The end of the story is far too crude to quote, and it is probable that even the most curious readers will already have had enough of Alione's peculiar gibberish.
The maccaronic style had reached this point when Folengo took possession of it, stamped it with his own genius, and employed it for one of the most important poems of the century. He is said to have begun a serious Latin epic in his early manhood, and to have laid this aside because he foresaw the impossibility of wresting the laurels from Virgil. This story is probably a legend; but it contains at least an element of truth. Folengo aimed at originality; he chose to be the first of burlesque Latin poets rather than to claim the name and fame of a Virgilian imitator.[424] In the proemium to his Moscheis he professes to have found the orthodox Apollo deaf to his prayers:
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Illius heu frustra doctas captare sorores Speravi ac multa laude tenere polos. |
The reason of the god's anger was that his votary had sullied the clear springs of Hippocrene:
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Nescio quas reperi musas, turpesve sorores, Nescio quas turpi carmina voce canunt. Limpida Pegasidum vitiavi stagna profanus, Totaque sunt limo dedecorata meo. |
The exordium to the Maccaronea introduces us to these vulgar Muses, grossæ Camœnæ, who fill their neophytes with maccaronic inspiration:
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Jam nec Melpomene, Clio, nec magna Thalia, Nec Phœbus grattando lyram mihi carmina dictet, Qui tantos olim doctos fecere poetas; Verum cara mihi foveat solummodo Berta, Gosaque, Togna simul, Mafelina, Pedrala, Comina. Veridicæ Musæ sunt hæ, doctæque sorellæ; Quarum non multis habitatio nota poetis. |
The holy hill of Folengo's Muses is a mountain of cheese and maccaroni, with lakes of broth and rivers of unctuous sauces:
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Stant ipsæ Musæ super altum montis acumen, Formajum gratulis durum retridando foratis. |