O Musa, tu, che di caduchi allori
Non circondi la fronte in Elicona
Ma su nel Ciel infra i beati cori,
Hai di stelle immortali aurea corona,
Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori,
Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona,
S'intesso fregi al ver, s'adorno in parte
D'altri diletti, che de' tuoi, le carte.
The captivating enthusiasm of Homer, the majestic simplicity of Vergil are not there; there is a sweetness of expression, a purity of imagery which please. This might be greater, but then the melancholy of the romance would exclude it and the reader would demand the full force of epopœia.
Besides, the Italians have tried, over and over again, to vary the form of their verses; some have wished to measure them by musical rhythm; others have contented themselves with making blank verse. They have neither succeeded completely nor failed completely. Their language sweet and musical lacks force whether in good or in evil. Its words might indeed, strictly speaking, be composed of long and short syllables; but as they terminate, nearly all, in the soft and languid style that we call feminine, it results, therefore, that in the measured verses the poets lack the long syllables to constitute the last foot and to form the spondee; and that in the blank verse they are obliged to terminate them all in the same style; so that with the measure they create only lame verses, and without the rhyme they make them all equally languid.[1]*
- ↑ Nearly all of the Italian words terminate with one of four vowels, a, e, i, o,
without accent: it is very rare that the vowels are accentuated, as the vowel
ù. When this occurs as in cità, perchè, dì, farò, etc., then, only, is the final
masculine. Now here is what one of their best rhythmic poets, named Tolomèo,
gives as an hexameter verse:
Questa, per affeto, tenerissima lettera mando
A te . . .To make this line exact, one feels that the word mando, which terminates it, should be composed of two longs, that is to say, that it should be written
