In fancy Tasso was not so naturally rich and inventive as the author of Orlando Furioso.  Yet a gallery of highly-finished pictures might be collected from his similes and metaphors.  What pride and swiftness mark this vision of a thunderbolt: 

    Grande ma breve fulmine il diresti,
    Che inaspettato sopraggiunga e passi;
    Ma del suo corso momentaneo resti
    Vestigio eterno in dirupati sassi (xx. 93).

How delicately touched is this uprising of the morning star from ocean: 

    Qual mattutina Stella esce dell’onde
    Rugiadosa e stillante; o come fuore
    Spunto nascendo gia dalle feconde
    Spume dell’ocean la Dea d’amore (xv. 60).

Here is an image executed in the style of Ariosto.  Clorinda has received a wound on her uncovered head: 

    Fu levissima piaga, e i biondi crini
    Rosseggiaron cosi d’alquante stille,
    Come rosseggia l’or che di rubini
    Per man d’illustre artefice sfaville (iii. 30).

Flowers furnish the poet with exquisite suggestions of color: 

    D’un bel pallor ha il bianco volto asperso,
    Come a gigli sarian miste viole (xii. 69).

    Quale a pioggia d’argento e mattutina
    Si rabbellisce scolorita rosa (xx. 129).

Sometimes the painting is minutely finished like a miniature: 

      Cosi piuma talor, che di gentile
    Amorosa colomba il collo cinge,
    Mai non si scorge a se stessa simile,
    Ma in diversi colori al sol si tinge: 
    Or d’accesi rubin sembra un monile,
    Or di verdi smeraldi il lume finge,
    Or insieme li mesce, e varia e vaga
    In cento modi i riguardanti appaga (xv. 5).

Sometimes the style is broad, the touch vigorous: 

      Qual feroce destrier, ch’al faticoso
    Onor dell’arme vincitor sia tolto,
    E lascivo marito in vil riposo
    Fra gli armenti e ne’paschi erri disciolto,

    Se il desta o suon di tromba, o luminoso
    Acciar, cola tosto annitrendo e volto;
    Gia gia brama l’arringo, el’uom sul dorso
    Portando, urtato riurtar nel corso (xvi. 28).

I will content myself with referring to the admirably conceived simile of a bulky galleon at sea attacked by a swifter and more agile vessel (xix. 13), which may perhaps have suggested to Fuller his famous comparison of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson in their wit encounters.

But Tasso was really himself, incomparable and unapproachable, when he wrote in what musicians would call the largo e maestoso mood.

    Giace l’alta Cartago; appena i segni
    Dell’alte sue ruine il lido serba. 
    Muoino le citta, muoino i regni;
    Copre i fasti e le pompe arena ed erba;
    E l’uomo d’esser mortal par che si sdegni! 
    Oh nostra mente cupida e superba! (xv. 20).

This is perfect in its measured melancholy, the liquid flow of its majestic simplicity.  The same musical breadth, the same noble sweetness, pervade a passage on the eternal beauty of the heavens compared with the brief brightness of a woman’s eyes: