49.
This was six yards across by mensuration,
With sheets and curtains bleached by wave and breeze,
With a silk quilt for farther consolation.
And all things fitting else: tho' hard to please,
Six souls therein had found accommodation
But this man sighed for elbow-room and ease.
And here as in a sea was fain to swim.
Extending at his pleasure length and limb,
50.
By chance with him, to join the fairy's train,
A Frenchman and a cook was thither brought;
One that had served in court with little gain,
Though he with sovereign care and cunning wrought.
For him, prepared with sheet and counterpane.
Another bed was, like his fellow's, sought:
And 'twixt the two, sufficient space was seen
For a fair table to be placed between.
51.
Upon this table, for the pair to dine.
Were savoury viands piled, prepared with art;
All ordered by this master-cook divine;
Boiled, roast, ragouts and jellies, paste and tart:
But soups and syrups pleased the Florentine,
Who loathed fatigue like death, and for his part.
Brought neither teeth nor fingers into play;
But made two varlets feed him as he lay
52.
Here couchant, nothing but his head was spied,
Sheeted and quilted to the very chin;
And needful food a serving man supplied
Thro' pipe of silver, placed the mouth within.
Meantime the sluggard moved no part beside.
Holding all motion else were shame and sin;
And (so his spirits and his health were broke)
Not to fatigue this organ, seldom spoke.
53.
The cook was master Peter hight, and he
Had tales at will to while away the day;
To him the Florentine: "Those fools, pardie,
"Have little wit, who dance that endless Hay;"
And Peter in return, "I think with thee."
Then with some merry story backed the say;
Swallowed a mouthful and turned round in bed;
And so, by starts, talked, turned, and slept, and fed.
54.
And so the time these careless comrades cheated,
And still, without a change, ate, drank, and slept
Nor by the calendar their seasons meeted,
Nor register of days or sennights kept:
No dial told the passing hours, which fleeted,
Nor bell was heard; nor servant overstept
The threshold (so the pair proclaimed their will)
To bring them tale or tidings, good or ill.
55.
Above all other curses, pen and ink
Were by the Tuscan held in hate and scorn;
Who, worse than any loathsome sight or stink.
Detested pen and paper, ink and horn:
So deeply did a deadly venom sink.
So festered in his flesh a rankling thorn;
While, night and day, with heart and garments rent.
Seven weary years the wretch in writing spent.
56.
Of all their ways to baffle time and tide,
This seems the strangest of their waking dreams:
Couched on their back, the two the rafters eyed,
And taxed their drowsy wits to count the beams;
'Tis thus they mark at leisure, which is wide.
Which short, or which of due proportion seems;
And which worm-eaten are, and which are sound,
And if the total sum is odd or round.*
* I have already given a loose translation of this part of Berni's account of himself in the Court of Beasts.
Having in the preceding part of this introduction, given some account of the mode in which I have executed my task as a translator, it may be expected that I should give some information respecting my labours as an editor. To speak frankly, I have none to give: having annexed no commentary, or, at least, nothing worthy of being called a commentary, to this work. Some readers may, perhaps, think I have in this neglected my duty, and reproach me with not having pointed out the sources from which many of the fictions in the Innamorato are borrowed, or at least the points of resemblance which may be found between many of these and other ancient stories. It appeared, however, to me, that my readers were as likely as myself to be conversant with incidents to be found in the Spectator, Persian Tales, Arabian Nights, and Bibliothèque Orientale. Others who will, perhaps, thank me for sparing them such a display of common-place knowledge may, however, think I have erred in having done nothing to illustrate the allegory of the Innamorato. If I have not, the omission has arisen from a conviction of the inutility of such an attempt. I have read much that has been written upon the allegory of the Furioso, yet never met with any explanation of it, which I considered as satisfactory to myself, though I was persuaded that the commentators were right. Holding obscurity to be one source of the sublime in this branch of imagination, though I will not venture to extend the position further, it appears to me that the reader always best fills up an indistinct outline, according to his own fancy, and is more likely to derive pleasure from doing so, than from a solution which usually presents him with something very different from what he had preconceived. It is this consideration which has restrained me from doing more than throwing out a few ideas which suggested themselves on some parts of Boiardo's allegory, and no wish to avoid any trouble which I might have thought satisfactorily bestowed on it. Still less have I been influenced by any fear of that ridicule which is so readily discharged upon Italian commentators, or those who report their lucubrations; for I can safely say, that I should have pursued the research to which I have alluded, if I had thought I could have done so with any satisfaction to myself, though I had met with no better recompence than that of being compared to the ass who carried off the dead body of the sphynx, after her enigma had been unriddled, and she herself slain by Œdipus.