Oh hey, I’ve got a review of NYR Books' recent translation of Jean Echenoz’s Command Performance out at Necessary Fiction. It’s a fun/strange literary spy thriller—I hope you’ll check it out.
Morgante
Canto One
You can find the series intro here.
So each canto starts with a proem, two or three introductory stanzas. Pulci's starts canto one by riffing on the Gospel of John and then invoking the Virgin Mary—essentially he’s establishing his street credentials, because the Cantastari—those who sang in the public piazzas—started with a religious invocation. The third stanza, though, has a classical theme—Phaëthon and the uncontrollable chariot. The humanists—think Boiardo and Ariosto—started their epics by invoking the muses. What Pulci is doing here, I think, is to show you he’s not actually the dunce he’s pretending to be.
The story starts with a feast at Charlemagne’s court on Christmas day, which is also kind of weird because this is how Arthurian stories tend to start. Stories from the Matter of France tend to start at Pentecost. Anyway, Charlemagne has allowed his bravest paladin, Orlando, to rule the court for a while, but this pisses off Ganelon, who we all know is a vile traitor (boo! hiss!). Orlando overhears Ganelon complaining to Charlemagne, and he’s offended to the point that he would kill Ganelon on the spot if his companion Oliver didn’t snatch the sword from his hand. Orlando decides to leave Paris, and because Oliver snatched his sword, he steals Ogier the Dane’s sword Cortana, and also for some reason his horse Rondel. He rides away and almost strikes Alda the Fair (Aude in the chansons de geste—his fiancee), somehow thinking she’s Ganelon.
Orlando wants to journey to Pagandom, and makes it as far as the desert boundary. There he’s given hospitality by Clairmont, the abbot in charge of an abbey which sits at the bottom of a mountain. The mountain is home to three giants—Passamont, Alabaster, and Morgante—who’ve been assaulting the abbey by tumbling rocks down at it. When a boulder almost crushes Rondel, Orlando is determined to go have a word with the giants.
So it’s up the mountain, where he finds Passamont, who wonders if Orlando has come to offer himself as a vassal, the slinging a rock which cracks Orlando’s helmet and knocks him out. But Orlando is back up as Passamont reloads his sling, and slices Passamont’s head in two with Cortana. Orlando then gets lucky with Alabaster—he finds the giant struggling to raise a boulder from the earth, and uses the opportunity to stab him in the heart. Two giants down. Morgante, meanwhile, has been asleep all this time in his mansion of twigs and logs and mud.
Orlando knocks on the door, waking Morgante from strange dreams, and informs Morgante that he’s just killed the giant’s brothers. Morgante explains that he just dreamed that he was attacked by a serpent and invoked his god in vain—somehow his dream-prayer instead found the god condemned to die on the cross, who aided him and made him free. Orlando says this is a sign he will soon convert—you think? Orlando gives him some brief instructions and they decide to go back to the abbey, Morgante wanting to make peace with the monks and convert, Orlando saying he must beg forgiveness for his attacks. What’s more, Morgante knows of Orlando, the famous knight. Orlando, meanwhile, tells Morgante to ignore his dead brothers’ corpses,
“You do not have to waste more words with me,”
Morgante said, “for you will soon observe
if my two brothers make me shed one tear,
and if I know the way your God to serve,
Who, as you say, in heaven is obeyed.
Who cares about the dead? Let’s enjoy life.
The hands of both of them I will cut off,
and bring them to those holy monks as proof
“that they are dead, and so they all will live
with no more terror henceforth, free to walk
in safety through this desert as they please;
thus I will, too, my good intentions show
to this your Lord who gave His realm to me,
and out of such thick darkness makes me go.”
Those hands he severed, as he said he would,
and left the rest for beast and bird as food.
It’s a strikingly fast conversion, especially given that Morgante has good reason to hate Orlando. But maybe it works for Pulci: at the time of writing, he himself was being questioned by the church. So maybe he didn’t want to dwell on it too much, afraid he might stumble and dig his own hole deeper? I dunno.
The monks in the abbey are afraid when they see the giant coming, but Orlando calms them down. Morgante is praised for his conversion in a long, boring religious passage. Later, Orlando sends Morgante to fetch water with a big tub. At the fountain, Morgante is attacked by a herd of gigantic wild boars and slays one with an arrow. Another boar tries to avenge its fallen comrade and he punches it in the head, killing it by cracking its skull. His new friends are overjoyed to see him bring back water and dinner, and they make a great feast, Pulci not pulling any punches in his portrayal of clerical gluttony.
Seeing so much fresh water theirs to drink,
the monks rejoiced, but more for those two boars.
All animals are glad at feeding time,
and so they laid their breviaries to rest.
With no remorse they all began to toil
so that the precious meat would neither be
too salted nor too dry or maybe stale:
O fastings of their Lenten days, farewell!All of their bellies almost burst at once:
they burped as if emerged out of the sea,
so much so that their dogs and cats complained,
finding the smallest bones too whistle-clean.
Morgante is given a horse as thanks by the monks, but accidentally kills it when he attempts to sit on its back—he’s just too big for it. Orlando says forget it, they’ll go off together on foot once they bury the horse. Morgante puts the horse on his back and with two giant leaps throws the horse into a nearby ravine. The abbot thanks Morgante again and the monks beg him to take what they like from the abbey: Morgante inspects their armoury and finds a hauberk he likes, despite its broken, rusty mail. It’s the only one he’s ever seen that’s big enough to fit him. It belonged to a giant slain near the abbey by Milo of Anglante (Orlando’s father in most traditions, though Orlando doesn’t seem to know him here, so maybe I’ve ruined a Darth Vaderesque surprise—sorry). The frescoes on the abbeys walls tell the story of their long battle.
Gazing upon that story, Count Orlando
said to himself, “O God, Who know all things,
what providence or chance brought Milo here
so that he might destroy that horrid foe?”
Then certain words he read, and copious tears
welled in his eyes and wetted all his face,
as in my second Canto I’ll reveal.
The King of Glory save you all from ill.
So, that’s canto one down. Two things to note here, I think. The first is pork-eating as a symbol of Christianity. Their meal of wild boar is a sort of proof to the reader that Morgante’s conversion is genuine, because Pulci’s readers would think of refusing pork as a Muslim and Jewish convention. The other thing to note is the medieval pacing: the initial conflict which sees Orlando set out and then cross half the known world, that’s over and done with pretty quick. The story’s interest is in the mountain stuff, and the pace slows back down to enjoy those parts.
Thanks for reading. I’m following the Joseph Tusiani translation from Indiana University Press, which has the title, “Morgante: The Epic Adventures of Orlando and His Giant Friend Morgante,” and as far as I know it’s the only complete English translation. However, Lord Byron translated the first canto in 1822, and you can read it for free in The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4, on Project Gutenberg.
And once again: I’ve got a review of NYR Books' recent translation of Jean Echenoz’s Command Performance out at Necessary Fiction.
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