Le ignude piante a se ristrette accoglie,
Quasi temendo il mar che non le bagne
Tale atteggiata di paure e doglie
Par’ chiami invan le sue dolci compagne;
Le quali assise tra fioretti e foglie
Dolenti Europa ciascheduna piagne;
‘Europa,’ suona il lito, ‘Europa, riedi:’
Il toro nuota, e talor bacia i piedi.
Giostra di Poliziano, Libro I. stanza cv. cvi.
Ebuda is its name, &c.
Stanza li. line 5.
Ptolemy enumerates five Irish isles, and Pliny fifty, as bearing this name. May it not be, as suggested to me, a corruption of Hebrides?
Of her to make an impious holocaust.
Stanza lix. line 4.
In my wish to give a faithful likeness of my original, I have preserved Ariosto’s own word, though the Greek reader may carp at the inaccuracy of the expression.
From the gates
Of Caucasus.
Stanza lxii. lines 7 and 8.
Ariosto, perhaps, meant nothing more than the mere passages of Caucasus, which might seem signified by gates, inasmuch as such are called ghauts (meaning the same thing I believe)