Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers, Volume 2 by Leigh Hunt
page 67 of 371 (18%)
page 67 of 371 (18%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
In addition to the classics, the poet has been to the Norman fablers for
his story. The subterranean passage has been more than once repeated in romance; and the closing incident, the assistance given by the husband to his wife's elopement, has been imitated in the farce of _Lionel and Clarissa._ SEEING AND BELIEVING. My father (said the damsel) is King of the Distant Islands, where the treasure of the earth is collected. Never was greater wealth known, and I was heiress of it all. But it is impossible to foresee what is most to be desired for us in this world. I was a king's daughter, I was rich, I was handsome, I was lively; and yet to all those advantages I owed my ill-fortune. Among other suitors for my hand there came two on the same day, one of whom was a youth named Ordauro, handsome from head to foot; the other an old man of seventy, whose name was Folderico. Both were rich and of noble birth; but the greybeard was counted extremely wise, and of a foresight more than human. As I did not feel in want of his foresight, the youth was far more to my taste; and accordingly I listened to him with perfect good-will, and gave the wise man no sort of encouragement. I was not at liberty, however, to determine the matter; my father had a voice in it; so, fearing what he would advise, I thought to secure a good result by cunning and management. It is an old observation, that the craft of a woman exceeds all other craft. Indeed, it is Solomon's own saying. But now-a-days people laugh at it; and I found to my cost that the laugh is just. I requested my father to proclaim, first, that nobody should have me in marriage who did not surpass me in swiftness (for I was a damsel of |
|