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NOTES TO CANTO XXXIV.
author of the Malmantile racquistato opens his poem with this invocation:
O Musa che ti metti al sol di state
Sopra un palo, a cantar con si gran lena,
Che d’ogni intorno assordi le brigate,
E finalmente scoppi per la schiena, &c.
O pole-perched Muse that art of wind sound,
With whose loud song the sunny fields are ringing,
So that thou deafenest all the country round,
Till finally thou burst thyself with singing, &c.
The gift (if it may lawfully be said),
Which Constantine to good Sylvester made.
Stanza lxxx. lines 7 and 8.
I have before observed that Ariosto, like Dante, was DO papist, though a Roman catholic.
