Torre ei l'immagin volle, che sospesa
Era presso l'altar gemmato e sacro,
Ove in chiaro cristal lampade accesa
Fea lume di Ciprigna al simulacro:
or in these:
Umida i gigli e le vermiglie rose
Del volto, e gli occhi bei conversa al piano,
Gli occhi, onde in perle accolto il pianto uscia,
La giovinetta il cavalier seguia.
Virgil is directly imitated, where he is least worthy of imitation, in the details of his battle-pieces. Thus:[67]
Si riversa Isolier tremando al piano,
Privo di senso e di vigore ignudo,
Ed a lui gli occhi oscura notte involve,
Ed ogni membro ancor se gli dissolve.
Quel col braccio sospeso in aria stando,
Nè lo movendo a questa o a quella parte,
Chè dalla spada ciò gli era conteso,
Voto sembrava in sacro tempio appeso.
Mentre ignaro di ciò che 'l ciel destine,
Così diceva ancor, la lancia ultrice
Rinaldo per la bocca entro gli mise,
E la lingua e 'l parlar per mezzo incise.
This Virgilian imitation yields some glowing flowers of poetry in longer passages of description. Among these may be cited the conquest of Baiardo in the second canto, the shipwreck in the tenth, the chariot of Pluto in the fourth, and the supper with queen Floriana in the ninth.
The episode of Floriana, while closely studied upon the Aeneid, is also a first sketch for that of Armida. Indeed, it should be said in passing that Tasso anticipates the Gerusalemme throughout the Rinaldo. The murder of Anselmo by Rinaldo (Canto XI.) forecasts the murder of Gernando by his namesake, and leads to the same result of the hero's banishment. The shipwreck, the garden of courtesy, the enchanted boat, and the charmed forest, are motives which reappear improved and elaborated in Tasso's masterpiece.[68]
While Tasso thus sought to heighten diction by Latinisms, he revealed another specific quality of his manner in Rinaldo. This is the inability to sustain heroic style at its ambitious level. He frequently drops at the close of the octave stanza into a prosaic couplet, which has all the effect of bathos. Instances are not far to seek:[69]