d thee,
Repeating the great bliss: but my sweet life,
By all my eagerness therein remember--
Where there is no offence, there must be
No visiting of vengeance!"

It must have been early in their acquaintance that such gratitude was
poured forth for so slight a favour. There are balconies at Villa
d'Este, balustraded terraces where now the contorted stems of giant
vines wrestle with the carved pillarets and rend them relentlessly from
their copings where at intervals the bayonet-leaved aloes keep sentinel
like the bravi of Cardinal Ippolito I., their long green knives
unsheathed and ready for any deed of horror. Here, unconscious of spying
eyes, Leonora may have leant apparently absorbed in that glorious view,
and Tasso's hand have stolen furtively to her own.

But was there no other guerdon for his long service than this shy
avowal--no other bliss before that long horror of imprisonment and real
or imputed madness which ended only after Leonora's death? Only the Duke
Alphonso and those who so basely read the poet's private papers can
reply.

Cardinal Ippolito must have guessed to what end the pastoral of Villa
d'Este was tending; but whether his sympathy was real or feigned for his
own uses we cannot know.

[Illustration: _Alinari_

Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase]

He never attained his ambition, for death suddenly claimed him before
the aged Pope whom he had hoped to succeed. Tasso's tragedy culminated,
as Goethe tells us, at another villa, that of Belriguardo. The pastoral
of Villa d'Este ends in a chorus or envoy expressive of that tremulous
hope which flutters so deliciously in every line of the exquisite poem:

"I know not if the bitterness
That, serving long, long yearning, one hath borne
In tears and all forlorn,
May wholly turn to sweet, and Love requite
All sorrows with delight.
But if this be and pain
That bringeth joy enricheth often gain;
I ask thee not, O Love,
To give me gain thy common gains above.

* * *

If gentle dear disdains
And dulcet coy defeats
And strifes fond lovers use
To fire their hearts--but close with love's long truce."

NOTE.--The selections from the _Amyntas_ quoted in this article
have been selected from the admirable metrical translation of Mr.
R. Whitmore.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

MONDRAGONE

"'Tis a grave responsibility to play the drag