NOTES TO CANTO II.
67
Like a lifeless body lies.
Stanza lv. line 7.
Ariosto, who, like most successful poets, was a free borrower, is indebted to Dante for the original line, of which this is a translation:
E caddi come un corpo morto cade.
L’Inferno, canto v.
The first line, indeed, of his first stanza, so often altered, is a close parody of a verse in the Purgatorio:
Le donne e i cavalier, ’gli affanni e gli agi.
Il Purgatorio, canto xiv.
