To the kind reader of our sober clime

This way of writing will appear exotic;

Pulci[233] was sire of the half-serious rhyme,[DJ]Who sang when Chivalry was more quixotic,

And revelled in the fancies of the time,

True Knights, chaste Dames, huge Giants, Kings despotic;

But all these, save the last, being obsolete,

I chose a modern subject as more meet.