| Popis: |
In the final episode of Matteo Maria Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato, the maiden warrior Bradamante finds herself in a tricky situation. Dressed in her armor and suffering from a head wound for the treatment of which her hair was shorn, Bradamante stops to rest along the bank of a stream, where she is spotted by the beautiful Fiordispina, out with a hunting party. Fiordispina takes Bradamante for a man and immediately falls in love with her. When Bradamante wakes up, she realizes from the look on Fiordispina’s face what has happened, and she says to herself: “ ‘Qualche una mal contenta / Sera de noi e ingannata alla vista / Che gratugia a gratugia poco acquista’ ” (3.9.11.6–8).1 (“One of us won’t be happy! She’s / Deceived by what she sees: small gain / Comes when grates grate on grates, not cheese!”) Boiardo’s epic ends with the two women at this impasse: “Pero vi lascio in questo vano amore / De Fiordispina ardente a poco a poco / Un’altra fiata, se mi fia concesso, / Raccontarovi il tutto per espresso” (3.9.26.5–8). (So I will leave this hopeless love / Of simmering Fiordispina. / Some other time, if God permits, / I’ll tell you all there is to this.) |
