erves: 'Una Venere sospetta versa lagrime forse maschili sul
bellissimo Adonide,' etc. Shakespeare's _Venus and Adonis_, in like
manner, is so written as to force the reader to feel with Venus the
seduction of Adonis.]

Thus voluptuousness has its transcendentalism; and Marino finds even his
prolific vocabulary inadequate to express the mysteries of this heaven
of sensuous delights.[189]

It must not be thought that the _Adone_ is an obscene poem. Marino was
too skillful a master in the craft of pleasure to revolt or to regale
his readers with grossness. He had too much of the Neapolitan's frank
self-abandonment to nature for broad indecency in art to afford him
special satisfaction; and the taste of his age demanded innuendo. The
laureate of Courts and cities saturated with licentiousness knew well
that Coan vestments are more provocative than nudity. It was his object
to flatter the senses and seduce the understanding rather than to
stimulate coarse appetite. Refinement was the aphrodisiac of a
sated society, and millinery formed a main ingredient in its
love-philters.[190] Marino, therefore, took the carnal instincts for
granted, and played upon them as a lutist plays the strings of some lax
thrilling instrument. Of moral judgment, of antipathy to this or that
form of lust, of prejudice or preference in the material of pleasure,
there is no trace. He shows himself equally indulgent to the passion of
Mirra for her father, of Jove for Ganymede, of Bacchus for Pampinus, of
Venus for Adonis, of Apollo for Hyacinth. He tells the disgusting story
of Cinisca with the same fluent ease as the lovely tale of Psyche;
passes with the same light touch over Falserina at the bedside of Adonis
and Feronia in his dungeon; uses the same palette for the picture of
Venus caressing Mars and the struggles of the nymph and satyr. All he
demanded was a basis of soft sensuality, from which, as from putrescent
soil, might spring the pale and scented flower of artful luxury.

[Footnote 189: With the stanza quoted above Marino closes the cycle
which Boccaccio in the _Amoroso Visione_ (canto xlix.) had opened.]

[Footnote 190: On this point I may call attention to the elaborate
portraits drawn by Marino (canto xvi.) of the seven young men who
contend with Adonis for the prize of beauty and the crown of Cyprus.
Quite as many words are bestowed upon their costumes, jewelry and
hair-dressing as upon their personal charms.]

In harmony with the