among the supporters of the young king, Frederick II. He united Moravia with Bohemia in 1222, and when he died in December 1230 he left to his son, Wenceslaus I., a kingdom united and comparatively peaceable.
Ottakar II., or Premysl Ottakar II. (c. 1230–1278), king of Bohemia, was a son of King Wenceslaus I., and through his mother, Kunigunde, was related to the Hohenstaufen family, being a grandson of the German king, Philip, duke of Swabia. During his father’s lifetime he ruled Moravia, but when in 1248 some discontented Bohemian nobles acknowledged him as their sovereign, trouble arose between him and his father, and for a short time Ottakar was imprisoned. However, in 1251 the young prince secured his election as duke of Austria, where he strengthened his position by marrying Margaret (d. 1267), sister of Duke Frederick II., the last of the Babenberg rulers of the duchy and widow of the German king, Henry VII. Some years later he repudiated this lady and married a Hungarian princess. Both before and after he became king of Bohemia in succession to his father in September 1253 Ottakar was involved in a dispute with Bela IV., king of Hungary, over the possession of Styria, which duchy had formerly been united with Austria. By an arrangement made in 1254 he surrendered part of it to Bela, but when the dispute was renewed he defeated the Hungarians in July 1260 and secured the whole of Styria for himself, owing his formal investiture with Austria and Styria to the German king, Richard, earl of Cornwall. The Bohemian king also led two expeditions against the Prussians. In 1269 he inherited Carinthia and part of Carniola; and having made good his claim, contested by the Hungarians, on the field of battle, he was the most powerful prince in Germany when an election for the German throne took place in 1273. But Ottakar was not the successful candidate. He refused to acknowledge his victorious rival, Rudolph of Habsburg, and urged the pope to adopt a similar attitude, while the new king claimed the Austrian duchies. Matters reached a climax in 1276. Placing Ottakar under the ban of the empire, Rudolph besieged Vienna and compelled Ottakar in November 1276 to sign a treaty by which he gave up Austria and the neighbouring duchies, retaining for himself only Bohemia and Moravia. Two years later the Bohemian king tried to recover his lost lands; he found allies and collected a large army, but he was defeated by Rudolph and killed at Dürnkrut on the March on the 26th of August 1278. Ottakar was a founder of towns and a friend of law and order, while he assisted trade and welcomed German immigrants. Clever, strong and handsome, he is a famous figure both in history and in legend, and is the subject of a tragedy by F. Grillparzer, König Ottokars Glück und Ende. His son and successor was Wenceslaus II.
See O. Lorenz, Geschichte König Ottokars, ii. (Vienna, 1866); A. Huber, Geschichte Oesterreichs, Band i. (Gotha, 1885); and F. Palacky, Geschichte von Böhmen, Band i. (Prague, 1844).
OTTAVA RIMA, a stanza of eight iambic lines, containing
three rhymes, invariably arranged as follows:—a b a b a b a c.
It is an Italian invention, and we find the earliest specimens
of its use in the poetry of the fourteenth century. Boccaccio
employed it for the Teseide, which he wrote in Florence in 1340,
and for the Filostrato, which he wrote at Naples some seven
years later. These remarkable epics gave to ottava rima its
classic character. In the succeeding century it was employed
by Politiani, and by Boiardo for his famous Orlando Innamorato
(1486). It was Pulci, however, in the Morgante Maggiore (1487),
who invented the peculiar mock-heroic, or rather half-serious,
half-burlesque, style with which ottava rima has been most
commonly identified ever since and in connexion with which it
was introduced into England by Frere and Byron. The measure,
which was now recognized as the normal one for all Italian
epic poetry, was presently wielded with extraordinary charm
and variety by Berni, Ariosto and Tasso. The merits of it
were not perceived by the English poets of the 16th and
17th centuries, although the versions of Tasso by Carew
(1594) and Fairfax (1600) and of Ariosto by Harington (1591)
preserve its external construction. The stanzaic forms invented
by Spenser and by the Fletchers have less real relation to ottava
rima than is commonly asserted, and it is quite incorrect to say
that the author of the Fairy Queen adopted ottava rima and added
a ninth line to prevent the sound from being monotonously
iterative. A portion of Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals is
composed in pure ottava rima, but this is the only important
specimen in original Elizabethan literature. Two centuries
later a very successful attempt was made to introduce in English
poetry the flexibility and gaiety of ottava rima by John Hookham
Frere, who had studied Pulci and Casti, and had caught the
very movement of their diverting measure. His Whistlecraft
appeared in 1817. This is a specimen of the ottava rima of
Frere:—
|
But chiefly, when the shadowy moon had shed |
Byron was greatly impressed by the opportunities for satire involved in Frere’s experiment, and in October 1817, in imitation of Whistlecraft, but keeping still closer to Pulci, he wrote Beppo. By far the greatest monument in ottava rima which exists in English literature is Don Juan (1818–1821). Byron also employed this measure, which was peculiarly adaptable to the purposes of his genius, in The Vision of Judgment (1822). Meanwhile Shelley also became attracted by it, and in 1820 translated the Hymns of Homer into ottava rima. The curious burlesque epic of William Tennant (1784–1848), Anster Fair (1812), which preceded all these, is written in what would be ottava rima if the eighth line were not an alexandrine. The form has been little used in other languages than Italian and English. It was employed by Boscna (1490–1542), who imitated Bembo vigorously in Spanish, and the very fine Araucana of Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533–1595) is in the same measure. Lope de Vega Carpio wrote plentifully in ottava rima. In Portuguese poetry of the 16th and 17th centuries this measure obtained the sanction of Camoens, who wrote in it his immortal Lusiads (1572). Ottava rima has been attempted in German poetry by Uhland and others, but not for pieces of any considerable length. (E. G.)
OTTAWA, a tribe of North American Indians of Algonquian stock, originally settled on the Ottawa river, Canada, and later on the north shore of the upper peninsula of Michigan. They were driven in 1650 by the Iroquois beyond the Mississippi, only to be forced back by the Dakotas. Then they settled on Manitoulin Island, Lake Huron, and joined the French against the English. During the War of Independence, however, they fought for the latter. Some were moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), but the majority live to-day in scattered communities throughout lower Michigan and Ontario.
OTTAWA, the largest tributary of the river St Lawrence; ranking ninth in length among the rivers of Canada, being 685 m. long. It flows first westward to Lake Temiscaming; thence south-east and east. The principal tributaries on the left bank are the Rouge (115 m.), North Nation (60), Lievre (205), Gatineau (240), Coulonge (135), Dumoine (80); and on the right bank, the South Nation (90), Mississippi (105), Madawaska (130) and Petawawa (95). Canals at Ste Anne, Carillon and Grenville permit the passage of vessels drawing 9 ft., from Montreal up to the city of Ottawa. At Ottawa the river is connected with Lake Ontario by the Rideau Canal. The Chaudière Falls, and the Chats and other rapids, prevent continuous navigation above the capital, but small steamers ply on the larger navigable stretches. The Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal is designed to surmount these obstructions and provide a navigable channel from Georgian Bay up French river, through Lake Nipissing and over the height of land to the Ottawa, thence down to Montreal, of sufficient depth to enable vessels drawing 20 or 21 ft. to carry cargo from Chicago, Duluth. Fort William, &c. to Montreal, or, if necessary, to Europe, without breaking bulk. Except the suggested Hudson Bay route, this canal would form
