[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.
[597] See Satire, i. 100-102; ii. 109-111.