A Very Queer Steed, and Some Strange Adventures
Told After Ariosto, by Elizabeth Armstrong
An Italian poet named Ariosto, who lived before our grandfathers were born, has told some very funny stories, one of which I will tell you. Not contented with mounting his heroes on ordinary horses, he gave one of them a splendid winged creature to ride; a fiery steed with eyes of flame, and the great pinions of an eagle. This creature’s name was Hippogrif. Let me tell you how Prince Roger caught the Hippogrif, and then you will want to know something about his queer journey. I may as well tell you that Prince Roger belonged to the Saracens, and that he loved a lady of France named Bradamante, also that an old enchanter had captured both the prince and the lady and gotten them into his power. They of course were planning a way of escape, and hoped to go off together, and be married, and live happily ever after, but this was not the intention of their captor. The two prisoners, who were allowed a good deal of liberty, were standing together one day, when Bradamante said to Roger:
“Look! there is the old man’s Hippogrif still standing quietly by us. I have a mind to catch him and take a ride on him, for he is mine by right of conquest since I have overcome his master.” So she went toward the winged steed and stretched out her hand to take him by the bridle; but the Hippogrif darted up into the air, and flew a hundred yards or so away before he settled again upon the ground. Again and again she tried to catch him, but he always flew off before she could touch him, and then came down to earth a little distance away, where he waited for her to get near him again, just as you may see a butterfly flit from one cabbage-row to another, and always manage to keep a yard or two ahead of the boy who chases it. At last, however, he alighted close by the side of Roger, whereupon the Prince cried to his lady: “I will catch him and give him a ride to break him in for you;” and, seizing hold of the bridle in his left hand, he vaulted on to the back of the Hippogrif, who stood still without attempting to escape, as if to acknowledge that here he had found his proper master. But the Prince was no sooner fairly in the saddle than his strange steed shot up fifty feet straight into the air, and, taking the bit between his teeth, with a dozen flaps of his mighty wings carried his unwilling rider far away over the mountains and out of sight of the unfortunate Bradamante.
You must know that though Roger was quite unable to hold his Hippogrif, and soon gave up the attempt in despair, the winged monster was really guided by something stronger than bit or bridle, and every motion of his headlong flight was controlled by the will of an invisible master. The whole affair, in fact, was the work of the wonderful enchanter Atlas, who was still persuaded that great dangers awaited his beloved Prince in the land of France, and determined to use all his cunning to remove him to a place of safety. With this design he had watched the noble lovers from his hiding place, and guided every movement of the Hippogrif by the mere muttering of spells; and by the same means he still steered the creature’s course through the air, for he was so powerful an enchanter that he could make his purpose take effect from one end of the earth to the other. In the old days of fairy lore, enchanters were very numerous, and always found plenty to do.
Roger had a firm seat and a heart that knew no fear, and at any other time would have enjoyed nothing better than such an exciting adventure; but now he was terribly vexed at being separated again from his beloved Bradamante, and at being carried away from the land where Agramant his King and the Emperor Charlemagne were mustering all their forces for the great struggle. However, there was no help for it, for the Hippogrif flew through the air at such a pace that he soon left the realms of Europe far behind him, and after a flight of a few hours he had carried the Prince half round the globe. Roger in fact found himself hovering over the Fortunate Islands, which lie in the far Eastern seas beyond the shores of India. Here he checked his course, and descended in wide circles to the earth, and at length alighted on the largest and most beautiful island of all the group. Green meadows and rich fields were here watered by clear streams; and lovely groves of palm and myrtle, cedar and banyan, spread their thick shade over the gentle slopes of hill, and offered a refuge from the heat of the mid-day sun. Birds of paradise flashed like jewels in the blazing light, and modest brown nightingales sang their sweet refrain to the conceited parrots, who sat admiring themselves among the branches; while under the trees hares and rabbits frisked merrily about, and stately stags led their graceful does to drink at the river banks. Upon this fertile tract, which stretched down to the very brink of the sea, the Hippogrif descended; and his feet no sooner touched the ground than Prince Roger leaped from his back, and made fast his bridle to the stem of a spreading myrtle-bush. Then he took off his helmet and cuirass, and went to bathe his face and hands in the cool waters of the brook; for his pulses were throbbing from his swift ride, and he wanted nothing so much as an hour or two of repose. Such rapid flying through the air is very wearying.
Could he have retained his wonderful horse, there is no knowing what splendid adventures might have befallen him, but at a critical moment, the Hippogrif vanished, and Prince Roger had to fare as best he could on foot. After a time he met Bradamante again, he left the Saracen religion and became a Christian, and he and Bradamante were united in wedlock. He had formerly been a heathen.
Bradamante had a cousin named Astulf, who finally by a series of events became the owner of the winged steed, and on this animal he made the queerest trip ever heard of, a journey to the Mountains of the Moon. The Hippogrif soared up and up, and up, till tall palms looked like bunches of fern beneath him, and he penetrated belts of thick white clouds, and finally drew his bridle rein on summits laid out in lovely gardens, where flowers and fruit abounded, and the climate was soft and balmy as that of June. The traveler walked through a fine grove, in the centre of which rose a stately palace of the purest ivory, large enough to shelter a nation of kings within its walls, and ornamented throughout with carving more exquisite than that of an Indian casket.
While Astulf was gazing on this scene of splendor he was approached by a man of noble and courteous aspect, dressed in the toga of an ancient Roman, and bound about the brows with a laurel chaplet, who gave him grave and kindly salutation, saying: “Hail, noble Sir Duke, and marvel not that I know who you are, or that I expected you to-day in these gardens. For this is the Earthly Paradise, where poets have their dwelling after death; and I am the Mantuan Virgil, who sang the deeds of Æneas, and was the friend of the wise Emperor Augustus. But if you wish to know the reason of your coming hither, it is appointed for you to get back the lost wits of the peerless Count Roland, whose senses have been put away in the moon among the rest of the earth’s missing rubbish. Now the mountains on the top of which we stand are called the Mountains of the Moon, because they are the only place from which an ascent to the moon is possible; and this very night I intend to guide you thither on your errand. But first, I pray you, take your dinner with us in our palace, for you have need of refreshment to prepare you for so strange a journey.” I need hardly tell you that Astulf was delighted at being chosen to go to the moon on so worthy a mission, and thanked the noble poet a thousand times for his courtesy and kindness. But Virgil answered: “It is a pleasure to be of any service to such valiant warriors as Count Roland and yourself;” and thereupon he took the Duke through the shady alleys to the ivory palace which stood in the midst of the garden.
Here was Astulf conducted with much ceremony to a refectory where a banquet was spread. The great doors were thrown open, and the company of poets ranged themselves in two rows, while their King passed down between their ranks. He was a majestic old man with curly beard and hair, and his broad forehead was furrowed with lines that betokened a life of noble thought; but alas! he was totally blind, and leaned upon the shoulder of a beautiful Greek youth who guided him. Every head was bowed reverently as he passed, and Virgil whispered to his guest: “That is Homer, the Father and King of poets.”
At the end of the refectory was a dais with a table at which Homer took his seat, while another long table stretched down the middle of the hall; but Astulf saw with surprise that three places were laid on the upper board, though the King was apparently to sit there alone. But Virgil explained the reason, and said: “You must understand, Sir Duke, that it is our custom to lay a place for every poet who will ever ascend to this Earthly Paradise; and as yet there is none here worthy to sit beside our Father Homer. But after some five hundred and fifty years the seat at his left hand will be taken by the Florentine Dante, who will find here the rest and happiness denied to him in his lifetime. The place on the right of the King, however, will remain vacant three hundred years more; but then it will be filled by a countryman of your own, and Shakespeare will receive the honor due to him as the third great poet of the world.” With these words Virgil took his seat at the head of the lower table, and motioned Astulf to an empty place at his right hand, saying: “This seat also will remain a long while vacant, being kept for another of your countrymen, who will come hither after more than a thousand years. He will be reviled and slandered in his lifetime; but after his death the very fools who abused him will pretend to admire and understand him, while here among his brethren he will be welcomed with joy and high honor.” So Astulf sat in the seat of this poet to be honored in the future, and made a hearty dinner off nectar and ambrosia, “which are mighty fine viands,” as he afterward told his friends at home; “but a hungry man, on the whole, would prefer good roast beef and a slice of plum pudding for a steady diet.” Dinner being over, the pilgrim was led by the obliging poet to a pathway past the silent and lonesome River of Oblivion, where most mortal names and fames are forever lost, only a few being rescued from its waves and set on golden scrolls in the temple of Immortality.
Now when they had looked on for a while at this notable sight they left the River Oblivion and proceeded to the Valley of Lost Lumber. It was a long though narrow valley shut in between two lofty mountain ridges, and in it were stored away all the things which men lose or waste on earth. Here they found an infinite number of lovers’ sighs, beyond which lay the useless moments lost in folly and crime, and the long wasted leisure of ignorant and idle men. Next came the vain desires and foolish wishes that can never take effect, and these were heaped together in such quantities that they blocked up the greater part of the valley. Here, too, were mountains of gold and silver which foolish politicians throw away in bribing voters to return them to Congress; a little farther on was an enormous pile of garlands with steel gins concealed among their flowers, which Virgil explained to be flatteries; while a heap of grasshoppers which had burst themselves in keeping up their shrill, monotonous chirp, represented, he said, the dedications and addresses which servile authors used to write in praise of unworthy patrons. In the middle of the valley lay a great pool of spilt broth, and this signified the alms which rich men are too selfish to give away in their lifetime but bequeath to charities in their wills, to be paid out of money they can no longer use. Next Astulf came upon numbers of beautiful dolls from Paris, which little girls throw aside because they prefer their dear old bundles of rags with beads for eyes; and one of the biggest hillocks in all the place was formed of a pile of knives lost out of careless schoolboys’ pockets.
Now, when Astulf grew old and had boys and girls of his own, they used to clamber on his knee in the twilight and ask for a story, and oh! how they wished for the Hippogrif. Sometimes the old knight said that the Hippogrif was dead, but I have known people to shut their eyes and climb on his back, and cling to his mane, and go flying over the ocean and the hills clear through to the other end of the world. For Hippogrif is only a name for Fancy, and the Valley of Lost Lumber and the River of Oblivion and the Temple of Immortality exist for every one of us.