The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-06-15

On Odyssey, or rather ll4d oil tpe aerial world,
In which the actors we're the shades OF heroes
and elements OF nature; that is TO say, the two
great agencies of social union and progression.
1t is further worth remarking, that in all of
these eases the SGmpeI pis Ur TSs mas Oeen
Macpherson is familiar TO British readers, or at
least that even the Irish had the materials, The
sources oil Dante are no longer in dispute; for II
seems now admitted that the monklsh i'visions"
were mostly foreign, and principally from the
quarter as in their "Purgatory Of St Patrick
In 6ne Homer, IL is also now discerned was no
HELEN; but an otlsprlng ot ,ne oid Achgan or
objective and aggTegaive grasp OF the scat
tered lays that celebrated The achievements of
their soldier conquerors. SO stood Petrarch too,
as stated, towards France, towards Laura, and
the TrOubadours. The contrast of the women
who were chanted by the latter with the Italian
women Is only too notorious; and accordingly
the men never talked to them of chivalry.
They were themselves too feminine, as was
above remarked, to sympathze, and conse-
quently trust in female purity. For 1T is con-
trast, and not analogy, that bases sympathy
between the sexes. Women never Oe1eve IN the
virtues OF each other.
But the Italian view OF women, as bearing on
the point in question, is furthermore confirmed
by examples tue most decisive. How, tor in
stance, does Ariosto, in his mock-heroic poem,
trust the women which he drew from the ro-
mances of the Celtic West He trusts them, il
is familiar, by holding up to rldicule those fan
taStic virtues and graces OF ch1valry, and sets
and even brigands. For with this last
Italian power he was particular favorlte,
and frequent intercessor on behalf of the petty
princes. The mere title of the MAD Rolandn
declares the purport OF the poem. And Vol
taires imitation, in his blackguard poem OF the
"Pucelle," which even his name has been unable
to uphold in France, affords double comment
on the contrast in question.
II reappears directly in the attacks of Peter
Arctin, OF infamous memory, and other Italians,
upon Petrarch himself, and these foreign vir-
tues OF his Laura. But something more respect
able, and no less to the point, is the famous
Decameron" of Boccaccio, his contemporary.
For this celebrated hook is also but an aggrega-
ton, like the Homeric poems, like Ovid's
"Metamorphosis," " like Dante's Divine Comedy"
and like lthe sonnets of Petrarch. 1t is only
that the materials were here stories and in prose,
not odes of sentiment or satire, like the relics of
the Troubadours. And both the former char
acters we're thoroughly Italian; but no less so
than the prose stories was the lax composition.
The tales are known to be held together, as in
deed the title intimates, but by the number of
days which was consumed in the narration. 1t
must be owned then, that the alleged texture
of the sonnets OF Petrarch, which revolved upon
single and living object as centre, may pretend
a far claim to composition and purity. The
''Decameron" means simply, the stories told for
ten days.
But the more immediate question was the
manners which these stories, in their Italian
raciness, attribute to the women, as contrasted
with the portraiture OF Laura in the sonnets.
of the stories consists in the lcentous intrigues
of monks and women, and which are told in a
language still more indecent. The English
reader may form some notion of it from the
English versifcation of them known as the Can.
| terbury Tales" of Chaucer.
Nor does this Norman Frenchman at all aggra
| vate the language, as has been imputed, 10 meet
| q coarser national palate. All the secrecies o
sex are laid as bare as in Boccaccio. And how
| brazen was this baroness may be Judged of at q
decent distance by viewing the third,hand efforts
| OF Pope and Dryden to drape Chaucer. AS to
Boccaccio, there is but one of his hundred tales
| OF love" which he devotes to recognition o.
female purity or other virtues. 1t is the tale o.
"GriseleiGes," which closes the collection, aDC
has identified his name with purity and tender
ness throughout the world.
But for this very reason of position and pathos
IT was probably much rather an effort OF ART
Petrarch himself who admired so much this
| tale as to have made Latin version of it, anC
committed 1t to memory Tor narration to his
opeFn 6fdp ns friends snds In letter 3 to BGecaceo II
| or real deterence, of the bulk of the "De
cameron" he dwells rapturously on the con
Guiding tale of "Griseleides" the model of female
| porralture, and OF prose composition. AnC
then he compliments hum on the art of plaoia,
it the tdSt where poet, an orator. and he nigh
add disputant, should always range the mos
effective part OF their productions.
| This was probably enough, not intended BY
Petrarch as delicate rebuke of the loose morals
of rhe book; or as hint that he discovered thu
| purpose OF the author to suspend q screen o
art which shame-faeed readers might draw
behind them. He probably had not been weaneC
sufficiently OF Italian nature to feel that there
was any such necessity ia the case. For h
speaks of the stories as genuinely Italian. Bu
| whatever was his conscious purpose, the effec
| OF his commendation of the story of Griseleides
and its position in the 'Decameron," is to con
| firm that suspicion that in Boccaccio both were
art. And even were it otherwise, the tale would
| still be but that exception, which, as the adagt
says, confirms by its contrast the rule.