Olimpia here might be the Venus painted for Urbino, or Diana turning from Actaeon, to whom she is elsewhere compared:

She turns while speaking, as in paint or stone

We see Diana turn from Actaeon.

As best she can she hides her breast and loins,

Leaving exposed the beauty of her thighs.2

Orlando, with delicate concern, is planning to find her some clothing when the king of Ireland arrives, who, beholding such exquisite beauty, and stirred also by Orlando’s account of her undeserved and piteous sufferings, falls instantly and deeply in love:

As in an April sky the sun is seen,

Parting the misty curtain of the rain,

So was Olimpia’s lovely face, wherein

Her eyes shine through those tears which still remain;

And, as amid the tender, leafy green

A songbird sweetly carols once again,

So Love, his wings refreshing in her tears,

In beams of light to sun himself appears.

And from those radiant orbs a spark he takes

To tip his golden shaft, and in the stream

Which waters the fair blossoms of her cheeks

He tempers it; then, with unerring aim

And deadly force, the youth his target makes,

Whose shield, whose mail, are no defence to him,

For, gazing on her eyes, her hair, her brow,

He’s wounded in the heart, and knows not how.1

These visions, with their promise of an ideal physical love, rising like a phoenix from the dying embers of the ageing poet,2 draw deep on his nurture of classical heritage. This is the civilized love of the mature, self-confident world of antiquity, the assurance of an ardour which will not wane:

sed sic sic sine fine feriati…

hoc iuvit, iuvat et diu iuvabit;

hoc non deficit incipitque semper.3

Ariosto’s descriptions of female beauty are for the most part unlicentious, having the remote voluptuousness of painting or sculpture. His picture of Angelica being carried out to sea on horseback is a close verbal rendering of Titian’s painting of Europa on the Bull, enhanced by the exquisite image of the winds hushed at the sight of so much beauty.1 Alcina’s loveliness is described in terms of perfect proportion, as a painter of that period would portray it, as Dosso Dossi portrayed Circe.2 Even in the context of sexual arousal, as in the bedroom scene with Ruggiero, Alcina’s attractions are veiled in the imagery of flowers seen through glass:

Although no gown, no underskirt she had,

For only in a silken négligé,

Over her night apparel, she was clad,

Soft, white and elegant in every way,

Beneath his hands this garment she now shed.

Her nightgown, as transparent as the day,

Concealed her rounded limbs as little as

The stems of lilies in a crystal vase.3

The pleasure of their consummation is conveyed through associations of twining ivy-tendrils and the perfume of exotic plants, only the final couplet of the following stanza providing anything like a direct statement of their physical union:

Never did ivy press or cling so close,

Rooted beside the plant which it embraced,

As now in love each to the other does;

And on their lips a sweeter flower they taste

Than Ind or Araby e’er knew, or those

Which on the desert air their perfume waste.

To speak of all their bliss to them belongs,

Who more than once in one mouth had two tongues.4

Ariosto’s exuberance, it may be seen, includes the expression of the enjoyment of sex. Dalinda’s willingness to comply with Polinesso’s request that she should dress herself in Ginevra’s clothes borders on the perverted, but elsewhere his championing of the rights of women to physical passion is uncomplicated and disarmingly frank. Rinaldo, hearing that Ginevra is condemned to be burned to death for unchastity, at once allies himself with her, whether she is guilty or not, declaring that in his view a woman who gives her lover solace deserves praise, not punishment. The women of Greece, left alone without their husbands for the long years of the Trojan War, console themselves with youthful lovers, and are forgiven by their husbands on their return,

For on long abstinence no woman thrives.1

The women of Crete joyously welcome Phalanthus and his band of handsome youths, whom on their departure they try to follow, rather than lose the happiness they have found in their arms. It is on being at last abandoned that they set up a State of their own and take vengeance on the male sex. Such imbalance dooms them to destruction, brought about, significantly, by a woman warrior, Marfisa, a sexless Amazon, happy and fulfilled in combat and deeds of chivalry. The trials of strength, both martial and sexual, to which they submit all men who arrive at their city, are treated with an arch lasciviousness which was probably more to the taste of the sixteenth than of the present century. The precise, uncompromising little sketch of the licentious but impotent hermit who tries to rape Angelica is probably more to the liking of our outspoken age.2

Women are seen not only as sexual partners or as inspirations to the men; they exist also as personages in their own right. This is to be expected in a period when Italian women received essentially the same education as men. The daughters of a noble house shared in the same studies as the sons, the New Learning being regarded as among the noblest of earthly pursuits. The attainments of Lady Jane Grey or of the daughter of Sir Thomas More would have occasioned no surprise in Italy, where it had long been customary for the daughters of princely houses to speak and write Latin. Women were expected to strive after complete intellectual and emotional development and were regarded as the equals of men. Caterina Sforza, known as the ‘first lady of Italy’, had the valour and courage of a heroic cavalier. As the wife and later the widow of Girolamo Riario, lord of Forlì, she gallantly defended his possessions in battle, first against his murderers and later against Cesare Borgia.

In keeping with this early sixteenth-century Italian attitude to women, Bradamante, Rinaldo’s sister, is recognized by Charlemagne to be her brother’s equal in prowess and has been invested with the governorship of Marseilles. Her first action in the poem is to unhorse Sacripante. Contrasted with Marfisa, whose whole life is devoted to battle, Bradamante’s character is shown to be womanly as well as virile. The conflict in her heart between love and duty, her anguish at Ruggiero’s absence and infidelity, her eagerness to go to his defence, her filial respect for the wishes of her parents, and many other glimpses of her feelings, combine to form a character study of warmly human appeal.

Melissa’s prophecy of the distinguished women of the House of Este1 balances the array of male descendants revealed to Bradamante in Merlin’s cave.2 The theme of female glory stirs Ariosto’s poetic powers to the creation of some of his most epic stanzas:

The courteous fay replied: ‘From you I see

Mothers of kings and emperors descending,

Famed for their comeliness and modesty,

Like mighty caryatides, defending

Illustrious houses no less worthily

Than men in armour, in due measure blending

Compassion, courage, wisdom, continence

With prudent, womanly intelligence.’3

As Melissa utters their names, an illustrious portrait gallery is formed in the mind: Isabella d’Este, her sister Beatrice, Ricciarda (the mother of Duke Ercole), Eleanor of Aragon (the mother of Duke Alfonso and Ippolito), Lucrezia Borgia (Alfonso’s second wife), Renée de France (wife of Ercole II), Lippa Ariosti of Bologna, of the poet’s own family, who was the mistress of Obizzo III; and many others. The loveliest stanza of all is reserved for Lucrezia Borgia, whose arrival in Ferrara as the bride of Alfonso Ariosto had already celebrated in an eclogue:

As tin to silver or as brass to gold,

The poppy of the cornfield to the rose,

The willow, pale and withered in the cold,

To the green bay which ever greener grows,

As painted glass to jewels, thus I hold,

Compared with her, as yet unborn, all those

Who hitherto for beauty have been famed,

Or models of all excellence are named.1

Ariosto’s admiration for women is expressed in the ringing tones of a feminist at the beginning of Canto XX, perhaps to offset the disagreeable and unnatural light in which he is about to present the women’s city-state of Alessandretta. He also apologizes to all women

… who in loving gracious are

And with one love alone are each content,

Though you among so many are most rare,

For few indeed are chaste and continent…2

for the story of Gabrina’s seduction of Filandro, an episode which shows female nature at its worst. Further acknowledgement of the achievements of women occurs later in the work, and at the end it is a group of illustrious women whom Ariosto places foremost among the friends waiting to welcome him home from his long journey.

From this brief introduction to some of the qualities of the first half of the poem it will be seen that a great many aspects of life are represented in it and explored.3 It will also have been noticed that the subject extends a long way beyond the territory of the Carolingian legends. It is therefore appropriate now to examine in some detail the literary strands which Ariosto chose to interweave in his work.

II. THE LITERARY ORIGINS OF THE POEM

i. CAROLINGIAN

In its basic content the Orlando Furioso is a combination of material derived from three different origins: Carolingian, Celtic, and Classical. Of these three vast sources, the earliest, as regards the romantic epic, are the Carolingian legends, the beginnings of which are traced to the defeat of Charlemagne’s rearguard in 778 by the Basques in the Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees. This catastrophe, enshrined in the eleventh-century French epic La Chanson de Roland, imbued all subsequent Carolingian narratives with a sublime fatality, echoing as late as the nineteenth century in Alfred de Vigny’s famous line:

Dieu! que le son du cor est triste au fond des bois!

Between the Chanson de Roland and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso there are over four centuries of accretion and transformation. The most significant stages of development are those by which the Roland of history became first the epic hero of the Chanson and later the Orlando of the Italian romances. The earliest known record of the name of Roland occurs in a document testifying to the presence of a Count Rotholandus, with Charlemagne, at the palace of Herstal, near Liège, in 772. In 790 the name Rodlan appears on the reverse of a coin.