Orlando Innamorato, the first Renaissance Epic About the Common Customs Of, and the Conflicts R Between, Christian Europe and Islam
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Renaissance Literature I Boiardo RLANDO NNAMORATO O O I T “Neglect of Italian romances robs us of a whole species of pleasure and narrows our very conception of literature. It is as if a man left out Homer, or Elizabethan drama, or the novel. ORLANDO IN LOVE A For like these, the romantic epic of Italy is one of the great trophies of the European genius: RLANDO a genuine kind, not to be replaced by any other, and illustrated by an extremely copious and L brilliant production. It is one of the successes, the undisputed achievements.” —C. S. Lewis Matteo Maria Boiardo I Like Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, Boiardo’s chivalric stories of lords and ladies first entertained the culturally innovative court of Ferrara in the Italian Translated with A Renaissance. Inventive, humorous, inexhaustible, the story recounts Orlando’s love-stricken ORLANDO IN LOVE pursuit of “the fairest of her Sex, Angelica” (in Milton’s terms) through a fairyland that an Introduction N combines the military valors of Charlemagne’s knights and their famous horses with the and Notes by enchantments of King Arthur’s court. I Charles Stanley Ross Today it seems more than ever appropriate to offer a new, unabridged edition of Boiardo’s NNAMORATO Orlando Innamorato, the first Renaissance epic about the common customs of, and the conflicts R between, Christian Europe and Islam. Having extensively revised his earlier translation for general readers, Charles Ross has added headings and helpful summaries to Boiardo’s cantos. E Tenses have been regularized, and terms of gender and religion have been updated, but not so much as to block the reader’s encounter with how Boiardo once viewed the world. N Charles Stanley Ross has degrees from Harvard College and the University of Chicago and A teaches English and comparative literature at Purdue University. Cover Illustration: Saint Demetrius, by L’Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti), early I Cinquecento; courtesy of Stanley Moss and Co., Riverdale-On-Hudson, New York. The S image evokes the poet Boiardo in meditative fantasy. S Parlor Press 816 Robinson Street • West Lafayette, IN 47906 A www.parlorpress.com S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9 N ISBN 1-932559-10-8 Parlor C Press E Orlando Innamorato Orlando Innamorato Orlando in Love Matteo Maria Boiardo Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Charles Stanley Ross Parlor Press West Lafayette, Indiana www.parlorpress.com Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906 Ross, Charles S. “Angelica and the Fata Morgana: Boiardo’s Allegory of Love.” MLN 96.1 (1981): 12-22. © The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. An earlier translation by Charles Stanley Ross was first published by the University of California Press, 1989, and an abridged version by Oxford University Press, 1995. Cover illustration detail from Saint Demetrius by L’Ortolano (Giovanni Battista Benvenuti) early Cinquecento. Courtesy of Stanley Moss and Co., Riverdale-On-Hudson, New York. © 2004 by Parlor Press All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2003116554 Boiardo, Matteo Maria, 1440 or 1441–1494 Orlando innamorato (Orlando in Love) English : / Matteo Maria Boiardo; translated with an introduction and notes by Charles Stanley Ross. p. cm. This edition is an unabridged translation. Includes illustrations, notes, bibliographical references, and index. 1. Roland (Legendary character)—Romances. I. Ross, Charles Stanley. II. Title. ISBN 1-932559-01-9 (Paper) ISBN 1-932559-10-8 (Adobe eBook) ISBN 1-932559-11-6 (TK3) Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and mul- timedia formats. This Adobe eBook is also available in trade paper and Night Kitchen (TK3) formats, from Parlor Press on the WWW at http://www.parlorpress.com. For submission in- formation or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [email protected]. For Clare Che in l’universo, in tutte le contrade Quanto il sol scalda e quanto cinge il mare Cosa più bella non si può mirare. CONTENTS Preface to the Parlor Press Edition xi Acknowledgments xiii Boiardo and His Poem xv Chronology of Matteo Maria Boiardo xxxi Map of Northern and Central Italy xxxiii Boiardo’s Life xxxiv Boiardo and the Derangement of Epic l Angelica and the Fata Morgana: Boiardo’s Allegory of Love lxv Text and Translation lxxv Annotated Bibliography lxxix Maps lxxxii ORLANDO INNAMORATO Book I, Cantos i–xxix 1 1 Angelica in Paris 3 2 Charlemagne’s Tournament 14 3 The Stream of Love 23 4 War in Spain 33 5 Orlando’s Quest for Angelica 45 6 A Cup of Forgetfulness 55 7 Gradasso’s Siege of Paris 64 8 Castle Cruel 73 9 Dragontina’s Garden 81 10 The First Battle of Albraca 91 11 Sacripante in His Nightshirt 98 vii CONTENTS 12 Medusa’s Garden 105 13 The Evil King of Baghdad 116 14 Poliferno’s Prison 123 15 Nine Knights at Albraca 132 16 The Indian Army 140 17 Feeding Orgagna’s Beast 148 18 Marfisa’s Sword 156 19 The Death of Agricane 163 20 Three Giants and a Camel 171 21 Leodilla’s Footrace 179 22 What Women Do to Old Husbands 188 23 The Savage Man 195 24 The Horn Tests 202 25 The Treasure Fairy 210 26 Ranaldo Kills Trufaldino 217 27 Orlando v. Ranaldo 226 28 Angelica Intervenes 233 29 Origille in Distress 240 Book II, Cantos i–xxxi 249 1 Agramante, Alexander, Africa 249 2 The Bridge of Roses 259 3 Searching for Rugiero 268 4 Falerina’s Garden 277 5 Brunello’s Thefts 287 6 Rodamonte Invades Provence 296 7 The Fata Morgana’s Lake 304 8 The Underworld of Treasure 312 9 Fortune’s Forelock 320 10 Balisardo’s Metamorphoses 328 11 King Manodante’s Lost Children 336 12 Brandimarte Recognized 343 13 The Fay Alcina 351 14 Ranaldo Travels West 360 viii CONTENTS 15 The God of Love 368 16 The Tournament at Mt. Carena 377 17 The Story of Narcissus 385 18 The Fall of Albracà 393 19 Cannibals 401 20 The Cyprus Tournament 409 21 Orlando Returns to France 417 22 Agramante’s Thirty-Two Kings 424 23 The Border War at Montalbano 432 24 Saving Charlemagne 442 25 Febosilla’s Palace 450 26 Doristella 458 27 The Flower of Liza 465 28 The Biserta Hunt 473 29 Agramante Invades France 480 30 Feraguto Beaten 489 31 Atalante’s Phantom Army 497 Book III, Cantos i–ix 505 1 Mandricardo’s Mistresses 505 2 The Crocodile of the Nile 513 3 Lucina, A Syrian Princess 521 4 Rugiero at Montalbano 529 5 Bradamante in Love 536 6 Fighting for Durindana 544 7 The Laughing Stream 551 8 Back to Paris 558 9 Fiordespina’s Impossible Love 567 Notes to the Poem 571 Bibliography 583 Index of Names and Places 591 ix PREFACE TO THE PARLOR PRESS EDITION Today it seems more than ever appropriate to offer a new edition of Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, the first Renaissance epic about the common customs of, and the conflicts between, Christian Europe and Islam. Written in Italy during the 1470s (and first translated by me in the 1970s), the story of a French knight’s pursuit of an Eastern princess seemed hopelessly out of date by the end of the fifteenth century. Europeans had found two new continents, and Italy had been invaded, in1494, by the French, who were soon replaced by Spanish troops. The world of Italy changed, as, we are told, our own has done. Paradoxically, however, our new horizons turn our attention back to the arena where Boiardo placed the most wondrous elements of his poem, the area from Chechnya to Turkestan, around the Cas- pian Sea—not just the regions beyond ancient Persia, but imaginatively to the furthest regions that westerners could hope to reach. The legacy of Alexander the Great, power- fully invoked in the second half of the Innamorato, was dim to American and European minds when I first translated Boiardo. It has returned in force as we struggle to under- stand not only foreign cultures but ourselves. For this new, complete edition, printed without a facing Italian text in a format as close as possible to the original, I have somewhat loosened Boiardo’s stanza from the restraints of a line-for-line rendering and allowed more rhyme. Tenses have been regular- ized. Terms of gender and religion have been updated, but not so much as to block the reader’s encounter with how Boiardo once viewed the world. Charles Stanley Ross Purdue University xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I first read Boiardo early in 1974 for a University of Chicago seminar on Arthurian romance. Immune to awkward strokes of battle after reading many minor romances, I quickly succumbed to the Innamorato’s spell. The idea that literary works must have consistent, developed characters had burdened generations of Boiardo critics, but since that notion held no weight in our seminar, I was free to see Boiardo’s characters as products of the Innamorato’s plot. I remember that as I charted the movements of men and armies across a long stretch of brown wrapping paper taped to my study wall, I drew a pencil line to trace Astolfo’s eastward voyage in pursuit of Orlando, and the impetuous sweep of that curve seemed to reflect Astolfo’s personality and at the same time to symbolize the particular pleasure of reading this romantic epic.