Note 446 — Chapter XXII
Reading edition
Five stanzas of the seventh canto, being a choral song of satyrs and bacchanti, are thrown into versi sdruccioli, and have been accounted by the Italians an extraordinary effort of skill, from the difficulty of sustaining a metre which is not strong in rhymes with so much spirit and ease. Each verse also is divided into three parts, themselves separately sdruccioli, though not rhyming. One stanza will make this clear:—
Hor d’ellera s’adornino, e di pampino I giovani, e le vergini più tenere, E gemina nell’anima si stampino L’imagine di Libero, e di Venere. Tutti ardano, s’accendano, ed avampino, Qual Semele, ch’al folgore fù cenere; E cantino a Cupidine, ed a Bromio, Con numeri poetici un’encomio. Cant. vii., st. 118.