l mel, ch'allora io colsi
Da quelle fresche rose.

Now listen to Guarini's Mirtillo:

Amor si stava, Ergasto,
Com'ape suol, nelle due fresche rose
Di quelle labbra ascoso;
E mentre ella si stette
Con la baciata bocca
Al baciar della mia
Immobile e ristretta,
La dolcezza del mel sola gustai;
Ma poiche mi s'offerse anch'ella, e porse
L'una e l'altra dolcissima sua rosa....

This is enough to illustrate Guarini's laborious method of adding touch
to touch without augmenting th force of the picture.[184] We find
already here the transition from Tasso's measured art to the fantastic
prolixity of Marino. And though Guarini was upon the whole chaste in use
of language, his rhetorical love of amplification and fanciful
refinement not unfrequently betrayed him into Marinistic conceits.
Dorinda, for instance, thus addresses Silvio (act iv. sc. 9):

O bellissimo scoglio
Gia dall'onda e dal vento
Delle lagrime mie, de'miei sospiri
Si spesso invan percosso!

Sighs are said to be (act i. sc. 2):

impetuosi venti
Che spiran nell'incendio, e 'l fan maggiore
Con turbini d'Amore,
Ch' apportan sempre ai miserelli amanti
Foschi nembi di duol, piogge di pianti.

From this to the style of the _Adone_ there was only one step to be
taken.

[Footnote 184: I might have further illustrated this point by quoting
the thirty-five lines in which Titiro compares a maiden to the rose
which fades upon the spray after the fervors of the noon have robbed its
freshness (act i. sc. 4). To contest the beauty of the comparison would
be impossible. Yet when we turn to the two passages in Ariosto (_Orl.
Fur._ i. 42, 43, and xxiv. 80) on which it has been modeled, we shall
perceive how much Guarini lost in force by not writing with his eye upon
the object or with the authenticity of inward vision, but with a
self-conscious effort to improve by artifices and refinements upon
something he has read. See my essay on 'The Pathos of the Rose in Time,'
April, 1886.]

Though the scene of the _Pastor Fido_ was laid in Arcadia, the play
really represented polite Italian society. In the softness of its
sentiment, its voluptuous verbal melody, and its reiterated descant upon
effeminate love-pleasure, it corresponded exactly to the spirit of its
age.[185] This was the secret of its success; and this explains its
seduction. Not Corisca's wanton blandishments and prof