NOTES TO THE FIRST BOOK OF THE COURTIER Consent, O Sea of beauty and virtue, That I, thy slave, may of great doubt be freed, Whether the S thou wearest on thy candid brow Signifies my Suffering or my Salvation, Whether it means Succour or Servitude, Suspicion or Security, Secret or Silliness, ^Vhether 'Spectation or Shriek, whether Safe or Sepultured ! Whether my bonds be Strait or Severed : For much I fear lest it give Sign Of Stateliness, Sighing, Severity, Scorn, Slash, Sweat, Stress and Spite. But if for naked truth a place there be, This S shows with no little art A Sun single in beauty and in cruelty. Note 63, page 18. The pains of love were a frequent theme with Bembo, and are elaborately set forth in his Gli Asolani. Quite untranslatable into English, his play upon the words amove (love) and amaro (bitter) is at least as old as Plautus's Trinummus. Note 64, page 22. IPPOLITO d'Este, (born 1479; died 1520), was the third son of Duke Ercole I of Ferrara (see note 203) and Eleanora of Aragon (see note 399). At the instance of his maternal aunt Beatrice's husband, King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (see note 395), he was given the rich archbish- opric of Strigonio, to which was attached the primacy of that country, and made the journey thither as a mere boy. In 1493 Alexander VI made him a cardinal. Soon after the death of his sister Beatrice, her husband Duke Ludovico Sforza of Milan gave him the vacant archbishopric of that city, and the same year (1497) he exchanged the Hungarian primacy, with its burden- some requirement of foreign residence, for the bishopric of Agria in Crete. In 1502 he 'was made Archbishop of Capua in the kingdom of Naples, but bestowed the revenues of the see upon his widowed and impoverished aunt, the ex-Queen of Hungary, and a little later was made Bishop of Ferrara, — all before reaching the age of twenty-four years. He was also Bishop of Modena and Abbot of Pomposa. During his brother's reign at Ferrara, the young cardinal took an active part in public affairs, several times governing in the duke's absence, and showing brilliant capacities for military command. After the accession of Leo X, he resided chiefly at Rome, where he w^as always a conspicuous figure and carefully guarded his brother's interests. He was a friend and protector of Leonardo da Vinci, and maintained Ariosto in his ser- vice from 1503 to 1517. A prelate only in name, regarding his many ecclesi- astical offices merely as a source of wealth, he united the faults and vices to the grace and culture of his time. Note 65, page 26. Berto was probably one of the many buffoons about the papal court in the time of Julius II and Leo X. He is again mentioned in the text (page 128) for his powers of mimicry, etc. Note 66, page 26. This "brave lady" is by some identified as the famous 336
