"Con tal romor, qualor l'aer discorda,
Di Giove il foco d'alta nube piomba:
Con tal tumulto, onde la gente assorda,
Da l'alte cataratte il Nil rimbomba:
Con tal orror del Latin sangue ingorda
Sonò Megera la tartarea tromba."
Fragment on the Jousting of Giuliano de' Medici.
Such is the noise, when through his cloudy floor
The bolt of Jove falls on the pale world under;
So shakes the land, where Nile with deafening roar
Plunges his clattering cataracts in thunder;
Horribly so, through Latium's realm of yore,
The trump of Tartarus blew ghastly wonder.]
[Footnote 2:
"La bella Armida, di sua forma altiera,
E de' doni del sesso e de l'etate,
L' impresa prende: e in su la prima sera
Parte, e tiene sol vie chiuse e celate:
E 'n treccia e 'n gonna femminile spera
Vincer popoli invitti e schiere armate."
Canto iv. st. 27.]
[Footnote 3:
"That sweet grove
Of Daphne by Orontes."
Parad. Lost, b. iv.
It was famous for the most luxurious worship of antiquity. Vide Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 198.]
[Footnote 4: I omit a point about "fires" of love, and "ices" of the heart; and I will here observe, once for all, that I omit many such in these versions of Tasso, for the reason given in the Preface.]
[Footnote 5: In the original, an impetuous gust of wind carries away the sword of Tancred; a circumstance which I mention because Collins admired it (see his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands). I confess I cannot do so. It seems to me quite superfluous; and when the reader finds the sword conveniently lying for the hero outside the wood, as he returns, the effect is childish and pantomimic. If the magician wished him not to fight any more, why should he give him the sword back? And if it was meant as a present to him from Clorinda, what gave her the power to make the present? Tasso retained both the particulars in the Gerusalemme Conquistata.]