Æthiopians; but Ovid’s Metamorphoses were the great mine whence Ariosto drew his mythological materials, and he had probably in his recollection the passage where the gods are described taking refuge in Æthiopia amid the tumults of the Titanic war.
With Melicerta on her shoulders, weeping
Ino, &c.
Stanza xlv. lines 1 and 2.
Ino, the wife of Athamas, and Melicerta, her son, were changed into deities of the sea.
He looks; and known to him the dame appears,
And more appears, when nigher her he sought:
Olympia she appears, and is indeed
Olympia; whose faith reaped so ill a meed.
Stanza liv. lines 5, 6, 7, 8.
In this stanza too we may remark what I have before directed attention to.
The lines, in the original are,
Guarda e gli par’ conoscer la fanciulla;
E più gli pare più che s’ avvicina
Gli pare Olimpia; ed è Olimpia certo
Che di sua fede ebbe sì iniquo merto.
Here, however, this favourite practice of the poet has an obvious object; in other places it seems less explicable if measured only by its immediate effect. But on this, too, I have already remarked.
