ision,
our poet has a glimpse of the Triune Divinity,--compounded of
love,--which so transcends all human expression that he declares
"what he saw was not for words to speak."

He concludes his grand poem, however, by assuring us that, although
dazed by what he had seen, his

"will roll'd onward, like a wheel
In even motion, by the love impell'd,
That moves the sun in heaven and all the stars."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: All the quotations in Divine Comedy are taken from
Cary's translation.]

[Footnote 17: See the author's "Story of the Greeks."]

[Footnote 18: See the author's "Story of the Chosen People," and
"Story of the Romans."]

[Footnote 19: See the author's "Legends of the Virgin and Christ."]

THE ORLANDOS

Roland, nephew of Charlemagne, hero of the Song of Roland and of an
endless succession of metrical romances, was as popular a character in
Italian literature as in the French. The Italians felt a proprietary
interest in Charlemagne because he had been crowned emperor of the
West in Rome in the year 800, and also because he had taken the part
of the pope against the Lombards. Even the names of his twelve great
peers were household words in Italy, so tales about Roland--who is
known there as Orlando--were sure to find ready hearers.

The adventures of Roland, therefore, naturally became the theme of
Italian epics, some of which are of considerable length and of great
importance, owing principally to their exquisite versification and
diction. Pulci and Boiardo both undertook to depict Roland as a prey
to the tender passion in epics entitled Orlando Innamorato, while
Ariosto, the most accomplished and musical poet of the three, spent
more than ten years of his life composing Orlando Furioso (1516),
wherein he depicts this famous hero driven insane by his passion for
an Oriental princess.

Assuming that his auditors are familiar with the characters of
Boiardo's unfinished epic, Ariosto, picking up the thread of the
narrative at the point where his predecessor dropped it, continues the
story in the same vein. It therefore becomes imperative to know the
main trend of Boiardo's epic.

It opens with a lengthy description of a tournament at the court of
Charlemagne, whither knights from all parts of the globe hasten to
distinguish themselves in the lists. Chief among these foreign guests
are Argalio and Angelica, son and daughter of the king of Cathay, with
their escort of four