"Leonora.—My Princess, I but smiled to see ourselves
Decked in these pastoral habiliments.
We look right happy shepherdesses both,
And what we do is still pure innocence.
We weave these wreaths. Mine, gay with many flowers,
Still swells and blushes underneath my hand;
Thou, moved with higher thought and greater heart,
Hast only wove the slender laurel bough.
"Princess.—The bough which I, while wreathing thoughts, have
wreathed,
Soon finds a worthy resting-place. I lay it
Upon my Virgil's forehead.
[Crowns the bust of Virgil.
"Leonora. And I mine,
My jocund garland, on the noble brow
Of Master Ludovico.
[Crowns the bust of Ariosto.
Well may he,
Whose sportive verse shall never fade, demand
His tribute of the spring!
"Princess. 'Twas amiable