As the humanists dealt most
freely of all with the text of the Roman elegiac poets, so they felt
themselves most at home in imitating them. The elegy of Navagero
addressed to the Night, like other poems of the same age and kind, is
full of points which remind us of his model; but it has the finest
antique ring about it. Indeed Navagero always begins by choosing a
truly poetical subject, which he then treats, not with servile
imitation, but with masterly freedom, in the style of the Anthology, of
Ovid, of Catullus, or of the Virgilian eclogues. He makes a sparing use
of mythology, only, for instance, to introduce a sketch of country
life, in a prayer to Ceres and other rural divinities. An address to
his country, on his return from an embassy to Spain, though left
unfinished, might have been worthy of a place beside the 'Bella Italia,
amate sponde' of Vincenzo Monti, if the rest had been equal to this
beginning:
'Salve cura Deum, mundi felicior ora, Formosae Veneris dulces salvete
recessus; Ut vos post tantos animi mentisque labores Aspicio lustroque
libens, ut munere vestro Sollicitas toto depello e pectore curas! '
The elegiac or hexametric form was that in which all higher sentiment
found expression, both the noblest patriotic enthusiasm and the most
elaborate eulogies on the ruling houses, as well as the tender
melancholy of a Tibullus.
Pages:
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311