ugh
Small rills, the water quits that octagon,
Two ladies are there, equal in their birth,
Equal in country, honour, charms and worth.

LXXXVI
One was Elizabeth, one Eleanor,
And if we credit what that marble said,
Manto's so glorious city which such store
Sets my melodious Maro, whom she bred,
More vaunts not him, nor reverences more,
Than these fair dames her poet's honoured head.
The first of these her hallowed feet had set
On Peter Bembo and James Sadolet.

LXXXVII
Arelio and Castiglion, a polished pair,
That other lady, in mid air, sustain.
Their names were carved upon the marble fair,
Then both unknown, and now so fames a twain.
Next was a lady, that from Heaven shall heir
As mighty virtue as on earth doth reign,
Or ever yet hath reigned, in any age,
Well proved by Fortune in her love or rage.

LXXXVIII
Inscribed in characters of gold is here
Lucretia Bentivoglia, and among
Her praises, 'tis declared Ferrara's peer
Joys that such daughter doth to him belong.
Her shall Camillus voice, and far and near
Reno and Felsina shall hear his song,
Wrapt in as mighty wonder at the strain
As that wherewith Amphrysus heard his swain;

LXXXIX
And one, through whom that city's name (where sweet
Isaurus salts his wave in larger vase)
Fame shall from Africa to Ind repeat,
From southern tracts to Hyperborean ways,
More than because Rome's gold in that famed seat
Was weighed, whereof perpetual record says
Guy Posthumus -- about whose honoured brow
Phoebus and Pallas bind a double bough.

XC
Dian is next in order of that train.
"Regard not (said the marble) is she wear
A haughty port; for in her heart, humane
The matron is, as in her visage, fair.
Learned Celio Calcagnine in lofty strain
Her glories and fair name abroad shall bear,
And Juba's and Moneses' kingdom hear,
And Spain and farthest Ind, his trumpet clear;

XCI
And a Cavallo shall make such a font
Of poetry in famed Ancona run,
As that winged courser on Parnassus' mount;
Or was it on the hill of Helicon?
'Tis Beatrice, who next uprears her front,
Whereof so speaks the writing on the stone:
"Her consort Beatrice, while she has breath,
Blesses, and leaves unhappy at her death;

XCII
"Yea, Italy; that with her triumphs bright,
Without that lady fair shall captive be."
A lofty song appears of her to indite
A lord of the Corre