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A violent squabble ensued, in which the large china dish which Leffie held in her hand was broken, two pickle jars thrown down, chairs upset, the baby scalded, and the dog Tasso’s tail nearly crushed!
Students of Tasso’s immortal epic are apt to overlook the immense influence exercised on its author by his early Sorrentine days and surroundings.
And it was his infancy spent upon this smiling but pirate-harassed coast that was chiefly responsible for this desired end in the epic of the Crusades; it was Tasso’s early acquaintance with the Bay of Naples, combined with his special training by the Jesuits, that forced the poet’s genius and ambition into this particular channel.
Astonished and delighted, all Italy was swept by the golden torrent of Tasso’s impassioned verses, that were intended to urge the Catholic princes of Europe to the inauguration of a new Crusade. Nor were the times unpropitious for such an event.
Tasso’s second visit took place not long before his death, when his strength was rapidly failing, so that it seems strange that he did not decide to end his days amidst these lovely and well-remembered scenes of his early boyhood, instead of deliberately choosing for the last stage of his earthly journey the Roman convent of Sant’ Onofrio, where the death-chamber and various pathetic relics of the poet are still pointed out.
Of Tasso’s many adventures, of his universal literary fame, of the honours heaped upon him by his chief patron, Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, and of his subsequent disgrace and imprisonment for daring to lift his eyes in love to a princess of the haughty House of Este, we have no space to speak here.
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