“Parva, sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non
Sordida, parta meo sed tamen aere domus;”
which serves to show the incorrectness of the assertion of flatterers, followed by Tiraboschi, that the duke of Ferrara built that house for him. The only one who seems to have given anything to Ariosto as a reward for his poetical talent was the marquess del Vasto, who assigned him an annuity of 100 crowns on the revenues of Casteleone in Lombardy; but it was only paid, if ever, from the end of 1531. That he was crowned as poet by Charles V. seems untrue, although a diploma may have been issued to that effect by the emperor.
The character of Ariosto seems to have been fully and justly delineated by Gabriele, his brother:—
“Ornabat pietas et grata modestia Vatem
Sancta fides, dictique memor, munitaque recto
Justitia, et nullo patientia victa labore,
Et constans virtus animi, et clementia mitis,
Ambitione procul pulsa, fastusque tumore.”
His satires, in which we see him before us such as he was, show that there was no flattery in this portrait. In these compositions we are struck with the noble independence of the poet. He loved liberty with a most jealous fondness. His disposition was changeable withal, as he himself very frankly confesses in his Latin verses, as well as in the satires.
“Hoc olim ingenio vitales hausimus auras,
Multa cito ut placeant, displicitura brevi.
Non in amore modo mens haec, sed in omnibus impar
Ipsa sibi longa non retinenda mora.”
Hence he never would bind himself, either by going into orders, or by marrying, till towards the end of his life, when he espoused Alessandra, widow of Tito Strozzi. He had no issue by his wife, but he left two natural sons by different mothers.
His Latin poems do not perhaps deserve to be noticed: in the age of Flaminio, Vida, Fracastoro and Sannazaro, better things were due from a poet like Ariosto. His lyrical compositions show the poet, although they do not seem worthy of his powers. His comedies, of which he wrote four, besides one which he left unfinished, are avowedly imitated from Plautus and Terence; and although native critics may admire in them the elegance of the diction, the liveliness of the dialogue and the novelty of some scenes, few will feel interest either in the subject or in the characters, and it is hard to approve the immoral passages by which they are disfigured, however grateful these might be to the audiences and patrons of theatrical representations in Ariosto’s own day.
Of all the works of Ariosto, the most solid monument of his fame is the Orlando Furioso, the extraordinary merits of which have cast into oblivion the numberless romance poems which inundated Italy during the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries.
The popularity which an earlier poem on the same theme, Orlando Innamorato, by Boiardo, enjoyed in Ariosto’s time, cannot be well conceived, now that the enthusiasm of the crusades, and the interest which was attached to a war against the Moslems, have passed away. Boiardo wrote and read his poem at the court of Ferrara, but died before he was able to finish it. Many poets undertook the difficult task of its completion; but it was reserved for Ariosto both to finish and to surpass, his original. Boiardo did not, perhaps, yield to Ariosto either in vigour or in richness of imagination, but he lived in a less refined age, and died before he was able to recast or even finish the poetical romance which he had written under the impulse of his exuberant fancy. Ariosto, on the other hand, united to a powerful imagination an elegant and cultivated taste. He began to write his great poem about 1503, and after having consulted the first men of the age of Leo X., he published it in 1516, in only 40 cantos (extended afterwards to 46); and up to the moment of his death never ceased to correct and improve both the subject and the style. It is in this latter quality that he excels, and for which he had assigned him the name of Divino Lodovico. Even when he jests, he never compromises his dignity; and in pathetic description or narrative he excites the reader’s deepest feelings. In his machinery he displays a vivacity of fancy with which no other poet can vie; but he never lets his fancy carry him so far as to omit to employ, with an art peculiar to himself, those simple and natural pencil-strokes which, by imparting to the most extraordinary feats a colour of reality, satisfy the reason without disenchanting the imagination. The death of Zerbino, the complaints of Isabella, the effects of discord among the Saracens, the flight of Astolfo to the moon, the passion which causes Orlando’s madness, teem with beauties of every variety. The supposition that the poem is not connected throughout is wholly unfounded; there is a connexion which, with a little attention, will become evident. The love of Ruggero and Bradamante forms the main subject of the Furioso; every part of it, except some episodes, depend upon this subject; and the poem ends with their marriage.
The first complete edition of the Orlando Furioso was published at Ferrara in 1532, as noted above. The edition of Morali (Milan, 1818) follows the text of the 1532 edition with great correctness. Of editions published in England, those of Baskerville (Birmingham, 1773) and Panizzi (London, 1834) are the most important. The indifferent translations into English of Sir John Harrington (1591) and John Hoole (1783) have been superseded by the spirited rendering of W. Stewart Rose (1823). See also E. Gardner, Ariosto: the Prince of Court Poets (1906).
ARISTAENETUS, Greek epistolographer, flourished in the 5th or 6th century A.D. He was formerly identified with Aristaenetus of Nicaea (the friend of Symmachus), who perished in an earthquake at Nicomedia, A.D. 358, but internal evidence points to a much later date. Under his name two books of love stories, in the form of letters, are extant; the subjects are borrowed from the erotic elegies of such Alexandrian writers as Callimachus, and the language is a patchwork of phrases from Plato, Lucian, Alciphron and others. The stories are feeble and insipid, and full of strange and improbable incidents.
Text: Boissonade (1822); Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (1873). English translations: Boyer (1701); Thomas Brown (1715); R. B. Sheridan and Halked (1771 and later).
ARISTAEUS, a divinity whose worship was widely spread throughout ancient Greece, but concerning whom the myths are somewhat obscure. The account most generally received connects him specially with Thessaly. Apollo carried off from Mount Pelion the nymph Cyrene, daughter or granddaughter of the river-god Peneus, and conveyed her to Libya, where she gave birth to Aristaeus. From this circumstance the town of Cyrene took its name. The child was at first handed over to the care of the Hours, or the nymph Melissa and the centaur Cheiron. He afterwards left Libya and went to Thebes, where he received instruction from the Muses in the arts of healing and prophecy, and married Autonoe, daughter of Cadmus, by whom he had several children, among others, the unfortunate Actaeon. He is said to have visited Ceos, where, by erecting a temple to Zeus Icmaeus (the giver of moisture), he freed the inhabitants from a terrible drought. The islanders worshipped him, and occasionally identified him with Zeus, calling him Zeus Aristaeus. After travelling through many of the Aegean islands, through Sicily, Sardinia and Magna Graecia, everywhere conferring benefits and receiving divine honours, Aristaeus reached Thrace, where he was initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus, and finally disappeared near Mount Haemus. While in Thrace he is said to have caused the death of Eurydice, who was bitten by a snake while fleeing from him. Aristaeus was essentially a benevolent deity; he was worshipped as the first who introduced the cultivation of bees (Virgil, Georg. iv. 315-558), and of the vine and olive; he was the protector of herdsmen and hunters; he warded off the evil effects of the dog-star; he possessed the arts of healing and prophecy. He was often identified with Zeus, Apollo and Dionysus. In ancient sculptures and coins he is represented as a young man, habited like a shepherd, and sometimes carrying a sheep on his shoulders. Coins of Ceos exhibit the head of Aristaeus and Sirius in the form of a dog crowned with rays.
Pindar, Pythia, ix. 5-65; Apollonius Rhodius, schol. on ii. 498, 500; Diodorus, iv. 81.
ARISTAGORAS (d. 497 B.C.), brother-in-law and cousin of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus. While Histiaeus was practically a prisoner at the court of Darius, he acted as regent in Miletus.
