WATCH THE VIDEOS The Beauties of Olympia, from “Orlando Furioso” , Astolfo on the Moon according to Ronconi and Sanguineti , …and Orlando’s madness , “Although the martyrdom…”
Florence, 8 September 2024 – Remembering that Ludovico Ariosto was born in Reggio Emilia on September 8, 1474.
and Orlando Furious
The beauties of Olympia were of those
which are rarer: and not just the forehead,
she had beautiful eyes and cheeks and hair,
the mouth, nose, shoulders and throat;
but descending down from the breasts,
the parts that the stole used to cover,
were of such excellence that he placed himself before
as many as the world perhaps had.
The untouched snows were whiter,
and they were softer than ivory to the touch:
the rounded breasts looked like milk
which I then took out of the rushes.
There was a space between them that descended like a
to be seen among small hills
the shady valleys, in its pleasant season,
that winter is then full of snow.
The raised hips and the beautiful haunches,
and the flat belly is clearer than a mirror,
they seemed made, and those white thighs,
from Phidias onwards, or from a more learned hand.
I must also tell you about those parts,
that she longed to hide in vain?
I will say in short, that in her from head to toe,
how much beauty there can be, all is seen.
If it had been in the valleys Ideas
seen from the Phrygian shepherd, I don’t know how much
Venus, if she conquered those other goddesses,
had brought the boast of beauty:
Nor perhaps would he have gone to the Amyclae
he is against violating the holy hospice;
but he would have said: – You stay with Menelaus,
Elena, I want no other than this one. –
And if she had been in Crotone,
when Zeuxis wanted to make the image,
which was to be in the temple of Juno,
and welcomed many beautiful nudes together;
and that, to make it perfect,
from some he took one part and from some he took another:
He had no one to take but this one;
that all the beauties were in her.
Ludovico Ariosto
(and Orlando FuriousCanto XI, 67-71)
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