Sulpicius to Cicero, on the death of his daughter Tullia;—­“Heu nos homunculi indignamur, si quis nostrum interiit, aut occisus est, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidorum cadavera projecta jaceant.” (Alas! we poor human creatures are indignant if any one of us dies or is slain, frail as are the materials of which we are constituted; and yet we can see, lying together in one place, the dead bodies of I know not how many cities!) The music of Tasso’s line was indebted to one in Petrarch’s Trionfo del Tempo, v. 112

  ” Passan le signorie, passano i regni;”

and the fine concluding verse, “Oh nostra mente,” to another perhaps in his Trionfo della Divinita, v. 61, not without a recollection of Lucretius, lib. ii. v. 14: 

  “O miseras hominum menteis! o pectora caeca!”]

[Footnote 7:  A fountain which caused laughter that killed people is in Pomponius Mela’s account of the Fortunate Islands; and was the origin of that of Boiardo; as I ought to have noticed in the place.]

[Footnote 8:  All this description of the females bathing is in the highest taste of the voluptuous; particularly the latter part: 

  “Qual mattutina stella esce de l’onde
    Rugiadosa e stillante:  o come fuore
  Spunto nascendo gia da le feconde
    Spume de l’ocean la Dea d’Amore: 
  Tale apparve costei:  tal le sue bionde
    Chiome stillavan cristallino umore. 
  Poi giro gli occhi, e pur allor s’infinse
  Que’ duo vedere, e in se tutta si strinse: 

  E ’l crin the ’n cima al capo avea raccolto
    In un sol nodo, immantinente sciolse;
  Che lunghissimo in giu cadendo, e folto,
    D’un aureo manto i molli avori involse. 
  Oh che vago spettacolo e lor tolto! 
    Ma mon men vago fu chi loro il tolse. 
  Cosi da l’acque e da capelli ascosa,
  A lor si volse, lieta e vergognosa.

Rideva insieme, e insieme ella arrossia;
Ed era nel rossor piu bello il riso,
E nel riso il rossor, the le copria
Insino al mento il delicato viso.” 
Canto xv. st. 60.

Spenser, among the other obligations which it delighted him to owe to this part of Tasso’s poem, has translated these last twelve lines: 

“With that the other likewise up arose,
And her fair locks, which formerly were bound
Up in one knot, she low adown did loose,
Which, flowing long and thick, her cloth’d around,
And th’ ivory in golden mantle gown’d: 
So that fair spectacle from him was reft;
Yet that which reft it, no less fair was found. 
So hid in locks and waves from looker’s theft,
Nought but her lovely face she for his looking left.

     Withal she laughed, and she blush’d withal;
     That blushing to her laughter gave more grace,
     And laughter to her blushing.” 
                              Fairy Queen, book ii. canto 12, St. 67.

Tasso’s translator, Fairfax, worthy both of his original and of Spenser, has had the latter before him in his version of the passage, not without a charming addition of his own at the close of the first stanza: