Chapter 2

I stopped at a used books shop on my way back to the lab. No dice on any of the items on my list. I remarked on my quest to Syd, who lived in Chapel Hill. “QBD Books,” he said in his typically terse manner.

“Where’s it at?”

“Plaza, south o’ Dymock’s...”

I decided to try. Sure enough, they had an American abridgment of the Elizabethan translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. I bought it and finally got back to work a bit before three.

I moved E.O. Wilson’s autobiography, Naturalist, which had arrived last week, aside and began to read my acquisition. Beginning with the Introduction, I was amazed to learn that Harington, the translator, had been the inventor of the flush toilet and that the translation had been done as a “punishment exercise” for having exposed some of Elizabeth I’s ladies to bawdy stories.

The sixteenth century hadn’t been like that when I was in school.

But I read the first Canto with at least some enthusiasm as the beginning (in Harington’s wording) seemed very like the beginnings of The Iliad and The Aeneid:

OF LOVES and LADIES, KNIGHTS and ARMS, I sing,

Of COURTESIES, and many a DARING FEAT

So far, so good. In fact, Ariosto/Harington must have struck Milton, too – over a century later. For he writes that he’ll relate “A tale in prose ne verse yet sung or sayd” where Paradise Lost claims: “Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.”

I read only a little of Canto I – up to Orlando and Renaldo having a “broil” over Angelica. (I had to look that up: “a loud quarrel,” said my dictionary.) But, having gotten up to look for the reference book, I went down the hall for more coffee. And when I got back, I did some more work on cattle ticks before going off to dinner, taking Orlando with me.

The next day I buckled down and completed the draft of my report. I was really unhappy about the taxonomy. Fernando Lahille had called Rhipicephalus microplus Boophilus annulatus australis in 1905. Which just meant it was a parasite of Australian cattle. But it wasn’t really identical to the Asian blue tick. [Gordy couldn’t know that nearly two decades later “Tick populations in Australia once thought to belong to R. microplus are now recognized to belong to R. australis, which was reinstated as a sibling species of R. microplus in 2012.” (Journal of Medical Entomology 49:794-802).]

So I asked Syd. “You ever look at tick taxonomy?”

“Nah. Who cares? I try to kill ‘em off.”

“Effective, but not scientific.”

“Gordy, them’s parasites. Cattle’d be better without ‘em. Lucky they’s got a one-host lifecycle. I don’ like arachnids. Not spiders, not scorpions, not ticks, not roly-polies.”

“I get it.”

“I eat lots o’ decapods, an’ don’ mind insects.”

“I find all the arthros interesting.”

“Yeh.”

I finished off the draft. Then I read a chapter of Wilson and another half-dozen pages of Orlando, only to be interrupted by the phone.

“Entomology, Hollister.”

“This is Laura Betti. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I’ve a copy of Orlando Furioso on my desk and have read most of the first Canto.”

“I’m amazed. In English, I assume.”

“Yes. A sixteenth century translation reprinted by an American university press.”

“Oh. That’s Harington. He’s far from accurate and he cut thousands of Ariosto’s lines. But he tells a fine story in English verse.”

“Well, I’ve followed the action so far and enjoyed it.”

“I’m even more amazed. I never imagined I’d meet an Australian who would read and enjoy a verse romance.”

“Just living in Australia is romance; and there’s plenty of Australian verse – Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, Gig Ryan, Les Murray. I may not have read the Orlandos, but I’m not ignorant.”

I got a tinkly laugh. “I never thought you were ignorant. Anyway, I have two tickets for Jonson’s The Alchemist at the SGIO theatre for tomorrow. Would you be interested?”

“Definitely. Can I dine you before or sup you after?”

Another tinkle. “‘dine’ and ‘sup’? How could I resist? The curtain is at seven-thirty. Why don’t we ‘sup’ after the performance?”

“Excellent. Can I pick you up?”

“Certainly.” I got the address and we chatted a bit further. It put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

I was wearing a coat and shirt but no tie when I called for Laura. She was wearing a dark orange sundress that tied around her neck and was carrying a white cardigan.

“There’s always too much air conditioning,” she explained.

We had a fine time at The Alchemist. The audience roared in Act 2 when Subtle, the faker, spells out Abel’s name in the stars as the coming man of power, and the fool turns to the audience to proclaim ‘That’s me!’ But all the bizarre complexities – the Queen of the Fairies, the Spanish Countess, the Anabaptists – were excellent.

I took Laura to Giardinetto on Brunswick, realizing it was splurging. But Laura’s reaction made whatever it ended up costing worthwhile. She exclaimed on it being “like a real trattoria!” when we walked in and she inhaled the scent of the cooking. Then, when the waiter greeted us, she burst into a spate of Italian which was responded to with a grin and an embrace. We were shown to a table and I raised an eyebrow at Laura.