[12] The evident Greek derivation of this name from margos (gluttonous) lends some countenance to the suspicion that Politian had a hand in Pulci’s poem.
[13] It is curious to note in this connection that Rubiera, the original seat of Boiardo’s family, having become a state prison under the modern Dukes of Modena, gave Panizzi the subject for his first publication, known under the abridged title ofI Processi di Rubiera.
CHAPTER XI
ARIOSTO AND HIS IMITATORS
Boiardo had accomplished a great work. He had raised the old chivalric romance to epic dignity, and shown its capability of classic form. This, impeded by his provincial education and the low standard of poetry prevailing in his time, he had not himself been able to impart. The achievement was reserved for one who has infinitely transcended him in reputation, though it may be questioned whether he has indeed greatly surpassed him in any respect but style and the gift of story-telling, and who is certainly inferior to him in sincerity and simplicity.
LODOVICO ARIOSTO was born at Reggio, near which town Boiardo also had first seen the light, on September 8, 1474. His family was noble, and his father, who survived his birth about twenty years, filled many important offices. Like the fathers of Petrarch and Boccaccio, he insisted that his son should follow the profession of the law, which the youth renounced after five years of fruitless, perhaps not very persevering study. His father’s death left Ariosto at the head of a large family, for which he had to provide out of a scanty patrimony. He solaced his cares by classical studies, which made him a fair Latin poet. About 1503 he entered the service of the Cardinal of Este, brother of the Duke of Ferrara, and hence a member of that house whose glory it has been to have numbered two of the most illustrious poets of Italy in its train, and whose infelicity to have derived more obloquy than honour from the connection. Boiardo’sOrlando Innamorato had been designed for the glorification of the house of Este, but the purpose is not sufficiently obtrusive to spoil our pleasure in the poet’s ideal world. Ariosto took up the thread of the narrative where his predecessor had dropped it, and writing in the spirit of a courtier, produced in theOrlando Furioso a sequel related to Boiardo’s poem much as Virgil’s national epic on the wanderings of Æneas is related to Homer’s artless tale of the wanderings of Ulysses.
In so far as Ariosto’s objects were poetical fame and the honour of his native country they were attained to the full; but his toil was almost vain as respected recompense from the princes for whose sake he had blemished his poem. The Cardinal, a coarse, unscrupulous man, fitter for a soldier than an ecclesiastic, was apparently unable to discern any connection between Ruggiero’s hippogriff and the glories of his descendants, and upon the publication of theOrlando in 1510, asked the poet quite simply “where he had been for all that rot?” He is stated, however, to have presented Ariosto with a golden chain, rather for the ornament of his person than the relief of his necessities, as he could not venture to turn it into money. Ariosto further incurred his Eminence’s displeasure by hesitating to accompany him on a mission to Hungary, and found it advisable to exchange his service for the Duke’s. The Duke, a prince lavish in shows, economical in salaries, thought the poet abundantly rewarded by the governorship of the Garfagnana, which it was necessary to confer upon somebody. The Garfagnana was a wild district overrun with poetical banditti, readers and admirers of their governor’s epic. Here Ariosto gained much honour, but little emolument.
His experience of his patrons generally justified his favourite motto,Pro bono malum. Even the munificent Leo X. did nothing for him but kiss him on both cheeks, and remit half the fees upon the brief that assured his copyrights, his particular friend Cardinal Bibbiena pocketing the other. His sole real benefactor was the Marquis del Vasto, husband of the lady whom we shall find celebrated by Luigi Tansillo, who settled an annuity of a hundred ducats upon him. Even this was consideration for value to be received, the Marquis, himself a poet, being properly impressed by theVixere fortes ante Agamemnona maxim. Ariosto acquitted himself of his obligation like a man, comparing his patron to Cæsar, Nestor, Achilles, Nireus, and Ladas. Great as was the renown which hisOrlando procured for him in his lifetime, its profits were not such as to render him independent of patronage; yet, after all, he was able to boast that the modest house which he built for himself, and where he died in 1533, was paid for by his own money.[14] It is kept to this day by the municipality of Ferrara; and Ariosto’s manuscripts, evincing his indefatigable care in the revision of his poem, are preserved in the public library.
The chief literary occupations of his latter years had been the composition of comedies, the superintendence of theatrical performances for the entertainment of the Duke, and the incessant revision of theOrlando Furioso, enlarged from forty to forty-six cantos. The last edition published under his own inspection appeared in 1532, and was not regarded by him as definitive. He also began a continuation, intended to narrate the death of Ruggiero by the treachery of Gano, of which only five cantos were written.
So great is the variety of theOrlando Furioso, that it appears difficult at first to discover a clue to a main action among its thronging and complicated adventures. Ginguené and Panizzi, however, have shown that one exists, and that this is the union of Ruggiero and Bradamante, the fabulous ancestors of the house of Este. All the poet’s skill is exerted to keep them apart, that he may bring them together at last. Orlando, Rinaldo, Angelica, the chief personages of theInnamorato, have become subordinate characters; and, notwithstanding the title of the poem, Orlando’s madness is but an episode. The unfortunate consequence is the transfer of the main interest from personages whom Boiardo had made highly attractive, to Ruggiero and Bradamante, less impressive in the hands of Ariosto, whose forte is rather in depicting tender or humorous than heroic character. It would not be just to say that this occasions the chief disadvantage of the poem in comparison with theInnamorato, the loss of the elder poet’s delightful naïveté. Rather the change of plan and the falling off in simplicity spring from the same root, the taste and character of the author.