II
MESSER ALESSANDRO THINKS TO CUT HIS NAILS
Not to weary you, it is clear that Ippolita was the fashion. The poets, the courtiers, the painters, of whom in that age of peace Padua was full, were wild about this glowing girl, this sumptuous nymph of the Via Agnus Dei; they were melodiously, caperingly, symphonically wild, according to their bents. She saw herself on plates of faience, where the involutions of a ribbon revealed "Ippolita Bella" to the patient eye; she found herself (or they found her) an inordinate tri-syllable for a canzone, saw her colours of necessity reproduced on her lover's legs and shoulders as colours of election. One by one she could appraise her own possessions, and those they fabled of her. Her hair was Demeter's crown of ripe corn—she knew nothing of the lady, but hoped for the best. Her eyes were dark blue lakes in a field of snow—this she thought very fine. Her lips were the amorous petals of a rose that needs must kiss each other; kissing, they made a folded flower—ah!
"La virtù della bocca,
Che sana ciò che tocca,"
sighed the poets. But, bless her good innocence! that sweet mouth had touched nothing more
