DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36838#0280
SONNETS AND ELEGIES
219
Again Bembo sends his old Venetian friend Trifone
Gabriele one of his latest productions,' a new c%7zxo7M
on an old theme—the death of my brother/ the lovely
poem beginning with the lines :
' Alma cortese, che dal mondo errante
Partente nella tua piu verde eta,
Hai me lasciato eternamente in doglio/
In the same letter he repeats how perfectly happy he
is at Urbino, and how fervently he thanks the fates
which have brought him safely into port after all his
wanderings :
' Here I will only tell you that every day I rejoice
the more to have taken the course for which all of
my friends blamed me more than you did, and am
confident that one day they too will praise the wisdom
of my choice A
One day he sends Lucrezia Borgia two sonnets on
the device of the Cardinal of Aragon, to remind his
old comrades at Ferrara of his existence. Another
time he encloses what he describes as his latest
c<37zxo7/6 to his ' valiant brother-in-arms/ Archbishop
Fregoso, and invites the criticism of his Roman
friends on these compositions.
Most of these poems were fugitive pieces, which,
as Bembo himself owned, owe much of their charm
to the circumstances in which they were produced.
Such, for instance, was the sonnet
' Io ardo, e la risposta invano,
Come il gioco chieda, lasso aspettar,'
which an early commentator explains to be an
allusion to a game of ^77'opo^z^, or questions and
answers, that was played one evening, and in which
i ' Lettere,' ii., 28.
219
Again Bembo sends his old Venetian friend Trifone
Gabriele one of his latest productions,' a new c%7zxo7M
on an old theme—the death of my brother/ the lovely
poem beginning with the lines :
' Alma cortese, che dal mondo errante
Partente nella tua piu verde eta,
Hai me lasciato eternamente in doglio/
In the same letter he repeats how perfectly happy he
is at Urbino, and how fervently he thanks the fates
which have brought him safely into port after all his
wanderings :
' Here I will only tell you that every day I rejoice
the more to have taken the course for which all of
my friends blamed me more than you did, and am
confident that one day they too will praise the wisdom
of my choice A
One day he sends Lucrezia Borgia two sonnets on
the device of the Cardinal of Aragon, to remind his
old comrades at Ferrara of his existence. Another
time he encloses what he describes as his latest
c<37zxo7/6 to his ' valiant brother-in-arms/ Archbishop
Fregoso, and invites the criticism of his Roman
friends on these compositions.
Most of these poems were fugitive pieces, which,
as Bembo himself owned, owe much of their charm
to the circumstances in which they were produced.
Such, for instance, was the sonnet
' Io ardo, e la risposta invano,
Come il gioco chieda, lasso aspettar,'
which an early commentator explains to be an
allusion to a game of ^77'opo^z^, or questions and
answers, that was played one evening, and in which
i ' Lettere,' ii., 28.