rmined to have done with the nuisance. He would not kill him, but he
would put him out of sight and hearing. If he was guilty, S. Anna would
be punishment enough. If he was mad, it might be hoped that S. Anna
would cure him. To blame the duke for this exercise of authority, is
difficult. Noble as is the poet's calling, and faithful as are the
wounds of a devoted friend and servant, there are limits to princely
patience. It is easier to blame Tasso for the incurable idealism which,
when he was in comfort at Turin, made him pine 'to kiss the hand of his
Highness, and recover some part of his favor on the occasion of his
marriage.'[48]

Three long letters, written by Tasso during the early months of his
imprisonment, discuss the reasons for his arrest.[49] Two of these are
directed to his staunch friend Scipione Gonzaga, the third to Giacomo
Buoncompagno, nephew of Pope Gregory XIII. Partly owing to omissions
made by the editors before publication, and partly perhaps to the
writer's reticence, they throw no very certain light even on his own
opinion.[50] But this much appears tolerably clear. Tasso was half-mad
and altogether irritable. He had used language which could not be
overlooked. The Duke continued to resent his former practice with the
Medici, and disapproved of his perpetual wanderings. The courtiers had
done their utmost to prejudice his mind by calumnies and gossip, raking
up all that seemed injurious to Tasso's reputation in the past acts of
his life and in the looser verses found among his papers. It may also be
conceded that they contrived to cast an unfavorable light upon his
affectionate correspondence with the two princesses. Tasso himself laid
great stress upon his want of absolute loyalty, upon some lascivious
compositions, and lastly upon his supposed heresies. It is not probable
that the duke attached importance to such poetry as Tasso may have
written in the heat of youth; and it is certain that he regarded the
heresies as part of the poet's hallucinations. It is also far more
likely that the Leonora episode passed in his mind for another proof of
mental infirmity than that he judged it seriously. It was quite enough
that Tasso had put himself in the wrong by petulant abuse of his
benefactor and by persistent fretfulness. Moreover, he was plainly
brain-sick. That alone justified Alfonso in his own eyes.

[Footnote 48: _Lettere_, vol. ii. 34.]

[Footnote 49: _Ibid._ pp. 7-62, 80-93.]

[Footnote