Is this the country, then, where I was born? Is this my palace, and my castle this? Is this the nest I woke in, every morn? Is this my father's and my brother's kiss? Is this the land they bred me to adorn? Is this the good old bower of all my bliss? Is this the haven of my youth and beauty? Is this the sure reward of all my duty?
Where now are all my wardrobes and their treasures? Where now are all my riches and my rights? Where now are all the midnight feasts and measures? Where now are all the delicate delights? Where now are all the partners of my pleasures? Where now are all the sweets of sounds and sights? Where now are all my maidens ever near? Where, do I say? Alas, alas, not here!
There are seven more "where nows," including lovers, and "proffered husbands," and "romances," and ending with the startling question and answer,—the counterpoint of the former close,—
"Ove son l' aspre selve e i lupi adesso, E gli orsi, e i draghi, e i tigri? Son qui presso."
Where now are all the woods and forests drear, Wolves, tigers, bears, and dragons? Alas, here!
These are all very natural thoughts, and such, no doubt, as would actually pass through the mind of the young lady, in the candour of desolation; but the mechanical iteration of her mode of putting them renders them irresistibly ludicrous. It reminds us of the wager laid by the poor queen in the play of Richard the Second, when she overhears the discourse of the gardener:
"My wretchedness unto a roar of pins, They'll talk of state."
Did Pulci expect his friend Lorenzo to keep a grave face during the recital of these passages? Or did he flatter himself, that the comprehensive mind of his hearer could at one and the same time be amused with the banter of some old song and the pathos of the new one?[9]
The want both of good love-episodes and of descriptions of external nature, in the Morgante, is remarkable; for Pulci's tenderness of heart is constantly manifest, and he describes himself as being almost absorbed in his woods. That he understood love well in all its force and delicacy is apparent from a passage connected with this pavilion. The fair embroiderer, in presenting it to her idol Rinaldo, undervalues it as a gift which his great heart, nevertheless, will not disdain to accept; adding, with the true lavishment of the passion, that "she wishes she could give him the sun;" and that if she were to say, after all, that it was her own hands which had worked the pavilion, she should be wrong, for Love himself did it. Rinaldo wishes to thank her, but is so struck with her magnificence and affection, that the words die on his lips. The way also in which another of these loving admirers of Paladins conceives her affection for one of them, and persuades a vehemently hostile suitor quietly to withdraw his claims by presenting him with a ring and a graceful speech, is in a taste as high as any thing in Boiardo, and superior to the more animal passion of the love in their great successor.[10] Yet the tenderness of Pulci rather shews itself in the friendship of the Paladins for one another, and in perpetual little escapes of generous and affectionate impulse. This is one of the great charms of the Morgante. The first adventure in the book is Orlando's encounter with three giants in behalf of a good abbot, in whom he discovers a kinsman; and this goodness and relationship combined move the Achilles of Christendom to tears. Morgante, one of these giants, who is converted, becomes a sort of squire to his conqueror, and takes such a liking to him, that, seeing him one day deliver himself not without peril out of the clutches of a devil, he longs to go and set free the whole of the other world from devils. Indeed there is no end to his affection for him. Rinaldo and other Paladins, meantime, cannot rest till they have set out in search of Orlando. They never meet or part with him without manifesting a tenderness proportionate to their valour,—the old Homeric candour of emotion. The devil Ashtaroth himself, who is a great and proud devil, assures Rinaldo, for whom he has conceived a regard, that there is good feeling (gentilezza) even in hell; and Rinaldo, not to hurt the feeling, answers that he has no doubt of it, or of the capability of "friendship" in that quarter; and he says he is as "sorry to part with him as with a brother." The passage will be found in our abstract. There are no such devils as these in Dante; though Milton has something like them:
"Devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds: men only disagree."