domestic animals as of the mistress; and the falconer, hawk, dog, and hackney, equally please us in the happy colouring and coherence of the group; but what succeeds these pictures,
. . .“which, daring to depart
“From sober truth, are still, to nature true,”
is of a different description, and Ariosto seems to have been seduced into this deviation from his better course by the popularity which Platonism still possessed among the learned in Italy, the spirit of which is embodied in the stanza upon which I am commenting. These doctrines are much too unreal to form part of a circumstantial narrative, the other portions of which, however marvellous, delight us by what may be called their poetical probability; and Logistilla, with her personified hand-maid virtues, Dicilla, &c. with their castle and armament, &c. are a sort of dream which we recognize as such, even while the vision is before our eyes. Spenser, writing in the spirit of his age, unfortunately made this part of the Furioso his model.
But fairies cannot at their pleasure die.
Stanza lxvi. line 8.
In the original,
“Ma le fate morir sempre non ponno,”
which, being literally interpreted, means (as I conceive)
But the fairies cannot always die;
i. e. cannot die when they will. This is not, however, the sense in which the ancient commentators understand it, and the editor of the copy of the Furioso, from which I am translating, says, “Some noise was made by Nisielli about this expression: (Fu fatto qualche strepito dal Nisielli su questa espressione) the meaning of which is, ‘The fairies are always immortal.’” I am at a loss however to know how the words can warrant such a construction as this, and a great living Italian authority justifies that which I have
