[423] Daelli, p. 93.
[424] In the first book of the Moscheis, line 7, he says:
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Gens ceratana sinat vecchias cantare batajas, Squarzet Virgilios turba pedanta suos. |
The end of the Maccaronea sets forth the impossibility of modern bards contending with the great poet of antiquity. Pontanus, Sannazzarius, all the best Latin writers of the age, pale before Virgil:
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Non tamen æquatur vati quem protulit Andes, Namque vetusta nocet laus nobis sæpe modernis. |
This refrain he repeats for each poet with whimsical reiteration. Folengo's own ambition to take the first place among burlesque writers appears in the final lines of Mac. book iii.:
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Mantua Virgilio gaudet, Verona Catullo, Dante suo florens urbs Tusca, Cipada Cocajo: Dicor ego superans alios levitate poetas, Ut Maro medesimos superans gravitate poetas. |
The induction to the Moscheis points to a serious heroic poem on Mantua which he abandoned for want of inspiration. We have in these references enough to account for the myth above mentioned.
[425] Compare Mac. vii. p. 195.
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Nil nisi crassiloquas dicor scrivisse camœnas, Crassiloquis igitur dicamus magna camœnis. |