'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.
Scene 1) suggest the most feeling outpourings of Kallimachos and
Nonnos:

And callest thou sweet spring-time
The time of rage and enmity,
Which breathing now and smiling,
Reminds the whole creation,
The animal, the human,
Of loving! Dost tho