On his return to Italy, he remained a few weeks at Turin; and the king showed a disposition to employ him under government. His minister sounded the count: but he refused to entertain any proposition on the subject; for, although he acknowledges that the sovereigns of the house of Savoy were not tyrannically inclined, but showed every inclination to benefit their subjects, his uncompromising, and even fierce, spirit of independence spurned every shackle, and he felt to breathe more freely when he had quitted the territories of Piedmont. The countess of Albany was now on her way to Baden for the summer. She passed northwards along the shores of the Adriatic, while Alfieri proceeded south, by Modena and Pistoia, to Siena. He had resisted the temptation of crossing the narrow portion of Italy between them, and obtaining a brief interview; but when she had arrived at Baden, and he at Siena, this fortitude gave way, and he suddenly left his horses, and his friend Gori, and posted with all haste to Alsatia, there for three months to enjoy her society.
During the two years of absence which he had endured. Alfieri had forgotten poetry, study, glory, and his tragedies. But the countess's presence awoke every dormant energy, and scarcely had he arrived, before he conceived and wrote "Agis," "Sofonisba" and "Mirra." The last deserves to be particularly mentioned as one of the best of his dramas, particularly as he overcomes difficulties of the most appalling description. "I had never thought," he says, "either of Myrrha or Biblis as subjects for the drama. But, in reading Ovid's "Metamorphoses," I hit upon the affecting and divinely eloquent speech of Myrrha to her nurse, which caused me to burst into tears, and, like a flash of lightning, awoke in me the idea of a tragedy. It appeared to me that a most original and pathetic piece might be written, if the author could contrive that the spectator should discover by degrees the horrible struggles of the burning but pure heart of the more miserable than guilty Myrrha, without her betraying the half, nor scarcely owning to herself so criminal a passion. My idea was, that she should do in my tragedy what Ovid describes her as relating, but do it in silence."