United States or India ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


We have so surcharged her with the additional ornaments and graces we have added to the beauty and riches of her own works by our inventions, that we have almost smothered her; yet in other places, where she shines in her own purity and proper lustre, she marvellously baffles and disgraces all our vain and frivolous attempts: "Et veniunt hederae sponte sua melius; Surgit et in solis formosior arbutus antris; Et volucres nulls dulcius arte canunt."

A subject so calculated to fire the imagination has of course not been neglected by the poets. Claudian's verses are well known: Pyrenaeisque sub antris Ignea flumineae legere ceraunia nymphae.

Illic Leniades humili regnabat in aula, Leniades magnis nobilitatus avis: Una duas habuit casa cum genitore puellas, Quas Amor undarum fingeret esse deas: Non tamen inculti gelidis latuere sub antris, Accola Danubii qualia saevus habet; Mollia non deerant vacuae solatia vitae, Sive libros poscant otia, sive lyram.

Est levis hæc jactura tamen, ruat hoc quoque quicquid Est reliquum, juvet et nudis habitare sub antris, Vivere dura liceat tecum pulcherrima virgo. Ludovici Areosti Ferrariensis Epithalamion, in vol. i of Carmina Illustrium Poetarum Italorum, p. 342-346.