[34] Canto xlii.
[35] Stanzas 6-9.
[36] If this seems over-stated, I might refer the reader to the prologue of the Suppositi, where the worst vice of the Renaissance is treated with a flippant relish; or, again, to the prologue of the Lena, where the double entendre is worthy of the grossest Capitolo. The plots of all Ariosto's comedies are of a vulgar, obscene, bourgeois type.
[37] See xxxix. 10-72, xx. 113, xlvi. 137, and passim, for the carnage wrought by knights cased in enchanted armor with invulnerable bodies upon defenseless Saracens or unarmed peasants. It was partly this that made Shelley shrink with loathing from the Furioso.
[38] Cantos xxi. 1-3, xx. 143, xxxviii. introduction, xlv. 57, xxv. introduction.
[39] Cantos xliv. xlv.
[40] Canto vi. 80, vii. 41-44. The sentiments, though superficial, are exquisitely uttered.
[41] Canto vi. 73.
[42] Canto vi. 75.
[43] Notice, for example, the irony of the seventh line in vi. 71, and of the third and fourth in the next stanza.