but, indeed, all this description is a mosaic, culled from various authors. For the earrings, Ovid tells that Dejanira
Vidit in Herculeo suspensa monilia collo,
and afterwards makes her say,
Non puduit fortes auro cohibere lacertos,
Et solidis gemmas apposuisse toris?
Like one who does Valentian lady’s hest.
Stanza lv. line 4.
I do not know whether what was once called cicisbeism took its rise in Valencia, or whether this verse is only allusive to the general effeminacy of the province. The first supposition appears probable.
“The marrow of the lion and the bear
“Didst thou for this thine early banquet make,
“And, trained by me, by cliff or cavern-lair,
“Strangle with infant hands the crested snake;
“Their claws from tiger and from panther tear,
“And tusks from living boar in tangled brake.”
Stanza lvii. lines 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Here Ariosto is indebted to Statius, who makes Achilles speak thus of his education under Chiron:
Thessalus ut rigido senior me monte recepit,
Non ullas ex more dapes habuisse, nec ullis
Uberibus satiasse famem, sed spissa leonum
Viscera, semianimesque libens traxisse medullas.
And again, speaking of Achilles,
Nunquam ille imbelles obscura per avia lynces
Sectari . . . . . . .
at tristes turbare cubilibus orsos,
Fulmineasque sues, &c.
