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NOTES TO CANTO X.
torted from this admirable poet. What (to return to that before us) can be more ridiculous than the substitution of a hornet, whose attack is short and severe, for Homer’s fly, by whose restless importunity, weak agent as it was, he intended to illustrate the sort of vexatious and persevering hostility which was to be waged by Menelaus against Hector?
This note may come in support of some observations, which I have risked, in a former comment upon the infidelity of our most popular translators.
That he shall vainly covet gourd or skiff.
Stanza cvi. line last.
In the original,
Che brami in vano avere o zucca o schifo.
Gourds were apparently in Ariosto’s time used in Italy for the same purpose as corks are at present by us.
