Quanto e misero l’ uom che cangia voglia
      Per donna, o mai per lei s’ allegra, o duole!... 
      Che sempre e piu leggier ch’ al vento foglia,
      E mille volte il di vuole e disvuole. 
      Segue chi fugge; a chi la vuol, s’ asconde,
      E vanne e vien come alla riva l’ onde.

The cry wrung from him by his grief anticipates the cynical philosophy of later pastorals.  Upon this the scene is invaded by ’The riot of the tipsy Bacchanals,’ eager to avenge the insult offered to their sex[160].  They drive the poet out, and presently returning in triumph with his ’gory visage,’ break out into the celebrated chorus ’full of the swift fierce spirit of the god.’  This gained considerably by revision, and in the later text runs as follows: 

    Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te;
      Bacco, Bacco, oe oe. 
    Di corimbi e di verd’ edere
      Cinto il capo abbiam cosi
      Per servirti a tuo richiedere
      Festeggiando notte e di. 
      Ognun beva:  Bacco e qui;
      E lasciate here a me. 
          Ciascun segua, ec.

Io ho vuoto gia il mio corno: 
Porgi quel cantaro in qua. 
Questo monte gira intorno,
O ’l cervello a cerchio va: 
Ognun corra in qua o in la,
Come vede fare a me. 
Ciascun segua, ec.

Io mi moro gia di sonno: 
Sono io ebra o si o no? 
Piu star dritti i pie non ponno. 
Voi siet’ ebri, ch’ io lo so;
Ognun faccia com’ io fo;
Ognun succe come me. 
Ciascun segua, ec.

Ognun gridi Bacco, Bacco,
E poi cacci del vin giu;
Poi col sonno farem fiacco,
Bevi tu e tu e tu. 
Io non posso ballar piu;
Ognun gridi Evoe.[161]
Ciascun segua, o Bacco, te;
Bacco, Bacco, oe oe.

Lyrical beauty rather than dramatic power was, it has already been remarked, Poliziano’s aim and achievement.  The want of characterization in the hero, the insignificance of the part allotted to Euridice, the total inadequacy of the tragic climax, measure the author’s power as a dramatist.  It is the lyrical passages—­Aristeo’s song, Orfeo’s impassioned pleading, the bacchanalian dance chorus—­that supply the firm supports of art upon which rests the slight fabric of the play.

The same simplicity of construction, a simplicity in nature rather narrative than dramatic, characterizes Niccolo da Correggio’s Cefalo.  The play was represented in state in the great courtyard of the ducal palace at Ferrara, on the occasion of the marriage of Lucrezia d’ Este with Annibale Bentivogli, on January 21, 1487[162].  Like the Orfeo, the piece exhibits traces of its origin in the religious shows, though, unlike the original draft of Poliziano’s play, it is divided into five acts each of some length, and is provided with regular choruses on the classical model.  In spite of its inferiority to the Orfeo in lyric power and its possibly even greater deficiency from a dramatic point of view, it will be worth while giving some account of the piece in order to get as clear an idea as possible of the nature and limitations of the mythological drama, and also because it has never, I believe, been reprinted in modern times, and is in consequence practically unknown to English readers.