man that hath lost his wit with following the vanities and pleasures of this world (as diverse carelesse Christians do, in forgetting and omitting their duties to God, which is the verie highest point of follie); I say, there is no meane for them to recover their wit againe, but onely by the help of this St. John, that is this, grace of God, which can miraculously restore it againe.
“In the description o St. John’s apparell,
‘His gowne was white, but yet his jacket red,
The tone was snow, the tother looked as bloode,’ &c.
By the red is signified charitie, which burneth with zeale and ferventnesse of love; by the white is meant virginitie and pureness of life.”
As for the rest of this canto; I shall make no observations on beauties and extravagancies which stand in too high relief to require attention to be directed to them; but I will remark upon the whole of it, that none exhibits more wonderful proofs of Ariosto’s powers. He had previously, as it appeared, sounded every chord of satire, and his command of his instrument may be well illustrated by the invective against women, which he has put into the mouth of Rodomont in canto xxvii, and the mode in which he has softened it into a sort of minor key, on taking up the song himself. Here, however, we have a new and more exquisite specimen of his powers. Is he not the only writer, with the exception of Aristophanes (whom I might almost say he could not have read), who has carried poetry into satire? for I cannot characterise the marvellous eloquence of Juvenal by that denomination, considering poetry according to its strict and more metaphysical definition.
The fleeces, “the sisters three, and such branches of learning,” (to speak in Launcelot Gobbo’s vein), which succeed the satire, may clearly be traced to Pythagorean or Platonic doctrines, very fashionable in Italy in Ariosto’s sera. But more of this hereafter.
And in cicalas, which their lungs had burst,
Saw fulsome lays by venal poets versed.
Stanza lxxvii. lines 7 and 8.
The common symbol in Italian poetry. As an example, the
