Who will give me the voice and the words fit for a subject so noble? Who will lend me wings strong enough to attain my lofty conception? Far greater than its customery heat must be the poetic furor in my breast. For this part I owe my lord, since it sings of the noble line from which he sprang.
Among the illustrious lords issued from heaven to govern the earth, never seest thou, O Phoebus who surveyest the wide earth, a race more glorious in peace or in war, nor any whose nobility has been kept longer, and shall be kept, if that prophetic light which inspires me errs not, so long as the heavens revolve about the pole (iii. 1-2).
The Vergilian vision of Augustan Rome is heard again in Merlin’s prophecy. Epic rolls of honor muster the English warriors, the women of Este, even the painters. Besides these are many incidental references, especially at canto openings.
Of courtesy, of nobility, examples among the ancient warriors were many, and few are there among the moderns. But of impious ways enough was seen and heard in that war, Hippolito, whose captured standards thou hast used to adorn our temples, as thou broughtest to thy ancestral shores their captive galleys laden with prey (xxxvi. 2).
The mission of the poet to confer fame, proclaimed by Ariosto and repeated by Ronsard, is also seen in bitter contrast. The speaker is St John the Evangelist.
So worthy men are snatched from oblivion worse than death by poets. O intelligent and wise princes who follow the example of Augustus in making writers your friends, and thus need not fear the waves of Lethe. Poets, as singing swans, are rare, poets not unworthy of the name; for heaven prevents too great abundance of famous ones by the great fault of stingy lords, who by oppressing excellence and exalting vice banish the noble arts. We may suppose that God has deprived these ignorant men of their wits and darkens their light of reason in making them shy of poetry, that death may quite consume them. For wicked as their ways might be, if only they knew how to win the friendship of Apollo they might rise from their graves in sweeter odor than nard or myrrh.
Aeneas was not so pious, nor Achilles so mighty, as their fame, nor Hector so brave. There have been thousands and thousands who might with truth have been put before them; but the palaces or great villas bestowed by their descendants have given them sublime honors without end at the honored hands of writers. Augustus was neither so holy nor so benign as sounds the trumpet of Vergil; but his having good taste in poetry brings him pardon for his unjust proscription. Nor would he who had against him earth and hell have the less fame, perhaps, if he knew how to keep the writers his friends.
Homer made Agamemnon victorious, the Trojans cowardly and dull, and Penelope constant to her husband through the thousand persecutions of the suitors. If you wish to uncover the truth, convert the story to its contrary; that the Greeks were routed, Troy the victor, and Penelope a harlot. On the other hand hear how fame leaves Dido, whose heart was so chaste, to be reputed a baggage, only because Vergil was not her friend. Wonder not that I am oppressed thereat, and that I speak of it at such length. I love writers and pay them what I owe; for in your world I too was a writer (xxxv. 22-28).