O fortunato, cite sì chiara tromba
Trovasti, e chi di te sì alto scrisse!
of which Mr. John Jay Chapman has kindly furnished the following translation:
When Alexander reached the sacred mound
Where dread Achilles sleeps, “O child of Fame,”
He sighed. “Thy deeds are happy that they found
Old Homer’s tongue to clarion thy name.”
In his oration Pro Archia, Cicero describes Alexander as exclaiming: “O fortunate youth, who found Homer as herald of thy valour!” (O fortunate, inquit, adulescens qui tuæ virtutis Homerum præconem inveneris!).
Note [121] page 62. In an earlier version, this passage reads: “Grasso de' Medici will in this matter have the same advantage over Messer Pietro Bembo that a hogshead has over a barrel.” Bembo was slender, while Grasso (fat man) was probably the nickname of a corpulent soldier in the service of the Medici, possibly identical with a certain Grasso to whom Bembo desired to be commended in a letter to Bibbiena, 5 February 1506.
Note [122] page 63. The instrument used in Socrates’s time κιθάρα was certainly not the modern cithern, but more probably a kind of large lyre, supported by a ribbon and played with a plectrum of metal, wood or ivory.