employed as motive
passions. Enchanted forests; fairy ships that skim the waves without
helm or pilot; lances endowed with supernatural virtues; charmed gardens
of perpetual spring; dismal dungeons and glittering palaces, supply the
furniture of this romance no less than of its predecessors. Rinaldo,
like any other hero of the Renaissance, is agitated by burning thirst
for fame and blind devotion to a woman's beauty. We first behold him
pining in inglorious leisure[64]:--

Poi, ch'oprar non poss'io che di me s'oda
Con mia gloria ed onor novella alcuna,
O cosa, ond' io pregio n'acquisti e loda,
E mia fama rischiari oscura e bruna.

The vision of Clarice, appearing like Virgil's Camilla, stirs him from
this lethargy. He falls in love at first sight, as Tasso's heroes always
do, and vows to prove himself her worthy knight by deeds of unexampled
daring. Thus the plot is put in motion; and we read in well-appointed
order how the hero acquired his horse, Baiardo, Tristram's magic lance,
his sword Fusberta from Atlante, his armor from Orlando, the trappings
of his charger from the House of Courtesy, the ensign of the lion
rampant on his shield from Chiarello, and the hand of his lady after
some delays from Malagigi.

[Footnote 64: Canto i. 17.]

No new principle is introduced into the romance. As in earlier poems of
this species, the religious motive of Christendom at war with Islam
becomes a mere machine; the chivalrous environment affords a vehicle for
fanciful adventures. Humor, indeed, is conspicuous by its absence.
Charles the Great assumes the sobriety of empire; and his camp, in its
well-ordered gravity, prefigures that of Goffredo in the
_Gerusalemme_.[65] Thus Tasso's originality must not be sought in the
material of his work, which is precisely that of the Italian romantic
school in general, nor yet in its form, which departs from the romantic
tradition in details so insignificant as to be inessential. We find it
rather in his touch upon the old material, in his handling of the
familiar form. The qualities of style, sympathy, sentiment, selection in
the use of phrase and image, which determined his individuality as a
poet, rendered the _Rinaldo_ a novelty in literature. It will be
therefore well to concentrate attention for a while upon those
subjective peculiarities by right of which the _Rinaldo_ ranks as a
precursor of the _Gerusalemme_.

The first and the most salient of these is a pr