MEDORO AND CLORIDANO.

FROM ARIOSTO.

ARIOSTO does not write in the intense manner of Dante.

He was a poet of other times and opinions; much inferior to Dante, yet still a great poet of his kind, true to nature, more universal in his sympathies, giving wonderful verisimilitude to the wildest fictions, and full of a charming ease as well as force, though enjoyment sometimes makes him diffuse, and even a little weak and languid. This defect is not unobservable in the episodes before us, as far as style is concerned; though otherwise, and often in the style also, they are full of spirit of the most various kind, both grave and gay.

Medoro and Cloridano, which is a variation of the episode of Nisus and Euryalus in Virgil, with beautiful additions, is a story of friendship and gratitude, and shows the poet's hearty belief in those virtues. That of Angelica and Medoro, into which it runs, is a story of love, or rather of girlish passion, and equally shows his truth to the less sentimental impulses of nature, especially where he contrasts his heroine's dotage on the boy with her previous indifference to lovers of a grander sort, who doted on herself. But coquet and mere girl as she was, albeit a queen, this simple reference to a fact in the history and constitution of human nature, has rendered her marriage with the young Moor a favourite with all readers; and the lovely combined names of " Angelica and Medoro" have become almost synonymous with a "true lover's knot."

The circumstances described in these passages take place during the supposed siege of Paris by the Saracens, in the time of Charlemagne. The Saracen and Christian forces are assembled under the city walls, and the former have just sustained a defeat.

ALL night, the Saracens, in their batter'd stations,
Feeling but ill secure, and sore distress'd,
Gave way to tears, and groans, and lamentations,

Only as hush'd as might be, and suppress'd;
Some for the loss of friends and of relations

Left on the field; others for want of rest,
Who had been wounded and were far from home;
But most for dread of what was yet to come.

Among the rest two Moorish youths were there, Born of a lowly stock in Ptolemais,

Whose story teems with evidence so rare

Of tried affection, it must here find place.
Their names Medoro and Cloridano were.

They had shown Dardinel* the same true face,
Whatever fortune waited on his lance,

And now had cross'd the sea with him to France.

The one, a hunter, used to every sky,

Was of the rougher make, but prompt and fleet:
Medoro had a cheek of rosy dye,

Fair, and delightful for its youth complete:

Of all that came to that great chivalry,

None had a face more lively or more sweet.

Black eyes he had, and sunny curls of hair;
He seem'd an angel, newly from the air.

*One of the Saracen princes who came against Charlemagne.

These two, with others, where the ramparts lay, Were keeping watch to guard against surprise, What time the Night, in middle of its way,

Wonders at heaven with its drowsy eyes.
Medoro there, in all he had to say,

Could not but talk, with sadness and with sighs,
Of Dardinel his lord; nay, feel remorse,
Though guiltless, for his yet unburied corse.

"Oh Cloridan," he said, “I try in vain To bear the thought; nor ought I, if I could. Think of a man like that, left on the plain For wolves and crows! he, too, that was so good To my poor self! How can he thus remain, And I stand here, sparing my wretched blood? Which, for his sake, might twenty times o'erflow, And yet not pay him half the debt I owe.

"I will go forth,—I will,—and seek him yet, That he may want not a grave's covering; And God will grant, perhaps, that I may get E'en to the sleeping camp of the French king. Do thou remain; for if my name is set For death in heav'n, thou mayst relate the thing; So that if fate cut short the glorious part,

The world may know 'twas not for want of heart."

Struck with amaze was Cloridan to see

Such heart, such love, such duty in a youth;
And labour'd (for he lov'd him tenderly)

To turn a thought so dangerous to them both;
But no-a sorrow of that high degree

Is no such thing to comfort or to soothe.
Medoro was dispos'd, either to die,

Or give his lord a grave wherein to lie.

Seeing that nothing bent him or could move, My road then shall be thine :

Cloridan cried, 66

I too will join in such a work of love;

I too would clasp a death-bed so divine.
Life-pleasure-glory-what would it behove,
Remaining without thee, Medoro mine!

Such death with thee would better far become me, Than die for grief, shouldst thou be taken from me.'

Thus both resolv'd, they put into their place
The next on guard, and slip from the redoubt.
They cross the ditch, and in a little space
Enter our quarters, looking round about.
So little dream we of a Moorish face,

Our camp is hush'd, and every fire gone out.
"Twixt heaps of arms and carriages they creep,
Up to the very eyes in wine and sleep.

Cloridan stopp'd awhile, and said, "Look here! Occasions are not things to let go by.

Some of the race who cost our lord so dear,
Surely, Medoro, by this arm must die.

Do thou meanwhile keep watch, all eye and ear,

Lest any one should come:-I'll push on, I,

And lead the way, and make through bed and board An ample passage for thee with my sword."

He said; and enter'd without more ado
The tent where Alpheus lay, a learned Mars,
Who had but lately come to court, and knew
Physic, and magic, and a world of stars.
This was a cast they had not help'd him to:
Indeed their flatteries had been all a farce;
For he had found, that after a long life
He was to die, poor man, beside his wife:

And now the cautious Saracen has put His sword, as true as lancet, in his weason. Four mouths close by are equally well shut, Before they can find time to ask the reason. Their names are not in Turpin ;* and I cut Their lives as short, not to be out of season.

* The supposed author of a fabulous history of Charlemagne, to which the Italian narrative poets are always half-ironically referring as their authority.