we are carried
back thirty years, and to Goito Castle.

Sordello is there: a refined and beautiful boy; framed for all spiritual
delights. As his life is described, it has neither duties nor
occupations; no concern with the outer world; no contact even with that
of Adelaide, his supposed protectress. He is dreaming away his childhood
in the silent gloom of the castle, or the sunny outdoor life of the
hills and woods. He lives in imagination, blends the idea of his own
being with everything he sees; and for years is happy in the bare fact
of existence. But the germ of a fatal spiritual ambition is lurking
within him; and as he grows into a youth, he hankers after something
which he calls sympathy, but which is really applause. He therefore
makes a human crowd for himself out of carved and tapestried figures,
and the few names which penetrate into his solitude, and fancies himself
always the greatest personage amongst them. He simulates all manner of
heroic performances and of luxurious rest. He is Eccelino, the Emperor's
vicar; he is the Emperor himself. He becomes more than this; for his
fancy has soared upwards to the power which includes all empire in
one--the spiritual power of song. Apollo is its representative. Sordello
is he. He has had one glimpse of Palma; she becomes his Daphne; the
dream life is at its height.

And now Sordello is a man. He begins to sicken for reality. Vanity and
ambition are ripe in him. His egotisms are innocent, but they are
absorbing. The soul is as yet dormant.[13]

BOOK THE SECOND.

The dream-life becomes a partial reality. Sordello's wanderings carry
him one day to the walls of Mantua, outside which Palma is holding a
"Court of Love." Eglamor sings. His song is incomplete. Sordello feels
what is wanting; catches up the thread of the story; and sings it to its
proper close.[14] His triumph is absolute. He is installed as Palma's
minstrel in Eglamor's place. Eglamor accepts his defeat with touching
gentleness, and lies down to die. This poet is meant to embody the
limited art, which is an end in itself, and one with the artist's life.
Sordello, on the other hand, represents the boundless aspirations which
art may subserve, but which must always leave it behind. The parallel
will be stated more distinctly later on.

Sordello's first wish is fulfilled. He has found a career which will
reconcile his splendid dreams with his real obscurity, and set him, by
right of imagination--the