She has, after all, every right to the position.  The next scene introduces Aminta and his friend Tirsi, to whom he reveals the object and the history of his love.  Translated into bald prose, his confession has no very great interest, but it opens with one of those exquisitely pencilled sketches that lie scattered throughout the play.

    All’ ombra d’ un bel faggio Silvia e Filli
    Sedean un giorno, ed io con loro insieme;
    Quando un’ ape ingegnosa, che cogliendo
    Sen giva il mel per que’ prati fioriti,
    Alle guance di Fillide volando,
    Alle guance vermiglie come rosa,
    Le morse e le rimorse avidamente;
    Ch’ alla similitudine ingannata
    Forse un fior le credette.

Silvia heals the hurt by whispering over it a charm; and the whole description is instinct with that delicate, soft sentiment of Tasso’s which almost, though never quite, sinks into sentimentality.  Aminta feigns to have been stung on the lip, and begs Silvia to heal the hurt.

    La semplicetta Silvia,
    Pietosa del mio male,
    S’ offri di dar aita
    Alla finta ferita, ahi lasso! e fece
    Piu cupa e piu mortale
    La mia piaga verace,
    Quando le labbra sue
    Giunse alle labbra mie.

It is easy to argue that this is childish, that it mattered no whit though they kissed from now to doomsday.  But only the reader who cannot feel its beauty is safe from the enervating narcotic of Tasso’s style.

The first scene of the second act introduces a new character, the satyr, type of brute nature in the artificially polished Arcadia of courtly shepherds.  He inherits no savoury character from his literary predecessors, and he is content to play to the role.  His monologue may be passed over; it and still more the next scene serve to measure the cynical indelicacy of feeling which was tolerated in the Italian courts.  It is a quality wholly different from the mere coarseness exhibited in the English drama under Elizabeth and James, but it is one which will astonish no one who has looked on the dramatic reflection of Italian society in the scenes of the Mandragola.  The satyr is succeeded on the stage by the confidants Dafne and Tirsi in consultation as to the means of bringing about an understanding between Aminta and Silvia.  The scene is characterized by those caustic reflections on women which serve to balance the extravagant iciness of the ‘careless’ nymphs and became a commonplace of the pastoral drama.

    Or, non sai tu com’ e fatta la donna? 
    Fugge, e fuggendo vuol ch’ altri la giunga;
    Niega, e negando vuol ch’ altri si toglia;
    Pugna, e pugnando vuol ch’ altri la vinca.