Orlando Furioso in Milton: Heroic flights and true heroines

Comparative Literature, Spring 1997 by James H Sims

Quel che l'uom vede, Amor gli fa invisibile,

e l'invisibil fa vedere Amore.

Questo creduto fu; che, '1 miser suole

dar facile credenza a quel che wole.

(OF 1.56.5-8)

The king is blind (or with his sight dispenses),

Since what is not, love's power makes credible

Thus he believes her for, as all men do,

He gives assent to what he hopes is true.

(Reynolds)

Later, Ruggiero, in spite of his love for Bradamante and the stern warnings of Astolfo, is ensnared by Alcina because of his own desire to believe her and to deem Astolfo an envious liar: che del tutto mente (OF 17.8). When Michael, in Paradise Lost, pinpoints the source of trouble for the Sethites as "Man's effeminate slackness" (11.634), his corrective words to Adam have already been anticipated by the epic voice's description of the men's eyes "Rov[ing] without rein, till in the amorous Net / Fast caught, they lik'd, and each his liking chose" (11.586-87). The common source for both Ariosto and Milton is the biblical truth that "every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed" (James 1:14) ;26 but the particular application of the principle to men blaming feminine wiles for their alleged entrapment is Ariostan before it is Miltonic.

In Paradise Regained Satan rejects Belial's advice to tempt Jesus with women, accusing Belial of judging Jesus by himself; Belial and his kind habitually lurk in wood or grove to waylay nymphs and couple with them (2.182-92). Satan instead compares Jesus to high-minded and self-disciplined men like Alexander the Great and Scipio Africanus, who "with a smile made small account/Of beauty and her lures, easily scorn'd/All her assaults, on worthier things intent" (PR 2.193-95). Yet Satan's words carry heavy (and unintended) irony if we remember Satan's own reluctant turning away from beauty's charm in Eden (PL 9.455-70) to accomplish the "worthier things" he is intent on-that is, his aim "all pleasure to destroy" (9.477), including ruining Eve and her mate. Thus while he speaks from experience about high aims enabling one to resist temptation, he implicitly compares himself to Jesus from a perverted perspective.27

Furthermore, it is soon evident in Paradise Regained that Satan's rebuff of Belial's plan is itself hypocritical. Less than 60 lines afterward, he includes in the banquet temptation of Jesus both the kind of setting in which lustful nymphs are traditionally encountered and, though at a discreet distance, some of the lovely nymphs themselves. Thus when Jesus enters a shady grove at noon,28 he suddenly finds himself in an apparently natural theater: "Nature's own work it seem'd (Nature taught Art)/And to a Superstitious eye the haunt/Of Wood Gods and Wood Nymphs" (PR 2.295-97). Appearing as a fair courtier, Satan spreads before Jesus a sumptuous feast served by handsome youths to the accompaniment of "Harmonious Airs . . ./ Of chiming strings or charming pipes" (2.363-64) . Less immediately apparent,

Under the Trees now tripp'd, now solemn stood

Nymphs of Diana's train, and Naiades ...