CIV. Saint Peter, who has hitherto been known A different web being by the destinies He first sunk to the bottom-like his works, * A drowned body lies at the bottom till rotten; it then floats, as most people know. Morgante Maggiore. TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF PULCI ADVERTISEMENT. the version is faithful to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy tisk of reducing it to THE Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which the same versification in the other. The reader is rethis translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Inquested to remember that the antiquated language of namorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto. The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one, and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci be may considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in Eng land. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr Merivale, are to be traced to the same source. It has never yet been decided entirely, whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion, which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas, Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,-or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the « Tales of my Landlord.» In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names; as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlomano; Rondel, or Rondello, etc. as it suits his convenience, so has the translator. In other respects Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of MORGANTE MAGGIORE. CANTO I. 1. In the beginning was the Word next God; God was the Word, the Word no less was he; Of thinking, and without him nought could be: << And even at Aspramont thou didst begin << If thou rememberest being in Gascony, Had not his valour driven them back again. << T is fit thy grandeur should dispense relief, XVI. And with the sword he would have murder'd Gan, Wanted but little to have slain him there; From Ermellina, consort of the Dane, He took Cortana, and then took Rondell, Like him a fury counsels; his revenge On Gan in that rash act he seem'd to take, Then full of wrath departed from the place, The traitor Gan remember'd by the way; Midst glens obscure, and distant lands he found, XX. The abbot was call'd Clermont, and by blood Of a great mountain's brow the abbey stood, And Alabaster and Morgante hover XXI. The monks could pass the convent gate no more, Nor leave their cells for water or for wood. Orlando knock'd, but none would оре, before Unto the prior it at length seem'd good; Enter'd, he said that he was taught to adore Him who was born of Mary's holiest blood, And was baptized a christian; and then show'd How to the abbey he had found his road. XXII. Said the abbot, « You are welcome; what is mine We give you freely, since that you believe With us in Mary Mother's son divine; And that you may not, cavalier, conceive To be rusticity, you shall receive XXIII. « When hither to inhabit first we came These mountains, albeit that they are obscure, As you perceive, yet withour fear or blame They seem'd to promise an asylum sure: From savage brutes alone, too fierce to tame, 'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure; But now, if here we'd stay, we needs must guard Against domestic beasts with watch and ward. XXIV. «These make us stand, in fact, upon the watch, You know, they can do all-we are not enough: . I know not what to do till matters change. << Our ancient fathers living the desert in, That manna was rain'd down from heaven instead; But here 't is fit we keep on the alert in Our bounds, or taste the stones shower'd down for bread, From off yon mountain daily raining faster, XXI. « But had it come up here upon its shoulders, There would have been a different tale to tell: The fellow-feeling in the saints beholders Seems to have acted on them like a spell, And so this very foolish head Heaven solders Back on its trunk: it may be very well, And seems the custom here to overthrow Whatever has been wisely done below.>> XXII. The angel answer'd, « Peter! do not pout; The king who comes has head aud all entire, And never knew much what it was about He did as doth the puppet-by its wire, And will be judged like all the rest, no doubt: My business and your own is not to inquire Into such matters, but to mind our cueWhich is to act as we are bid to do.»> XXIII. While thus they spake, the angelic caravan, Or Thames, or Tweed), and midst them an old man XXIV. But bringing up the rear of this bright host, As he drew near, he gazed upon the gate, XXVI. The very cherubs huddled altogether, Like birds when soars the falcon; and they felt A tingling to the tip of every feather, And form'd a circle, like Orion's belt, Around their poor old charge, who scarce knew whither His guards had led him, though they gently dealt XXVII. As things were in this posture, the gate flew Flung over space an universal hue Of many-colour'd flame, until its tinges Reach'd even our speck of earth, and made a new Aurora borealis spread its fringes O'er the North Pole; the same seen, when ice-bound, By Captain Parry's crews, in « Melville's Sound.>> XXVIII. And from the gate thrown open issued beaming XXIX. 'T was the archangel Michael: all men know I really can't say that they much evince Michael flew forth in glory and in good; A goodly work of him from whom all glory And good arise; the portal pass'd-he stood; Before him the young cherubs and saint hoary, (I say young, begging to be understood By looks, not years; and should be very sorry, To state, they were not older than Saint Peter, But merely that they seem'd a little sweeter.) XXXI. The cherubs and the saints bow'd down before Of essences angelical, who wore The aspect of a god; but this ne'er nursed He and the sombre silent spirit met They knew each other both for good and ill; Such was their power, that neither could forget His former friend and future foe, but still There was a high, immortal, proud regret In either's eye, as if 't were less their will But here they were in neutral space: we know And that « the sons of God,» like those of clay, And this is not a theologic tract, To prove with Hebrew and with Arabic But a true narrative; and thus I pick |