Now faire blisful, O Cipris,
So be my favour at this tyme!
And ye, me to endyte and ryme
Helpeth, that on Parnaso dwelle
By Elicon the clere welle.[489]
His "Compleynt of Anelida" is dedicated to
Thou ferse god of armes, Mars the rede,
Be favourable eek, thou Polymnia,
On Parnaso that, with thy sustres glade,
By Elicon, not fer from Cirrea,
Singest with vois memorial in the shade,
Under the laurer which that may not fade.[490]
Old books of antiquity possess for him, as they did for the learned men of the Renaissance, or for Petrarch, who cherished a manuscript of Homer without being able to decipher it, a character almost divine:
For out of olde feldes, as men seith,
Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere;
And out of olde bokes, in good feith,
Cometh al this newe science that men lere.[491]
Poggio or Poliziano could not have spoken in more feeling words.
Glory and honour, Virgil Mantuan,
Be to thy name![492]
exclaims he elsewhere. "Go, my book," he says to his "Troilus and Criseyde,"