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Tasso's Silvia and Guarini's Silvio alike are silvan not in name only, but are truly figures of the woods, hunters of the wolf and boar; while the same distinction survives in a modified form in Daniel's Hymen's Triumph, in which the ruder characters, Montanus and the rest, are described as foresters.
These writings, however, are marked either by futile endeavours to reconcile the Pastor fido with the supposed teaching of Aristotle and Horace, or else by such extravagant laudation as that of Pescetti, who doubted not that had Aristotle known Guarini's play, it would have been to him the model of a new kind to rank with the epic of Homer and the tragedy of Sophocles . Finally, Summo returned to the charge with a rejoinder to Pescetti and Beni printed at Vicenza in 1601 . But all this writing and counter-writing in no way affected the popularity of the Pastor fido and its successors.
Far from feigning ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known it, that of Contarini's Fida ninfa . A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which Fletcher approached the composition of his play.
In all these journeys, his own personal tastes were quiet and simple, and he manifested more attachment for a pocket-copy of Guarini's "Pastor Fido" his only library than for any other object in his possession. On the whole, the Count de St. Germain was a man of magnificent attainments, but the use he made of his talents proved him to be also a most magnificent humbug.
This is due to the fact that the moral and artistic environment of the two pieces is much the same, and further, that it is this environment which to a great extent determined, not only the individual character of the poems, but likewise the nature of their subsequent influence. Recent research has had the effect of dispelling not a few of the traditional ideas respecting Guarini's play.
In this translation a dialogue between the characters 'Prologus' and 'Argumentum' takes the place of Guarini's long topical prologue, and a short conventional 'Epilogus' is added at the end. It was not till 1655 that the Filli di Sciro of Bonarelli, which has usually been thought to hold the third place among Italian pastorals, appeared in English dress.
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