Don Zara del Fogo: a mock-romance is a 1656 book in prose and verse by the English author Samuel Holland.
Book
Don Zara del Fogo was written by Samuel Holland and printed by "T.W." for Thomas Vere in London in 1656. It was subtitled "a mock-romance / written originally in the British tongue, and made English by a person of much honor, Basilius Musophilus ; with a marginall comment, expounding the hard things of the history". It is dedicated "to the most Nobly accomplished, ROBERT, THOMAS, and JOHN SPENCER, Esquires".[1]
It was reprinted in 1656 under the title Wit and fancy in a maze. The book was then published in 1660 under the title of Romancio-Mastrix.[2]
Another edition was published in 1719; it was titled The Spaniard: Or, Don Zara del Fogo: Translated From the Original Spanish by Basilius Musophilus.[3]
The text, a pastiche of Spanish romances such as Don Quixote, is in three "books", each of six chapters, containing a combination of prose and verse. Chapter 3 of the third book consists of "Venus and Adonis: A Masque", with its own epilogue.
Chapter 1 begins with this sentence:
Don Zara his descent. The description of his Shield, and Martiall Furniture. His invocation, and setting forth to seek Adventures.
IT was now about that mungrell hour when the black-brow'd night, and grey-ey'd morning strove for superiority, when the mirror of Martiall spirits Don Zara del Fogo sweeping the somniferous God from o••is ample front with that Broom of Heaven his face-pounding fist, entred into serious contemplation of the renowned Acts of his most Noble Ancestors, Thistram the terrible and the great Lancelot of the Lake, so ravishing were those heroick, Rhapsodies, that (upon mature chew of the cud) the Champion began to tax himself of tardity, as not having accumulated that Fame, which at the price of so * eminent dangers he had so hotly hunted after; this second cogitation had but a while combated with the first, when he summons the Squire of his body Soto, who lay soundly sleeping at his beds feet, commanding him (since himself never knew Letters) to read the Chronicle History of Saint George, who bathed his body in the bloody bowels of a fell Dragon, or the like Atchievement of Sir Elamore, or the hard Quest of Sir Topaz after the Queen of Elues to Barwick, or of Sir Guy and the fierce Boar of Boston; Sir quoth Soto (who had hardly gained sight enough to see his Master) you were wont to take great pleasure in hearing the redoubted Adventures of Sir Bevis, sirnamed Southampton; and The Knight of the Sun; that, that quoth the Champion, the Knight of the Suns actions would put fire into a flint stone, animate a Log, and make a woodden leg to walk; Soto had not long led his Master by the large eares (* for our Champion boasted a long-linckt Genealogie, from the Phrygian King Midas, a hundred fourscore and fourteen descents by the fathers side) but suddenly deserting his bed, he ceazed (* all naked as he was) on his naked Sword, that Thunder-crack of terrour Slay-a-Cow, the very same that he lately won on Monta-Mole-hill from the great Gyant Phrenedecrenobroso, the son of Pediculo, and leaning thereon like the legitimate Heyr of Mars, he very attentively hoorded up the treasures of true Magnanimity.[4]
In literature
Don Zara is an early source for the use of the term "Orc" (spelt "Orke") for an ogre-like monster in English.[5]
^"Orc" Oxford English Dictionary: From under the entry "orc": 1656S. HOLLANDDon Zara (I. i. 6) "Who at one stroke didst pare away three heads from off the shoulders of an Orke, begotten by an Incubus." [seeming "ogre" usage]
Holland, Samuel (2018) [1719 (London : printed for W. Chetwood; and R. Francklin; and sold by J. Roberts)]. The Spaniard: or, Don Zara del Fogo: Translated From the Original Spanish by Basilius Musophilus. With Notes. Gale ECCO, Print editions. ISBN978-1-379-89281-6. OCLC1035458182. – "these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand"