IV
Since the Italian "Argomenti" and the Valgrisi woodcuts were first
published together, it seems probable on purely a priori
grounds
that there would have been a certain measure of collaboration between the
author of the arguments and the artist of the woodcuts—if only to the
extent of one consulting the other's work, when it was possible to do so,
as well as the text of the poem itself. They seem in fact to have agreed on
a common approach, each working towards the same ends according to the
potentialities of his own medium. However, neither Ruscelli in his "A i
lettori" nor Harington in his advertisement to the reader say very much
about the function of the arguments in the context of the book as a whole.
Ruscelli writes merely: "Gli Argomenti in ottaua rima,
che
habbiamo posti in questo Libro di Canto in Canto, sono del
Signor Scipione Ammirato, giouane di belle lettere,
di felicissima vena, & di molti studij."
Harington,
true to form, is a little more forthcoming, but not much: "Also (according
to the Italian maner) I haue in a staffe of eight verses comprehended the
contents of euery booke or canto, in the beginning thereof, which hath two
good vses, one, to vnderstand the picture the perfecter, the other, to
remember the storie the better." What is common to these two editorial
comments about the arguments is that they draw attention to the fitness of
their form and their location. The arguments are written in the same
verse-form as the poem itself (Italian or English), and they are "posti
. . . di Canto in Canto" "in the beginning thereof". Like the plates
with which they are associated, the arguments serve the double purposes of
introduction and recapitulation, whetting the reader's appetite to continue
and at the same time helping him to remember and consider what he has
read. However the forty-six stanzas (Italian or English) may also be read
in sequence, as a miniature version of
the whole poem. The sequence bears a certain resemblance to a "corona"
of sonnets, and one suspects that readers may sometimes have attempted to
use them as epitomes, as a substitute for reading the poem itself at
length.
In the Italian arguments, all the main-springs of the
plot—characters, motives, actions, consequences—are neatly
abstracted
and fixed in the reader's memory by a variety of means: crisp
characterization (especially of the villains in the story), repetition of key
words and names, and a complex syntax in which much use is made of
participles, phrases in apposition, and so on, in order to give at least some
idea of the connections between the various stages of the plot. The final
couplet of one stanza is regularly echoed in some
way in the next one's opening lines, so that the stanzas are linked together
in sequence in a way that imitates and represents Ariosto's own effects of
liaison between cantos. Harington's practice of breaking up
Ammirato's long, complex sentences into a number of shorter and simpler
ones does introduce some obscurities of time-sequence, motivation, and the
like, and for the sake of brevity Harington rather more frequently relies on
bare proper names, lacking characterization or with the characterization
much reduced. Thus "
Pinabel di Maganza,
traditore" (II:vii), for example, becomes plain
"
Pinnabel" and Gabrina, instead of being called "
la
vecchia odiata e vilipesa" (XXI:iv), becomes merely a "
most
unvvorthy wight". Sometimes, also, the connection between the final
couplet of one argument and the opening lines of the next is lost or
weakened by absence of repetition. It is reasonable to assume that all such
changes were forced on Harington
by technical difficulty, but there are also other changes in the English
arguments which seem to be clearly deliberate departures from the Italian,
made in order to present the poem in a different light or to offer different
interpretations. The argument to Book VII, for example, is one of several
made to conform with the moral and allegorical interpretations of the story
given in Harington's end-of-canto notes, and there the English wording
departs so radically from Ammirato's Italian that it can almost be
considered free composition.
In the Valgrisi edition, more often than not, the first and last lines of
the "Argomenti" correspond closely with the beginnings and endings of the
narrative sequences as they are represented in the woodcuts; indeed, the
artist's comprehensive method of illustration ensured that practically
everything mentioned in the "Argomenti" would be represented somewhere
or other in the woodcuts—if only one has the patience to find it. In
the
Franceschi edition, the correspondences between the plates and the
"Argomenti" are not so close, for reasons that have already been explained:
the different choice of principal scenes, the greater prominence given to
them, the lack of illustration of later episodes in the cantos, and so on.
Generally speaking, Harington's book has much the same measure of
correspondence between plates and arguments as Franceschi's book
has—less than that of the Valgrisi edition, but still present in varying
degrees from canto to canto. In some cantos practically
everything in the argument is illustrated; more often, the beginning but not
the end of the argument is illustrated; in only one quite exceptional
instance—Book XXVI—nothing mentioned in the argument is
represented in the plate (except "Merlins well") and nothing
illustrated in the plate, except the well, is mentioned in the argument. In
what way, then, did Harington mean the arguments to help the reader "to
vnderstand the picture the perfecter"? When it comes to close reading of the
plates, the arguments are clearly of no help, but with the principal scenes
it is different. A number of Harington's alterations in the arguments seem
quite evidently to have been made in order to bring them into better accord
with the principal scenes of the corresponding or following plates. His
practice is by no means consistent, and one could wish that a few more
such alterations had
been made; but there are enough of them to be sure that Harington
deliberately sought by this means to achieve or to restore in the context of
his own book not only a good correspondence between arguments and plates
but also a clear sense of
liaison from canto to canto. It is
necessary to list and briefly to describe a fair range of examples:
Charles hath the foyle, Angelica flyes
thence:
(I:i)
Fugge Angelica sola; e da Rinaldo . . . (I:i)
Porro redesigned Plate I so that Charlemagne and the battle are brought to
the foreground. Moreover Harington seems to have taken the Christian
defeat at "Burdells", and not Angelica's flight, as the true starting-point of
the poem: cf. I:5-10; VIII:64.8 (Ariosto, VIII:72.8); and XIV:1 mn.
Dalinda tels what sleights her Duke devised
To get with faire Geneura reputation. (V:i-ii)
These lines, for which there is no equivalent in the Italian, match the
illustration of Dalinda's story in Plate V.
While Agramant musters his men of armes.
(XIII:viii)
Agramant mustring of his men, doth misse
Two bands that by Orlando late were slaine,
(XIV:i-ii)
Fa la mostra Agramante de la guerra. (XIII:viii)
Vede Agramante due squadre hauer meno
Il campo suo, ch'Orlando sol l'ha morte.
(XIV:i-ii)
Porro in Plate XIV gave much greater emphasis than the Valgrisi artist did
to Agramant's musters. Harington reinforces the emphasis by repetition,
and characteristically chooses not to emphasize Orlando's single-handed feat
of arms.
Yet still the good Zerbino trauels vvith her,
And manie a vverie mile they rode togither.
(XXI:vii-viii)
Onde accresce uer lei l'odio, e la stizza.
Poi doue ode alti gridi il caual drizza.
(XXI:vii-viii)
Harington's alteration in line vii brings the argument into better accord with
the proeme to Book XXI, where Zerbino is presented as an example of
good faith and the keeping of promises, however difficult (cf. XXI: Moral).
The alteration in line viii is more significant, since it shows Harington's
characteristic treatment of a canto-break handled untypically by Ariosto and
by Porro. In the final stanza of canto XXI Zerbino hears the sounds of
fighting and screaming—they are Pinabello's dying screams. The
resumed
narrative in canto XXII gives only a brief anticipation of Zerbino's
discovery of the as yet unnamed corpse; the story will be told fully in canto
XXIII. Porro's Plate XXII, unlike the Valgrisi woodcut, omits the corpse
and has for its principal scene the next episode of Astolfo at the palace of
illusions; Porro is reserving the corpse for the foreground of Plate XXIII.
Harington, tender-hearted as usual, omitted Pinabello's dying screams from
the translation. The eighth line of his argument thus removes a source of
considerable potential embarrassment in translation, narrative, picture and
design.
Orlando falls starke mad, with sorrow taken,
To heare his mistres hath him quite forsaken.
(XXIII:vii-viii)
. . . e poscia che si troua offeso
De la sua Donna, incominciò l'orrenda
Pazzia, ch'altra non fu mai sí stupenda.
(XXIII:vi-viii)
This is an example of a change made in order to bring the argument more
into line with the interpretations given in the notes. In writing the notes of
allusion to Book XXIII, Harington borrowed what he wanted from Fornari
and Lavezuola, but he deliberately omitted Fornari's description of
Orlando's madness as something altogether uncommon, grand, and
marvellous (cf. McNulty, p. xxviii, where the passage from Fornari is
quoted). His treatment of the argument is precisely similar.
But Doralices horse, by fiend of hell,
Affrighted, doth his mistresse beare away,
Which causd the Pagans both breake of the fray.
(XXVI:vi-viii)
. . . Ma doue il viso bello
Fugge di Doralice, il Re gagliardo
Di Sarza il destrier volge, e Mandricardo.
(XXVI:vi-viii)
Plate XXVII has Doralice's bolting horse as its most conspicuous
foreground feature. The incident is interpreted allegorically in the notes to
Book XXVII.
The Hermit warnes her keepe her vow and oth,
At which the Pagan Prince is passing wroth.
(XXVIII:vii-viii)
Ma sí l'impedimento li dispiace
Del frate, ch'ella ha seco in compagnia,
Che'l fellon il dà morte acerba e ria.
(XXVIII:vi-viii)
Porro's Plate XXIX illustrates Rodomont's rage and, unlike the Valgrisi
woodcut, does not illustrate the manner of the hermit's
death—Rodomont
hurls him into the sky and out of the story (Ariosto and Harington: XXIX:
6-7).
Marfisa doth present her selfe before
King Charles, and in his presence is baptized:
(XXXVIII:i-ii)
Torna in Arli Ruggier: Con Bradamante
Marfisa à Carlo, e qui si fa Cristiana.
(XXXVIII:i-ii)
Porro's Plate XXXVIII, again unlike the Valgrisi woodcut, omits Rogero's
departure. Harington was no doubt glad to follow suit for the sake of some
extra syllables, and could feel free to do so since Rogero's departure to
serve his King is lengthily praised in the proeme.
Good Brandimart receaues a deadly wound
(XLI:viii)
Orlando of his conquest takes small ioy,
Which caused him his dearest frend to want,
(XLII:i-ii)
. . . De la gran pugna poco lieto è sciolto.
(XLII:vii)
Harington here brings forward the "
poco lieto" from
Ammirato's argument for canto XLIII. The earlier Italian arguments make
no mention of Brandimart's death-wound but emphasize Orlando's victory
and the defeat of the infidel champions. In Plate XLII, Brandimart lies
wounded in the foreground, but the motive for the change is almost
certainly literary, not pictorial. Harington chooses to prepare the ground for
the sad and solemn ending of the love-story of Brandimart and
Fiordeliege.
One last example may be given here, out of sequence:
Angelica by drowsie hermit laid,
Is tane and bound all naked to the shore:
(VIII:v-vi)
. . . after which he found,
Angelica vnto the rocke fast bound (X:vii-viii)
Angelica, trouata al vecchio à canto,
Per cibo del marin monstro s' allaccia. (VIII:v-vi)
. . . e poi legata
Angelica, è per lui tosto saluata.
(X:vii-viii)
Is it too fanciful to suggest that the translations here are intended to make
up in some measure for the loss of the full-page plate illustrating Rogero's
rescue of Angelica? That Harington was determined to give prominence to
the "naked" and "bound" Angelica, somehow or other? The lines at least
do something to repair the botched translation of the stanzas in the
narrative: Harington, X:81-85; Ariosto, X:95-99.
At their best, the canto divisions in Harington's book are
extraordinarily well handled, especially where plate and argument appear
on facing pages. A canto-beginning is carefully prepared for in the endings
of the previous argument and of the previous canto itself, and on turning
over the leaf a wealth of information is displayed through several media:
pictorial, poetical, typographical, even marginal. Plate complements
argument, proeme complements both (and is the reader's entry-point into
the new canto), the topic of the proeme is picked up and developed in the
notes (and there may well be a marginal reference to the notes),[26] and with any luck the very stanzas
illustrated in the principal scene of the plate will be there on the facing first
page. Particularly good examples of this kind of collaboration among all or
nearly all of these elements may be seen in Books I, IV, VII, X, XIV,
XVI, XVIII, XXIII, XXVII and XXX, and there are many others
which, though less good all round, still offer many
delights—particularly
in the plates. However,
a good many of the plates do not in fact face the canto-beginnings, but
appear overleaf on the preceding recto. This is a puzzling aspect of the
design of Harington's book and of the Italian editions as well, even though
the puzzle may largely be a twentieth-century one. Sixteenth-century readers
may have found the arrangement more tolerable than we do. (McNulty in
his critical edition very properly, but anachronistically, had all the plates
arranged to face the canto-beginnings.) Since the plates do have their
retrospective qualities, their appearance on the preceding rectos can no
doubt be considered a fair second-best; but second-best it certainly is, and
so also it seems to have been considered by the sixteenth-century editors.
Of the forty-six plates, thirty-three appear on versos facing the
canto-beginnings in the Valgrisi and Franceschi editions. In Harington's
book, only twenty-seven of them do—leaving nineteen that appear
overleaf. Before examining this question
further, it is necessary to consider more closely than we have yet done
Harington's method of annotating each canto.