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PART II. CANTO I.
UT now, t' observe romantique method,[1]
Let bloody[2] steel awhile be sheathed:
And all those harsh and rugged sounds[3]
Of bastinadoes, cuts, and wounds,
Exchang'd to love's more gentle style, 5
To let our reader breathe awhile:[4]
In which, that we may be as brief as
Is possible, by way of preface.
Is't not enough to make one strange,[5]
That some men's fancies[6] should ne'er change, 10
But make all people do and say
The same things still the self-same way
Some writers make all ladies purloin'd.
And knights pursuing like a whirlwind:[7]
Others make all their knights, in fits15
Of jealousy, to lose their wits;
- ↑ The abrupt opening of this Canto is designed; being in imitation of the commencement of the fourth book of the Æneid,
"At regina gravi jam dudum saucia cura," &c. - ↑ Var. rusty steel in 1674—84, and trusty in 1700. Restored to bloody steel in 1704.
- ↑ In like manner Shakspeare, Richard III. Act i. sc. 1, says:
"Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures." - ↑ For this and the three previous lines, the first edition has:
And unto love turn we our style
To let our reader breathe awhile.
By this time tir'd with th' horrid sounds
Of blows, and cuts, and blood, and wounds. - ↑ That is, to make one wonder.
- ↑ Var. That a man's fancy.
- ↑ Alluding, probably, to Don Quixote's account of the enchanted Dulcineas, flying from him, like a whirlwind, in Montesino's Cave.
