The desertion of Olimpia by Bireno, related in the tenth canto of the _Orlando Furioso_, has, in its incidents at least, a strong resemblance to the poem of Catullus. Bireno, Duke of Zealand, while on a voyage from Holland to his own country, touches on Frisia; and, being smit with love for Olimpia, daughter of the king, carries her off with him; but, in the farther progress of the voyage, he lands on a desert island, and, while Olimpia is asleep, he leaves her, and sets sail in the darkness of night. Olimpia awakes, and, finding herself alone, hurries to the beach, and then ascends a rock, whence she descries, by light of the moon, the departing sail of her lover. Here, and afterwards while in her tent, she pours forth her plaints against the treachery of Bireno. In the details of this story, Ariosto has chiefly copied from Ovid; but he has also availed himself of several passages in Catullus. As Ariosto, in his story of Olimpia, principally chose Ovid for his model, so Tasso, in that of Armida, seems chiefly to have kept his eye on Virgil and Catullus. But Armida is not like Ariadne, an injured and innocent maid, nor a stately queen, like Dido; but a voluptuous and artful magician, —— “Che nella doglia amara Gia tutte non obblia l’arte e le frodi.” It has been mentioned, that the desertion of Ariadne was represented on one compartment of the coverlet of the nuptial couch of Peleus—on another division of it the story of Bacchus and Ariadne was exhibited. The introduction of Bacchus and his train closes the episode with an animated picture, and forms a pleasing contrast to the melancholy scenes that precede it. At the same time, the poet, delicately breaking off without even hinting at the fair one’s ready acceptance of her new lover, leaves the pity we feel for her abandonment unweakened on the mind. 65. _Ad Ortalum_. This is the first of the elegies of Catullus, and indeed the earliest of any length or celebrity which had hitherto appeared in the Latin language. Elegies were originally written by the Greeks in alternate hexameter and pentameter lines, “versibus impariter junctis.” This measure, which was at first appropriated to deplore misfortunes, particularly the loss of friends, was soon employed to complain of unsuccessful love, and, by a very easy transition, to describe the delights of gratified passion: —— “Querimonia primùm, Post etiam inclusa est voti sententia compos.”