| Orlando furioso | |
|---|---|
| byLudovico Ariosto | |
 Orlando Furioso title page, Valgrisi Edition, 1558 | |
| Written | 1506–1532 |
| First published in | 1516, with revisions in 1521 and 1532 |
| Country | Duchy of Ferrara |
| Language | Italian |
| Subject(s) | Matter of France,Matter of Britain |
| Genre | chivalric romance |
| Form | epic poem of 46cantos |
| Meter | ottava rima[1] |
| Rhyme scheme | abababcc |
| Publication date | 1516, 1521, 1532 |
| Published in English | 1591 |
| Media type | print: hardback |
| Lines | 38,736 |
| Preceded by | Orlando innamorato |
| Full text | |
 Orlando Furioso atWikisource | |
Orlando furioso (Italian pronunciation:[orˈlandofuˈrjoːzo,-so];The Frenzy of Orlando) is an Italianepic poem byLudovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532.Orlando furioso is a continuation ofMatteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romanceOrlando innamorato (Orlando in Love, published posthumously in 1495). In its historical setting and characters, it shares some features with theOld FrenchLa Chanson de Roland of the eleventh century, which tells of the death of Roland. The story is also achivalric romance which stemmed from a tradition beginning in theLate Middle Ages and continuing in popularity in the16th century and well into the 17th.
Orlando is the Christian knight known in French and English asRoland. The story takes place against the background of the war betweenCharlemagne's Christianpaladins and theSaracen army that has invaded Europe and is attempting to overthrow the Christian empire. The poem is about knights and ladies, war and love, and the romantic ideal ofchivalry.[2] It mixes realism and fantasy, humor and tragedy.[3] The stage is the entire world, plus a trip to the Moon. The large cast of characters features Christians and Saracens, soldiers and sorcerers, and fantastic creatures including a gigantic sea monster called the Orc and a flying horse called thehippogriff. Many themes are interwoven in its complicated episodic structure, but the most important are the paladin Orlando's unrequited love for the pagan princessAngelica, which drives him mad; the love between the female Christian warriorBradamante and the SaracenRuggiero, who are supposed to be the ancestors of Ariosto's patrons, theHouse of Este ofFerrara; and the war between Christian andInfidel.[4]
The poem is divided into forty-sixcantos which contain a varying number of eight-linestanzas inottava rima (arhyme scheme of abababcc).Ottava rima had been used in previous Italian romantic epics, includingLuigi Pulci'sMorgante and Boiardo'sOrlando Innamorato. Ariosto's work is 38,736 lines long in total, making it one of the longest poems in European literature.[5]
Ariosto began working on the poem around 1506, when he was 32. The first edition of the poem, in 40 cantos, was published inFerrara in April 1516 and dedicated to the poet's patronIppolito d'Este. A second edition appeared in 1521 with minor revisions.
Ariosto continued to write more material for the poem and in the 1520s he produced five more cantos, marking a further development of his poetry, which he decided not to include in the final edition. They were published after his death by his illegitimate son Virginio under the titleCinque canti and are highly regarded by some modern critics.[6] The third and final version ofOrlando Furioso, containing 46 cantos, appeared in 1532.
Ariosto had sought stylistic advice from thehumanistPietro Bembo to give his verse the last degree of polish and this is the version known to posterity.[7]
The first English translation byJohn Harington was published in 1591 at the behest ofQueen Elizabeth I, who reportedly banned Harington from court until the translation was complete.
Ariosto's poem is a sequel toMatteo Maria Boiardo'sOrlando Innamorato (Orlando in Love).[8] One of Boiardo's main achievements was his fusion of theMatter of France (the tradition of stories aboutCharlemagne and paladins such asRoland) with theMatter of Britain (the legends aboutKing Arthur and his knights). The latter contained the magical elements and love interest that were generally lacking in the more austere and warlike poems aboutCarolingian heroes.
Ariosto continued to mix these elements in his poem as well as adding material derived fromClassical sources.[9] However, Ariosto has an ironic tone rarely present in Boiardo, who treated the ideals of chivalry much more seriously.[10] InOrlando Furioso, instead of the chivalric ideals which were no longer current in the 16th century, ahumanistic conception of man and life is vividly celebrated under the appearance of a fantastical world, notwithstanding his early modern approaches to feminism.[11]
The action ofOrlando Furioso takes place against the background of the war between the Christian emperor Charlemagne and the Saracen king of Africa,Agramante [it;la], who has invaded Europe to avenge the death of his father Troiano. Agramante and his allies – who include Marsilio, the King of Spain, and the boastful warriorRodomonte – besiege Charlemagne in Paris.
Meanwhile, Orlando, Charlemagne's most famous paladin, has been tempted to forget his duty to protect the emperor because of his love for the pagan princessAngelica. At the beginning of the poem, Angelica escapes from the castle of the Bavarian Duke Namo, and Orlando sets off in pursuit. The two meet with various adventures until Angelica comes across a wounded Saracen infantryman on the verge of death, Medoro. She nurses him back to health, falls in love, and elopes with him toCathay.
When Orlando learns the truth, by finding the pair's secret garden of love, orLocus Amoenus, he goes mad with despair and rampages through Europe and Africa destroying everything in his path, and thus demonstrates the frenzy that the title suggests. The English knightAstolfo journeys to Ethiopia on thehippogriff to find a cure for Orlando's madness.
He flies up inElijah's flaming chariot tothe Moon, where everything lost on Earth is to be found, including Orlando's wits. He brings them back in a bottle and makes Orlando sniff them, thus restoring him to sanity. (At the same time Orlando falls out of love with Angelica, as the author explains that love is itself a form of insanity.)
Orlando joins withBrandimarte andOliver to fight Agramante, Sobrino and Gradasso on the island ofLampedusa. There Orlando kills King Agramante.
Another important plotline involves the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the SaracenRuggiero. They too have to endure many vicissitudes.
Ruggiero is taken captive by the sorceressAlcina and has to be freed from her magic island. He then rescues Angelica from the orc. He also has to avoid the enchantments of his foster father, the wizardAtlante, who does not want him to fight or see the world outside of his iron castle, because looking into the stars it is revealed that if Ruggiero converts himself to Christianity, he will die. He does not know this, so when he finally gets the chance to marry Bradamante, as they had been looking for each other through the entire poem although something always separated them, he converts to Christianity and marries Bradamante.
Rodomonte appears at the wedding feast, nine days after the wedding, and accuses him of being a traitor to the Saracen cause, and the poem ends with a duel between Rodomonte and Ruggiero. Ruggiero kills Rodomonte (Canto XLVI, stanza 140[12]) and the final lines of the poem describe Rodomonte's spirit leaving the world. Ruggiero and Bradamante are the ancestors of theHouse of Este, Ariosto's patrons, whose genealogy he gives at length in canto 3 of the poem.
The epic contains many other characters, including Orlando's cousin, the paladinRinaldo, who is also in love with Angelica; the thiefBrunello; the SaracenFerraù;Sacripante, King of Circassia and a leading Saracen knight; and the tragic heroine Isabella.
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Orlando Furioso is "one of the most influential works in the whole of European literature"[13] and it remains an inspiration for writers to this day.
A few years before Ariosto's death, the poetTeofilo Folengo published hisOrlandino, a caricaturization of the stories found in bothOrlando Furioso and its precursor,Orlando Innamorato.[14]
In 1554,Laura Terracina wrote theDiscorso sopra il Principio di tutti i canti d'Orlando furioso which was linked toOrlando Furioso and in which several of the characters appeared.[15]
Orlando Furioso was a major influence onEdmund Spenser's epicThe Faerie Queene.[16]William Shakespeare'sMuch Ado About Nothing takes one of its plots (Hero/Claudio/Don John) fromOrlando Furioso (probably via Spenser orBandello). In 1592,Robert Greene published a play calledThe Historie of Orlando Furioso. According toBarbara Reynolds, the English poet closest in spirit to Ariosto isLord Byron.[17]
In Spain,Lope de Vega wrote a continuation of the epic (La hermosura de Angélica, 1602) as didLuis Barahona de Soto (Las lágrimas de Angélica, 1586).Góngora wrote a famous poem describing the idyllic honeymoon ofAngelica and Medoro (En un pastoral albergue).[18]Orlando Furioso is mentioned among the romances inDon Quixote.[19] Among the interpolated stories withinDon Quixote is a retelling of a tale from canto 43 regarding a man who tests the fidelity of his wife.[20] Additionally, various literary critics have noted the poem's likely influence onGarcilaso de la Vega's second eclogue.
In France,Jean de la Fontaine used the plots of some of the bawdier episodes for three of hisContes et Nouvelles en vers (1665–66).
In chapter 11 ofSir Walter Scott's novelRob Roy published in 1817, but set circa 1715, Mr. Francis Osbaldistone talks of completing "my unfinished version ofOrlando Furioso, a poem which I longed to render into English verse...".
Virginia Woolf's eponymous historical romanceOrlando (1928) is intricately structured by permutations of many elements of Ariosto's poem.
The modern Russian poetOsip Mandelstam paid tribute toOrlando Furioso in his poemAriosto (1933).
The Italian novelistItalo Calvino drew on Ariosto for several of his works of fiction includingIl cavaliere inesistente ("The Nonexistent Knight", 1959) andIl castello dei destini incrociati ("The Castle of Crossed Destinies", 1973). In 1970 Calvino brought out his own selection of extracts from the poem.[21]
The Argentine writerJorge Luis Borges was an admirer ofOrlando and included a poem,Ariosto y los árabes (Ariosto and the Arabs), exploring the relationship between the epic and theArabian Nights, in his 1960 collectionEl hacedor. Borges also choseAttilio Momigliano's critical study of the work as one of the hundred volumes that were to make up hisPersonal Library.[22]
The English novelistAnthony Powell'sHearing Secret Harmonies includes images fromOrlando Furioso to open chapter two.[23]Hearing Secret Harmonies is the final book in Powell's twelve-volume series,A Dance to the Music of Time.
British writerSalman Rushdie's 2008 novelThe Enchantress of Florence was partly inspired byOrlando Furioso.
Bradamante is one of the main characters in several novels, including Linda C. McCabe'sQuest of the Warrior Maiden, Ron Miller'sBradamant: The Iron Tempest and Ruth Berman'sBradamant's Quest.
Science fiction writerTheodore Sturgeon's 1954 short story "To Here and the Easel" is an assembly of portions of the Orlando story intermixed with a current-day recasting of the story into the lives of a painter suffering from artist's block (Ruggiero/Rogero and his analog Giles), a mysterious faithful supporter (Bradamante and her analog Miss Brandt) and her jaded, fabulously wealthy employer (Angelica appearing as an echo more than an analog) and Giles' redemption (breaking his blockage) at the hands of Miss Brandt. The story first appeared in 1954 in "Star Short Novels" (a Ballantine collection which was not reprinted), and was republished as the first story in the collectionSturgeon Is Alive And Well... in 1971.
The Castle of Iron, a fantasy novel byL. Sprague de Camp andFletcher Pratt, takes place in the "universe" ofOrlando Furioso. It was the third story (and afterwards the second volume) in theirHarold Shea series.
In the Baroque era, the poem was the basis of many operas. Among the earliest wereFrancesca Caccini'sLa liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina ("The Liberation of Ruggiero from Alcina's Island", 1625),Luigi Rossi'sIl palazzo incantato (1642) andAgostino Steffani'sOrlando generoso (1691).Antonio Vivaldi, as animpresario as well as a composer, staged three operas on themes from Ariosto:Orlando furioso (1713) byGiovanni Alberto Ristori,Orlando Furioso (1714), with music by Ristori and by himself, andOrlando (1727). Perhaps the most famous operas inspired by the poem are those byHandel:Orlando (1733),Ariodante andAlcina (1735). In France,Jean-Baptiste Lully turned to Ariosto for histragédie en musiqueRoland (1685).Rameau's comic operaLes Paladins (1760) is based on a story in canto 18 ofOrlando (though Rameau's librettist derived the plot indirectly via La Fontaine'sContes). The enthusiasm for operas based on Ariosto continued into the Classical era and beyond with such examples asJohann Adolph Hasse’sIl Ruggiero (1771),Niccolò Piccinni'sRoland (1778),Haydn'sOrlando paladino (1782),Méhul'sAriodant (1799) andSimon Mayr'sGinevra di Scozia (1801).Ambroise Thomas wrote a comedic one-act,Angélique et Médor, in 1843.[24]Augusta Holmès wrote her orchestral work Roland Furieux in 1876.
Orlando Furioso has been the inspiration for many works of art, including paintings byEugène Delacroix,Tiepolo,Ingres,Redon, and a series of illustrations byGustave Doré.
In his poem Ludovico Ariosto relates how Marphise, thewoman warrior, knocks the knight Pinabello off his horse after his lady had mocked Marphise's companion, the old woman Gabrina. InMarphise byEugène Delacroix, Pinabello lies on the ground, and his horse gallops off in the distance. The knight's lady, meanwhile, is forced to disrobe and give her fancy clothing to Gabrina. Marphise's horse, undisturbed by the drama, nonchalantly munches on the leaves overhead.
In 1975,Luca Ronconi directed an Italian television mini-series based onOrlando Furioso, starringMassimo Foschi (it) as Orlando, andOttavia Piccolo as Angelica.[25]
In the late 1960s / early 1970s, the Bob and Ray comedy parody radio showMary Backstayge, Noble Wife centered around the Backstayge's stage production of the fictional play "Westchester Furioso", an updating ofOrlando Furioso that somehow involved musical numbers, tap dancing and ping pong.
In 1966, ItalianDisney comics artistLuciano Bottaro wrote a parody ofOrlando Furioso starringDonald Duck,Paperin Furioso.[26] In the filmMoonstruck there is a reference to one of the character's rejuvenation as a lover as feeling like "Orlando Furioso".
Emanuele Luzzati's animated short film,I paladini di Francia, together with Giulio Gianini, in 1960, was turned into the children's picture-story book, with verse narrative,I Paladini de Francia ovvero il tradimento di Gano di Maganz, which translates literally as “The Paladins of France or the treachery of Gano of Maganz” (Ugo Mursia Editore, 1962). This was then republished, in English, asRonald and the Wizard Calico (1969). The Picture Lion paperback edition (William Collins, London, 1973) is a paperback imprint of the Hutchinson Junior Books edition (1969), which credits the English translation to Hutchinson Junior Books.
Luzatti's original verse story in Italian is about the plight of a beautiful maiden called Biancofiore – White Flower, or Blanchefleur – and her brave hero, Captain Rinaldo, and Ricardo and his paladins – the term used for Christian knights engaged in Crusades against the Saracens and Moore. Battling with these good people are the wicked Moors – North African Muslims and Arabs – and their Sultan, in Jerusalem. With the assistance of the wicked and treacherous magician, Gano of Maganz, Biancofiore is stolen from her fortress castle, and taken to become the reluctant wife of the Sultan. The catalyst for victory is the good magician, Urlubulu, who lives in a lake, and flies through the air on the back of his magic blue bird. The English translators, using the original illustrations, and the basic rhyme patterns, slightly simplify the plot, changing the Christians-versus-Muslim-Moors conflict into a battle between good and bad magicians and between golden knights and green knights. The French traitor inThe Song of Roland, who is actually Roland's cowardly step-father, is Ganelon – very likely the inspiration for Luzzati's traitor and wicked magician, Gano. Orlando Furioso (literally, Furious or Enraged Orlando, or Roland), includes Orlando's cousin, the paladin Rinaldo, who, like Orlando, is also in love with Angelica, a pagan princess. Rinaldo is, of course, the Italian equivalent of Ronald. Flying through the air on the back of a magic bird is equivalent to flying on a magic hippogriff.
In 2014, Enrico Maria Giglioli createdOrlando's Wars: lotta tra cavalieri, a trading card game with characters and situations of the poem, divided in four categories: Knight, Maiden, Wizard and Fantastic Creature.
The poem appears as a Great Work of Literature in the video gameCivilization V.
In the South Korean video gameLibrary of Ruina, several characters are named after characters from the poem and Innamorato-Roland is a protagonist, his deceased wife is named Angelica, and his brother-in-law and a major antagonist is named Argalia.
Astolfo appears as a servant inFate/Apocrypha andFate/Grand Order, with multiple references to his depictions within the poem.
The wordrodomontade, meaning boastful or inflated talk or behavior, entered the English language in the early 1600s from Italian. It is based on this work's boastful warrior, Rodomonte.
Orlando Furioso won immediate fame. Around the middle of the 16th century, some Italian critics such asGian Giorgio Trissino complained that the poem failed to observe the unity of action as defined byAristotle, by having multiple plots rather than a single main story. The French poetPierre de Ronsard and the Italian poetTorquato Tasso both felt thatOrlando Furioso lacked structural unity.[27] Ariosto's defenders, such asGiovanni Battista Giraldi, replied that it was not a Classical epic but aromanzo, a genre unknown to Aristotle; therefore his standards were irrelevant.[28] Nevertheless, the strictures of the Classical critics influenced the next great Italian epic,Torquato Tasso'sGerusalemme Liberata (1581). Tasso tried to combine Ariosto's freedom of invention with a more unified plot structure. In the following decades, Italian critics argued over the respective merits of the two epics. Partisans ofOrlando, such asGalileo Galilei, praised its psychological realism and the naturalness of its language. In the 19th century,Hegel considered that the work's many allegories and metaphors did not serve merely to refute the ideal ofchivalry, but also to demonstrate the fallacy of human senses and judgment.Francesco de Sanctis andAttilio Momigliano (it) also wrote aboutOrlando Furioso.[29]
The story resembles themyth of Andromeda and Perseus, and in particular the scene where a woman is chained naked to a rock on the sea as a sacrifice to a sea monster, and is rescued at the last moment, is essentially indistinguishable.[30]
There have been several verse translations ofOrlando Furioso into English, most using the 8-line stanzas (octaves) of the original (abababcc). The first one was byJohn Harington, published in 1591 and slightly revised in 1634.[31]Temple Henry Croker's translation, misattributed toWilliam Huggins' and Henry Boyd's translation were published in 1757 and 1784, respectively.[32]John Hoole's 1783 translation usedrhymingcouplets (AABBCC...).[32]William Stewart Rose produced an eight-volume translation beginning publication in 1823 and ending in 1831.[33]Barbara Reynolds published a verse translation in 1975, and an abridged verse translation byDavid Slavitt was published in 2009, which was then made complete by a second volume containing the lacunae missing from the abridgement, in 2012.
A few translations have also been made into prose.A. H. Gilbert's translation was published byDuke University Press in 1954.[33]Richard Hodgens planned a multivolume translation, whose first volume, subtitledThe Ring of Angelica, was published byBallantine Books as the fifty-fourth volume of itsBallantine Adult Fantasy series in January, 1973.[34] The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series came to an end in 1974; no further volumes of the Hodgens translation were published. Guido Waldman's complete prose translation was first published byOxford University Press in 1973.[35]
A comparison of the original text of Book 1, Canto 1 with various translations into English is given in the following table:
| Author/translator | Date | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Lodovico Ariosto | 1516/1532 | Le donne, i cavallier, l'arme, gli amori |
| Sir John Harington | 1591 | Of Dames, of Knights, of armes, of loues delight, |
| Sir John Harington | 1634 edition | Of Dames, of Knights, of armes, of loves delight, |
| Temple Henry Croker, attr. William Huggins | 1757 | Of ladies, cavaliers, of arms and love, |
| John Hoole | 1783 | Dames, knights, and arms, and love! The deeds that spring |
| William Stewart Rose | 1823 | OF LOVES and LADIES, KNIGHTS and ARMS, I sing, |
| Barbara Reynolds | 1975 | Of ladies, cavaliers, of love and war, |
| David R. Slavitt | 2009 | Of ladies, knights, of passions and of wars, |
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Orlando Furioso public domain audiobook atLibriVox