The figure which is here cut by St. John gives this remarkable satire a most remarkable close. His association of himself with the fraternity of authors was thought a little "strong" by Ariosto's contemporaries. The lesson read to the house of Este is obvious, and could hardly have been pleasant to men reputed to be such "criminals" themselves. Nor can Ariosto, in this passage, be reckoned a very flattering or conscientious pleader for his brother-poets. Resentment, and a good jest, seem to have conspired to make him forget what was due to himself.
The original of St. John's remarks about Augustus and the ancient poets must not be omitted. It is exquisite of its kind, both in matter and style. Voltaire has quoted it somewhere with rapture.
"Non fu sì santo nè benigno Augusto Come la tuba di Virgilio suona: L'aver avuto in poesia buon gusto La proscrizion iniqua gli perdona. Nessun sapria se Neron fosse ingiusto, Nè sua fama saria forse men buona, Avesse avuto e terra e ciel nimici, Se gli scrittor sapea tenersi amici.
Omero Agamennon vittorioso, E fe' i Trojan parer vili et inerti; E che Penelopea fida al suo sposo Da i prochi mille oltraggi avea sofferti: E, se tu vuoi che 'l ver non ti sia ascoso, Tutta al contrario l'istoria converti: Che i Greci rotti, e che Troia vittrice, E che Penelopea fu meretrice.
Da l'altra parte odi che fama lascia Elissa, ch'ebbe il cor tanto pudico; Che riputata viene una bagascia, Solo perchè Maron non le fu amico."
[Footnote 2: Ariosto is here imitating Pulci, and bearding Dante. See vol. i. p. 336.]
[Footnote 3: I know of no story of a cruel Lydia but the poet's own mistress of that name, whom I take to be the lady here "shadowed forth." See Life, p. 114.]
[Footnote 4: The story of Anaxarete is in Ovid, lib. xiv. Every body knows that of Daphne, who made Apollo, as Ariosto says, "run so much" (correr tanto). Theseus and Jason are in hell, as deserters of Ariadne and Medea; Amnon, for the atrocity recorded in the Bible (2 Samuel, chap. xiii.); and Æneas for interfering with Turnus and Lavinia, and taking possession of places he had no right to. It is delightful to see the great, generous poet going upon grounds of reason and justice in the teeth of the trumped-up rights of the "pious Æneas," that shabby deserter of Dido, and canting prototype of Augustus. He turns the tables, also, with brave candour, upon the tyrannical claims of the stronger sex to privileges which they deny the other; and says, that there are more faithless men in Hell than faithless women; which, if personal infidelity sends people there, most undoubtedly is the case beyond all comparison.]