Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 2

"Ad un monte di rose e gigli passa, Ch'ebbe già buon odore, or putia forte, Ch'era corrotto; e da Giovanni intese, Che fu un gran don ch'un gran signor mal spese."

"E' suoi capelli a sè sciolse di testa, Che n'avea molti la dama gioconda; Ed, abbracciato il cavalier con festa, Tutto il coperse de la treccia bionda: Così, nascosi entrambi d...

The Christians had now commenced their attack on Jerusalem, and brought a great rolling tower against the walls, built from the wood of a forest in the neigbbourhood; when the M...

by chance, arrived there, and saw every where, all round him, in-doors and out-of-doors, inscriptions of "Angelica and Medoro." He tries in vain to disbelieve his eyes; finally,...

"With that the other likewise up arose, And her fair locks, which formerly were bound Up in one knot, she low adown did loose, Which, flowing long and thick, her cloth'd around,...

II. Armida's Hate and Love III. The Terrors of the Enchanted Forest IV. The Loves of Rinaldo and Armida V. The Disenchantment of the Forest, and the Taking of Jerusalem, &c.

The Paladin Astolfo ascends on the hippogriff to the top of one of the mountains at the source of the Nile, called the Mountains of the Moon, where he discovers the Terrestrial...

(The word is generally printed _ruppe_; but I use the primitive text of Mr. Pannizi's edition.) Boiardo's handsomest man, Astolfo, was an Englishman; Ariosto's is a Scotchman. S...

Great Carthage is laid low. Scarcely can eye Trace where she stood with all her mighty crowd For cities die; kingdoms and nations die; A little sand and grass is all their shrou...

[Footnote 3: I know of no story of a cruel Lydia but the poet's own mistress of that name, whom I take to be the lady here "shadowed forth." See Life, p. 114.]

Ovid is brisker and more obviously to the purpose; but Ariosto gives the ponderousness and dreary triumph of the monster. The comparison of the fly and the mastiff is in the sam...

"Ecco non lungi un bel cespuglio vede Di spin fioriti e di vermiglic rôse, Che de le liquide onde al specchio siede, Chiuso dal Sol fra l' alte quercie ombrose; ]

The trump of Tartarus, with iron roar, Called to the dwellers the black regions under: Hell through its caverns trembled to the core, And the blind air rebellowed to the thunder...

[Footnote 4: I omit a point about "fires" of love, and "ices" of the heart; and I will here observe, once for all, that I omit many such in these versions of Tasso, for the reas...

[Footnote 8: Modern astronomers differ very much both with Dante's and Ariosto's Moon; nor do the "argent fields" of Milton appear better placed in our mysterious satellite, wit...

she meets with a number of her suitors. Description of a beautiful natural bower. She claims the protection of Sacripant, who is overthrown, in passing, by an unknown warrior th...

"Qual l'alto Egeo, perchè Aquilone o Noto Cessi, che tutto prima il volse e scosse, Non s'accheta però, ma 'l suono e 'l moto Ritien de l'onde anco agitate e grosse; Tal, se ben...

the Christians, resolve to find the dead body of their master, King Dardinel, and bury it. They kill many sleepers as they pass through the enemy's camp, and then discover the b...

of opposing the Christians. Armida, the niece of the wizard king of Damascus, is incited to go to their camp under false pretences, and endeavour to weaken it; which she does by...