Orlando Furioso (Rose)/Seventh Satire of Ariosto
The Satires of Ariosto, little known out of Italy, are held in high estimation in that country. Some of the best judges have not hesitated to place them on the same line of excellence, though in a different branch of poetry, with the Orlando Furioso. They are in truth the happiest imitation of the satires and epistles of Horace that any modern language possesses. That arch but well-bred raillery, that easy and familiar, but pure and polished felicity of style, which distinguish the Roman satirist, are discernible almost in equal perfection in the great Italian poet. He has employed a phraseology and turn of thought truly Horatian to purposes suggested by the manners of his own age and country; viz. to give a picture of the opinions and passions of the little courts on which he depended, of the pursuits literary or ambitious in which he was personally engaged, and of the hopes and disappointments which constituted the chief incidents of his life. But the delicacy of his sarcasms, the lightness of his allusions, and the easy propriety of his diction, are beauties scarcely susceptible of translation into the language of a country where the idiom is wholly different, the persons and events alluded to generally unknown, and the modes of thinking as well as the customs and manners animadverted upon or described, imperfectly understood by the learned, and not at all familiar to the common reader.
Even the metre of these satires adds to the embarrassment of the Englishman who engages in the translation of them. It is the triplet and alternate rhyme like that in which Dante composed his immortal work. Such a metre is not only unusual in English, but is singularly ill-adapted in our language to convey that apparent carelessness of style and real delicacy of thought which constitute the charm of the original. A casual remark to this effect led in fact to the present attempt. The translator had been asked his opinion as to the metre best suited to an English version of Ariosto’s Satires. After acknowledging the impossibility of moulding English triplets with alternate rhymes to any such purpose, and after balancing the advantages and objections of other more popular metres, such as the eight syllable lines of Swift and Prior, or the dactylick or anapæstick verses in which the same Prior as well as Anstey has excelled, he ventured to pronounce judgment in favour of the ten syllable couplet. He annexed, however, a condition that the cadence and structure of the lines should be modelled neither on the heroick poetry of Dryden, nor even on the didactick Essays of Pope, but on the negligent rhythm general among “the mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease” in Charles the Second’s time; which Dryden in the Religio Laici, the Cock and the Fox, and some lighter works, has not disdained to preserve, and of which Cowper in an epistle to Mr. Hill has left the most successful, or at least the most Horatian specimen in our language. The translator has indeed in the following satire sometimes admitted an alexandrine or a triplet. Such deviation from his own rule may have added here or there some force to the passage, and even in some instances enabled him to comprehend in the period the whole sense of his author. But he is conscious that such blemishes or excrescences detract from the resemblance which a copy engages to preserve of the original.
The seventh satire, which is here offered to the reader in such an English dress as in the judgment of the translator would best fit it, was written when Ariosto was Governor of La Garfagnana in the Apennines. It is in the form of an epistle and addressed to Pistofilo, who appears by the context to have been living at Ferrara, the capital of the duchy, and the usual residence of the Poet.
SEVENTH SATIRE OF ARIOSTO,
ADDRESSED TO PISTOFILO.
Now Clement’s[1] Pope, Embassador to Rome,
And there to serve the Duke a year or two,
Apprize you quick, and leave the rest to you:
And then to make me wish it, you adduced 5
Sundry good reasons, such as how I used
On terms of easy friendship to converse
With all these Medici both when the curse
Of exile fell upon them, and of late
When they restored, beheld their Leo, great 10
In scarlet shoes new crossed[2] to mark his papal state.
’Twould suit the Duke, you said, and profit me
To reach some lofty post or high degree;
More fish, you shrewdly urged, I well might hook
In the main current than the shallow brook.— 15
Now hear my answer:—I most kindly feel
Fresh proofs of this your unabated zeal,
Which my plain suit would change to costly garb,
And the dull ox exalt to fiery barb.
I grant, to serve my sovereign, I would go 20
Through fire and water, burning sands and snow,
To Rome—that ’s little—but to Spain, to France,
To India—could I so his views advance;
But when you gravely add that I may rise
To some high post, and seize a golden prize, 25
Lay other traps—for I at call-birds laugh,
Old birds, my friend, are seldom caught with chaff.
—For honour, at Ferrara, I have that—
Why more than six who meet me touch their hat:
They know at times I at the palace dine, 30
A favour ask, or serve some friend of mine.
Were I not more in purse than honour low
I ne’er should grumble—now, I sometimes do;
Though faith! e’en there my wishes are not large,
Enough just not to live at others’ charge 35
Is all to which my bounded views aspire,
And more, alas! than I shall e’er acquire;
For I have seen so many friends in power,
Yet still found Fortune frown and prospects lour;
That though the last to fly was lingering Hope 40
When Epimetheus dared his box to ope,
Yet she no longer leads me by the nose
As our rude peasants do their buffaloes.
Those Fortune’s wheels our painted cards[3] display,
In well known emblems, much my mind dismay; 45
They ’re all alike, where’er the show we view,
And sure what all inculcate must be true:
One on the summit like an ass is seen,
(It needs no sphinx to guess what that must mean)
While each who climbs, as he is lifted near 50
The fatal top, in muzzle, head, and ear,
Grows asinine; for all that bears the show
Of human limbs or figure hangs below.
And I remember too that fickle thing
Called Hope; she came so gaily in the Spring, 55
When flowers were blooming, every twig in shoot;
She was clean off before September’s fruit,
E’en when the Church for bridegroom deigned to name
Leo the Tenth[4]—that very day she came—
How many friends at those famed nuptials sat, 60
I marked each simpering face and scarlet hat,
And smiled—for Hope was smiling by their sides
The Calends through—she vanished at the Ides;
Vanished and left me stedfast in my plan,
To put no trust in promise or in man. 65
True, Hope had mounted when the Pope was pleased
To kiss ray cheek, and when my hand he squeezed;
But scarce was ten short days’ experience o’er,
When down she went, as low as high before.
Once, I am told, a gourd had thriv’n so fast, 70
The neighbouring pear-tree it in height surpassed;
That tree much marveled as it woke from sleep,
To see new fruit above its summit peep,
And cried, “What art thou?—Whence hast thou so soon
“To such vast height while I was slumbering grown?” 75
The gourd was tall, was insolent, and young,
Vaunting its race, it pointed whence it sprung:
“We gourds,” it added, “lose no time, you see,
“In three short months I overtopped your tree.”
“Indeed,” replied the pear, “through wind and snow 80
“The height it cost me thirty years to grow
“Thou hast achieved in twinkling of an eye;
“But mark me, neighbour, if to shoot so high
“Short time suffice thee, let the seasons frown,
“And shorter still may serve to cut thee down.” 85
So some[5], when Hope to Rome had brought me post,
Might in the pear-tree’s strain have checked my boast;
And urging claims of longer growth, have said,
How for the Medici they risked their head,
In exile fostered them, to power recalled, 90
Raised their meek lamb, and Leo Pope installed.
Nay, had Sosena’s spirit prophesied
Scarce less to them the moral had applied,
Such voice had sure foretold (could Dukes but hear)
When first that title[6] struck Lorenzo’s ear. 95
To him, to Bibiena[7] (he perchance
Had fared the better had he staid in France),
To Rossi, to Nemours, to every guest
Who thronged the house in that gay hour of feast,
How all that greatness soon should pass away, 100
For plants of rapid growth, as rapidly decay;
Short time, it might have said, will blight your hope,
Duke, princes, dames, your new elected Pope,
All, all shall perish, ere Latona’s Son
Eight times[8] complete his annual course has run. 105
But now to waste few words, for words are vain;
In me ambition and the thoughts of gain
Are dead long since. What Leo gave me not
Will scarce, methinks, from any Pope be got.
With other baits, then, tempt my appetite, 110
Say “Duty calls me,” I perhaps may bite.
But know, to rise in rank or fortune higher,
I look not now, nor, what is more, desire:
You ’d better bid me quit this odious place[9],
These rugged rocks, and no less rugged race; 115
Tell me that fixed at Rome I should not fret
At petty ills that here my life beset,
Where I am forced to punish, fine, and threat;
Or worse, to grieve at that too frequent sight,
Rude brutal force insulting helpless right; 120
Say that I might, beneath Rome’s classic shades,
Go rhyming on and woo the Aonian Maids;
Tell how the various wits that Court adorn,
In letters knowing, or with genius born;
Jovius for learning, Vida famed for verse, 125
Bembo, and numbers endless to rehearse,
On favourite themes would all day long converse.
And one among the throng might take the pains
To guide me, book in hand, through Rome’s remains.
The forum, circus, and Suburra’s street, 130
And Vesta’s shrine, and Janus’ sacred seat;
Then add, that if I write, or if I read,
Succour ’s at hand in every case of need,
To clear my doubts, to trace the thoughts I seek,
In Latin, Tuscan, or more crabbed Greek. 135
And then for books! those mighty treasures, which,
From various lands, the city to enrich,
Pope Sixtus brought: such offers to resist
You well may term a strange capricious twist.
I answer like Emilius, lo! in sight 140
My spruce shod foot, the leather ’s clean and bright;
You praise the work, but I who wear the shoe,
And only I, can where it pinches know.
Content, then, near my usual haunts to stay,
Who moves me tears me from myself away. 145
Not ease, not wealth, not all that Heav’n can give,
Could now persuade me far from thence to live.
E’en here, but that I sometimes fidget home,
And take a look at old Ferrara’s dome
And the bronze statues[10] that our square adorn, 150
The distance would have killed me, or have worn
To skin and bone, a lean and famished wretch,
Like Dante’s meagre ghosts[11], that strive the fruit to catch.
True, if to pine in absence were my doom,
I ’d gladly quit this sorry spot for Rome; 155
But, could I choose, on me our Prince should lay
His strict commands within his court to stay;
Call me to serve his person, keep me there,
Forbid my touching laud or breathing air
Beyond Argenta’s or Bondeno’s[12] grounds; 160
Small though the space, I should not break my bounds.
Ask you why thus I love my well-known nest[13]?
Oh! friend, be tender! let me not be prest
For, priest-like, you extort a secret sin,
And drag to light a truth that lurks within; 165
For should I all confess, you ’d cry, Behold,
The man last week was forty-nine years old!
’Tis well that hid in these deep dells I lie,
So shall my blush escape your searching eye.
Thank God, unseen I redden as I speak, 170
You view no deep vermilion in my cheek.
Though deep as Ambia’s, or her daughter’s face,
Or the fat canon’s, who in market-place
Dropped the third flask he ’d stolen from a monk—
The third, for two he had already drunk. 175
Oh! you ’d be tempted, were you close to hear
That cause avowed, which must detain me near,
To take a cudgel and to break the bones
Of one who such egregious folly owns.
NOTES.
Note 1, page 307, line 2.
Now Clement’s Pope.
Clement the Seventh, the second Pope of the House of Medici, chosen 1523.
Note 2, page 307, line 11.
In scarlet shoes new crossed to mark his papal state.
When a Cardinal is chosen Pope a golden cross is embroidered on his scarlet shoes; this is alluded to in the original text,
———e quando in su le rosse
Scarpe, Leone ebbe la croce d’ oro.
Note 3, page 308, line 19.
Those Fortune’s wheels our painted cards display.
A sort of cards called Tarocco, and common in Italy. The vicissitudes of fortune are, I believe, represented both in the games usually played with them and in the figures painted on them.
Note 4, page 308, lines 33 and 34.
E’en when the Church for bridegroom deigned to name
Leo the Tenth, that very day she came.
In the spring of 1513.
Note 5, page 309, line 25.
So some, &c.
The next twenty lines are somewhat obscure in the original. The sense appears to be as follows:
“When the hopes of preferment hurried me to Rome some might have applied the same language to me, inasmuch as they had better claims on Leo than myself, having exposed their lives in the service of the Medici, espoused their cause when they were banished, contributed to restore them, and finally to raise Leo to the Popedom. But perhaps a person in the Spirit of Sosena (who I understand was an active enemy of the Medici) might have said to them, to Lorenzo when created Duke, and to his family and courtiers, that the moral of the fable applied to them also, inasmuch as they were revelling in prosperity and high in hopes, but in the course of eight years would all be swept away by the hand of death.”
Throughout the passage there is a constant but indirect allusion to the preceding fable. The Translator, for the sake of perspicuity, has rendered that reference more direct.
Note 6, page 309, line 34.
When first that title struck Lorenzo’s ear.
Lorenzo de Medici was made Duke of Urbino and Sinigaglia in 1516; he died in 1519.
Note 7, page 309, lines 35 and 36.
To him to Bibiena (he perchance
Had fared the better had he staid in France), &c.
Bibiena had been legate in France, and died soon after his return to Italy. His death in 1520 was imputed by public suspicion to poison. The names and description of the ladies who partook of the good fortunes of Lorenzo, and were dead before the expiration of eight years, are, to avoid prolixity, omitted in the translation, and only included under the words “every guest,” v. 98, and “dames,” v. 103.
Note 8, page 310, line 8.
Eight times complete his annual course has run.
Leo X. died in Dec. 1521. He had been elected Pope in 1513.
Note 9, page 310, line 17.
You ’d better bid me quit this odious place.
Garfagnana, of which the Poet was Governor.
Note 10, page 311, line 17.
And the bronze statues that our squares adorn.
In the square of Ferrara there are two bronze statues, an equestrian one of the Marquis Nicolo d’Este, and a sitting figure of the Masquis Borso, afterwards Duke of Ferrara.
Note 11, page 311, line 20.
Like Dante’s meagre ghosts, that strive the fruit to catch.
An allusion to a passage in the twenty-fourth Canto of the Purgatorio, where the ghosts of gluttons are represented in a state of hunger, catching, like Tantalus, at the apples of a tree, which seems within their reach, but is removed beyond it whenever they stretch out their hands.
Note 12, page 311, line 27.
Beyond Argenta’s or Bondeno’s grounds.
Argenta and Bondeno are two places at the extremity of the Ferrarese territory, one twenty miles east, the other twenty miles west of Ferrara.
Note 13, page 311, line 29.
Ask you why thus I love my well-known nest?
Born at Reggio.