_Cornelia_.--I have a basket of grapes for you in the bookroom that overlooks our garden.
_Tasso_.--Does the old twisted sage-tree grow still against the window?
_Cornelia_.--It harboured too many insects at last, and there was always a nest of scorpions in the crevice.
_Tasso_.--O! what a prince of a sage-tree! And the well too, with its bucket of shining metal, large enough for the largest cocomero[9] to cool in it for dinner!
_Cornelia_.--The well, I assure you, is as cool as ever.
_Tasso_.--Delicious! delicious! And the stone-work round it, bearing no other marks of waste than my pruning-hook and dagger left behind?
_Tasso_.--White in that place no longer? There has been time enough for it to become all of one colour; grey, mossy, half-decayed.
_Cornelia_.--No, no; not even the rope has wanted repair.
_Cornelia_.--Enchanter! No sooner did you say the word _cocomero_, than here comes a boy carrying one upon his head.
_Tasso_.--Listen! listen! I have read in some book or other those verses long ago. They are not unlike my _Aminta_. The very words!
_Cornelia_.--Purifier of love, and humanizer of ferocity! how many, my Torquato, will your gentle thoughts make happy!
_Tasso_.--At this moment I almost think I am one among them.[10]
[10] The miseries of Tasso arose not only from the imagination and the heart. In the metropolis of the Christian world, with many admirers and many patrons, cardinals and princes of all sizes, he was left destitute, and almost famished. These are his own words.--"_Appena_ in questo stato ho comprato _due meloni_: e benche io sia stato _quasi sempre infermo_, molte volte mi sono contentato del' manzo e la ministra di latte o di zucca, _quando ho potuto averne_, mi e stata in vece di delizie." In another part he says that he was unable to pay the carriage of a parcel, (1590:) no wonder; if he had not wherewithal to buy enough of zucca for a meal. Even had he been in health and appetite, he might have satisfied his hunger with it for about five farthings, and have left half for supper. And now a word on his insanity. Having been so imprudent not only as to make it too evident in his poetry that he was the lover of Leonora, but also to signify (not very obscurely) that his love was returned, he much perplexed the Duke of Ferrara, who, with great discretion, suggested to him the necessity of feigning madness. The lady's honour required it from a brother; and a true lover, to convince the world, would embrace the project with alacrity. But there was no reason why the seclusion should be in a dungeon, or why exercise and air should be interdicted. This cruelty, and perhaps his uncertainty of Leonora's compassion, may well be imagined to have produced at last the malady he had feigned. But did Leonora love Tasso as a man would be loved? If we wish to do her honour, let us hope it: for what greater glory can there be than to have estimated at the full value so exalted a genius, so affectionate and so generous a heart!