How charming is it in the mind's clear depths
One's self to mirror . . . .
. . . . . . . .
To feel his presence, and with him to near,
With airy tread, the future's hidden realm!
Thus should old age and time their influence lose.
. . . . . . . .
All that is transient in his song survives;
Still art thou young, still happy, when the round
Of changeful time shall long have borne thee on[178].
The singer of Erminia conjures Leonora (still in the lines of the poet of Germania) to banish him to one of her loneliest villas:
Oh, send me thither! There let me be yours!
And I will tend thy trees, construct the shed
That shields thy citrons from autumnal blasts,
Fencing them round with interwoven reeds!
Flowers of the fairest hues shall strike their roots,
And ev'ry path be trimm'd with nicest care[179].
The story of Tasso's loves was lost: Goethe found it again.
The sorrows of the Muses and the scruples of religion were beginning to impair Tasso's reason. He was subjected to a temporary confinement. He escaped almost naked: wandering in the mountains, he borrowed the rags of a shepherd and, thus disguised, arrived at his sister Cornelia's. The caresses of this sister and the charms of his native country allayed his sufferings for a moment:
"I wanted," he said, " to retire to Sorrento, as to a peaceful harbour: quasi in porto di quiete."
But he could not remain where he was born. A spell drew him to Ferrara: love is the real mother-land! Coldly received by Duke Alphonsus, he withdrew once more; he wandered through the little Courts of Mantua, Urbino, Turin, singing to pay for the hospitality shown him. He said to the Metauro, Raphael's native stream:
"Weak, but glorious child of the Apennines, I, a vagrant traveller, come to seek safety and repose upon thy banks."
Armida had passed to Raphael's cradle; she was to preside over the enchantments of the Farnesina.
Surprised by a storm in the neighbourhood of Vercelli, Tasso celebrated the night which he had passed in a noble-man's house in the beautiful dialogue known as the Padre di famiglia. At Turin, he was refused admission at the gates, so wretched was his condition. Hearing that Alphonsus[180] was about to contract a new marriage, he again took the road for Ferrara. A divine spirit attached itself to the steps of this god hidden under the garb of the shepherds of Admetus; he thought that he saw and heard that spirit; one day, seated by the fire and seeing the sun-light on the window: