Orlando Furioso: Part Two

Orlando Furioso #2

by Ludovico Ariosto, Barbara Reynolds (Introduction)

One of the greatest epic poems of the Italian Renaissance, Orlando Furioso is an intricate tale of love and enchantment set at the time of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne's conflict with the Moors. When Count Orlando returns to France from Cathay with the captive Angelica as his prize, her beauty soon inspires his cousin Rinaldo to challenge him to a duel - but during their battle, Angelica escapes from both knights on horseback and begins a desperate quest for freedom. This dazzling kaleidoscope of fabulous adventures, sorcery and romance has inspired generations of writers - including Spenser and Shakespeare - with its depiction of a fantastical world of magic rings, flying horses, sinister wizardry and barbaric splendour.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Fiction, Fantasy, Renaissance, Epic, Italian Literature

800 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1516

About the author

Known Italian writer Ludovico Ariosto, or Lodovico Ariosto first published Orlando Furioso his primary epic comic poem, in 1516.

He best authored the romance. This continuation of Orlando Innamorato of Matteo Maria Boiardo describes the adventures of Charlemagne and the Franks, who battle against the Saracens, with diversions into many side plots. Ariosto composed in the ottava rima scheme and introduced narrator commentary throughout the work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludovic...

Reviews

[nastya · Rating 5 out of 5]

If anyone told me that this 1500 page epic poem would become one of my favorite reads ever, I would've never believed them. And yet it is.

This book has it all: epic battles of Iliad; adventures of Odyssey; magic of Arabian nights; bawdy humor of Decameron; tales of chivalry of The green knight; Neil Gaiman’s Sandman; Magic Ring that makes you invisible; awesome women warriors; vacation on the Moon; and witty narrator to accompany you on this wonderful journey.

It deserves a much longer review and if I get inspired, I hope I’ll write in some day. But for now: Loved loved, so much fun!

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

’Sweet sleep has brought me promises of peace,
But bitter waking brings me back to war.
Sweet sleep, I know, but an illusion is,
But bitter waking does not, cannot, err.
If truth brings sorrow and illusions please,
Then of the truth, ah! leave me unaware.
If sleep brings happiness and waking pain,
Then may I sleep and never wake again!

This half went a lot faster, in part because I gave up literally charting the path of each character across the globe and through each chivalric charge with lance. In truth, there are a few too many such encounters, one begins to resist the urge to skim after a while. But you might miss a laugh or noble death that is essential to remember later on if you do, so soldier on. Obviously several cantos are there primarily to offer chances to repeat again the noble linage of the d’Estes, descended from the heroes of this epic, or to flatter their friends.

But, if you don’t read this, you won’t find out that the moon is where lost things go.

The tears of lovers and their endless sighs,
The moments lost in empty games of chance,
Vain projects none could ever realize,
The fruitless idleness of ignorance,
And unfulfilled desire--which occupies
More room than all the rest and more expanse:
In short, whatever has been lost on earth
Is found upon the moon, for what it’s worth.

Has Orlando lost his wits and is wandering all over the lands surrounding the Mediterranean, wrecking havoc? Why, send his cousin to the moon to recover his lost wits and apply them many cantos later, so that he can help defeat the Moors. And if you by-pass some tilts you might miss such splendid women warriors as Bradamante and Marisa, bad-ass jousters, jar man after man off his horse. And you won’t get the bellylaughs as a group of proud knights spend a whole canto arguing over who has precedence in the schedule of their honor-duels, as the matches are interdependent and someone might kill the man you’re after before you get your chance. Plus all the booty is at stake: those shields, those swords, those horses--Hector’s shield!!

But there are equally tragic and poignant notes. Doralice begs Mandricardo, the man she loves, to bypass a duel over her; he refuses. She used to be flattered by the idea that someone would risk his life for her, but now:

’Ah, me!’she said, ‘flown now is all the pride
I used to take that such a noble king,
That such a cavalier, would both have died
In battle for my sake; now for a thing
So trivial, devotion set aside,
You risk your life; and this considering,
I know that natural ferocity
It was which made you fight, not love for me.

and a few pages later:

While Mandricardo lived, then, well and good:
But of what use is he, now he is dead?
She needs a man whose strength and hardihood
Both night and day will stand her in good stead.

And Ariosto slyly points out the benefits of rewarding the court poet, which it seems his patron did stingily:

’Aeneas not so pious, nor so strong
Achilles was, as they are famed to be;
Hector was less ferocious; and a throng
of heroes could surpass them, but we see
Their valour and their deeds enhanced in song,
For their descendants had so lavishly
Rewarded poets for their eulogies
With gifts of villas, farm-lands, palaces.

Not so beneficent Augustus was
As Virgil’s epic clarion proclaimed...

No one would know of Nero’s unjust laws,
Nor would he for his cruelties be famed
(Though he had been by Heaven and earth reviled)
if writers he has wooed and reconciled.

because the d’Estes had some history better overlooked.

So carry on to the end, and enjoy. I did!

[J.G. Keely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps it speaks more to the age I live in than that of the author, but I'm always surprised to find a reasonable, rational mind on the other end of the pen. Though his work is full of prejudice and idealism, it is constantly shifting, so that now one side seems right, and now the other.

His use of hyperbole and oxymoron prefigures the great metaphysical poets, and like them, these are tools of rhetoric and satire. Every knight is 'undefeatable', every woman 'shames all others by her virtue', and it does not escape Ariosto that making all of them remarkable only makes more obvious the fact that none of them are.

Ariosto's style flies on wings, lilting here and there, darting, soaring. He makes extensive use of metafiction, both addressing the audience by means of a semi-fictionalized narrator and by philosophical explorations of the art of poetry itself, and the nature of the poet and his patron.

As with most epics, Ariosto's asides to the greatness of his patron are as jarring as any 30-second spot. His relationship to his various patrons was extremely difficult for him, as he was paid a mere pittance and constantly drawn away from his writing to deliver bad news to the pope (if you're thinking that's a bad job, Ariosto would agree--the See nearly had him killed).

This is likely the reason that these moments of praise fall to the same unbelievable hyperbole as the rest. His patrons could hardly be angry at him for constantly praising them, but his readers will surely be able to recognize that his greatest compliments are the most backhanded, and merely serve to throw into stark contrast the hypocrisy of man.

Since we will all be oblivious hypocrites at some point (for most of us, nearly all the time), the only useful defense is the humility to admit our flaws. Great men never have it so easy: they cannot accept their mistakes, but must instead be buried by them.

Though Ariosto often lands on the side of the Christians, his Muslims are mighty, honorable, well-spoken, and as reasonable in their faith. The only thing which seems to separate the two sides is their petty squabbling.

Likewise, he takes a surprisingly liberal view of sex and gender equality, with lady knights who are not only the match for any man, but who need no marriage to complete their characters. He even presents homosexuality amongst both sexes, though with a rather light hand.

His epic is not the stalwartly serious sort, like Homer, Virgil, or Dante. Ariosto is a humanist, and has none of the fetters of nationalism or religious idealism to hold him in place. His view of man is a contrary, shifting, absurd thing. The greatest achievements of man are great only in the eyes of man.

By showing both sides of a conflict, by supporting each in turn, Ariosto creates a space for the author to inhabit. He is not tied to some system of beliefs, but to observation, to recognition; not to the ostensible truth of humanity, but to our continuing story.

Ariosto took a great leap from Petrarch's self-awareness. While Petrarch constantly searched and argued in his poems, he found a sublime comfort in the grand unknown. Ariosto is the great iconoclast, not only asking why of the most obvious conflicts, but of the grandest assumptions. The grand mystery is only as sacred as it is profane.

Ariosto is also funny, surprising, and highly imaginative. Though his work is defined by its philosophical view, this view is developed slowly and carefully. It is never stated outright, but is rather the medium of the story: a thin, elegant skein which draws together all characters and conflicts.

The surface of the story itself is a light-hearted, impossible comedy. It is no more impossible than the grand heights of any other epic, but only seems so because it is not girt tightly with high-minded seriousness. Perhaps Ariosto's greatest gift is that he is doing essentially the same thing all other authors do, the same situations and characters, but he makes you laugh to see it.

To be able to look at life simply as it is and laugh is the only freedom we will ever know. It is all wisdom. For this gift, I hail fair Ariosto, the greatest of all epicists, all poets, all writers, all humanists, all men, and never to be surpassed.

[Zadignose]

Orlando Furioso is all the good it's supposed to be, and more. It starts off rather good, and gets better as it goes. It has a lot of awesome style, in translation too, whereas I assume the original is probably better. This doesn't negate the fact that there's a fair amount of silliness in it, as I stated in my brief review of Volume I. Magical intervention and invincible armor and astounding weapons abound, as heroes are made fools of and humiliated, and fools are made into heroes. The plot is extraordinarily convoluted and full of contrivances. You've just got to go with it. At times it seems radically progressive in terms of attitudes to sex and sexuality, gender norms, racial and religious tolerance, and at others it's the exact opposite, vulgarly racist and wielding sex as a weapon. It's all over the place. But fun! And also sometimes moving. Mostly spectacular. And the dull bits all arise from the one compulsion of the author to lavishly, hyperbolically praise the gang of thieves that are his own patron's family. It could probably do without a couple of hundred pages of that. It does make one wonder if Ariosto was sometimes lampooning his patrons while the narcissists of the family d'Este took it as sincere praise. If so, well played. In any case, this book is to be applauded and recommended to those who have time for some virtuosic poetic feats mixed with ludicrous and colorful fantastic adventures, and to those who want to know what that brain-addled Don Quixote was so often going on about.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A skeptical take on chivalric epic. Lovers are bewitched and unfaithful. Knights are plagued by competitve rivalry and sexual jealousy.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A note on translation: I used Reynolds to compare, contrast, and fill in the gaps with the Slavitt translation. Slavitt takes liberties, and Reynolds has merit, but I’ve got to say, for compulsive readability, and cheeky irreverence that feels like it honors the spirit of the original, Slavitt it is.

[Nora Tripp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blah blah pretty boring but I love anyway

[Descending Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second half is just as amazing. Orlando Furioso is one of the greatest reading experiences I've ever had, it's something I think everyone should read, a real masterpiece.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a manly poem for manly men.

Epic in length, breadth, and by any means of measurement, this is an astonishing literary achievement. The version I read was the Barbara Reynolds verse translation. It maintained the rhyming scheme of the original Italian, which was an impressive accomplishment but created some pretty entangled sentences.

There are two main storylines: Orlando (and at least three other powerful knights) fighting for the love of the coldhearted Angelica, and the enduring love between the Christian Bradamante and the pagan Ruggiero, and all of this takes place in the midst of a war between Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne and pagan African king Agramante. Despite taking twenty years to write, and despite being the continuation of a previously written unfinished epic poem, and despite being peopled with a huge cast of characters, this is a carefully plotted and constructed celebration of love.

What I found most refreshing was the presentation of women. Ariosto frees women from the burden of being helpless virgins worshipped on pedestals, and instead has willful women who make their own destinies through might, magic and simply by freedom of choice. Foremost among these are Bradamante, the Christian warrior woman who goes on multiple quests to save her love from the latest trap he has falling into, and her pagan counterpart, Marfisa, who by the age of 17 has won seven or so kingdoms as her own by force of arms alone. Ariosto makes the argument that women have the same desires as men, and should be free to fulfill them as men do. It's strange that such a sensible thing ever needed to be expressed, but perhaps it could only be palatable to a dominant patriarchal system in the form of fantasy tale.

Starting with a war, ending with a marriage and replete with travels to all places known at the time (with even a trip to the moon!), and filled with savage combat, lyrical magic, bawdy interludes and a few mind-bending plot twists, this should be a satisfying read for anyone who attempts it.

[Yann · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai adoré ce poème, qui a su et me toucher et me distraire. C'est un vrai chef d’œuvre. Mon seul regret est de ne pas l'avoir lu en Italien. Quelle saveur! C'est du niveau du Tasse, peut être même encore au dessus. Chaque chapitre est introduit par un petit apologue philosophique, puis on est servi par une histoire merveilleuse où amour, vaillance et vertu sont à l'honneur. Les femmes ne sont pas en reste, et ne cèdent en rien aux hommes en qualité et en force. Il leur rend justice. L'Arioste est leur ami, et outre l'aspect divertissant et jubilatoire du poème, c'est un plaidoyer pour dénoncer le scandale de la position où les préjugés de la société les maintiennent depuis l'Antiquité encore à la Renaissance. On comprend sans aucun mal l'engouement qu'il a pu susciter, aussi bien chez Cervantes et le chevalier à la triste figure que chez Jacques Casanova.

[Chrisanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snarky and classical, always slyly poking fun at and praising himself. #meta before it was cool.

[可欣]

actually so good…

[Milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though Ariosto seems a master of rhythmic balance throughout the poem, it is interesting where his various tones and suggestions come to clash. One especially prominent example is that of the various enchanted accoutrements wielded by his various bold chevaliers. There is often an anti-drama to find our heroes besting their opponents not by ability or sheer force of will, but the good fortune that their enchanted bucker could defend what would otherwise be a fatal blow. I would be willing to acknowledge this as a difference in aesthetic taste, until the point Ariosto seems to sympathise. He has Ruggiero toss off his magic shield, thinking it unfairly powerful; he has Bradamante unaware (for the entire poem!) that she later wields a golden lance that can unseat any rider at but a touch; he has Astolfo forbear from blowing his enchanted horn lest it be his only option. Which then means that when Orlando wields Durindana, or when Rodomonte is shielded by the dragon-scale armour of Nimrod, or when Ruggiero is bolstered by the arms of Hector we must apply that same disconcertment as Ariosto himself deigns to show on occasion. When Gradasso – unconvincingly billed as one of the greatest warriors in Europe – comes against Orlando, the drama is naturally sapped by Orlando’s essential invulnerability. So too does Ariosto sometimes engender a tonal contradiction in his depictions of warfare, which seem in turn both horrific and glorified. Do we pleasure at the joy of the joust, or weep at those felled thereby? Can both be reasonable? Can we cheer for a united Christendom, and at once for the incessant infighting of itinerant knights, who shirk their duty to Charlemagne’s side? The ultramontane rejection of tourneys and their like could well be justified on the back of this text alone; while Ariosto no doubt abjures infighting, he also appears far too caught up in it to read this poem as a critique. Some moments also cross the pale for tonal strangeness: Guidone slaughtering half the population of Damascus, only to be rewarded with half the kingdom, seems a strangely comic depiction of mass murder compared to the weepy accounts of forlorn battlefields both prior and post such an incident. Though some of these could certainly be accounted for by differing aesthetic tastes; wholesale slaughter is currently not in vogue. But to close this bifurcated review on a surprisingly positive note, I was impressed consistently at Ariosto’s effectively feminist approach to the women in his stories. Not only are two of his boldest fighters women, but throughout he will commentate on the foulness of double standards and the sour deal women must put up with, despite making intellectual (and, in the confines of his tale, physical) equals to men. One particularly pleasant interlude is his plea that women continue their fine works, even if they are ignored in the present. In some future time they will be discovered, he assures. Even his city of man-haters can be countenanced by what is essentially an extended satire on patriarchy; a revelatory reversal of fates, and one the now-beleaguered men cannot endure for a day. For a tale obsessed with maidens-fair and damsels in distress, such open sympathy is refreshing.

[Timons Esaias · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started my review of Volume I with “This is one of the books that drove Don Quixote mad. It's not doing much for me, either.” and have to say it didn’t get much better in the second half. So I refer you to my earlier review for general issues.

While many of the disparate threads from Volume I finally get tied together by the end of the poem, its actual shapelessness also comes into focus when one realizes how many threads just get left dangling. One realizes that the title character is not really the central character, and that his title condition is resolved rather anti-climactically, and rather early (13 cantos before the end). Many of the crises of knightly honor are so tortured as to be self-satirical, and one can then think that Cervantes was just shooting fish in a barrel. They did not seem to be comical enough to be comedy, though. Or human enough to be taken as drama. Or anything enough to be anything except pointlessly operatic and stupid.

I do see a lot of the tropes of works like Amir Hamza and the older Asian epic fantasies, filled with super-warriors; but to my mind those stories wore thin a long time ago, except where truly human situations (as opposed to the imaginary Romance situations of Courts run along distinctly imaginary lines with codes of honor that have never applied to anyone anywhere) arise. Hector and the wife, just before the battle. Achilles sulking in his tent. Arjuna counting his friends among the enemy, and asking God WTF??? (And not getting a good answer.)

But, as indicated above, I never found a satisfying wavelength to get this message on. Take most things I despise about the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, and here it gets glorified. It’s historically interesting, but I did not find it entertaining.

For Ariosto I have only faint praise. Read Cervantes. Read Shakespeare. Read the people who used this material better.

[Jay Daze · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this a dog's age ago and have been meaning to review it. But it is such a sprawling, amazing, funny, infuriating masterpiece that I've been having a hard time wrapping my head around it. A two volume poem about male anxiety? Much more than that - but also about THAT! Orlando goes crazy because a woman chooses someone else. But that is only ONE thread in this energetic, fantastical poem. (A giant suck-up or 'f-you' to his patron is another thread.) Barbara Reynolds gives this rhyming poem, verve and energy, maybe not as naughty as the original from what I've heard from an Italian reader. I took a LONG time reading this out loud to myself every day and really really enjoyed the experience. Some works come and go, not surprisingly this OLD OLD poem is going to stay in my head!

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that with 1400 pages of this, it would get boring or repetitive or uncreative. NOT SO!! It was excellent and interesting and compelling until the very last page. Also, Leon may be the chillest homie ever to walk the pages of a book. I hope he marries Marfisa someday.

[Daniel]

Renacimiento literario en Italia (II): Ariosto.

Conferencia Ariosto, el Orlando y su herencia.

[Roland Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute pleasure to read aloud.

[Salomé · Rating 5 out of 5]

The queer/transvestite/transgender part is excellent.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

元气沛然，稍觉格调不高。Reynolds说Ariosto is the poet of Europe，未免强其所难，但若加一个限定，the poet of Renaissance Europe，或许就差不多了吧。PS: 罗多蒙特太有爱了！

[David]

Read in 2006. Full of ideas.

[Lukas Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

2 fast 2 Furioso

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

like the first part but cool and thematically interesting shit actually happens this time

[Matteo Lohier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incroyable, bravo aux Italiens pour les travaux

[Orlok_2025 · Rating 5 out of 5]

See first part.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I appreciated the personifications more in this re-read. They come off as actual characters now in a way they didn't before.

[Suzannah Rowntree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written over twenty-seven years, roughly 1300 pages long in my Penguin Classics edition, and full of non-stop adventure, the Orlando Furioso is, with Dante's Divine Comedy and Machiavelli's The Prince, one of the defining texts of the Italian Renaissance. Almost unheard-of these days, the Orlando Furioso was once famous world-wide. It had a great impact on both Renaissance humanist and Reformation Christian literature, and it did not truly fade into obscurity until the late 1800s.

Read the rest of my review at my blog, In Which I Read Vintage Novels

[Hillary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eh, see the writing about part 1. Part 2 is a little different (they go to the moon!), but it's not as though the poem was written in two parts. It's just broken up that way for easier transportation.

[Cathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes, this is part II, this book is very long. I think, thankfully, in the Penguin edition that there is also an extensive character list at the back that includes names of swords and horses.

[Ibis3]

Edition irrelevant.2005-09-30