Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations. This remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were not dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures. Of Poliziano's plagiarism--if this be the right word to apply to the process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of the ancient languages and their own literature--here are some specimens. In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:-- E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. Dante has the line:-- Vostri risplende un non so che divino. In the 44th he speaks about the birds:-- E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. This comes from Cavalcanti's:-- E cantinne gli augelli. Ciascuno in suo latino. Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:-- E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala. It comes straight from Virgil:-- Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. In the next stanza the line-- Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno, is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar celeste.' In stanza 57-- Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:-- La notte che le cose ci nasconde, together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the 23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' is Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's 'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid. Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically be said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy of 'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved for a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch as the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already familiar to the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found combined in its six short scenes. * * * * * _ORFEO_