In spite of the wild and fanciful character of the incidents, a deep interest is excited for the principal personages, who are truly human, except when avowedly of the fortisque Gyas fortisque Cloanthus order, or, as the Italian poet himself has it,
Avino, Avolio, Ottone, e Berlinghiero.
In this respect Boiardo has a great advantage over Spenser; his characters are actual people, not mere abstractions, and he is unencumbered with allegory. As a master of poetic language he is greatly inferior. Though both picturesque and tuneful, he is far from rivalling the colour and music of the Englishman. Compared to theFaerie Queene his poem is as his own clear-chiming octave to the sonorous magnificence of the Spenserian stanza. In general, his tone is much more easy and familiar than Spenser’s; when he chooses, however, his sentiment is more elevated and his pathos more moving. Poetry has few passages at once so nobly heroic and so exquisitely touching as the combat between Orlando and Agricane, epitomised by Leigh Hunt in hisStories from the Italian Poets. The pen fell from Boiardo’s hand just as he was bringing his errant heroes back to encounter the new invasion of the African king Agramante, and the powerful hand that took it up used it to delay the approaching denouement, and superimpose a new structure upon the original foundation. In every literary quality Ariosto excels Boiardo, but he is a remove further from the realms of chivalry and fairie, and
Never can recapture
The first fine careless rapture.
Both are poets of the Renaissance, but Ariosto has more of that aspect of pomp and luxury which estranged Ruskin, and Boiardo of that half-erudite, half-ignorant naïveté which so fascinates in the pictures of Botticelli and Roselli. The following stanzas, translated by Miss Ellen Clerke, form an excellent specimen of Boiardo’s manner in general, and exemplify that delightful blending of classic and romantic feeling only possible in the youth of a literature:
In the glade’s heart a youth upon the sward,
All nude, disported him with song and jest;
Three ladies fair, to serve their love and lord,
Danced round him, they, too, nude and all undrest.
Unmeet for sword and shield, for watch and ward,
He seemed, with eyes of brown, and sunny crest.
That yet the dim upon his cheek had sprouted,
By some might be averred, by others doubted.
Of roses, violets, and all blossoms pied,
Full baskets holding, they their merry game
Of love and frolic on the greensward plied,
When Montalbano’s Lord upon them came.
'Behold the traitor!’ with one voice they cried;
'Behold the recreant!’ did all exclaim.
'Him, who all joy contemned of sense enraptured,
Now in his own despite our snare hath captured.’
And with their baskets, when these words were said,
They on Rinaldo flung themselves amain;
One violets threw, another roses red,
Lilies and hyacinths they strewed like rain;
Each blow unto his heart keen anguish sped,
The marrow of his bones was searched with pain,
With burning aches they sting where’er they settle,
As though of fire were leaf and flower and petal.
The youth who nude had figured on the scene,
When all his basket he had emptied out,
With a tall lily-stem full-branched with green,
Rinaldo on Mambrino’s helm did flout.
No help availed that baron bold, I ween,
Felled like a four-year child beneath the clout,
Scarce touched he earth, ere he who thus had mauled him,
Caught by the heels and round the meadow hauled him.
Each of those ladies three a garland wore,
Of roses twined, deep damask or snow-white;
Each from her head its garniture now tore,
Since other weapons failed them for the fight,
And though the knight cried mercy o’er and o’er,
They ceased not, e’en when tired, to scourge and smite,
And dragged him round, and did with blows belabour,
Until the noonday sun shone on their labour.