Indeed in comparing classical passages with his imitations, as we have just done, we shall almost as often find him injuring as improving his original. Thus in his beautiful comparison of the virgin to the rose, imitated from Catullus, whose lines are given in my notes to the first canto, we may observe an instance of unsuccessful as well as of successful alteration Ariosto’s
unapproached by shepherd or by flock,
is much more delicate than Catullus’s
Intonsus pecori, nullo contusus aratro.
But he has amplified his illustration injudiciously, and, after saying of the flower that
With this the wishful youth his bosom dresses,
With this the enamoured damsel braids her tresses,
he in the next stanza tells you it loses whatever favour it had found with heaven or man as soon as plucked.
And looked (the moon was shining) if she might
Discover any thing beside the shore;
Nor, save the shore, was any thing in sight.
She calls Bireno, and the caverns round,
Pitying her grief, Bireno’s name rebound.
Stanza xxii. lines 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
“Luna fuit: specto si quid nisi littora cernam;
“Quod videant oculi, nil nisi littus erat.
“Et quoties ego te, toties locus ipse vocabat;
“Ipse locus miseræ ferre volebat opus.”
Ariadne.
