Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/148

130 justly praises the truth and dignity of the characters of Orlando and Rinaldo, and says of the general economy of the poem: "Pulci was the first who wrote a long and complicated poem which, diversified as it is by many incidents, has a principal subject and a principal character, on which all other parts and personages depend, without which the poem could not subsist, and which by itself alone forms an uninterrupted narrative. This hero and this subject are Gano and his treachery, which brings on the defeat of Roncesvalles."

These are great merits. The principal defects are summed up by a genial admirer, Leigh Hunt (Stories from the Italian Poets, vol. i.), as the want of fine imagery and natural description, and frequent triviality and prolixity. The vulgarity objected to by the Italian critics must exist, but is not equally offensive to a foreigner. The poem is fully analysed by Panizzi in the first volume of his edition of Boiardo, and its general character may be very well caught from Byron's translation of the first canto. Pulci's higher strain is ably conveyed in the following portion of a translation of an episode by Lady Dacre:

And because Love not willingly excuses One who is loved and loveth not again; (For tyrannous were deemed the rule he uses, Should they who sue for pity sue in vain; What gracious lord his faithful liege refuses?) So when the gentle dame perceived the pain That well-nigh wrought to death her valiant knight, Her melting heart began his love requite.

And from her eyes soft beamed the answering ray That Oliver's soul-thrilling glance returns; Love in these gleamy lightnings loves to play  Till but one flame two youthful bosoms burns.