adopted. Moreover, mine is in strict conformity with the ancient opinions of Fatology held during the middle ages, and is not at all at variance (with the peace of the commentators be it said) with the former assertion of the poet. He says: “No fairy dies or can,” while the present heavenly system shall continue; but this does not exclude their dying, like the Scandinavian deities, at some remote period, and after some celestial revolution.
I am, however, considering the system of close translation which I have adopted, more afraid of being blamed for occasional departure from the strict observance of the rules I have proposed to myself than for an exact observance of them. But I will beg the reader to believe that where I do so, it is in preference of the idiomatic spirit of an expression to the literal meaning of the words. To revert to a late instance; Olympia, in canto ix. stanza xxiv. says,
Per un mal ch’io patisco ne vo cento
Patir (respondo) e far di tutto il resto.
This far di tutto il resto, I translate, “to hazard all,” such being the real sense of the passage, which is a gamester’s idiom, meaning to risque all for the sake of recovering what he had lost.
Passing the great Quinsay, beheld in air.
Stanza lxxi. line 2.
Ariosto in this and a future passage, where he treats of Asiatic countries, seems to have grafted the discoveries of Marco Polo upon the map of Ptolemy.
That next the royal gonfalon, which stirred
By fluttering wind, is borne towards the mount,
Which on green field, three pinions of a bird
Bears argent, speaks Sir Richard, Warwick’s count.
Stanza lxxviii. lines 1, 2, 3, 4.
In making out the English titles, I have been, I may venture to
