Page 172 - Costellazioni 5

DANIEL T. LOCHMAN, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene

And all her haire her shoulders ouer spred,
And both her sex and name was knowne withal,
And wonder great and admiration bred,
In them that saw her make three Princes fall:
For why, she shewd to be in all their sight,
As faire in face, as she was fierce in fight. 38

Not only do verbal cues and se ing recall Britomart’s revelation at Mal-
becco’s castle, but so too do the affective responses of the assembled
characters. Indeed, Harington’s translation may seem too familiar in
that it omits the Italian “golden” (d’oro), which in Ariosto’s text refers
to the helmet (cuffia), not to Bradamante’s falling hair, and it adds an
anticipated emotional reaction of the viewers, in whom “wonder great
and admiration bred” — a response that has no equivalent in the Ital-
ian. Harington may have extrapolated this reaction from Ariosto’s
episode, but the original does not refer directly to any onlookers.
Could it be that Harington’s translation was influenced by
Spenser’s work, published just the year before? Or could it be that both
were influenced by some other source — such as Torquato Tasso’s
Gerusalemme Liberata (1575), which A.C. Hamilton identifies as a source
for Arthegall’s previously mentioned shearing of Britomart’s helmet? 39
Although such questions are pertinent, the path of transmission is here
of less importance than the evidence of intertextual memory, which
conveys a textual experience that seems to resonate deeply within
early modern culture. The reader’s narrative memory of the experi-

38 Orlando Furioso, trans. John Harington (London: Richard Field, 1591),
XXXII.74. See 32.79 in the edition of M. Turchi (Milano: Garzanti, 1964):
La donna, cominciando a disarmarsi,
s’avea lo scudo e dipoi l’elmo tra o;
quando una cuffia d’oro, in che celarsi
soleano i capei lunghi e star di pia o,
uscì con l’elmo; onde caderon sparsi
giù per le spalle, e la scopriro a un tra o
e la feron conoscer per donzella,
non men che fiera in arme, in viso bella.
39 Hamilton on 4. 6. 19, p. 453.

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