"Dura legge d'Amor! mà benchè obliqua,
Servar conviensi, però ch' ella aggiunge
Di cielo in terra, universale, antiqua,"
[Footnote: "Hard law of Love! but, however unjust, it must be kept,
because it reaches from heaven to earth, universal, eternal.">[
I perceived that already the gifted Castelvetro had noted in it some resemblance to the lines in Horace, Ode I. 33:
"Sic visum Veneri; cui placet impares
Formas atque animos sub juga ahenea
Sævo mittere cum joco,"—
[Footnote: "So it seemed good to Venus; whose pleasure it is, in savage
jest, to bind unlike forms and minds in a brazen yoke of union.">[
excellently imitated by the reviver of Pindaric and Anacreontic poesy, Gabriello Chiubrera, in Canzonetta 18:
"Ah! che vien cenere
Penando un amator benche fedele!
Cosi vuol Venere,
Nata nell' ocean, nume crudele."
[Footnote: "Ah that there should be ashes from the torture of a lover,
though faithful! So Venus wills it, the ocean-born, a cruel deity.">[
To me these verses look like a little bit taken from Horace, as the remainder is taken from Tibullus, not without a notable improvement; for in Tibullus, Eleg. I. 2, one reads this threat against the revealers of Love's secrets:—
"Nam, fuerit quicumque loquax, is sanguine natam,
Is Venerem e rapido sentiet esse mari."
[Footnote: "For whosoever is indiscreet with his tongue, he shall feel
that Venus was born of blood and came from the rapid sea.">[
[Dati then suggests the reading of rabido in the last line and discusses the subject in six folio pages, with passages from Catullus, Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, Claudian, Homer, Tasso, &c.; and then proceeds as follows]:
I communicate to you these considerations of mine, sure of being excused, and kindly advised by your exquisite learning in such matters as I submit, urgently begging you to pardon me if excess of affection, the sense of being so long without you, and our great intimacy, have made me exceed the limits proper for a letter.—It is an extreme grief to me that the convulsions of the kingdom have disturbed your studies; and I anxiously await your Poems, in which I believe I shall have large room for admiring the delicacy of your genius, even if I except those which are in depreciation of my Religion, and which, as coming from a friendly mouth, may well be excused, though not praised. This will not hinder me from receiving the others, conscious as I am of my own zeal for freedom. Meanwhile I beg Heaven to make and keep you happy, and to keep me in your remembrance, giving me proofs thereof by your generous commands. All friends about me send you salutations and very affectionate respects.
Your most devoted,