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You might weave a whole vestment about your errand, fold upon fold of ingenious surmise, argument pro, argument con; Guarino Guarini would dart eyes upon you slash! he had rent your fabric and discovered you naked underneath, a liar ready for the whip. Nor, to do him justice, did he ever fail to apply it. Truth was, indeed, the only key to Guarino's chamber.
You are bound to do it, both for your own private renown; and for that of our people in general, who are concerned in this matter; inasmuch as foreigners who may see this precious masterpiece they who have possessed a Tasso or a Guarini might think that our greatest masters were no more than apprentices."
Attacking the pastoral tragi-comedy, the critic remarks: 'Until the other day similar compositions were represented under the name of eclogues at festivals and banquets, ... but now of a sudden they have been fashioned of the extension of comedies and tragedies in five acts . It will be noticed that in his reply Guarini makes no attempt to question the underlying identity of the pastoral tragi-comedy with the dramatic eclogue, but contents himself with very justly asserting the right of the latter to develop into a mature literary form.
His father forced him to an uncongenial marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She left him, and took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the presence of Tasso and Guarini. He bore her departure with philosophical composure, recording the event in his diary as something to be dryly grateful for.
And I believe she never saw her poor old Husband again. Such profit lies in your Bruhl. Kings and Queens that will be governed by a Jesuit Guarini, and a Bruhl of the Twelve Tailors, sometimes pay dear for it. They, or their representatives, are sure to do so. Kings and Queens, yes, and if that were all: but their poor Countries too?
Johnson observed, 'it had been borrowed from Guarini. There are, indeed, in Pastor Fido, many such flimsy superficial reasonings, as that in the last two lines of this stanza.
There follows an echo-scene, one of those toys which, as old as the Greek Anthology, and cultivated in Latin by Tebaldeo, and in Italian by Poliziano, owed, not indeed their introduction, but certainly their great popularity in pastoral, to Guarini. His example is fairly successful.
"You are so completely and at such length a fool, Mosca," said Count Guarini, with a yawn, "and strive so desperately to be rascal in spite of it, that I am almost sorry for you. Tie me these points, my good fellow, get me my sword, and go to the devil with your golden Venetian." That, believe me, had been all.
And this, the reaction against the world that is too much with us, is, after all, the keynote of what is most intimately associated with the name of pastoral in literature the note that is struck with idyllic sweetness in Theocritus, and, rising to its fullest pitch of lyrical intensity, lends a poignant charm to the work of Tasso and Guarini.
The remark, however, is interesting in respect of the philosophy of love as a civilizing power, which we have seen constantly recurring from the days of Boccaccio onward. Ben Jonson expressed himself sharply on this subject, with respect to Guarini and Sidney, in his conversations with Drummond.
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