Chapter 4

INDIVIDUALISM AND SENTIMENTAL FEELING AT THE RENAISSANCE

In a certain sense all times are transitional to those who live in them, since what is old is always in process of being destroyed and giving way to the new. But there are landmarks in the general development of culture, which mark off definite periods and divide what has been from what is beginning. Hellenism was such a landmark in antiquity, the Renaissance in the Middle Ages.

Without overlooking the differences between Greek and Italian, classic and modern, which are relative and not absolute, it is instructive to note the great likeness between these two epochs. The limits of their culture will stand out more clearly, if, by the aid of Helbig's researches and Burckhardt's masterly account of the Renaissance, we range the chief points of that likeness side by side.

They were epochs in which an icy crust, which had been lying over human thought and feeling, melted as if before a spring breeze. It is true that the theory of life which now began to prevail was not absolutely new; the stages of growth in a nation's culture are never isolated; it was the result of the enlargement of various factors already present, and their fusion with a flood of incoming ones.

The Ionic-Doric Greek kingdom widened out in Alexander's time to a Hellenic-Asiatic one, and the barriers of the Romano-Germanic Middle Ages fell with the Crusades and the great voyages of discovery. Hellenism and the Renaissance brought about the transition from antiquity and the mediæval to the specifically modern; the Roman Empire inherited Hellenism, the Reformation the Renaissance. Both had their roots in the past, both made new growth which blossomed at a later time. In Hellenism, Oriental elements were mixed with the Greek; in the Renaissance, it was a mixture of Germanic with the native Italian which caused the revival of classic antiquity and new culture. Burckhardt says[1]:

Elsewhere in Europe men deliberately and with reflection borrowed this or the other element of classical civilization; in Italy, the sympathies both of the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language too was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency, other elements--the popular character which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and northern forms of civilization, and the influence of religion and the Church--combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as the model and ideal for the whole western world.

The distance between the works of the Greek artists and poets--between Homer, Sophocles, and Phidias on the one hand, and the Alexandrian Theocritus and Kallimachos and the Pergamos sculptures on the other--is greater than lies between the _Nibelungenlied_ and the Minnesingers, and Dante and Petrarch. In both cases one finds oneself in a new world of thought and feeling, where each and all bears the stamp of change, in matters political and social as well as artistic. If, for example, by the aid of Von Helbig's researches,[2] we conjure up a picture of the chief points in the history of Greek culture, we are astonished to see how almost every point recurred at the Renaissance, as described by Burckhardt.

The chief mark of both epochs was individualism, the discovery of the individual. In Hellenism it was the barriers of race and position which fell; in the Renaissance, the veil, woven of mysticism and delusion, which had obscured mediæval faith, thought, and feeling. Every man recognized himself to be an independent unit of church, state, people, corporation--of all those bodies in which in the Middle Ages he had been entirely merged.

Monarchical institutions arose in Hellenism; but the individual was no longer content to serve them only as one among many; he must needs develop his own powers. Private affairs began to preponderate over public; the very physiognomy of the race shewed an individual stamp.

After the time of Alexander the Great, portrait shewed most marked individuality. Those of the previous period had a certain uniform expression; one would have looked in vain among them for the diversities in contemporary types shewn by comparing Alexander's vivid face full of stormy energy, Menander's with its peculiar look of irony, and the elaborate savant-physiognomy of Aristotle. (HELBIG.)

And Burckhardt says:

At the close of the thirteenth century Italy began to swarm with individuality; the charm laid upon human personality was dissolved, and a thousand figures meet us each in its own special shape and dress.... Despotism, as we have already seen, fostered in the highest degree the individuality, not only of the tyrant or Condottiere himself, but also of the men whom he protected or used as his tools--the secretary, minister, poet, or companion.

Political indifference brought about a high degree of cosmopolitanism, especially among those who were banished. 'My country is the whole world,' said Dante; and Ghiberti: 'Only he who has learned everything is nowhere a stranger; robbed of his fortune and without friends, he is yet a citizen of every country, and can fearlessly despise the changes of fortune.'

In both Hellenism and the Renaissance, an effort was made in art and science to see things as they really were. In art, detail was industriously cultivated; but its naturalism, especially as to undraped figures, was due to a sensuous refinement of gallantry and erotic feeling. The sensuous flourished no less in Greek times than in those of Boccaccio; but the most characteristic peculiarity of Hellenism was its intentional revelling in feeling--its sentimentality. There was a trace of melancholy upon many faces of the time, and unhappy love in endless variations was the poet's main theme. Petrarch's lyre was tuned to the same key; a melancholy delight in grief was the constant burden of his song.

In Greece the sight of foreign lands had furthered the natural sciences, especially geography, astronomy, zoology, and botany; and the striving for universality at the Renaissance, which was as much a part of its individualism as its passion for fame, was aided by the widening of the physical and mental horizons through the Crusades and voyages of discovery. Dante was not only the greatest poet of his time, but an astronomer; Petrarch was geographer and cartographer, and, at the end of the fifteenth century, with Paolo Toscanelli, Lucca Baccioli, and Leonardo da Vinci, Italy was beyond all comparison the first nation in Europe in mathematics and natural science.

A significant proof of the wide-spread interest in natural history is found in the zeal which shewed itself at an early period for the collection and comparative study of plants and animals. Italy claims to be the first creator of botanical gardens.... princes and wealthy men, in laying out their pleasure gardens, instinctively made a point of collecting the greatest possible number of different plants in all their species and varieties. (BURCKHARDT.)

Leon Battista Alberti, a man of wide theoretical knowledge as well as technical and artistic facility of all sorts, entered into the whole life around him with a sympathetic intensity that might almost be called nervous.

At the sight of noble trees and waving corn-fields he shed tears ... more than once, when he was ill, the sight of a beautiful landscape cured him. (BURCKHARDT.)

He defined a beautiful landscape as one in which one could see in its different parts, sea, mountain, lake or spring, dry rocks or plains, wood and valley. Therefore he cared for variety; and, what is more striking, in contrast to level country, he admired mountains and rocks!

In Hellenism, hunting, to which only the Macedonians had been addicted before, became a fashion, and was enjoyed with Oriental pomp in the _paradeisoi_. Writers drew most of their comparisons from it. In the Renaissance, Petrarch did the same, and animals often served as emblems of state--their condition ominous of good or evil--and were fostered with superstitious veneration, as, for example, the lions at Florence.

Thus the growth of the natural sciences increased interest in the external world, and sensitiveness brought about a sentimental attitude towards Nature in Hellenism and in the Renaissance.

Both discovered in Nature a source of purest pleasure; the Renaissance feeling was, in fact, the extension and enhancement of the Hellenic. Burckhardt overlooked the fact that beautiful scenery was appreciated and described for its own sake in Hellenism, but he says very justly;

The Italians are the first among modern peoples by whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful.... By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine hearty enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of Nature--spring with its flowers, the green fields and the woods. But these pictures are all foreground without perspective.

Among the Minnesingers there were traces of feeling for Nature; but only for certain stereotyped phases. Of the individuality of a landscape, its characteristic colour, form, and light, not a word was said.

Even the Carmina Burana were not much ahead of the Minnesingers in this respect, although they deserve a closer examination.

These Latin poems of wandering clerks probably belong to the twelfth century, and though no doubt a product in which the whole of Europe had a share, their best pieces must be ascribed to a French hand. Latin poetry lives again in them, with a freshness the Carlovingian Renaissance never reached; they are mediæval in form, but full of a frank enjoyment of life and its pleasures, which hardly any northerner of that day possessed. Often enough this degenerated into frivolity; but the stir of national awakening after the long sleep of the Middle Ages is felt like a spring breeze through them all.

It is a far cry from the view of Nature we saw in the Carlovingian monks, to these highly-coloured verses. The dim light of churches and bare cell walls may have doubled the monks' appreciation of blue skies and open-air life; but they were fettered by the constant fight with the senses; Nature to them must needs be less a work of God for man's delight, than a dangerous means of seduction. 'They wandered through Nature with timid misgiving, and their anxious fantasy depicted forms of terror or marvellous rescues.[3] The idyllic pleasure in the simple charms of Nature, especially in the monastery garden of the Carlovingian time, contrasts strikingly with the tone of these very mundane _vagantes clerici_, for whom Nature had not only long been absorbed and freed from all demoniac influence, but peopled by the charming forms of the old mythic poems, and made for the joy and profit of men, in the widest and naivest sense of the words.

Spring songs, as with the Minnesingers, take up most of the space; but the theme is treated with greater variety. Enjoyment of life and Nature breathes through them all.

One runs thus:

Spring cometh, and the earth is decked and studded with vernal flowers. The harmony of the birds' returning song rouses the heart to be glad. It is the time of joy.

Songs 98 to 118 rejoice that winter is gone; for instance:

Now in the mild springtime Flora opens the lap which the cold frost had locked in cruel time of winter; the zephyr with gentle murmur cometh with the spring; the grove is clad in leaves. The nightingale is singing, the fields are gay with divers hues. It is sweet to walk in the wooded glens, it is sweeter to pluck the lily with the rose, it is sweetest of all to sport with a lovely maiden.

Another makes a similar confession, for Nature and amorous passion are the two strings of these lyres:

Beneath the pleasant foliage of a tree 'tis sweet to rest, while the nightingale sings her plaintive song; sweeter still, to sport in the grass with a fair maiden.... O, to what changeful moods is the heart of the lover prone! As the vessel that wanders o'er the waves without an anchor, so doth Love's uncertain warfare toss 'twixt fear and hope.

The beauties of Nature are drawn upon to describe the fair maiden; her eyes are compared to stars, her colour to lilies and snow, her mouth to a rose, her kiss 'doth rend in sunder all the clouds of care.'

In the flowery season I sat beneath a shady tree while the birds sang in the groves ... and listened to my Thisbe's talk, the talk I love and long for; and we spoke of the sweet interchange of love, and in the doubtful balance of the mind wanton love and chastity were wavering.

I have seen the bright green of flowers, I have seen the flower of flowers, I have seen the rose of May; I have seen the star that is brighter than all other, that is glorious and fair above all other, through whom may I ever spend my life in love.

On such a theme the poet rings endless changes. The most charming is the poem _Phyllis and Flora_. Actual landscape is not given, but details are treated with freshness and care:

In the flowery season of the year, under a sky serene, while the earth's lap was painted with many colours, when the messenger of Aurora had put to flight the stars, sleep left the eyes of Phyllis and of Flora, two maidens whose beauty answered to the morning light. The breeze of spring was gently whispering, the place was green and gay with grass, and in the grass itself there flowed a living brook that played and babbled as it went. And that the sun's heat might not harm the maidens, near the stream there was a spreading pine, decked with leaves and spreading far its interweaving branches, nor could the heat penetrate from without. The maidens sat, the grass supplied the seat.... They intend to go to Love's Paradise: at the entrance of the grove a rivulet murmurs; the breeze is fragrant with myrrh and balsam; they hear the music of a hundred timbrels and lutes. All the notes of the birds resound in all their fulness; they hear the sweet and pleasant song of the blackbird, the garrulous lark, the turtle and the nightingale, etc.... He who stayed there would become immortal; every tree there rejoices in its own fruit; the ways are scented with myrrh and cinnamon and amomum; the master could be forced out of his house.

The first to shew proof of a deepening effect of Nature on the human spirit was Dante.

Dante and Petrarch elaborated the Hellenistic feeling for Nature; hence the further course of the Renaissance displayed all its elements, but with increased subjectivity and individuality.

No one, since the days of Hellenism, had climbed mountains for the sake of the view--Dante was the first to do it. And although, in ranging heaven, earth, hell, and paradise in the _Divina Commedia_, he rarely described real Nature, and then mostly in comparisons; yet, as Humboldt pointed out, how incomparably in a few vigorous lines he wakens the sense of the morning airs and the light on the distant sea in the first canto of Purgatorio:

The dawn was vanquishing the matin hour, Which fled before it,-so that from afar I recognized the trembling of the sea.

And how vivid this is:

The air Impregnate changed to water. Fell the rain: And to the fosses came all that the land Contain'd not, and, as mightiest streams are wont, To the great river with such headlong sweep Rush'd, that naught stayed its course.

Through that celestial forest, whose thick shade With lively greenness the new-springing day Attempered, eager now to roam and search Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank; Along the champaign leisurely my way Pursuing, o'er the ground that on all sides Delicious odour breathed. A pleasant air, That intermitted never, never veered, Smote on my temples gently, as a wind Of softest influence, at which the sprays, Obedient all, lean'd trembling to that part Where first the holy mountain casts his shade; Yet were not so disordered; but that still Upon their top the feather'd quiristers Applied their wonted art, and with full joy Welcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrill Amid the leaves, that to their jocund lays Kept tenour; even as from branch to branch Along the piny forests on the shore Of Chiassi rolls the gathering melody, When Eolus hath from his cavern loosed The dripping south. Already had my steps, Tho' slow, so far into that ancient wood Transported me, I could not ken the place Where I had enter'd; when behold! my path Was bounded by a rill, which to the left With little rippling waters bent the grass That issued from its brink.

and this of the heavenly Paradise:

I looked, And, in the likeness of a river, saw Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves Flash'd up effulgence, as they glided on 'Twixt banks, on either side, painted with spring, Incredible how fair; and, from the tide, There, ever and anon outstarting, flew Sparkles instinct with life; and in the flowers Did set them, like to rubies chased in gold; Then, as if drunk with odours, plunged again Into the wondrous flood, from which, as one Re-entered, still another rose.

His numerous comparisons conjure up whole scenes, perfect in truth to Nature, and shewing a keen and widely ranging eye. For example:

Bellowing, there groaned A noise, as of a sea in tempest torn By warring winds. (Inferno.)

O'er better waves to steer her rapid course The light bark of my genius lifts the sail, Well pleased to leave so cruel sea behind. (Purgatorio.)

All ye, who in small bark have following sail'd, Eager to listen on the adventurous track Of my proud keel, that singing cuts her way. (Paradiso.)

As sails full spread and bellying with the wind Drop suddenly collapsed, if the mast split, So to the ground down dropp'd the cruel fiend. (Inferno.)

As, near upon the hour of dawn, Through the thick vapours Mars with fiery beam Glares down in west, over the ocean floor. (Purgatorio.)

As 'fore the sun That weighs our vision down, and veils his form In light transcendent, thus my virtue fail'd Unequal. (Purgatorio.)

As sunshine cheers Limbs numb'd by nightly cold, e'en thus my look Unloosed her tongue.

And now there came o'er the perturbed waves, Loud crashing, terrible, a sound that made Either shore tremble, as if of a wind Impetuous, from conflicting vapours sprung, That, 'gainst some forest driving all his might, Plucks off the branches, beats them down, and hurls Afar; then, onward pressing, proudly sweeps His whirlwind rage, while beasts and shepherds fly. (Inferno.)

As florets, by the frosty air of night Bent down and closed, when day has blanch'd their leaves Rise all unfolded on their spiry stems, So was my fainting vigour new restored. (Inferno.)

As fall off the light autumnal leaves, One still another following, till the bough Strews all its honours on the earth beneath. (Inferno.)

Bees, dolphins, rays of sunlight, snow, starlings, doves, frogs, a bull, falcons, fishes, larks, and rooks are all used, generally with characteristic touches of detail.

Specially tender is this:

E'en as the bird, who 'mid the leafy bower Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night With her sweet brood; impatient to descry Their wished looks, and to bring home their food, In the fond quest, unconscious of her toil;

She, of the time prevenient, on the spray That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze Expects the sun, nor, ever, till the dawn Removeth from the east her eager ken, So stood the dame erect.

The most important forward step was made by Petrarch, and it is strange that this escaped Humboldt in his famous sketch in the second volume of _Cosmos_, as well as his commentator Schaller, and Friedlander.

For when we turn from Hellenism to Petrarch, it does not seem as if many centuries lay between; but rather as if notes first struck in the one had just blended into distinct harmony in the other.

The modern spirit arose from a union of the genius of the Italian people of the thirteenth century with antiquity, and the feeling for Nature had a share in the wider culture, both as to sentimentality and grasp of scenery. Classic and modern joined hands in Petrarch. Many Hellenic motives handed on by Roman poets reappear in his poetry, but always with that something in addition of which antiquity shewed but a trace--the modern subjectivity and individuality. It was the change from early bud to full blossom. He was one of the first to deserve the name of modern--modern, that is, in his whole feeling and mode of thought, in his sentimentality and his melancholy, and in the fact that 'more than most before and after him, he tried to know himself and to hand on to others what he knew.' (Geiger.) It is an appropriate remark of Hettner's, that the phrase, 'he has discovered his heart,' might serve as a motto for Petrarch's songs and sonnets. He knew that he had that sentimental disorder which he called 'acedia,' and wished to be rid of it. This word has a history of its own. To the Greeks, to Apollonius, for instance,[4] it meant carelessness, indifference; and, joined with the genitive [Greek: nooio]--that is, of the mind--it meant, according to the scholiasts, as much as [Greek: lypê] (Betrübnis)--that is, distress or grief. In the Middle Ages it became 'dislike of intellect so far as that is a divine gift'--that disease of the cloister which a monkish chronicler defined as 'a sadness or loathing and an immoderate distress of mind, caused by mental confusion, through which happiness of mind was destroyed, and the mind thrown back upon itself as from an abyss of despair.'

To Dante it meant the state--

Sad In the sweet air, made gladsome by the sun,

distaste for the good and beautiful.

The modern meaning which it took with Petrarch is well defined by Geiger as being neither ecclesiastic nor secular sin,[5] but

Entirely human and peculiar to the cleverest--the battle between reality and seeming, the attempt to people the arid wastes of the commonplace with philosophic thought--the unhappiness and despair that arise from comparing the unconcern of the majority with one's own painful unrest, from the knowledge that the results of striving do not express the effort made--that human life is but a ceaseless and unworthy rotation, in which the bad are always to the fore, and the good fall behind ... as pessimism, melancholy, world pain (Weltschmerz)--that tormenting feeling which mocks all attempt at definition, and is too vitally connected with erring and striving human nature to be curable--that longing at once for human fellowship and solitude, for active work and a life of contemplation.

Petrarch knew too the pleasure of sadness, what Goethe called 'Wonne der Wehmuth,' the _dolendi voluptas._

Lo, what new pleasure human wits devise! For oftentimes one loves Whatever new thing moves The sighs, that will in closest order go; And I'm of those whom sorrowing behoves; And that with some success I labour, you may guess, When eyes with tears, and heart is brimmed with woe.

In Sonnet 190:

My chiefest pleasure now is making moan.

Oh world, oh fruitless thought, Oh luck, my luck, who'st led me thus for spite!... For loving well, with pain I'm rent.... Nor can I yet repent, My heart o'erflowed with deadly pleasantness. Now wait I from no less A foe than dealt me my first blow, my last. And were I slain full fast, 'Twould seem a sort of mercy to my mind.... My ode, I shall i' the field Stand firm; to perish flinching were a shame, In fact, myself I blame For such laments; my portion is so sweet. Tears, sighs, and death I greet. O reader that of death the servant art, Earth can no weal, to match my woes, impart.

His poems are full of scenes and comparisons from Nature; for the sympathy for her which goes with this modern and sentimental tone is a deep one:

In that sweet season of my age's prime Which saw the sprout and, as it were, green blade Of the wild passion....

Changed me From living man into green laurel whose Array by winter's cold no leaf can lose. (Ode 1.)

Love is that by which

My darknesses were made as bright As clearest noonday light. (Ode 4.)

Elsewhere it is the light of heaven breaking in his heart, and springtime which brings the flowers.

In Sonnet 44 he plays with impossibilities, like the Greek and Roman poets:

Ah me! the sea will have no waves, the snow Will warm and darken, fish on Alps will dwell, And suns droop yonder, where from common cell

The springs of Tigris and Euphrates flow, Or ever I shall here have truce or peace Or love....

and uses the same comparisons, Sestina 7:

So many creatures throng not ocean's wave, So many, above the circle of the moon, Of stars were never yet beheld by night; So many birds reside not in the groves; So many herbs hath neither field nor shore, But my heart's thoughts outnumber them each eve.

Many of his poems witness to the truth that the love-passion is the best interpreter of Nature, especially in its woes. The woes of love are his constant theme, and far more eloquently expressed than its bliss:

So fair I have not seen the sun arise, When heaven was clearest of all cloudy stain-- The welkin-bow I have not after rain Seen varied with so many shifting dyes, But that her aspect in more splendid guise Upon the day when I took up Love's chain Diversely glowed, for nothing mortal vies Therewith.... (Sonnet 112.)

From each fair eyelid's tranquil firmament So brightly shine my stars untreacherous, That none, whose love thoughts are magnanimous, Would from aught else choose warmth or guidance lent. Oh, 'tis miraculous, when on the grass She sits, a very flower, or when she lays Upon its greenness down her bosom white. (Sonnet 127.)

Oh blithe and happy flowers, oh favoured sod, That by my lady in passive mood are pressed, Lawn, which her sweet words hear'st and treasurest, Faint traces, where her shapely foot hath trod, Smooth boughs, green leaves, which now raw juices load, Pale darling violets, and woods which rest In shadow, till that sun's beam you attest, From which hath all your pride and grandeur flowed; Oh land delightsome, oh thou river pure Which bathest her fair face and brilliant eyes And winn'st a virtue from their living light, I envy you each clear and comely guise In which she moves. (Sonnet 129.)

These recall Nais in Theocritus:

When she crept or trembling footsteps laid, Green bright and soft she made Wood, water, earth, and stone; yea, with conceit The grasses freshened 'neath her palms and feet. And her fair eyes the fields around her dressed With flowers, and the winds and storms she stilled With utterance unskilled As from a tongue that seeketh yet the breast, (Sonnet 25.)

As oft as yon white foot on fresh green sod Comelily sets the gentle step, a dower Of grace, that opens and revives each flower, Seems by the delicate palm to be bestowed. (Sonnet 132.)

I seem to hear her, hearing airs and sprays, And leaves, and plaintive bird notes, and the brook That steals and murmurs through the sedges green. Such pleasure in lone silence and the maze Of eerie shadowy woods I never took, Though too much tow'r'd my sun they intervene. (Sonnet 143.)

and like Goethe's:

I think of thee when the bright sunlight shimmers Across the sea; When the clear fountain in the moonbeam glimmers I think of thee....

I hear thee, when the tossing waves' low rumbling Creeps up the hill; I go to the lone wood and listen trembling When all is still....

So Petrarch sings in Ode 15:

Now therefore, when in youthful guise I see The world attire itself in soft green hue, I think that in this age unripe I view That lovely girl, who's now a lady's mien. Then, when the sun ariseth all aglow, I trace the wonted show Of amorous fire, in some fine heart made queen... When leaves or boughs or violets on earth I see, what time the winter's cold decays, And when the kindly stars are gathering might, Mine eye that violet and green portrays (And nothing else) which, at my warfare's birth, Armed Love so well that yet he worsts me quite. I see the delicate fine tissue light In which our little damsel's limbs are dressed.... Oft on the hills a feeble snow-streak lies, Which the sun smiteth in sequestered place. Let sun rule snow! Thou, Love, my ruler art, When on that fair and more than human face I muse, which from afar makes soft my eyes.... I never yet saw after mighty rain The roving stars in the calm welkin glide And glitter back between the frost and dew, But straight those lovely eyes are at my side.... If ever yet, on roses white and red, My eyes have fallen, where in bowl of gold They were set down, fresh culled by virgin hands, There have I seemed her aspect to behold.... But when the year has flecked Some deal with white and yellow flowers the braes, I forthwith recollect That day and place in which I first admired Laura's gold hair outspread, and straight was fired.... That I could number all the stars anon And shut the waters in a tiny glass Belike I thought, when in this narrow sheet I got a fancy to record, alas, How many ways this Beauty's paragon Hath spread her light, while standing self-complete, So that from her I never could retreat.... She's closed for me all paths in earth and sky.

The reflective modern mind is clear in this, despite its loquacity. He was yet more eloquent and intense, more fertile in comparisons, when his happiest days were over.

In Ode 24, standing at a window he watches the strange forms his imagination conjures up--a wild creature torn in pieces by two dogs, a ship wrecked by a storm, a laurel shattered by lightning:

Within this wood, out of a rock did rise A spring of water, mildly rumbling down, Whereto approached not in any wise The homely shepherd nor the ruder clown, But many muses and the nymphs withal.... But while herein I took my chief delight, I saw (alas!) the gaping earth devour The spring, the place, and all clean out of sight-- Which yet aggrieves my heart unto this hour.... At last, so fair a lady did I spy, That thinking yet on her I burn and quake, On herbs and flowers she walked pensively.... A stinging serpent by the heel her caught, Wherewith she languished as the gathered flower.

Now Zephyrus the blither days brings on, With flowers and leaves, his gallant retinue, And Progne's chiding, Philomela's moan, And maiden spring all white and pink of hue; Now laugh the meadows, heaven is radiant grown, And blithely now doth Love his daughter view; Air, water, earth, now breathe of love alone, And every creature plans again to woo. Ah me! but now return the heaviest sighs, Which my heart from its last resources yields To her that bore its keys to heaven away. And songs of little birds and blooming fields And gracious acts of ladies, fair and wise, Are desert land and uncouth beasts of prey. (Sonnet 269.)

The nightingale, who maketh moan so sweet Over his brood belike or nest-mate dear, So deft and tender are his notes to hear, That fields and skies are with delight replete; And all night long he seems with me to treat, And my hard lot recall unto my ear. (Sonnet 270.)

In every dell The sands of my deep sighs are circumfused. (Ode 1.)

Oh banks, oh dales, oh woods, oh streams, oh fields Ye vouchers of my life's o'erburdened cause, How often Death you've heard me supplicate. (Ode 8.)

Whereso my foot may pass, A balmy rapture wakes When I think, here that darling light hath played. If flower I cull or grass, I ponder that it takes Root in that soil, where wontedly she strayed Betwixt the stream and glade, And found at times a seat Green, fresh, and flower-embossed. (Ode 13.)

Whenever plaintive warblings, or the note Of leaves by summer breezes gently stirred, Or baffled murmur of bright waves I've heard Along the green and flowery shore to float, Where meditating love I sat and wrote, Then her whom earth conceals, whom heaven conferred, I hear and see, and know with living word She answereth my sighs, though so remote. 'Ah, why art thou,' she pityingly says, 'Pining away before thy hour?' (Sonnet 238.)

The waters and the branches and the shore, Birds, fishes, flowers, grasses, talk of love, And me to love for ever all invite. (Sonnet 239.)

Thou'st left the world, oh Death, without a sun.... Her mourners should be earth and sea and air. (Sonnet 294.)

Here we have happiness and misery felt in the modern way, and Nature in the modern way drawn into the circle of thought and feeling, and personified.

Petrarch was the first, since the days of Hellenism, to enjoy the pleasures of solitude quite consciously.

How often to my darling place of rest, Fleeing from all, could I myself but flee, I walk and wet with tears my path and breast. (Sonnet 240.)

He shared Schiller's thought:

Oh Nature is perfect, wherever we stray, 'Tis man that deforms it with care.

As love from thought to thought, from hill to hill, Directs me, when all ways that people tread Seem to the quiet of my being, foes, If some lone shore, or fountain-head, or rill Or shady glen, between two slopes outspread, I find--my daunted soul doth there repose.... On mountain heights, in briary woods, I find Some rest; but every dwelling place on earth Appeareth to my eyes a deadly bane.... Where some tall pine or hillock spreads a shade, I sometimes halt, and on the nearest brink Her lovely face I picture from my mind.... Oft hath her living likeness met my sight, (Oh who'll believe the word?) in waters clear, On beechen stems, on some green lawny space, Or in white cloud.... Her loveliest portrait there my fancy draws, And when Truth overawes That sweet delusion, frozen to the core, I then sit down, on living rock, dead stone, And seem to muse, and weep and write thereon.... Then touch my thoughts and sense Those widths of air which hence her beauty part, Which always is so near, yet far away.... Beyond that Alp, my Ode, Where heaven above is gladdest and most clear, Again thou'lt meet me where the streamlet flows And thrilling airs disclose The fresh and scented laurel thicket near, There is my heart and she that stealeth it. (Ode 17.)

It is the same idea as Goethe's in _Knowest thou the Land_? Again:

Alone, engrossed, the least frequented strands I traverse with my footsteps faint and slow, And often wary glances round me throw, To flee, should human trace imprint the sands. (Sonnet 28.)

A life of solitude I've ever sought, This many a field and forest knows, and will. (Sonnet 221.)

Love of solitude and feeling for Nature limit or increase each other; and Petrarch; like Dante, took scientific interest in her, and found her a stimulant to mental work.

Burckhardt says: 'The enjoyment of Nature is for him the favourite accompaniment of intellectual pursuits; it was to combine the two that he lived in learned retirement at Vaucluse and elsewhere, that he from time to time fled from the world and from his age.'

He wrote a book _On a Life of Solitude (De Vita Solitaria)_ by the little river Sorgue, and said in a letter from Vaucluse: 'O if you could imagine the delight with which I breathe here, free and far from the world, with forests and mountains, rivers and springs, and the books of clever men.'

Purely objective descriptions, such as his picture of the Gulf of Spezzia and Porto Venere at the end of the sixth book of the _Africa_, were rare with him; but, as we have already seen, he admired mountain scenery. He refers to the hills on the Riviera di Levante as 'hills distinguished by most pleasant wildness and wonderful fertility.'[6]

The scenery of Reggio moved him, as he said,[7] to compose a poem. He described the storm at Naples in 1343, and the earthquake at Basle. As we have seen from one of his odes, he delighted in the wide view from mountain heights, and the freedom from the oppression of the air lower down. In this respect he was one of Rousseau's forerunners, though his 'romantic' feeling was restrained within characteristic limits. In a letter of April 26, 1335, interesting both as to the period and the personality of the writer, he described to Dionisius da Borgo San Sepolchro the ascent of Mt. Ventoux near Avignon which he made when he was thirty-two, and greatly enjoyed, though those who were with him did not understand his enjoyment. When they had laboured through the difficulties of the climb, and saw the clouds below them, he was immensely impressed. It was in accordance with his love of solitude that lonely mountain tops should attract him, and the letter shows that he fully appreciated both climb and view.

'It was a long day, the air fine. We enjoyed the advantages of vigour of mind, and strength and agility of body, and everything else essential to those engaged in such an undertaking, and so had no other difficulties to face than those of the region itself.' ... 'At first, owing to the unaccustomed quality of the air and the effect of the great sweep of view spread out before me, I stood like one dazed. I beheld the clouds under our feet, and what I had read of Athos and Olympus seemed less incredible as I myself witnessed the same things from a mountain of less fame. I turned my eyes towards Italy, whither my heart most inclined. The Alps, rugged and snow-capped, seemed to rise close by, although they were really at a great distance.... The Bay of Marseilles, the Rhone itself, lay in sight.'

It was a very modern effect of the wide view that 'his whole past life with all its follies rose before his mind; he remembered that ten years ago, that day, he had quitted Bologna a young man, and turned a longing gaze towards his native country: he opened a book which was then his constant companion, _The Confessions of St Augustine_, and his eye fell on the passage in the tenth chapter:

And men go about and admire lofty mountains and broad seas, and roaring torrents and the ocean, and the course of the stars, and forget their own selves while doing so.

His brother, to whom he read these words, could not understand why he closed the book and said no more. His feeling had suddenly changed.

He knew, when he began the climb, that he was doing something very unusual, even unheard of among his contemporaries, and justified himself by the example of Philip V. of Macedon, arguing that a young man of private station might surely be excused for what was not thought blamable in a grey-haired king. Then on the mountain top, lost in the view, the passage in St Augustine suddenly occurred to him, and he started blaming himself for admiring earthly things so much. 'I was amazed ... angry with myself for marvelling but now at earthly things, when I ought to have learnt long ago that nothing save the soul was marvellous, and that to the greatness of the soul nought else was great'; and he closed with an explanation flavoured with theology to the taste of his confessor, to whom he was writing. The mixture of thoroughly modern delight in Nature[8] with ascetic dogma in this letter, gives us a glimpse into the divided feelings of one who stood upon the threshold between two eras, mediæval and modern, into the reaction of the mediæval mind against the budding modern feeling.

This is, at any rate, the first mountain ascent for pleasure since Hellenic days, of which we have detailed information. From Greece before Alexander we have nothing; but the Persian King Darius, in his expedition against the Scythians in the region of Chalcedon, ascended the mountain on which stood the Urios temple to Zeus, and there 'sitting in the temple, he took a view of the Euxine Sea, which is worthy of admiration.' (Herodotus.)

Philip V. of Macedon ascended the Hæmus B.C. 181, and Apollonios Rhodios describes the panorama spread out before the Argonauts as they ascended the Dindymon, and elsewhere recalls the view from Mt. Olympus. These are the oldest descriptions of distant views conceived as landscape in the classic literature preserved to us. Petrarch's ascent comes next in order.

This sentimental and subjective feeling for Nature, half-idyllic, half-romantic, which seemed to arise suddenly and spontaneously in Petrarch, is not to be wholly explained by a marked individuality, nourished by the tendencies of the period; the influence of Roman literature, the re-birth of the classic, must also be taken into account. For the Renaissance attitude towards Nature was closely allied to the Roman, and therefore to the Hellenic; and the fact that the first modern man arose on Italian soil was due to the revival of antiquity plus its union with the genius of the Italian people. Many direct analogies can be traced between Petrarch and the Roman poets; it was in their school that his eyes opened to the wonders of Nature, and he learnt to blend the inner with the outer life.

Boccaccio does not lead us much further. There is idyllic quality in his description of a wood in the _Ameto_,[9] and especially in _Fiammetta_, in which he praises country life and describes the spring games of the Florentine youth.

This is the description of a valley in the _Decameron_: 'After a walk of nearly a mile, they came to the Ladies' Valley, which they entered by a straight path, whence there issued forth a fine crystal current, and they found it so extremely beautiful and pleasant, especially at that sultry season, that nothing could exceed it, and, as some of them told me afterwards, the plain in the valley was so exact a circle, as if it had been described by a pair of compasses, though it seemed rather the work of Nature than of art, and was about half a mile in circumference, surrounded by six hills of moderate height, on each of which was a palace built in the form of a little castle.... The part that looks toward the south was planted as thick as they could stand together with vines, olives, almonds, cherries, figs, and most other kinds of fruit trees, and on the northern side were fine plantations of oak, ash, etc., so tall and regular that nothing could be more beautiful. The vale, which had only that one entrance, was full of firs, cypress trees, laurels, and pines, all placed in such order as if it had been done by the direction of some exquisite artist, and through which little or no sun could penetrate to the ground, which was covered with a thousand different flowers.... But what gave no less delight than any of the rest was a rivulet that came through a valley which divided two of the mountains, and running through the vein of a rock, made a most agreeable murmur with its fall, appealing, as it was dashed and sprinkled into drops, like so much quicksilver.'

Description of scenery for its own sake is scarcely more than attempted here, nor do Petrarch's lyrics, with their free thought of passion and overpowering consciousness of the joys and sorrows of love, reach the level of Hellenism in this respect. Yet it advanced with the Renaissance. Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius) was the first to describe actual landscape (Italian), not merely in a few subjective lines, but with genuine modern enjoyment. He was one of those figures in the world's history in whom all the intellectual life and feeling of a time come to a focus.

He had a heart for everything, and an all-round enthusiasm for Nature unique in his day. Antiquity and Nature were his two passions, and the most beautiful descriptions of Nature before Rousseau and Goethe are contained in his _Commentaries_.

Writing of the country round his home, he says:

'The sweet spring time had begun, and round about Siena the smiling hills were clothed with leaves and flowers, and the crops were rising in plenty in the fields. Even the pasture land quite close to the town affords an unspeakably lovely view; gently sloping hills, either planted with homely trees or vines, or ploughed for corn, look down on pleasant valleys in which grow crops, or green fields are to be seen, and brooks are even flowing. There are, too, many plantations, either natural or artificial, in which the birds sing with wondrous sweetness. Nor is there a mound on which the citizens have not built a magnificent estate; they are thus a little way out of the town. Through this district the Pope walked with joyous head.'

Again and again love of Nature drew him away even in old age from town life and the circle of courtiers and flatterers; he was for ever finding new reasons to prolong his _villeggiatura_, despite the grumbling of his court, which had to put up with wretched inns or monasteries overrun by mice, where the rain came through the roofs and the necessaries of life were scanty.[10]

His taste for these beautifully-situated monastic solitudes was a riddle to those around him. He wrote of his summer residence in Tibur:

'On all sides round the town in summer there are most lovely plantations, to which the Pope with his cardinals often retired for relaxation, sitting sometimes on some green sward beneath the olives, sometimes in a green meadow on the bank of the river Aino, whence he could see the clear waters. There are some meadows in a retired glen, watered by many streams; Pius often rested in these meadows near the luxuriant streams and the shady trees. He lived at Tibur with the Minorites on an elevation whence he could see the town and the course of the Aino as it flowed into the plain beneath him and through the quiet gardens, nor did anything else give him pleasure.

'When the summer was over, he had his bedroom in the house overlooking the Aino; from there the most beautiful view was to be seen, and also from a neighbouring mountain on the other side of the river, still covered with a green and leafy grove ... he completed a great part of his journey with the greatest enjoyment.'

In May 1462 he went to the baths at Viterbo, and, old man as he was, gives this appreciative description of spring beauties by the way:

'The road by which he made for Sorianum was at that time of the year delightful; there was a tremendous quantity of genista, so that a great part of the field seemed a mass of flowering yellow, while the rest, covered as it was by shrubs and various grasses, brought purple and white and a thousand different colours before the eyes. It was the month of May, and everything was green. On one side were the smiling fields, on the other the smiling woods, in which the birds made sweet harmony. At early dawn he used to walk into the fields to catch the exquisite breeze before the day should grow hot, and gaze at the green crops and the flowering flax, which then, emulating heaven's own blue, gave the greatest joy to all beholders.... Now the crows are holding vigil, and the ringdoves; and the owl at times utters lament with funeral note. The place is most lovely; the view in the direction of Siena stretches as far as Amiata, and in the west reaches Mt. Argentarius.'

In the plains the plague was raging; the sight of the people appealing to him as to a god, moved him to tears as he thought how few of the children would survive in the heat. He travelled to a castle charmingly placed on the lake of Bolsena, where 'there is a shady circular walk in the vineyard under the big grapes; stone steps shaded by the vine leaves lead down to the bank, where ilex oaks, alive with the songs of blackbirds, stand among the crags.' Halfway up the mountain, in the monastery of San Salvatore, he and his court took up their quarters.

'The most lovely scenery met the eye. As you look to the west from the higher houses, the view reaches beyond Ilcinum and Siena as far as the Pistorian Alps. To the north a variety of hills and the pleasant green of woods presents itself, stretching a distance of five miles; if your sight is good, your eye will travel as far as the Apennine range and can see Cortona.'

There he passed the time, shooting birds, fishing, and rowing.

'In the cool air of the hills, among the old oaks and chestnuts, on the green meadows where there were no thorns to wound the feet, and no snakes or insects to hurt or annoy, the Pope passed days of unclouded happiness.'

This is thoroughly modern: 'Silvarum amator,' as he calls himself, he includes both the details of the near and the general effect of the far-distant landscape.

And with age his appreciation of it only seemed to increase; for instance, he says of Todi:

'A most lovely view meets the eye wherever you turn; you can see Perusia and all the valley that lies between, full of wide--spreading forts and fertile fields, and honoured by the river Tiber, which, drawing its coils along like a snake, divides Tuscia from Umbria, and, close to the city itself, enters many a mountain, passing through which it descends to the plain, murmuring as it goes, as though constrained against its will.'

This is his description of a lake storm, during an excursion to the Albanian Mountains:

As far as Ostia 'he had a delightful voyage; at night the sea began to be most unwontedly troubled, and a severe storm arose. The east wind rolled up the waters from their lowest depths, huge waves beat the shore; you could have heard the sea, as it were, groaning and wailing. So great was the force of the winds, that nothing seemed able to resist it; they raged and alternately fled and put one another to rout, they overturned woods and anything that withstood them. The air glittered with frequent lightning, the sky thundered, and terrific thunder-bolts fell from the clouds.... The night was pitch dark, though the flashes of lightning were continuous.'

And of a lake at rest he says:

'The beauty of that lake is remarkable; everywhere it is surrounded by high rocks, the water is transparently clear. Nature, so far superior to art, provided a most pleasant journey. The Nemorian lake, with its crystal-clear waters, reflects the faces of those that look into it, and fills a deep basin. The descent from the top to the bottom is wooded. The poetic genius would never be awakened if it slept here; you would say it was the dwelling-place of the Muses, the home of the Nymphs, and, if there is any truth in legends, the hiding-place of Diana.'

He visited the lakes among the mountains, climbing and resting under the trees; the view from Monte Cavo was his favourite, from which he could see Terracina, the lakes of Nemi and Albano, etc. He noted their extent and formation, and added:

'The genista, however, was especially delightful, covering, as it did with its flowers, the greater part of the plains. Then, moreover, Rome presented itself fully to the eyes, together with Soracte and the Sabine Land, and the Apennine range white with snow, and Tibur and Præneste.'

It is clear that it was a thoroughly modern enthusiasm which attracted Æneas Sylvius to the country and gave him this ready pen for everything in Nature--everything, that is, except bare mountain summits.

It is difficult to attribute this faculty for enjoying and describing scenery to the influence of antiquity alone, for, save the younger Pliny, I know of no Roman under the Empire who possessed it, and, besides, we do not know how far Pius II. was acquainted with Roman literature. We know that the re-awakening of classic literature exerted an influence upon the direction of the feeling for Nature in general, and, for the rest, very various elements coalesced. Like times produce like streams of tendency, and Hellenism, the Roman Empire, and the Renaissance were alike to some extent in the conditions of their existence and the results that flowed from them; the causal nexus between them is undeniable, and makes them the chief stepping-stones on the way to the modern.

Theocritus, Meleager, Petrarch, and Æneas Sylvius may serve as representatives of the development of the feeling for Nature from classic to modern; they are the ancestors of our enthusiasm, the links in the chain which leads up to Rousseau, Goethe, Byron, and Shelley.

From the autobiography of Æneas Sylvius and the lyrics of Petrarch we gain a far truer picture of the feeling of the period up to the sixteenth century than from any poetry in other countries. Even the epic had a more modern tone in Italy; Ariosto's descriptions were far ahead of any German epic.

Humboldt pointed out very clearly the difference between the epic of the people and the epic of art--between Homer and Ariosto. Both, he said, are true painters of the world and Nature; but Ariosto pleases more by his brilliance and wealth of colour, Homer by purity of form and beauty of composition. Ariosto achieves through general effect, Homer through perfection of form. Nature is more naive in Homer, the subject is paramount, and the singer disappears; in Ariosto, Nature is sentimental, and the poet always remains in view upon the stage. In Homer all is closely knit, while Ariosto's threads are loosely spun, and he breaks them himself in play. Homer almost never describes, Ariosto always does.

Ariosto's scenes and comparisons from Nature, being calculated for effect, are more subjective, and far more highly-coloured than Homer's. But they shew a sympathetic grasp.

The modern bloom, so difficult to define, lies over them--something at once sensuous, sentimental, and chivalrous. He is given to describing lonely woodland scenery, fit places for trysts and lovers' rendezvous.

In the 1st Canto of _Mad Orlando_:

With flowery thorns, vermilion roses near Her, she upon a lovely bush doth meet, That mirrored doth in the bright waves appear, Shut out by lofty oaks from the sun's heat.

Amidst the thickest shades there is a clear Space in the middle for a cool retreat; So mixed the leaves and boughs are, through them none Can see; they are impervious to the sun.

In the 6th Canto the Hippogriff carries Roger into a country:

Nor could he, had he searched the whole world through, Than this a more delightful country see.... Soft meads, clear streams, and banks affording shade, Hillocks and plains, by culture fertile made. Fair thickets of the cedar, palm and no Less pleasant myrtle, of the laurel sweet, Of orange trees, where fruit and flow'rs did grow, And which in various forms, all lovely, meet With their thick shades against the fervid glow Of summer days, afforded a retreat; And nightingales, devoid of fear, among Those branches fluttered, pouring forth their song. Amid the lilies white and roses red, Ever more freshened by the tepid air, The stag was seen, with his proud lofty head, And feeling safe, the rabbit and the hare.... Sapphires and rubies, topazes, pearls, gold, Hyacinths, chrysolites, and diamonds were Like the night flow'rs, which did their leaves unfold There on those glad plains, painted by the air So green the grass, that if we did behold It here, no emeralds could therewith compare; As fair the foliage of the trees was, which With fruit and flow'r eternally were rich. Amid the boughs, sing yellow, white, and blue, And red and green small feathered creatures gay; The crystals less limpidity of hue Than the still lakes or murmuring brooks display. A gentle breeze, that seemeth still to woo And never change from its accustomed way, Made all around so tremulous the air That no annoyance was the day's hot glare. (Canto 34.)

Descriptions of time are short:

From the hard face of earth the sun's bright hue Not yet its veil obscure and dark did rend; The Lycaonian offspring scarcely through The furrows of the sky his plough did send. (Canto 80.)

Comparisons, especially about the beauty of women, are very artistic, recalling Sappho and Catullus:

The tender maid is like unto the rose In the fair garden on its native thorn; Whilst it alone and safely doth repose, Nor flock nor shepherd crops it; dewy morn, Water and earth, the breeze that sweetly blows, Are gracious to it; lovely dames adorn With it their bosoms and their beautiful Brows; it enamoured youths delight to cull. (Canto 1.)

Only, Alcina fairest was by far As is the sun more fair than every star.... Milk is the bosom, of luxuriant size, And the fair neck is round and snowy white; Two unripe ivory apples fall and rise Like waves upon the sea-beach when a slight Breeze stirs the ocean. (Canto 7.)

Now in a gulf of bliss up to the eyes And of fair things, to swim he doth begin. (Canto 7.)

So closely doth the ivy not enlace The tree where firmly rooted it doth stand, As clasp each other in their warm embrace These lovers, by each other's sweet breath fanned. Sweet flower, of which on India's shore no trace Is, or on the Sabæan odorous sand. (Canto 7.)

Her fair face the appearance did maintain That sometimes shewn is by the sky in spring, When at the very time that falls the rain, The sun aside his cloudy veil doth fling. And as the nightingale its pleasant strain Then on the boughs of the green trees doth sing, Thus Love doth bathe his pinions at those bright But tearful eyes, enjoying the clear light. (Canto 11.)

But as more fickle than the leaf was she, When it in autumn doth more sapless grow, And the old wind doth strip it from the tree, And doth before it in its fury grow. (Canto 21.)

He uses the sea:

As when a bark doth the deep ocean plough, That two winds strike with an alternate blast, 'Tis now sent forward by the one, and now Back by the other in its first place cast, And whirled from prow to poop, from poop to prow, But urged by the most potent wind at last Philander thus irresolute between The two thoughts, did to the least wicked lean. (Canto 21.)

As comes the wave upon the salt sea shore Which the smooth wind at first in thought hath fanned; Greater the second is than that before It, and the third more fiercely follows, and Each time the humour more abounds, and more Doth it extend its scourge upon the land: Against Orlando thus from vales below And hills above, doth the vile rabble grow. (Canto 24.)

These comparisons not only shew faithful and personal observation, but are far more subjective and subtle than, for instance, Dante's. The same holds good of Tasso. How beautiful in detail, and how sentimental too, is this from _Jerusalem Delivered_:

Behold how lovely blooms the vernal rose When scarce the leaves her early bud disclose, When, half unwrapt, and half to view revealed, She gives new pleasure from her charms concealed. But when she shews her bosom wide displayed, How soon her sweets exhale, her beauties fade! No more she seems the flower so lately loved, By virgins cherished and by youths approved. So swiftly fleeting with the transient day Passes the flower of mortal life away.

Not less subjective is:

Like a ray of light on water A smile of soft desire played in her liquid eyes. (Sonnet 18.)

The most famous lines in this poem are those which describe a romantic garden so vividly that Humboldt says 'it reminds one of the charming scenery of Sorrento.' It certainly proves that even epic poetry tried to describe Nature for her own sake:

The garden then unfolds a beauteous scene, With flowers adorned and ever living green; There silver lakes reflect the beaming day, Here crystal streams in gurgling fountains play. Cool vales descend and sunny hills arise, And groves and caves and grottos strike the eyes. Art showed her utmost power; but art concealed With greater charm the pleased attention held. It seemed as Nature played a sportive part And strove to mock the mimic works of art: By powerful magic breathes the vernal air, And fragrant trees eternal blossoms bear: Eternal fruits on every branch endure, Those swelling from their buds, and these mature: The joyous birds, concealed in every grove, With gentle strife prolong the notes of love. Soft zephyrs breathe on woods and waters round, The woods and waters yield a murmuring sound; When cease the tuneful choir, the wind replies, But, when they sing, in gentle whisper dies; By turns they sink, by turns their music raise And blend, with equal skill, harmonious lays.

But even here the scene is surrounded by an imaginary atmosphere; flowers, fruit, creatures, and atmosphere all lie under a magic charm. Tasso's importance for our subject lies far more in his much-imitated pastorals.

The _Arcadia_ of Jacopo Sannazaro, which appeared in 1504, a work of poetic beauty and still greater literary importance,[11] paved the way for pastoral poetry, which, like the sonnet, was interwoven with prose. The shepherd's occupations are described with care, though many of the songs and terms of expression rather fit the man of culture than the child of Nature, and he had that genuine enthusiasm for the rural which begets a convincing eloquence. ''Tis you,' he says at the end, addressing the Muse, 'who first woke the sleeping woods, and taught the shepherds how to strike up their lost songs.'

Bembo wrote this inscription for his grave:

Strew flowers o'er the sacred ashes, here lies Sannazaro; With thee, gentle Virgil, he shares Muse and grave.

Virgil too was industriously imitated in the didactic poetry of his country.

Giovanni Rucellai (born 1475) wrote a didactic poem, _The Bees_, which begins:

'O chaste virgins, winged visitants of flowery banks, whilst I prepared to sing your praise in lofty verse, at peep of day I was o'ercome by sleep, and then appeared a chorus of your tiny folk, and from their rich mellifluous haunts, in a clear voice these words flowed forth.... And I will sing how liquid and serene the air distils sweet honey, heavenly gilt, on flowerets and on grass, and how the bees, chaste and industrious, gather it, and thereof with care and skill make perfumed wax to grace the altars of our God.'

And a didactic poem by Luigi Alamanni (born 1495), called _Husbandry_, has: 'O blessed is he who dwells in peace, the actual tiller of his joyous fields, to whom, in his remoteness, the most righteous earth brings food, and secure in well-being, he rejoices in his heart. If thou art not surrounded by society rich with purple and gems, nor with houses adorned with costly woods, statues, and gold;... at least, secure in the humble dwelling of wood from the copse hard by, and common stones collected close at hand, which thine own hand has founded and built, whenever thou awakenest at the approach of dawn, thou dost not find outside those who bring news of a thousand events contrary to thy desires.... Thou wanderest at will, now quickly, now slowly, across the green meadow, through the wood, over the grassy hill, or by the stream. Now here, now there ... thou handlest the hatchet, axe, scythe, or hoe.... To enjoy in sober comfort at almost all seasons, with thy dear children, the fruits of thine own tree, the tree planted by thyself, this brings a sweetness sweet beyond all others.'

These didactic writings, inspired by Virgilian Georgics, show a distinct preference for the idyllic.

Sannazaro's _Arcadia_ went through sixty editions in the sixteenth century alone. Tasso reckoned with the prevalent taste of his day in _Aminta_, which improved the then method of dramatizing a romantic idyll. The whole poem bears the stamp of an idealizing and romantic imagination, and embodies in lyric form his sentimental idea of the Golden Age and an ideal world of Nature. Even down to its details _Aminta_ recalls the pastorals of Longos; and Daphne's words (Act I.