Omicida ladron, non cavaliero.
But now that victory is won, and those horrors (save for the deep wounds of Europe) seem an evil dream, we fain would forget the unforgettable, lest we retard the work of reconciliation.
Let us finish on a happier note, with Rinaldo—Rinaldo who, as Spenser says in his Prefatory Letter to the Faëry Queen, represents “the Vertues of a private man,” even as Godfrey those of a good governour.
Rinaldo’s very existence is, doubtless, largely due to “dynastic reasons”: to the necessity of flattering, that is, the House of Este; yet he concentrates in himself all the elements of the perfect knight, the pattern of chivalry, as conceived by Tasso. If the desire to please a patron, Alfonso d’ Este, brought Rinaldo into the world, did not a similar motive assist at the birth of Virgil’s Pius Aeneas? Both Aeneas and Rinaldo are strong enough to “stand on their own feet.”
Rinaldo is in many ways the true type of our modern Boy-heroes—yes, our heroes, and those of the other side—as well as of mediaeval chivalry. Unable to rest at home when war is raging across the world, he dashes off, while still under sixteen years of age, by paths known only to himself, and “joins up” in Palestine.
Allor (ne pur tre lustri avea forniti)
Fuggì soletto, e corse strade ignote,
Varcò l’ Egeo, passò di Greca i liti,
Giunse nel campo in region remote
Nobilissima fuga, e che l’ imiti