begins the first of these elegiac sonnets; in which she goes on to disclaim any idea of increasing her husband's glory,—"non per giunger lume al mio bel sole;" which is the phrase she uses invariably to designate him. This fancy of alluding to Pescara always by the same not very happily chosen metaphor, contributes an additional element of monotony to verses still further deprived of variety by the identity of their highly artificial form.
This form, it is hardly necessary to remark, more than any other mode of the lyre, needs and exhibits the beauties of accurate finish and neat polish. Shut out, as it is, by its exceeding artificiality and difficult construction from many of the higher beauties of more spontaneous poetical utterance, the sonnet, "totus, teres atque rotundus," is nothing if not elaborated to gem-like perfection.
Yet Vittoria writes as follows:—
"Se in man prender non soglio unqua la lima
Del buon giudicio, e ricercando intorno
Con occhio disdegnoso, io non adorno
Nè tergo la mia rozza incolta rima,
Nasce perchè non è mia cura prima
Procacciar di ciò lode, o fuggir scorno;
Nè che dopo il mio lieto al ciel ritorno
Viva ella al mondo in più onorata stima.
Ma dal foco divin, che 'l mio intelletto
Sua mercè infiamma, convien che escan fuore
Mal mio grado talor queste faville.
E se alcuna di loro un gentil core
Avvien che scaldi, mille volte e mille
Ringraziar debbo il mio felice errore."
Which may be thus Englished with tolerable accuracy of meaning, if not with much poetical elegance.[184]
"If in these rude and artless songs of mine
I never take the file in hand, nor try
With curious care, and nice fastidious eye,
To deck and polish each uncultured line,