Ben si posson doler vostre bellezze,
      Poiche tra valli e monti le mostrate,
      Che non e terra di si grandi altezze
      Che voi non foste degne ed onorate. 
      Ora mi dite, se vi contentate
      Di star nell’ alpe cosi poverelle?—­

    Piu si contenta ciascuna di noi
      Gire alla mandria, dietro alla pastura,
      Piu che non fate ciascuna di voi
      Gire a danzare dentro a vostre mura;
      Ricchezza non cerchiam, ne piu ventura,
      Se non be’ fiori, e facciam ghirlandelle[41].

Other writers besides Sacchetti produced songs of the sort, but in all alike the strictly pastoral element was accidental, and merged insensibly into the more delicately romantic of the novelle themes.  The following lines touch on a situation familiar in later pastoral and also found in English ballad poetry.  They are by Alesso Donati, a contemporary of Sacchetti’s.  A nun sings: 

    La dura corda e ’l vel bruno e la tonica
      Gittar voglio e lo scapolo
      Che mi tien qui rinchiusa e fammi monica;
      Poi teco a guisa d’assetato giovane,
      Non gia che si sobbarcoli,
      Venir me n’ voglio ove fortuna piovane: 

    E son contenta star per serva e cuoca,
      Che men mi cocero ch’ ora mi cuoca[42].

But if pastoralism made its appearance in the lyric, the lyric equally influenced pastoral, for it is in the songs of the fifteenth century that we first meet with that spirit of graceful melancholy sighing over the transitoriness of earthly things, the germ of the volutta idillica of the Aminta and the Pastor fido. This vein is strong in Lorenzo’s charming carnival songs, which at once recall Villon’s burden, ’Ou sont les neiges d’antan?’ and anticipate Tasso’s warning: 

    Cangia, cangia consiglio,
    Pazzerella che sei;
    Che il pentirsi dassezzo nulla giova.

The ‘triumph’ of Bacchus and Ariadne, introduced with amorous nymphs and satyrs, has the refrain: 

    Quant’ e bella giovinezza,
      Che si fugge tuttavia! 
      Chi vuol esser lieto, sia: 
      Di doman non c’ e certezza.

The flower of lyric melancholy is already full blown.  So, too, in another carnival song of his: 

    Or che val nostra bellezza? 
      Se si perde, poco vale. 
      Viva amore e gentilezza!

Gentilezza, morbidezza—­the yielding fancy in the disguise of pity, the nerveless languor that passes for beauty—­such is the dominant note of the song upon men’s lips in the troublous times of the renaissance[43].