Ye shall bethink you of our cries.
Come back, nor, grown old, seek in vain
To hear us sing across the sea;
Come back, come back, come back again,
Come back, O fearful Minyae!

_Orpheus_:
Ah, once again, ah, once again,
The black prow plunges through the sea;
Nor yet shall all your toil be vain,
Nor ye forget, O Minyae!

LUDOVICO ARIOSTO

(1474-1533)

BY L. OSCAR KUHNS

Among the smaller principalities of Italy during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, none was more brilliant than the court of Ferrara,
and none more intimately connected with the literature of the times.
Here, on September 8th, 1474, was born Ludovico Ariosto, the great poet
of the Renaissance. Here, like Boiardo before him and Tasso after him,
he lived and wrote; and it was to the family of Este that he dedicated
that poem in which are seen, as in a mirror, the gay life, the
intellectual brilliancy, and the sensuous love for beauty which mark the
age. At seventeen he began the study of the law, which he soon abandoned
for the charms of letters. Most of his life was passed in the service
first of Cardinal d'Este, and afterward of the Duke of Ferrara. But the
courtier never overcame the poet, who is said to have begun the famous
'Orlando Furioso' at the age of thirty, and never to have ceased the
effort to improve it.

The literary activity of Ariosto showed itself in the composition of
comedies and satires, as well as in that of his immortal epic. The
comedies were written for the court theatre of Ferrara, to which he
seems to have had some such relation as that of Goethe to the theatre at
Weimar. The later comedies are much better than the early ones, which
are but little more than translations from Plautus and Terence. In
general, however, the efforts of Ariosto in this direction are far less
important than the 'Orlando' or the 'Satires.' At the first appearance
of his plays they were enormously successful, and the poet was hailed as
a great dramatic genius. But these comedies are interesting to-day
chiefly from the fact that Ariosto was one of the very first of the
writers of modern comedy, and was the leader of that movement in Italy
and France which prepared the way for Moliere.

Of more importance than the comedies, and second only in interest to the
'Orlando' are the 'Satires' seven in number, the first written in 1517
and the l