In these stanzas the old vain passion of Narcissus for his own beauty lives again a new life of romantic poetry. That the enchantment of the boy's fascination, prolonged through Silvanella's mourning for his death, should linger for ever after in the font that was his tomb, is a peculiarly modern touch of mysterious fancy. This part of the romance has little in common with the classic tale of Salmacis; it is far more fragile and refined. The Greeks did not carry their human sympathy with nature, deep and loyal as indeed it was, so far into the border-land of sensual and spiritual things. Haunted hills, like the Venusberg of Tannhäuser's legend; haunted waters, like Morgana's lake in Boiardo's poem; the charmed rivers and fountains of naiads, where knights lose their memory and are inclosed in crystal prison-caves; these are essentially modern, the final flower and blossom of the medieval fancy, unfolding stores of old mythology and half-forgotten emblems to the light of day in art.[593] For their perfection it was needful that the gods of Hellas should have died, and that the phantoms of old-world divinities should linger in dreams and reveries about the shores of young romance.
Boiardo's treatment of magic is complementary to his use of classical mythology. He does not employ this important element of medieval art in its simplicity, but adapts it to the nature of his own imagination, adding, as it were, a new quality by the process of assimilation. Some of his machinery belongs, indeed, to the poems of his predecessors, or is framed in harmony with their spirit. The enchantment of Durlindana and Baiardo; the invulnerability of Orlando, Ferraguto, and other heroes; the wizardry of Malagise, Mambrino's helmet, Morgana's stag, the horse Rabicano, Argalia's lance, Angelica's ring, and the countless dragons and giants which Boiardo creates at pleasure, may be mentioned in this category. But it is otherwise with the gardens of Falerina and Dragontina, the sublacustrine domain of Fata Morgana, and the caverns of the Naiades. These, however much they may have once belonged to medieval tradition, have been alchemized by the imagination of the poet of the Renaissance. They are glimpses into ideal fairyland, which Ariosto and Tasso could but refine upon and vary in their famous gardens of Alcina and Armida. Boiardo's use of the old tradition of Merlin's fountain, and the other well of Cupid feigned by him beside it, might again be chosen to illustrate his free poetic treatment of magical motives. When he trespasses on these enchanted regions, then and then only does he approach allegory. The quest of the tree guarded by Medusa in Tisbina's story; the achievement by Orlando of Morgana's garden, where Penitence and Fortune play their parts; and Rinaldo's encounter with Cupid in the forest of Ardennes, have obviously allegorical elements. Yet the hidden meaning is in each case less important than the adventure; and the same may be said about the highly tragic symbolism of the monster in the Rocca Crudele.[594] Boiardo had too vivid a sympathy with nature and humanity to appreciate the mysteries which allured the Northern poets of Parzival, the Sangraal, and the Faery Queen. When he lapses into allegory, it is with him a sign of weakness. Akin, perhaps, to this disregard for parable is the freedom of his spirit from all superstition. The religion of his knights is bluff, simple, and sincere, in no sense savoring of the cloister and the cowl. A high sense of truth and personal honor, indifference to life for life's sake, profound humility in danger, charity impelling men of power to succor the oppressed and feeble, are the fruits of their piety. But of penance for sins of the flesh, of ceremonial observances, of visions and fasts, of ascetic discipline and wonder-working images, of all the ecclesiastical trumpery with which the pseudo-Turpin is filled, and which contaminates even the Mort d'Arthur of our heroic Mallory, we read nothing.
In taking up the thread of Boiardo's narrative, Ariosto made use of all his predecessor had invented. He adopted the machinery of the two fountains, the lance of Argalia, Angelica's ring, Rabicane, and the magic arts of Atalante. The characters of the Innamorato reappear with slight but subtle changes and with somewhat softened names in the Furioso.[595] Ariosto, again, followed Boiardo closely in his peculiar method of interweaving novelle with the main narrative; of suspending one story to resume another at a critical moment; of prefacing his cantos with reflections, and of concluding them with a courteous license.[596] Lastly, Ariosto is at great pains, while connecting his poem with the Innamorato, to make it intelligible by giving short abstracts at intervals of the previous action. Yet throughout this long laborious work of continuation he preserves a studied silence respecting the poet to whom he owed so much. Was this due to the desire of burying Boiardo's fame beneath his own? Did he so contrive that the contemporary repute of the Innamorato should serve to float his Furioso and then be forgotten by posterity? If so, he calculated wisely; for this is what almost immediately happened. Though the Orlando Innamorato was printed four times before 1513—once at Venice in 1486, once at Scandiano in 1495, and again at Venice in 1506, 1511, and 1513—and though it continued to be reprinted at Venice through the first half of the sixteenth century, yet the sudden silence of the press after this period shows that the Furioso had eclipsed Boiardo's fame. Still the integral connection between the two poems could not be overlooked; and just about the period of Ariosto's death, Francesco Berni conceived the notion of rewriting Boiardo's epic with the expressed intention of correcting its diction and rendering it more equal in style to the Orlando Furioso. This rifacimento was published in 1541, after his death. The mysterious circumstances that attended its publication, and the nature of the changes introduced by Berni into the substance of Boiardo's poem, will be touched upon when we arrive at this illustrious writer of burlesque verse. It is enough to mention here that Berni's version was printed twice between 1541 and 1545, and that then, like the original, it fell into comparative oblivion till the end of the last century. Meanwhile the second rifacimento by Domenichi appeared in 1545; and though this new issue was a mere piece of impudent book-making, it superseded Berni's masterpiece during the next two hundred years. The critics of the last century rediscovered Berni's rifacimento, and began to quote Boiardo's poem under his name, treating the real author as an ignorant and uncouth writer of a barbarous dialect. Thus one of the most original poets of the fifteenth century, to whom Italy owes the form and substance of the Furioso, has been thrust aside and covered with contempt, by a curious irony of fortune, owing to the very qualities that ought to have insured his immortality. Used by Ariosto as the ladder for ascending to Parnassus; by Berni as an exercising ground for the display of style; by Domenichi as the means of getting his name widely known, the Orlando Innamorato served any purposes but that of its great author's fame. Panizzi, by reprinting the original poem along with the Orlando Furioso, restored Boiardo at length to his right place in Italian literature. From that time forward it has been impossible to overlook his merits or to underestimate Ariosto's obligations to so gifted and original a master.
CHAPTER VIII.
ARIOSTO.
Ancestry and Birth of Ariosto—His Education—His Father's Death—Life at Reggio—Enters Ippolito d'Este's Service—Character of the Cardinal—Court Life—Composition and Publication of the Furioso—Quiet Life at Ferrara—Comedies—Governorship of Garfagnana—His Son Virginio—Last Eight Years—Death—Character and Habits—The Satires—Latin Elegies and Lyrics—Analysis of the Satires—Ippolito's Service—Choice of a Wife—Life at Court and Place-hunting—Miseries at Garfagnana—Virginio's Education—Autobiographical and Satirical Elements—Ariosto's Philosophy of Life—Minor Poems—Alessandra Benucci—Ovidian Elegies—Madrigals and Sonnets—Ariosto's Conception of Love.
Ariosto’s family was ancient and of honorable station in the Duchy of Ferrara. His father, Nicolò, held offices of trust under Ercole I., and in the year 1472 was made Governor of Reggio, where he acquired property and married. His wife, Daria Maleguzzi, gave birth at Reggio in 1474 to their first-born, Lodovico, the poet. At Reggio the boy spent seven years of childhood, removing with his father in 1481 to Rovigo. His education appears to have been carried on at Ferrara, where he learned Latin but no Greek. This ignorance of Greek literature placed him, like Machiavelli, somewhat at a disadvantage among men of culture in an age that set great store upon the knowledge of both ancient languages. He was destined for a legal career; but, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, after spending some useless years in uncongenial studies, Ariosto prevailed upon his father to allow him to follow his strong bent for literature. In 1500 Nicolò Ariosto died, leaving a family of five sons and five daughters, with property sufficient for the honor of his house but scarcely adequate to the needs of his numerous children. Lodovico was the eldest. He therefore found himself at the age of twenty-six in the position of father to nine brothers and sisters, for whose education, start in life, and suitable settlement, he was called on to arrange. The administration of his father's estate, and the cares thus early thrust upon him, made the poet an exact man of business, and brought him acquainted with real life under its most serious aspects. He discharged his duties with prudence and fidelity; managing by economy to provide portions for his sisters and honorable maintenance for his brothers out of their joint patrimony.