Orlando Furioso in Milton: Heroic flights and true heroines

Comparative Literature, Spring 1997 by James H Sims

And Ladies of th' Hesperides, that seem'd

Fairer than feign'd of old, or fabl'd since

Of Fairy Damsels met in Forest wide

By Knights of Logres, or of Lyones,

Lancelot or Pelleas, or Pellenore.

(PR 2.354-55, 357-61)

The names of places and knights recall Malory more than Ariosto, but the scene of a festive board with the air filled with music resembles closely the setting in which Alcina seduces Ruggiero.

A quella mensa citare, arpe e lire,

e diversi altri dilettevol suoni

faceano intorno l'aria titinire

d'armonia dolce e di concenti buoni.

(OF 7.19.1-4)

Around the festive board zithers, harps, and lyres set the air vibrating with delightful sounds, with soft harmony and tuneful notes. (Waldman) Following Christ's rejection of the feast, Satan's luxurious scene is shown in its sudden disappearance to be as illusory as Alcina's.

While Satan's banquet with its subtle sexual temptation fails to attract Jesus, the scene makes clear that Satan protests too much in spurning Belial's advice; in the allusions to both Satan's approach to Eve and Ruggiero's succumbing to Alcina, Milton's epic voice negates Satan's assurance that those determinedly fixed on worthy aims can resist a sensual charmer in a lovely setting. At the same time he intensifies the genuine high-mindedness of Jesus.

The scene in Paradise Lost in which Satan approaches Eve among her flowers functions not only in connection with Paradise Regained, however; it also recalls Angelica alone in a thicket of roses and hawthorn when Sacripant draws near in Orlando Furioso, Canto 1.35-37.29 Separated from Adam, busily absorbed in tending her flowers, Eve is glimpsed by Satan in a "Flow'ry Plat, [her] sweet recess" (PL 10.456): "Veil'd in a Cloud of Fragrance, where she stood,/Half spi'd, so thick the Roses bushing round/About her glow'd" (PL 9.425-27). The epic voice describes the scene as viewed through Satan's eyes, comparing him to a city dweller who, enjoying a rare pastoral stroll, suddenly sees "with Nymphlike step fair Virgin pass" and finds all Nature more pleasing for this most pleasing sight: "in her look sums all Delight" (9.452,454), and

her Heav'nly form

Angelic, but more soft, and Feminine,

Her graceful Innocence, her every Air

Of gesture or least action overaw'd

His Malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd

His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought.

(PL 9.457-62)

The initial "Angelic" in the second line of this description, given the setting and the dramatic situation, recalls Angelica. Alone in her thicket of roses (another "sweet recess"), Angelica overhears Sacripant lament his lost hope of finding and enjoying her. When she decides to seek his aid in returning to Cathay and reveals herself to him, he is overwhelmed with joy and wonder "on suddenly beholding her angel's face (il vero angelico sembiante), her graceful movements, her overwhelming presence" (OF 1.53.7, Waldman); immediately he adopts the pose of honorable protector, though his true resolve is to deflower her without delay.

Like Eve's flowery plot, Angelica's bower is a sensuous locus amoenus.