CHAPTER VII

TASSO

From the beginning of Italian literature to the death of Ariosto nearly three hundred years had elapsed. In that period four of its greatest writers had appeared. Yet no literature can attain the highest rank in which the drama and epic are not represented. Italy hitherto lacked these two important branches. The Divine Comedy of Dante is, strictly speaking, not an epic, but forms a class by itself, being an imaginative journey to the supernatural world, with a record of things seen and heard therein; Ariosto's Orlando Furioso was a revival of the old chivalrous romances in a new and elegant form, adapted to the conditions and taste of his times; a huge fresco, rather than an epic. As we shall see in the next chapter, comedy and tragedy had to wait nearly two hundred years after the death of Ariosto before finding worthy representatives in Alfieri and Goldoni. The regular epic, however, was given to Italy by Tasso at the end of the sixteenth century.

The story of Tasso's life is of great though painful interest. It is a tragedy of suffering like that of Dante; yet how vast the difference between the two. Dante bore his sufferings with unparalleled nobility of character, exciting our admiration. Tasso, weak and vacillating by nature, lives wretched and miserable, not from the decrees of fortune, but owing to his unfitness to bear the trials of ordinary life.

He was born March 11, 1544, at Sorrento, near Naples, the son of Bernardo Tasso, a man of affairs, a courtier and a poet, who, although of noble family, was forced by straitened circumstances to pass his life in the service of others. Tasso's education was varied enough; a few years at a Jesuit school in Naples, an experience which left a lasting impression on his sensitive and melancholy temperament; then under private teachers at Rome; and finally, several years of study of law at the universities of Padua and Bologna. He was compelled to leave the latter as a result of certain satires against the university authorities, which he was accused of having written.

The important period of his life begins in 1565, when he went to Ferrara, then, as in the days of Boiardo and Ariosto, the center of a rich and brilliant court. His life here for the next seven or eight years was a prosperous one. Fortune seemed to have showered her fairest gifts on this young, handsome, and gentle-mannered poet. He was treated on terms of intimacy by the duke and his sisters, Lucretia and Leonora. He was accustomed to take his meals with the two ladies, and to them he read the poetry which he wrote from time to time. It was undoubtedly due to their influence that he composed his famous pastoral poem, Aminta (1572-73), full of exquisite pictures of rural life and bathed in an atmosphere of tender and refined love. This poem had an unprecedented success and made its author famous throughout all Europe.

Not long after this, however, the first germs of the terrible mental disease which wrecked his life began to show themselves. For many years Tasso was made the hero of a romance, in which he was depicted as a martyr to social caste--the victim of his own love for a woman beyond his sphere. According to this romance Tasso fell in love with the sister of the duke of Ferrara, and for this crime was shut up in prison and falsely treated as insane. The results of modern scholarship, however, have dissipated the sentimental halo from the brow of the unfortunate poet, and reduced his case to one of pathological diagnosis. Leonora was some ten years older than Tasso, and the affection which at first undoubtedly existed between them was that of an elder sister and a younger brother. The duke was not cruel to Tasso, but on the contrary treated him at first kindly, and only when he was at last worn out by the vagaries of the poet, did he drop him and bother himself no more about him.

The secret of Tasso's sufferings and vicissitudes of fortune lay in himself; he was, during the latter part of his life, simply insane. All his actions during this period illustrate perfectly the various phases of the persecution mania, which in his case was aggravated by religious hallucination. To this terrible mental disease he was predisposed from early life; his Jesuit education, the mysterious death of his mother (suspected of having been poisoned), overwork and worriment, and especially his morbidly sensitive and melancholy temperament, all helped to prepare the way for the catastrophe that was to darken his life.

The first open manifestations of insanity occurred in 1577 (probably as the result of a fever), about the time he had finished the first draft of the Jerusalem Delivered. Very foolishly for a man as sensitive as he was, he turned over the manuscript of his poem to a number of friends for suggestions. The heartless criticisms he thus received filled him with bitterness and fostered the rising irritability of his nascent disease. He was especially hurt by the brutal and stupid criticism of the Inquisitor Antoniano, who advised him to cut out all the romantic episodes, which form the real beauty of the poem. This put into his mind the thought that the Inquisition might refuse him permission to print his poem, and made him fear that he might be a heretic. The lessons of his early teachers, the Jesuits, now began to bear fruit. In 1577, tormented by religious doubts, he went to the inquisitor of Bologna and laid his case before him. Although the latter absolved him from his self-charge of heresy, Tasso was not satisfied. Henceforth religious fear was added to the fear of assassination--a double torment to his soul.

Under these circumstances he became more and more moody and irritable; he was suspicious of all about him and subject to frequent outbursts of violence. On the evening of June 17, 1577, he was discoursing of his troubles to the Princess Lucretia, when he suspected a passing servant of spying him, and flung a knife at him. In order to prevent further acts of violence he was shut up, at first in his room, and later in the monastery of St. Francis, under the care of a physician. On July 27 he broke the door and escaped. Horsemen were sent after him, but being disguised as a peasant, he escaped, and after many adventures, often begging his way as a common beggar, he reached Sorrento, where, in the quiet seclusion of his sister's house, surrounded by all the tokens of her love and sympathy, he enjoyed a short period of rest and peace.

He soon became restless, however, and yearned for the brilliant life of the court, which presented itself to his fancy, enhanced by the charms of distance and of those things we have had and lost. He was like a butterfly, always attracted toward the light that was to destroy him. He returned to Ferrara, and again ran away, wandering from city to city, yet finding nowhere a warm welcome. "The world's rejected guest," Shelley called him, who knew himself only too well the meaning of these words.

In February, 1579, Tasso once more returned to Ferrara, this time without previous warning, and asked to be received by the duke. It was a singularly unpropitious moment; the duke was then in the midst of preparations for his marriage with Margaret Gonzaga, his third wife, and naturally enough the obscure, half-insane poet was neglected. This neglect completely turned his mind, and losing all self-control he broke out into violent invectives in the presence of the court. He was immediately taken out, shut up in the insane asylum of S. Anna, and in accordance with the barbarous customs of the age in the treatment of the insane, put in chains. Here he remained in utter misery, a prey to the double nightmare of his sick brain, fear of death by the assassin's knife, and of everlasting damnation as a heretic. The letters which he wrote by scores during this period are of heartbreaking pathos.

He remained in S. Anna nearly eight years, being released in 1586 at the solicitation of Prince Vincenzo Gonzaga, brother-in-law of the duke of Ferrara. From now on to the end, the story of Tasso's life becomes a mere repetition of melancholy incidents. Once more he went from city to city, visiting in turn Milan, Florence, Naples, and Rome, and moving restlessly hither and thither

"Like spirits of the wandering wind, Who seek for rest, yet rest can never find."

Finally fortune seemed about to smile upon him; a faint ray of sunshine broke through the thick clouds that for so long had hung over his life. In November, 1594, he was invited to Rome, there to be crowned poet, as Petrarch had been. The pope assigned him a pension, and it seemed as if at last some measure of happiness might again be his. It was only a brief gleam of sunshine, however; the clouds soon closed again, and the sun of Tasso's life hastened to its setting shrouded in gloom. The coronation was put off on account of the ill health of Cardinal Cinzio and the inclemency of the season. In March, 1595, he himself fell sick, and in April was taken to the monastery of S. Onofrio on the Janiculum hill. To the monks who came to meet him he uttered the pathetic words: "My fathers, I have come to die among you." The pope sent his own physician to attend him, but in vain. The world-weary poet passed away April 25, 1595. His body lies buried in the adjacent church. The visitor to-day can still see his room, furnished as in his lifetime, and on the wall a copy of his last letter, in which he announces his speedy death.

Tasso's works are comparatively voluminous, and consist of lyrical poems, the pastoral poem, Aminta, a tragedy, Torrismondo, dialogues, letters, and the Jerusalem Delivered. In this brief sketch we can only discuss the latter, by which alone he is known the world over.

Already when only sixteen years old, he had felt the ambition to write a poem which should combine the merits of the regular epic (such as the Iliad and AEneid), and the romantic interest of the poems of Boiardo and Ariosto. His Rinaldo, written when he was only nineteen years old, was remarkable both on account of the youth of its author and as a promise of what was to follow. For a number of years after this, however, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the task of preparing himself, by reading, study, and thought, to write the great poem which he had in mind.

His choice of a subject was a happy one. The fear of the Turk at that time was widespread; the wars between Christian and Saracen, which filled the old romances, were now occurring again on the eastern borders of Europe. The Turks had conquered Hungary, and their piratic ships had ravaged the coast of Italy, often destroying entire populations; a short time before Sorrento, Tasso's birthplace, had been attacked, and his sister escaped only by a miracle. Tasso himself must have heard many a story of the crusades, when a child at Sorrento, where Pope Urban, who had published the first crusade, was buried. His choice of the deliverance of Jerusalem from the unbeliever then was a natural one.

Contrary to the Orlando Furioso, the story of Jerusalem Delivered, is a simple one. Yet the main plot, _i. e._, the military operations of Godfrey, the various battles, and the final capture of Jerusalem, are not so effective or interesting as the various romantic episodes introduced from time to time; the reader to-day is disposed to hurry over the early cantos and to linger over the beautiful pages which tell the loves of Tancred and Clorinda, Olindo and Sophronia, Rinaldo, Armida, and Erminia.

The poem begins with the usual invocation:

I sing the pious arms and Chief, who freed The Sepulcher of Christ from thrall profane: Much did he toil in thought, and much in deed; Much in the glorious enterprise sustain; And hell in vain opposed him; and in vain Afric and Asia to the rescue poured Their mingled tribes;--Heaven recompensed his pain, And from all fruitless sallies of the sword, True to the Red-Cross flag his wandering friends restored.

O, thou, the Muse, that not with fading palms Circlest thy brows on Pindus, but among The Angels warbling their celestial psalms, Hast for thy coronal a golden throng Of everlasting stars! make thou my song Lucid and pure; breathe thou the flame divine Into my bosom; and forgive the wrong, If with grave truth light fiction I combine, And sometimes grace my page with other flowers than thine.

The poet then plunges into the midst of the action, We learn how the Christian army has been in Holy Land for six years and had made many conquests:

Six summers now were past, since in the East Their high Crusade the Christians had begun; And Nice by storm, and Antioch had they seized By secret guile, and gallantly when won, Held in defiance of the myriads dun, Prest to its conquest by the Persian king; Tortosa sacked, when now the sullen sun Entered Aquarius, to breme winter's wing The quartered hosts give place, and wait the coming spring.

In the spring of the seventh year the archangel Gabriel appears to Godfrey of Bouillon and orders him to assemble the chiefs of the army and prepare for a new and vigorous prosecution of the war. Godfrey obeys and is himself elected commander-in-chief. Then, after a review of the troops, which furnishes the poet an opportunity of giving a catalogue of the various Christian forces (after the manner of Homer), the whole army starts for Jerusalem.

The scene then changes to the Holy City itself, where King Aladine and his followers are seized with consternation at the news of the advance of the Christians. We now see the first of the famous episodes of the Jerusalem Delivered. The Magician Ismeno urges the king to seize a certain image of the Virgin Mary and shut it up in the royal mosque (thus converting it into a palladium for Jerusalem). The king does so; but immediately the image disappears from the mosque. Aladine is wild with rage and being unable to discover the perpetrator of the outrage, resolves to destroy all the Christians in the city. Now there was in the city a beautiful Christian girl:

Of generous thoughts and principles sublime, Amongst them in the city lived a maid. The flower of virgins, in her ripest prime, Supremely beautiful! but that she made Never her care, or beauty only weighed In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired A deeper charm from blooming in the shade; Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired. But from their praises turned, and lived a life retired.

Although she was unconscious of love herself, there was a noble Christian youth, Olindo, who had long loved her in secret. Sophronia resolves to save her people. She makes her way to the king's palace, and declares that she alone is guilty of having stolen the sacred image from the mosque.

Thus she prepares a public death to meet, A people's ransom at a tyrant's shrine: Oh glorious falsehood! beautiful deceit! Can Truth's own light thy loveliness outshine? To her bold speech misdoubting Aladine With unaccustomed temper calm replied: "If so it were, who planned the rash design, Advised thee to it, or became thy guide? Say, with thyself who else his ill-timed zeal allied?"

"Of this my glory not the slightest part Would I," said she, "with one confederate share; I needed no adviser; my full heart Alone sufficed to counsel, guide, and dare." "If so," he cried, "then none but thou must bear The weight of my resentment, and atone For the misdeed." "Since it has been my care," She said, "the glory to enjoy alone, 'T is just none share the pain; it should be all mine own."

To this the tyrant, now incensed, returned, "Where rests the Image?" and his face became Dark with resentment: she replied, "I burned The holy image in the holy flame, And deemed it glory; thus at least no shame Can e'er again profane it--it is free From further violation; dost thou claim The spoil or spoiler? this behold in me; But that, whilst time rolls round, thou never more shall see

* * * * *

Doomed in tormenting fire to die, they lay Hands on the maid; her arms with rough cords twining, Rudely her mantle chaste they tear away, And the white veil that o'er her drooped declining: This she endured in silence unrepining, Yet her firm breast some virgin tremors shook; And her warm cheek, Aurora's late outshining, Waned into whiteness, and a color took, Like that of the pale rose, or lily of the brook.

At this moment Olindo approaches the spot, and discovering that the victim is Sophronia, bursts through the crowd, exclaiming that he himself is the author of the crime. Sophronia appeals to him not to sacrifice himself for her, but he remains firm until the king, angered at their apparent scorn of his power, condemns them both to be burned. Thus both are about to die, when a knight appears:

In midst of their distress, a knight behold, (So would it seem) of princely port! whose vest, And arms of curious fashion, grained with gold, Bespeak some foreign and distinguished guest; The silver tigress on the helm impressed, Which for a badge is borne, attracts all eyes,-- A noted cognizance, the accustomed crest Used by Clorinda, whence conjectures rise, Herself the stranger is--nor false is their surmise.

All feminine attractions, aims, and parts, She from her childhood cared not to assume; Her haughty hand disdained all servile arts, The needle, distaff, and Arachne's loom; Yet, though she left the gay and gilded room For the free camp, kept spotless as the light Her virgin fame, and proud of glory's plume, With pride her aspect armed; she took delight Stern to appear, and stern, she charmed the gazer's sight.

This is the first appearance of Clorinda, who is destined to play so large a part in the poem, and who shows the nobility of her character by interceding for the lovers with the king. The king, delighted at having so powerful an auxiliary in his hour of danger and need, willingly grants Clorinda's request, and the lovers are saved.

In the meantime the Christian army approach Jerusalem, which they reach at early dawn, and which they greet with deep emotion:

The odorous air, morn's messenger, now spread Its wings to herald, in serenest skies, Aurora issuing forth, her radiant head Adorned with roses plucked in Paradise; When in full panoply the hosts arise, And loud and spreading murmurs upward fly, Ere yet the trumpet sings; its melodies They miss not long, the trumpet's tuneful cry Gives the command to march, shrill sounding to the sky.

* * * * *

Winged is each heart, and winged every heel; They fly, yet notice not how fast they fly; But by the time the dewless meads reveal The fervent sun's ascension in the sky, Lo, towered Jerusalem salutes the eye! A thousand pointing fingers tell the tale; "Jerusalem!" a thousand voices cry, "All hail, Jerusalem!" hill, down, and dale Catch the glad sounds, and shout, "Jerusalem, all hail!"

Erminia, daughter of the deceased king of Antioch, points out to King Aladine from a high tower the famous warriors among the Christians, and especially praises Tancred, who had conquered her father and taken her prisoner, and who, by his courtesy and gentle treatment, had won her love. A sortie is made from the city, and Tancred, finding himself engaged in battle with Clorinda, whom he esteems a man, breaks her helmet, and discovering her to be the maiden whom he loves, refuses to fight further with her.

Meanwhile Clorinda rushes to assail The Prince, and level lays her spear renowned; Both lances strike, and on the barred ventayle In shivers fly, and she remains discrowned For, burst its silver rivets, to the ground Her helmet leaped (incomparable blow!) And by the rudeness of the shock unbound, Her sex to all the field emblazoning so, Loose to the charmed winds her golden tresses flow.

Thus begins the most famous episode of the Jerusalem Delivered. For the next half of the poem Tancred and Clorinda are the real hero and heroine.

In the meantime Satan has called together his followers for consultation. Among the many plans for holding the Christian army in check is the sending of the beautiful enchantress Armida to the camp of Godfrey, where she succeeds by her wiles in drawing away from the army a number of the bravest warriors. The king of Egypt, with an immense army, announces his intention to help Jerusalem and from this time on, this menace hovers like a black cloud over the horizon of the poem, ever approaching nearer and nearer, till in the last canto the storm is averted by the bravery of the Christian warriors and the aid of heaven.

Argantes, one of the pagan warriors of Jerusalem, sends a herald to Godfrey's camp, challenging any of his warriors to single combat. Tancred is appointed by Godfrey to accept the challenge, and the two doughty champions fight all day long with no result. When night comes on both retire, bearing away serious wounds. Erminia, who has been in a terrible state of anxiety during the combat, cannot rest content when night comes on, without learning the condition of Tancred's wounds. She puts on Clorinda's suit of armor, leaves the city, and makes her way to the Christian camp, first sending a messenger to Tancred, announcing that a lady desires to see him. The scene which follows is very picturesque, describing as it does the silence of the night and the distant view of the tents.

On high were the clear stars; the gentle Hours Walked cloudless through the galaxy of space, And the calm moon rose, lighting up the flowers With frost of living pearl: like her in grace, Th' enamored maid from her illumined face Reflected light where'er she chanced to rove; And made the silent Spirit of the place, The hills, the melancholy moon above, And the dumb valleys round, familiars of her love.

Seeing the Camp, she whispered: "O ye fair Italian tents! how amiable ye show! The breathing winds that such refreshment bear, Ravish my soul, for 't is from you they blow So may relenting Heaven on me bestow,-- On me, by froward Fate so long distressed,-- A chaste repose from weariness and woe, As in your compass only lies my quest; As 'tis your arms alone can give my spirit rest."

* * * * *

Ah, little does she think, while thus she dreams, What is prepared for her by Fortune's spite! She is so placed, that the moon's placid beams In line direct upon her armor light; So far remote into the shades of night The silver splendor is conveyed, and she Surrounded is with brilliancy so bright, That whosoe'er might chance her crest to see, Would of a truth conclude it must Clorinda be.

Two sentinels see her, and believing her to be Clorinda, pursue her. She flies and is carried by her horse many miles away, finally reaching a shepherd's cottage on the banks of the Jordan, where for some time she takes up her abode far from war's alarms and the "pangs of despised love." The description of Erminia's life here is much admired for its delineations of the charm of rural life.

She slept, till in her dreaming ear, the bowers Whispered, the gay birds warbled of the dawn; The river roared; the winds to the young flowers Made love; the blithe bee wound its dulcet horn: Roused by the mirth and melodies of morn, Her languid eyes she opens, and perceives The huts of shepherds on the lonely lawn; Whilst seeming voices, 'twixt the waves and leaves Call back her scattered thoughts,--again she sighs and grieves.

Her plaints were silenced by soft music, sent As from a rural pipe, such sounds as cheer The Syrian shepherd in his summer tent, And mixed with pastoral accents, rude but clear She rose and gently, guided by her ear, Came where an old man on a rising ground In the fresh shade, his white flocks feeding near, Twig baskets wove, and listened to the sound Trilled by three blooming boys, who sate disporting round.

The shepherd, pitying Erminia's distress, takes her to his wife, and she thus becomes a member of the humble but happy household.

In the meantime many events are taking place between the Christians and pagans, sorties, single combats, and attacks on the walls of the city. Godfrey has caused powerful engines of war to be built, especially a mighty movable tower, so high that it overtops the walls of the city. Clorinda, eager for glory, undertakes one night to destroy the tower, in spite of the warning of her old servant Arsetes, who tells her the story of her birth, and reveals the fact that she is of Christian parentage. She issues forth, succeeds in setting fire to the tower, but not being able to reenter the city, flies, followed by Tancred, who not recognizing her, fights with her and to his own eternal sorrow, slays her. This passage is regarded as the most beautiful of the whole poem:

As the deep Euxine, though the wind no more Blows, that late tossed its billows to the stars, Stills not at once its rolling and its roar, But with its coasts long time conflicting jars; Thus, though their quickly-ebbing blood debars Force from their blades as vigor from their arms, Still lasts the frenzy of the flame which Mars Blew in their breasts; sustained by whose strong charms, Yet heap they strokes on strokes, yet harms inflict on harms.

But now, alas! the fatal hour arrives That must shut up Clorinda's life in shade; In her fair bosom deep his sword he drives; 'Tis done--life's purple fountain bathes the blade; The golden flowered cymar of light brocade, That swathed so tenderly her breasts of snow, Is steeped in the warm stream: the hapless maid Feels her end nigh; her knees their strength forego, And her enfeebled frame droops languishing and low.

He, following up the thrust with taunting cries, Lays the pierced Virgin at his careless feet; She as she falls, in mournful tones outsighs, Her last faint words, pathetically sweet; Which a new spirit prompts, a spirit replete With charity, and faith, and hope serene, Sent dove-like down from God's pure mercy-seat; Who, though through life his rebel she had been, Would have her die a fond, repentant Magdalene.

"Friend, thou hast won; I pardon thee, and oh Forgive thou me! I fear not for this clay, But my dark soul--pray for it, and bestow The sacred right that laves all stains away:" Like dying hymns heard far at close of day, Sounding I know not what in the soothed ear Of sweetest sadness, the faint words make way To his fierce heart, and, touched with grief sincere, Streams from his pitying eye the involuntary tear.

Not distant, gushing from the rocks, a rill Clashed on his ear; to this with eager pace He speeds--his hollow casque the waters fill-- And back he hurries to the deed of grace; His hands as aspens tremble, whilst they raise The locked aventayle of the unknown knight;-- God, for thy mercy! 'tis her angel face! Aghast and thunderstruck, he loathes the light; Ah, knowledge best unknown! ah, too distracting sight.

Yet still he lived; and mustering all his powers To the sad task, restrained each wild lament, Fain to redeem by those baptismal showers The life his sword bereft; whilst thus intent The hallowing words he spoke, with ravishment Her face transfigured shone, and half apart Her bland lips shed a lively smile that sent This silent speech in sunshine to his heart: "Heaven gleams; in blissful peace behold thy friend depart!"

A paleness beauteous as the lily's mixt With the sweet violet's, like a gust of wind Flits o'er her face; her eyes on Heaven are fixt, And heaven on her returns its looks as kind: Speak she can not; but her cold hand, declined, In pledge of peace on Tancred she bestows; And to her fate thus tenderly resigned, In her meek beauty she expires, and shows But as a smiling saint indulging soft repose.

Clorinda, being dead, Tancred has little desire to live, but is comforted by a vision of her in heaven:

And, clad in starry robes, the maid for whom He mourned, appears amid his mourning dreams; Fairer than erst, but by the deathless bloom And heavenly radiance that around her beams, Graced, not disguised; in sweetest act she seems To stoop, and wipe away the tears that flow From his dim eyes: "Behold what glory streams Round me," she cries; "how beauteous now I show, And for my sake, dear friend, this waste of grief forego."

Up to this time the most prominent characters in the poem have been Tancred and Clorinda. This state of things now changes and the real hero, Rinaldo, who like Achilles has long been absent from the field of action, reappears and brings matters to a climax.

We have already seen how Armida has come to camp and carried off a number of the Christian warriors. At the same time Rinaldo had, in a contest for the successor of Dudo (killed in the first skirmish between the crusaders and the pagans), slain Gernando in the presence of the whole army, and was forced to fly the wrath of Godfrey. He, after having freed the fifty knights from the power of Armida, is himself caught by her wiles, and carried off by her to a gorgeous palace situated in the midst of a beautiful garden, on a high mountain in the island of Teneriffe. Here, lost in luxury and idleness, he sleeps out the thought of his duty as a Christian warrior.

In the meantime Godfrey, by various supernatural tokens, learns that Rinaldo alone can bring about the final success of the Christian arms. He is thus induced to pardon his crime, which indeed had in a certain sense been justified, and sends two messengers to bring him back. These embark on a magic vessel, traverse the Mediterranean, pass the strait of Gibraltar, enter the Atlantic, and reach the island of Teneriffe. The descriptions of this voyage and the allusion to Columbus, are famous and well deserve to be quoted, if we had the space. It is especially interesting to compare this fictitious voyage into the Atlantic Ocean with that of Ulysses in Dante's Inferno, the one written before, the other shortly after the discovery of America.

The ambassadors arrive at the island, climb the mountain, overcome all obstacles, enter the enchanted garden, and discover Rinaldo, surrounded by all the beauty of nature and magnificence of art.

The messengers succeed in arousing the dormant nobility of Rinaldo; he tears himself away, follows them to the camp of Godfrey, is pardoned by the latter, succeeds in breaking the spell of the enchanted forest, and thus prepares the way for the building of new war machines. The city then is assaulted and taken, and finally the Egyptian army, which now appears on the scene, is defeated and the poem ends.

The literature of the Italian Renaissance, which was inaugurated by Petrarch and Boccaccio, reached its highest point with Ariosto. Tasso, equally great with Ariosto, lived at the beginning of a long period of decline; the Jerusalem Delivered projecting the last rays of the glories of the Renaissance into this new period. The sixteenth century, especially the first half, is the golden age of Italian literature, comparable to that of Augustus in Rome, Louis XIV. in France, and Queen Elizabeth in England. In the narrow confines of this sketch we have only been able to treat in some detail the great writers thereof, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso. Yet the number of men of genius and talent is legion--giants indeed lived in those days--not only in the field of art and scholarship but in literature. In lyrical poetry were Pietro Bembo, the Petrarch of his times; Michel Angelo and Vittoria Colonna. In the pastoral poem, besides Tasso, there were Sannazaro and Guarini, the former (whose Arcadia was imitated in England by Sidney and Spenser) on the border-line between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the latter on that between the sixteenth and seventeenth. In comic poetry there was Francesco Berni, who worked over Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, which has since then been read almost wholly in this version. In prose was developed an especially rich literature, among the great masters of which we may mention in history, Nicholas Machiavelli, who, in his Prince, introduced a new philosophy of politics; Guicciardini, Varchi, and Nardi; in the history of art, Vasari; in novels and stories, Luigi da Porto, who first told the story of Romeo and Juliet; Giraldo Cinzio, Matteo Bandello, who continued the work of Boccaccio and Sacchetti. Forming a special group are Benvenuto Cellini, whose autobiography has made him famous; Firenzuola, who wrote on the beauty of woman; Baldasarre Castiglione, the Lord Chesterfield of his day, who in his book on the Courtier, depicted the character of the perfect gentleman according to the ideals of the times.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

Lack of true epic hitherto--Tasso (1544-95) the first to give Italy an epic in the style of Homer and Vergil--Pathos of his life--His works: The pastoral poem Aminta; a tragedy, Torrismondo; Jerusalem Delivered--Long preparation for his masterpiece--The sixteenth century the Golden Age of Italian literature: Bembo, Sannazaro, Guarini, Berni, Machiavelli, Guicciardini.

1. Would you call the Divine Comedy and Orlando Furioso true epics?

2. Give briefly the main facts of Tasso's life.

3. What was the real cause of his unhappiness?

4. Describe his death.

5. What was the Aminta; when was it written?

6. What is the theme of Jerusalem Delivered?

7. Why did Tasso choose this subject?

8. Give in brief outline the plot.

9. Tell the story of Sophronia and Olindo.

10. Who was Clorinda, by whom was she loved, and how did she die?

11. Tell all you know about Erminia.

12. What part in the poem is played by Armida?

13. Where was Rinaldo during most of the fighting, and how was he brought back to camp?

14. How does the poem end?

15. Mention a few other writers of the sixteenth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A complete translation of Jerusalem Delivered by Wiffen is published in the Bohn Library.