But if none such give entrance to Florence, I will never enter Florence.

How! Shall I not behold the sun and stars from every spot of earth?
Shall I not be free to meditate the sweetest truths in every place beneath the sky unless I make myself ignoble, nay, ignominious to the people and the state of Florence?
Nor truly will bread fail.' These words, if Tasso had remembered them, might have made his cheek blush for his own servility and for the servile age in which he lived.

But the truth is that the fleshpots of Egyptian bondage enticed him; and moreover he knew, as half-insane people always know, that he required treatment for his mental infirmities.

In his heart of hearts he acknowledged the justice of the duke's conditions.
[Footnote 37: Manso, p.147.Here again the believers in the Leonora _liaison_ may argue that by prison he meant love-bondage, hopeless servitude to the lady from whom he could expect nothing now that her brother was acquainted with the truth.] [Footnote 38: _Lettere_, vol.i.p.

233.] An Epistle or Oration addressed by Tasso to the Duke of Urbino, sets forth what happened after his return to Ferrara in 1578.[39] [Footnote 39: _Lettere_, i.pp.