A common metaphor takes new beauty by its handling in this simile[53];
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Pallido come colto al mattutino E da sera il ligustro o il molle acanto. |
Homer had compared the wound of Menelaus to ivory stained by a Mæonian woman with crimson.[54] Ariosto refines on this conceit:[55]
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Così talora un bel purpureo nastro Ho veduto partir tela d'argento Da quella bianca man più ch'alabastro. Da cui partire il cor spesso mi sento. |
Both Homer and Virgil likened their dying heroes to flowers cut down by the tempest or the plow. The following passage will bear comparison even with the death of Euphorbus:[56]
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Come purpureo fior languendo muore, Che 'l vomere al passar tagliato lassa, O come carco di superchio umore Il papaver nell'orto il capo abbassa: Così, giù della faccia ogni colore Cadendo, Dardinel di vita passa; Passa di vita, e fa passar con lui L'ardire e la virtù di tutti i sui. |
One more example may be chosen where Ariosto has borrowed nothing from any model. He uses the perfume that clings to the hair or dress of youth or maiden, as a metaphor for the aroma of noble ancestry:[57]
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L'odor ch'è sparso in ben notrita e bella O chioma o barba o delicata vesta Di giovene leggiadro o di donzella, Ch'amor sovente sospirando desta; Se spira, e fa sentir di sè novella, E dopo molti giorni ancora resta, Mostra con chiaro ed evidente effetto, Come a principio buono era e perfetto. |
The unique importance of Ariosto in the history of Renaissance poetry justifies a lengthy examination of his masterpiece. In him the chief artistic forces of the age were so combined that he remains its best interpreter. Painting, the cardinal art of Italy, determined his method; and the tide of his narrative carried with it the idyl, the elegy, and the novella. In these forms the genius of the Renaissance found fittest literary expression; for the epic and the drama lay beyond the scope of the Italians at this period. The defect of deep passion and serious thought, the absence of enthusiasm, combined with rare analytic powers and an acute insight into human nature, placed Ariosto in close relation to his age. Free from illusions, struggling after no high-set ideal, accepting the world as he found it, without the impulse to affirm or to deny, without hate, scorn, indignation or revolt, he represented the spirit of the sixteenth century in those qualities which were the source of moral and political decay to the Italians. But he also embodied the strong points of his epoch—especially that sustained pursuit of beauty in form, that width of intellectual sympathy, that urbanity of tone and delicacy of perception, which rendered Italy the mistress of the arts, the propagator of culture for the rest of Europe.