that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas,1 Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,-or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of my Landlord."

In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names, as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlomano; Rondel, or Rondello, etc., as it suits his convenience; so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt. How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the work, are questions which the public will decide. He was induced to make the experiment partly by his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and sometimes least to those who have courted her longest. The translator wished also to present in an English dress a part at least of a poem never yet rendered into a northern language; at the same time that it has been the original of some of the most celebrated productions on this side of the Alps, as well of those recent experiments in poetry in England which have been already mentioned.

1. [Parson Adams and Barnabas are characters in Joseph Andrews; Thwackum and Supple, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.]

THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE.'

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

In the beginning was the Word next God;
God was the Word, the Word no less was He:

1. [Byron insisted, in the first place with Murray (February 7, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 402), and afterwards, no doubt, with the Hunts, that his translation of the Morgante Maggiore should be "put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse." In the present issue a few stanzas are inserted for purposes of comparison, but it has not been thought necessary to reprint the whole of the Canto.

"IL MORGANTE MAGGIORE.

ARGOMENTO.

"Vivendo Carlo Magno Imperadore
Co' Paladini in festa e in allegria,
Orlando contra Gano traditore
S'adira, e parte verso Pagania:
Giunge a un deserto, e del bestial furore

Di tre giganti salva una badia,

Che due n'uccide, e con Morgante elegge.
Di buon sozio e d'amico usar la legge.'

CANTO PRIMO.

I.

In principio era il Verbo appresso a Dio;
Ed era Iddio il Verbo, e 'l Verbo lui:
Quest' era nel principio, al parer mio;
E nulla si può far sanza costui :

This was in the beginning, to my mode

Of thinking, and without Him nought could be: Therefore, just Lord! from out thy high abode, Benign and pious, bid an angel flee,

One only, to be my companion, who

Shall help my famous, worthy, old song through.

II.

And thou, oh Virgin! daughter, mother, bride,
Of the same Lord, who gave to you each key
Of Heaven, and Hell, and every thing beside,
The day thy Gabriel said "All hail !" to thee,
Since to thy servants Pity's ne'er denied,
With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style and free,

Però, giusto Signor benigno e pio,
Mandami solo un de gli angeli tui,
Che m'accompagni, e rechiini a memoria
Una famosa antica e degna storia.

II.

"E tu, Vergine, figlia, e madre, e sposa,
Di quel Signor, che ti dette le chiave
Del cielo e dell' abisso, e d' ogni cosa,
Quel dì che Gabriel tuo ti disse Ave!
Perchè tu se' de' tuo' servi pietosa,
Con dolce rime, e stil grato e soave,
Ajuta i versi miei benignamente,
E'nsino al fine allumina la mente.

III.

"Era nel tempo, quando Filomena
Colla sorella si lamenta e plora,
Che si ricorda di sua antica pena,
E pe' boschetti le ninfe innamora,
E Febo il carro temperato mena,

Che 'l suo Fetonte l'ammaestra ancora ;
Ed appariva appunto all' orizzonte,
Tal che Titon si graffiava la fronte :

IV.

"Quand'io varai la mia barchetta, prima
Per ubbidir chi sempre ubbidir debbe
La mente, e faticarsi in prosa e in rima,
E del mio Carlo Imperador m'increbbe ;
Che so quanti la penna ha posto in cima,
Che tutti la sua gloria prevarrebbe :
E stata quella istoria, a quel ch'i' veggio,
Di Carlo male intesa, e scritta peggio."]

Be to my verses then benignly kind,
And to the end illuminate my mind.

III.

'Twas in the season when sad Philomel1
Weeps with her sister, who remembers and
Deplores the ancient woes which both befel,
And makes the nymphs enamoured, to the hand
Of Phaëton, by Phoebus loved so well,

His car (but tempered by his sire's command)
Was given, and on the horizon's verge just now
Appeared, so that Tithonus scratched his brow:

IV.

When I prepared my bark first to obey,

As it should still obey, the helm, my mind,
And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay
Of Charles the Emperor, whom you will find
By several pens already praised; but they
Who to diffuse his glory were inclined,
For all that I can see in prose or verse,
Have understood Charles badly, and wrote worse.

V.

Leonardo Aretino said already,2

That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer

1. [Philomela and Procne were daughters of Pandion, King of Attica. Tereus, son of Ares, wedded Procne, and, after the birth of her son Itys, concealed his wife in the country, with a view to dishonouring Philomela, on the plea of her sister's death. Procne discovered the plot, killed her babe, and served up his flesh in a dish for her husband's dinner. The sisters fled, and when Tereus pursued them with an axe they besought the gods to change them into birds. Thereupon Procne became a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. So Hyginus, Fabulæ, xlv.; but there are other versions of Philomela's woes.]

2. [In the first edition of the Morgante Maggiore (Firenze, 1482 [B. M. G. 10834]), which is said (vide the colophon) to have been Issued "under the correction of the author, line 2 of this stanza runs thus: "comegliebbe u ormāno el suo turpino;" and, apparently, it was not till 1518 (Milano, by Zarotti) that Pipino was substituted for Turpino. Leonardo Bruni, surnamed Aretino (1369-1444), in his Istoria Fiorentina (1861, pp. 43, 47), commemorates the imperial magnificence of Carlo Magno, and speaks of his benefactions to the Church, but does not-in that work, at any rate-mention his biographers. It is possible

Of genius quick, and diligently steady,
No hero would in history look brighter;
He in the cabinet being always ready,

And in the field a most victorious fighter,
Who for the church and Christian faith had wrought,
Certes, far more than yet is said or thought.

VI.

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,1
The abbey, no great way from Manopell,
Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory,

Because of the great battle in which fell
A pagan king, according to the story,

And felon people whom Charles sent to Hell:
And there are bones so many, and so many,
Near them Giusaffa's 2 would seem few, if

VII.

any.

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize
His virtues as I wish to see them: thou,
Florence, by his great bounty don't arise,3
And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow,
All proper customs and true courtesies :

Whate'er thou hast acquired from then till now,
With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance,
Is sprung from out the noble blood of France.

that if Pulci or Bruni had read Eginhard, they thought that his chronicle was derogatory to Charlemagne. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1825, iii. 376, note 1, and Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, 1868, p. 16, note 3; et vide post, p. 309.)]

1. [For an account of the Benedictine Monastery of San Liberatore alla Majella, which lies to the south of Manoppello (eight miles southwest of Chieto, in the Abruzzi), see Monumenti Storici ed. Artistici degli Abruzzi, by V. Bindi, Naples, 1889, Part I. (Testo), pp. 655, sq. The abbey is in a ruinous condition, but on the walls of "un ampio porticato," there is still to be seen a fresco of Charlemagne, holding in his hands the deed of gift of the Abbey lands.]

2. [That is, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the "valley where Jehovah judges" (see Joel iii. 2-12); and, hence, a favourite burial-ground of Jews and Moslems.]

3. [The text as it stands is meaningless. Probably Byron wrote "dost arise." The reference is no doubt to the supposed restoration of Florence by Charlemagne.]