"E tu, Vergine, figlia, e madre, e sposa, Di quel Signor, che ti dette le chiave Del cielo e dell' abisso, e d' ogni cosa, Quel di che Gabriel tuo ti disse Ave! Perchè tu se' de' tuo' servi pietosa, Con dolce rime, e stil grato e soave, Ajuta i versi miei benignamente, E'nsino al fine allumina la mente. III. "Era nel tempo, quando Filomena Colla sorella si lamenta e plora, Che si ricorda di sua antica pena, E pe' boschetti le ninfe innamora, E Febo il carro temperato mena, Che 'l suo Fetonte l'ammaestra ancora; Ed appariva appunto all' orizzonte, Tal che Titon si graffiava la fronte: IV. "Quand'io varai la mia barchetta, prima Per ubbidir chi sempre ubbidir debbe La mente, e faticarsi in prosa e in rima, E del mio Carlo Imperador m'increbbe; Che so quanti la penna ha posto in cima, Che tutti la sua gloria prevarrebbe: E stata quella istoria, a quel ch'i' veggio, Di Carlo male intesa, e scritta peggio."] [336] {287}[Philomela and Procne were daughters of Pandion, King of Attica. Tereus, son of Ares, wedded Procne, and, after the birth of her son Itys, concealed his wife in the country, with a view to dishonouring Philomela, on the plea of her sister's death. Procne discovered the plot, killed her babe, and served up his flesh in a dish for her husband's dinner. The sisters fled, and when Tereus pursued them with an axe they besought the gods to change them into birds. Thereupon Procne became a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. So Hyginus, _Fabulæ_, xlv.; but there are other versions of Philomela's woes.] [337] [In the first edition of the _Morgante Maggiore_ (Firenze, 1482 [_B. M._ G. 10834]), which is said (_vide_ the _colophon_) to have been issued "under the correction of the author, line 2 of this stanza runs thus: "_comegliebbe u armano el suo turpino_;" and, apparently, it was not till 1518 (Milano, by Zarotti) that _Pipino_ was substituted for _Turpino_. Leonardo Bruni, surnamed Aretino (1369-1444), in his _Istoria Fiorentina_ (1861, pp. 43, 47), commemorates the imperial magnificence of _Carlo Magno_, and speaks of his benefactions to the Church, but does not--in that work, at any rate--mention his biographers. It is possible that if Pulci or Bruni had read Eginhard, they thought that his chronicle was derogatory to Charlemagne. (See Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, 1825, iii. 376, note 1, and Hallam's _Europe during the Middle Ages_, 1868, p. 16, note 3; _et vide post_, p. 309.)]