attached to them, as exemplified by this very denomination, was not only consonant to the habits of such an age, but arose even out of its necessities: for before the introduction of dry forage, which was not of early origin, the woods and water afforded the only fresh food to be procured during the winter season; those who could not procure such an indulgence being obliged to live on salt provisions; and this, probably, was a cause of leprosy during the middle ages.
The reader will doubtless admire what artists term the keeping of this picture, together with the appearance of truth produced by its circumstantiality. But a commentator tells us that there is something beneath the surface, and that the four animals which attack Rogero are the four predominant passions; fear, exemplified by the servant, desire by the bird, grief by the dog, and joy by the hackney: all, even to the number of kicks given by the horse, being significant, though unsatisfactorily explained.
Loose
Or cancel hag-knot.
Stanza xiv. lines 7 and 8.
In the original turbine: which here means a species of involved knot, used formerly in incantation. Perhaps hag-knot, which is still employed in the New Forest to designate the tangles in the manes of wild ponies, which are supposed to have been made by witches, to answer the purpose of stirrups, is its best English equivalent.
And that spear
Of gold, which whensoe’er at tilt he run,
the first touch unseated cavalier.
Stanza xvii. lines 4, 5, 6.
The reader must recur to the Innamorato for an account of this spear, with which Astolpho worked wonders, and which is one of Boyardo’s happiest instruments.
