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La fede mai non debbe esser corrotta, O data a un sol o data ancor a cento, Data in palese o data in una grotta. Per la vil plebe è fatto il giuramento; Ma tra gli spirti più elevati sono Le semplici promesse un sagramento. |
The second is written on the famous black pen fringed with gold, which Ariosto adopted for his device and wore embroidered on his clothes. He declines to explain the meaning of this bearing; but it is commonly believed to have referred in some way to his love for Alessandra Strozzi. Baruffaldi conjectures that her black dress and golden hair suggested the two colors. But since this elegy threatens curious inquirers with Actæon's fate, we may leave his device to the obscurity he sought. Secrecy in respect to the great passion of his life was jealously maintained by Ariosto. His ink-stand at Ferrara still bears a Cupid with one finger on his lip, as though to bid posterity observe the reticence adopted by the poet in his lifetime.
The Madrigals and Sonnets do not add much to our conception of Ariosto's genius. It has been well remarked that while his Latin love-poems echo the style of Horace, these are imitations of Petrarch's manner.[626] In the former he celebrates the facile attractions of Lydia and Megilla, or confesses that he is inconstant in every thing except in always varying his loves.[627] In the latter he professes to admire a beautiful soul and eloquent lips more than physical charms, praises the spiritual excellences of his mistress, and writes complimentary sonnets on her golden hair.[628] In neither case is there any insincerity. Ariosto never pretended to be a platonic lover, nor did he credit women with great nobility of nature. Yet on the other hand it is certain that he was no less tenderly than passionately attached to Alessandra; and this serious love, of which the Sonnets are perhaps the record, triumphed over the volatility of his earlier affections.
It is enough in this chapter to have dealt with Ariosto's life and minor writings. The Orlando Furioso, considered both as the masterpiece of his genius and also as the representative poem of the Italian Renaissance, must form the subject of a separate study.