Torquato Tasso.

Princess.

In this beautiful land, I have been assured,
The myrtle grows gladly above other trees.
And though there are many muses, one searches
Less often among them for a friend and companion
Than one likes to encounter the poet,
Who seems to avoid us, yes, to flee from us,
Who seems to seek something that we do not know,
And he perhaps, in the end, does not know himself.
It would be quite proper if he were to meet us
At a good hour, and suddenly enraptured,
Recognize in us the treasure he long sought
In vain in the wide world.

Leonore.

I must accept your joke.
It hits me indeed, yet it does not strike

I honor every man and his merit,
And I am merely just toward Tasso.
His eye hardly dwells upon this earth;