l Genio in me prevalse,
E la toga deposta, altrui lascisi
Parolette smaltir mendaci e false.
Ne dubbi testi interpretar curai,
Ne discordi accordar chiose mi calse,
Quella stimando sol perfetta legge
Che de'sensi sfrenati il fren corregge.
Legge omai piu non v' ha la qual per dritto
Punisca il fallo o ricompensi il merto.
Sembra quando e fin qui deciso e scritto
D'opinion confuse abisso incerto.
Dalle calumnie il litigante afflitto
Somiglia in vasto mar legno inesperto,
Reggono il tutto con affetto ingordo,
Passion cieca ed interesse sordo.

[Footnote 186: Telesio, Bruno, Campanella, Salvator Rosa, Vico, were,
like Marino, natives of the Regno.]

Such, in the poet's maturity, was his judgment upon law; and probably he
expressed the same opinion with frankness in his youth. Seeing these
dispositions in his son, the severe parent cast him out of doors, and
young Marino was free to indulge vagabond instincts with lazzaroni and
loose companions on the quays and strands of Naples. In that luxurious
climate a healthy native, full of youth and vigor, needs but little to
support existence. Marino set his wits to work, and reaped too facile
laurels in the fields of Venus and the Muses. His verses speedily
attracted the notice of noble patrons, among whom the Duke of Bovino,
the Prince of Conca, and Tasso's friend the Marquis Manso have to be
commemorated. They took care that so genuine and genial a poet should
not starve. It was in one of Manso's palaces that Marino had an
opportunity of worshiping the singer of Armida and Erminia at a
distance. He had already acquired dubious celebrity as a juvenile Don
Juan and a writer of audaciously licentious lyrics, when disaster
overtook him. He assisted one of his profligate friends in the abduction
of a girl. For this breach of the law both were thrown together into
prison, and Marino only escaped justice by the sudden death of his
accomplice. His patrons now thought it desirable that he should leave
Naples for a time. Accordingly they sent him with letters of
recommendation to Rome, where he was well received by members of the
Crescenzio and Aldobrandino families. The Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandino
made him private secretary, and took him on a journey to Ravenna and
Turin. From the commencement to the end of his literary career Marino's
march through life was one triumphal progress. At Turin, as formerly in
Naples and Rome,