Alphonso enters, and enquires after Tasso. Leonora answers, that she had seen him at a distance, with his book and tablets, writing and walking, and adds that, from some hint he had let fall, she gathered that his great work was near its completion; and, in fact, the princess soon after descries him coming towards them:—
"Slowly he comes,
Stands still awhile as unresolved, then hastes,
With quicken'd step, towards us; then again
Slackens his pace, and pauses."
Tasso enters, and presents his Jerusalem Delivered to his patron, the Duke of Ferrara. Alphonso, seeing the laurel wreath on the bust of Virgil, makes a sign to his sister; and the princess, after some remonstrance on the part of Tasso, transfers it from the statue to the head of the living poet. As she crowns him, she says—
"Thou givest me, Tasso, here the rare delight,
With silent act, to tell thee what I think."
But the poet is no sooner crowned than he entreats that the wreath should be removed. It weighs on him, it is a burden, a pressure, it sinks and abashes him. Besides, he feels, as the man of genius must always feel, that not to wear the crown but to earn it, is the real joy as well as task of his life. The laurel is indeed for the bust, not for the living head.
"Take it away!
Oh take, ye gods, this glory from my brow!
Hide it again in clouds! Bear it aloft
To heights all unattainable, that still
My whole of life for this great recompense,
Be one eternal course."
He obeys, however, the will of the princess, who bids him retain it. We are now introduced to the antagonist, in every sense of the word, of Tasso,—Antonio, secretary of state. In addition to the causes of repugnance springing from their opposite characters, Antonio is jealous of the favour which the young poet has won at the court of Ferrara, both with his patron and the ladies. This representative of the practical understanding speaks with admiration of the court of Rome, and the ability of the ruling pontiff. He says—
"No nobler object is there in the world
Than this—a prince who ably rules his people,
A people where the proudest heart obeys,
Where each man thinks he serves himself alone,
Because what fits him is alone commanded.