[Footnote 183:  Il Pastor Fido, per cura di G. Casella (Firenze, Barbera, 1866), p. liv.]

The Pastor Fido is a tragi-comedy, as its author points out with some elaboration in the critical essay he composed upon that species of the drama.  The scene is laid in Arcadia, where according to Guarini it was customary to sacrifice a maiden each year to Diana, in expiation of an ancient curse brought upon the country by a woman’s infidelity.  An oracle has declared that when two scions of divine lineage are united in marriage, and a faithful shepherd atones for woman’s faithlessness, this inhuman rite shall cease.  The only youth and girl who fulfill these conditions of divine descent are the daughter of Titiro named Amarilli, and Silvio, the son of the high priest Montano.  They have accordingly been betrothed.  But Silvio is indifferent to womankind in general, and Amarilli loves a handsome stranger, Mirtillo, supposed to be the son of Carino.  The plot turns upon the unexpected fulfillment of the prophecy, in spite of the human means which have been blindly taken to secure its accomplishment.  Amarilli is condemned to death for suspected misconduct with a lover; and Mirtillo, who has substituted himself as victim in her place, is found to be the lost son of Montano.  This solution of the intrigue, effected by an anagnorisis like that of the Oedipus Tyrannus, supplies a series of dramatic scenes and thrilling situations in the last act.  Meanwhile the passion of Dorinda for Silvio, and the accident whereby he is brought to return her affection at the moment when his dart has wounded her, form a picturesque underplot of considerable interest.  Both plot and underplot are so connected in the main action and so interwoven by links of mutual dependency that they form one richly varied fabric.  Regarded as a piece of cunning mechanism, the complicated structure of the Pastor Fido leaves nothing to be desired.  In its kind, this pastoral drama is a monumental work of art, glittering and faultless like a polished bas-relief of hard Corinthian bronze.  Each motive has been carefully prepared, each situation amply and logically developed.  The characters are firmly traced, and sustained with consistency.  The cold and eager hunter Silvio contrasts with tender and romantic Mirtillo.  Corisca’s meretricious arts and systematized profligacy enhance the pure affection of Amarilli.  Dorinda presents another type of love, so impulsive that it conquers maidenly modesty.  The Satyr is a creature of rude lust, foiled in its brutal appetite by the courtesan Corisca’s wiliness.  Carino brings the corruption of towns into comparison with the innocence of the country.

In Carino the poet painted his own experience; and here his satire upon the Court of Ferrara is none the less biting because it takes the form of well-weighed and gravely-measured censure, instead of vehement invective.  The following lines may serve as a specimen of Guarini’s style in this species:—­