32
A wicker boat covered with a horse-skin, much used by these islanders.
33
Ards is situated on the main, near the wild promontory of Horn Head, and is the seat of the Stewart family.
34
Booty.
35
Orlando Furioso, canto xxii. st. 1, 2, 3.
I
"Donne, e voi che le donne avete in pregio,
Per Dio, non date a questa istoria orecchia,
A questa che 'l ostier dire in dispregio,
E in vostra infamia e biasmo s'apparecchia;
Benche, ne, macchia vi puo, dar ne, fregio
Lingua sì vile; e sia l'usanza vecchia,
Che 'l volgare ignorante ognun riprenda,
E parle piu, de quel meno intenda.
II
Lasciate questo canto, che senz'esso,
Puo star l'istoria, e non sara men chiara;
Mettendolo Turpino, anch'io l'ò messo,
Non per malevolenzia, ne per gara;
Ch'io v'ami oltre mia lingua che l'a expresso,
Che mai non fu di celebrarvi avara,
N'ò falto mille prove, e v'o dimostro
Ch'io son ne potrei esser se non vostro.
III
Passi chi vuol tre carte, o quattro, senza
Leggerne verso, e chi pur legge vuole
Gli dia quella medesima credenza,
Che si vuol dare a finzion, e a fole," &c.
which thus may be rollingly Englished,
Ladies, and you to whom ladies are dear,
For God's sake don't lend to this story an ear.
Care not for fables of slander or blame
Which this scandalous chronicler flings on your name.
Spots that can stain you with slight or with wrong
Cannot be cast by so worthless a tongue.
Well is it known, as an usage of old,
That the ignorant vulgar will ever be bold,
Satire and censure still scattering, and
Talking the most where they least understand.
Passed over unread let this canto remain,
Without it the story will be just as plain.
As Turpin has put it, so I put it too;
But not from ill-feeling, dear ladies, to you.
My love to your sex has been shown in my lays;
To you I have never been niggard of praise;
And many a proof I have given which secures
That I am, and can never be other than yours.
Skip three or four pages, and read not a word;
Or, if you will read it, pray deem it absurd,
As a story in credit not better or worse
Than the foolish old tales you were told by the nurse.
I do not mean to defend my doggrel; but I think Ariosto has not yet had an adequate translator in English, or indeed in any language; nor, in my opinion, will he easily find one. The poem is too long, and requires the aid of the music of the original language to carry the reader through. I do not know what metre in English could contend against the prolixity; but I do know that Ariosto sadly wants – as what classic in the vernacular languages does not? – a better critic of his text than he has yet found, in Italian.
In the above passage it is somewhat amusing to find Ariosto assuring his readers that they might pass this particular canto, because without it "puo star l'istoria;" as if there were a canto in the whole poem of which the same might not be said.
36
Henry V. act i. sc. 2. Archbishop Chicheley's argument is
"The land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe,
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French,
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Established there this law, to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land."
37
Aristoph. Lysistr.
38
The speech of this porter is in blank verse.
Here is a knocking indeed! If a man
Were porter of hell-gate, he should have old
Turning the key. Knock – knock – knock! Who is there,
In the name of Beelzebub? Here is a farmer
That hanged himself [up]on the expectation