This modesty, so little known in our time, did not disarm jealousy. Torquato beheld the feasts given by Venice to Henry III. returning from Poland, when a manuscript of the _Gerusalemme_ was printed by stealth: the minute criticism of the friends whose tastes he consulted alarmed him. Perhaps he showed himself too sensitive; but perhaps he had built the success of his love-affairs on his hopes of fame. He imagined himself set about by pitfalls and treasons; he was obliged to defend his life. His stay at Belriguardo, where Goethe evokes his shade, failed to calm him. Says the great German poet, who makes the great Italian poet speak: Thus like the nightingale, conceal'd in shade, From his love-laden breast he fills the air And neighbouring thickets with melodious plaint: His blissful sadness and his tuneful grief Charm every ear, enrapture every heart[176]. . . . . . . . . And what is more deserving to survive, And silently to work for centuries, Than the confession of a noble love Confided modestly to gentle song[177]? Says Goethe again, interpreting Leonora's sentiments: How charming is it in the mind's clear depths One's self to mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . To feel his presence, and with him to near, With airy tread, the future's hidden realm! Thus should old age and time their influence lose. . . . . . . . . All that is transient in his song survives; Still art thou young, still happy, when the round Of changeful time shall long have borne thee on[178]. The singer of Erminia conjures Leonora (still in the lines of the poet of Germania) to banish him to one of her loneliest villas: Oh, send me thither! There let me be yours! And I will tend thy trees, construct the shed That shields thy citrons from autumnal blasts, Fencing them round with interwoven reeds! Flowers of the fairest hues shall strike their roots, And ev'ry path be trimm'd with nicest care[179]. The story of Tasso's loves was lost: Goethe found it again. The sorrows of the Muses and the scruples of religion were beginning to impair Tasso's reason. He was subjected to a temporary confinement. He escaped almost naked: wandering in the mountains, he borrowed the rags of a shepherd and, thus disguised, arrived at his sister Cornelia's. The caresses of this sister and the charms of his native country allayed his sufferings for a moment: "I wanted," he said, " to retire to Sorrento, as to a peaceful harbour: _quasi in porto di quiete._"