Volume III Part 77 (1/2)
”The last thirty-six stanzas of the twenty-third canto, where the poet describes in detail how Roland became mad Since the world has existed no one has discovered the springs of e These stanzas are terrible, and I am sure they must have made you tremble”
”Yes, I reain”
”Perhaps the gentleh to recite thelance at her uncle
”Willingly,” said I, ”if you will have the goodness to listen to me”
”You have learn them by heart, then, have you?” said Voltaire
”Yes, it was a pleasure and no trouble Since I was sixteen, I have read over Ariosto two or three times every year; it is my passion, and the lines naturally becoivengenealogies and his historical tirades, which fatigue the mind and do not touch the heart It is only Horace that I know throughout, in spite of the often prosaic style of his epistles, which are certainly far frothy; I ad cantos, there is too much of him”
”It is fifty-one cantos, M de Voltaire”
The great man was silent, but Madame Denis was equal to the occasion
”Come, come,” said she, ”let us hear the thirty-six stanzas which earned the author the title of divine, and which are to an, in an assured voice, but not in that monotonous tone adopted by the Italians, hich the French so justly reproach us
The French would be the best reciters if they were not constrained by the rhyme, for they say what they feel better than any other people They have neither the passionate monotonous tone of my fellow-country ive its proper expression, but the recurrence of the same sounds partly spoils their recitation I recited the fine verses of Ariosto, as if it had been rhyth it by the sound ofto the sentiments hich I wished to inspire my audience They sa hardly I could restrain my tears, and every eye et; but when I caare il freno al dolor puote, Che resta solo senza altrui rispetto, Giu dagli occhi rigando per le gote Sparge un fiume de lacrime sul petto,”
my tears coursed down an to sob M de Voltaire and Madame Denis threw their arms round my neck, but their embraces could not stop me, for Roland, to becoelica had lately been found in the arms of the too fortunate Medor, and I had to reach the next stanza ForI substituted the expression of that terror which arose naturally from the contemplation of his fury, which was in its effects like a tempest, a volcano, or an earthquake
When I had finished I received with a sad air the congratulations of the audience Voltaire cried,
”I always said so; the secret of drawing tears is to weep one's self, but they must be real tears, and to shed theed to you, sir,” he added, e me, ”and I promise to recite the same stanzas myself to-morrow, and to weep like you”
He kept his word
”It is astonishi+ng,” said Madame Denis, ”that intolerant Ro of Roland”
”Far from it,” said Voltaire, ”Leo X excoreat families of Este and Medici interested themselves in the poet's favour Without that protection it is probable that the one line on the donation of Rome by Constantine to Silvester, where the poet speaks 'puzza forte' would have sufficed to put the whole poem under an interdict”
”I believe,” said I, ”that the line which has excited the eneral resurrection
Ariosto,” I added, ”in speaking of the her possession of Isabella,of Zerbin, paints the African, earied of the hermit's serainst a rock, against which he remains in a dead swoon, so that 'che al novissimo di forse fia desto'”
This 'forse' which may possibly have only been placed there as a flower of rhetoric or as a word to coreat uproar, which would doubtless have greatly amused the poet if he had had time!
”It is a pity,” said Madame Denis, ”that Ariosto was not more careful in these hyperbolical expressions”
”Be quiet, niece, they are full of wit They are all golden grains, which are dispersed throughout the work in the best taste”
The conversation was then directed towards various topics, and at last we got to the 'Ecossaise' we had played at Soleure
They knew all about it