rewritten by Berni.
7. ARIOSTO
The brilliant Orlando furioso (1516) of Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) is one of the most typical verse narratives of the Renaissance, as it was the most popular. More accomplished than Boiardo in diction, verse, and composition, and more responsive to the Renaissance, Ariosto still follows the same serial plan. The two poets differ more in degree than in kind. Both were trained in the classics; both began by writing Latin; both offer romance as inspiring contrast with actuality.
O great hearts of those ancient knights! They were rivals; they differed in religion; they still felt the rude and wicked strokes aching throughout their bodies; and yet through dark woods and crooked paths they went together without distrust (i. 22).
[War has been debased through the diabolical invention of artillery (xi. 22-25)]. How foundest thou ever place in human hearts, O invention criminal and ugly! Through thee military glory has been destroyed, through thee the craft of arms dishonored, through thee valor and prowess so diminished that oft the knave seems better than the good soldier.
And though Rinaldo was not very rich in cities or treasure, he was so affable and genial and so prompt to share with them whatever he had that not one of his meinie was drawn away by offer of more gold. A man of Montauban never forsakes it unless great need constrains him elsewhere (xxxi. 57).
O famished, deformed, fierce Harpies, who in blinded and misguided Italy, perhaps as punishment of ancient sins, bring to every table divine judgment! Innocent children and faithful mothers drop with hunger while they see one feast of these foul monsters devour what might have kept them alive.... [Italy cries] Is there no one of you ... to free your tables from the filth and the claws ... as the paladin freed that of the Ethiop king? (xxxvi. 1-3).
Encomium with Ariosto becomes pervasive. Animated of course by the personal ends of a court poet, it serves also the literary end of magnificence, the first aspect in which the Renaissance viewed epic.