And naked of inhabitants. To shun
All human converse, here she with her slaves
Plying her arts remained, and lived, and left
Her body tenantless. Thenceforth the tribes
Who round were scattered, gathering to that place,
Assembled; for its strength was great, enclosed
On all parts by the fen. On those dead bones
They reared themselves a city for her sake,
Calling it Mantua, who first chose the spot,
Nor asked another omen for the name.
Cary’s Translation.
Manto is usually called a fairy by Ariosto and the old Italian writers, and this is quite in the spirit of the middle ages, when not only a supernatural race of females, like the Persian peries, but women, supposed to be versed in the occult arts, were so denominated. Thus we are told in the Mort Arthur, how that king’s sister was a fairy, who was brought up in a nunnery, where she learned so much that she became a great clerk in necromancy.
“If he by Taro, and in Naples’ reign,
“(’Tis said), from Gauls delivered Italy.”
Stanza lx. lines 5 and 6.
Ariosto alludes to the victory gained by Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, upon the river Taro, over Charles VII. of France, and the expulsion of the French from the kingdom of Naples. I need hardly add, he means to say, in the concluding lines, that the domestic are not less praiseworthy than the more active and brilliant virtues.
For I should leave old Typhis out of view,
If on such sea I launched before the wind.
Stanza lxi. lines 5 and 6.
i. e. I should embark on a more immeasurable sea than that traversed by the Argonauts: for Typhis was the pilot of the Argo.
