Your misty dance, or dip your golden urns In the seven mouths of Nile; whether ye dwell Hear me, yet hear, and thus invok'd approach! Chorus of Clouds. Ascend, ye watery Clouds, on high, And o'er the mountain's pine-capt brow And Soc. Yes, ye Divinities, whom I adore, I hail you now propitious to my prayer. Didst thou not hear them speak in thunder to me? And I too am your Cloudships' most obedient, And under sufferance trump against your thunder. . . . These gross scurrilities, for low buffoons And mountebanks more fitting. Hush! be still, List to the chorus of their heavenly voices, For music is the language they delight in. Chorus of Clouds. Ye Clouds, replete with fruitful showers, Here let us seek Minerva's towers, The cradle of old Cecrops' race, The world's chief ornament and grace; Here mystic fanes and rites divine And lamps in sacred splendor shine; Feasted with costly hecatombs, That round their votive statues blaze, Make holidays throughout the year, And when gay spring-time comes again, And pipe, and song, and choral dance Streps. Now, in the name of Jove, I pray thee tell me Not so, Soc. Wit to confute, and cunning to ensnare. -ARISTOPHANES, translated by T. MITCHELL. THE PLAGUE OF WOMEN. They're always abusing the Women as a terrible plague to men: They say we're the root of all evil, and repeat it again and again: Of war, and quarrels, and bloodshed; all mischief, be it what it may: And, pray then, why do you marry us, if we're all the plagues you say? And why do you take such care of us, and keep us so safe at home; of the way, You all keep fussing and fretting-"Where is my Plague today?" If a Plague peeps out of the window, up go the eyes of the men; If she hides, then they all keep staring until she looks out again. -ARISTOPHANES, translated by L. COLLINS. COMED ARIOSTO. LODOVICO ARIOSTO, one of the greatest poets of Italy, was born at Reggio, in Lombardy, on the 8th of September, 1474. His father, Niccolo Ariosto, who held the post of military governor at Reggio, destined him for a legal career, but was finally prevailed upon to permit his son to indulge his predilection for literature. Young Lodovico applied himself to the study of the classics; but his father died in 1500, leaving him at the age of twenty-six to care for his nine younger brothers and sisters, and manage the affairs of the estate. In 1503 he was appointed one of the gentlemen of the household of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este. Ariosto was not satisfied with his position, and his patron, in fact, hardly seems to have realized the genius of the poet, whom he employed as a sort of confidential agent. Matters came to an open rupture when Ariosto refused to accompany him to Hungary in 1518, and in the same year he entered the service of the cardinal's brother, Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. The latter appears to have shown appreciation of his literary ability, and given him but little to do except the superintendence of the ducal theatre. Thus did Ariosto spend four happy years working on the revision of the Orlando Furioso (conceived and begun in 1505 and published in 1516), to which work he devoted a large portion of the remaining years of his life. Some of his earliest literary efforts were translations of Latin comedies, and since then he had written Cassaria (1508), and the Suppositi (1509). The latter was reproduced in the Vatican in 1519, and pleased Leo X. so much that he requested another comedy of the author. The result was the completion of Negromante, which the poet had kept in hand for some ten years. The first performance of Lena was in 1528, while the Scolastica was left unfinished at his death. In the performance of his comedies, Ariosto was active also as actor and manager, and it was by, his advice and according to his plans that Alphonso, in 1532, built the first theatre in Ferrara, which burned down in the same year. On February 7, 1522, the poet's quiet existence was interrupted by his appointment as Ducal Commissary for the government of Garfagnana. This wild district had suffered much from raids from without and internal feuds, as well as from banditti, and a strong government was needed. From a pecuniary point of view the position was a more desirable one than that under the duke, and Ariosto endured this uncongenial life until June, 1525, finding diversion in occasional visits to Ferrara, in his correspondence, and in the penning of some of his strongest satires. The remaining years of his life were quietly spent in Ferrara, excepting a few short journeys. The final edition of the Orlando Furioso was issued in 1532, just about a year before the death of the author, which occurred, as the result of consumption, on June 6th, 1533. About the time of his final settling at Ferrara Ariosto had been married to Alessandra Benucci, a Florentine lady, widow of Tito Strozzi, to whom he had long been attached. His only children, however, were two natural sons, Giovanni Battista and Virginio. The latter, whom he loved dearly, collected the Latin poems after the death of his father, prepared the Cinque Canti for the press in 1545, assisted his uncle Gabriele in the completion of La Scolastica, and wrote some short recollections of his father. Though Ariosto won the honor and respect of the first men of his age, and of the princes of Italy, we do not know that he received any substantial token of their admiration for his art; his scanty pensions, even, were irregularly paid. The most enduring monument to his memory is his romantic, imaginative epic, the Orlando Furioso, a completion of and improvement on the unfinished Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo. The first edition (1516) contained 40 cantos; that of 1532 contained 46, the text having been subjected to minute alteration, revision, and polishing, for, as his son Virginio wrote, "he was never satisfied with his verses, but altered them again and again." There is unity in the poem, although the main subject is not quite clearly defined. However, it is concerned principally with the siege of Paris, the defeat of the Saracens, Orlando's madness, and the loves of Ruggiero and Bradamante, the whole being plentifully interspersed with panegyrics upon the House of Este. It is marked by a vivid imagination, vivacity, fertility of resource, and fine word-painting, and its absolute beauty of style won for its author the appellation the divine, bestowed by Galileo. The genius of the Renaissance is mirrored in this elaborate epic. As J. A. Symonds says: "The Orlando Furioso gave full and final expression to the cinque cento, just as the Divina Commedia uttered the last word of the Middle Ages. The two supreme Italian singers stood in the same relation to their several epochs. Dante immortalized medieval thoughts and aspirations at the moment when they were already losing their reality for the Italian people. . . . When Ariosto appeared, it was his duty to close the epoch which Petrarch had inaugurated and Boccaccio had determined, by a poem investing Boccaccio's world, the sensuous world of the Renaissance, with the refined artistic form of Petrarch. This he accomplished. But even while he was at work, Italy underwent those political and mental changes . . . which ended the Renaissance and opened a new age with Tasso for its poet." 2 Library York Public Libr ་ St. Agnes Branch, 6229 BROADWAY, SATULATING DEPARTNE |