'
Bembo wrote this inscription for his grave:
Strew flowers o'er the sacred ashes, here lies Sannazaro;
With thee, gentle Virgil, he shares Muse and grave.
Virgil too was industriously imitated in the didactic poetry of his
country.
Giovanni Rucellai (born 1475) wrote a didactic poem, _The Bees_,
which begins:
'O chaste virgins, winged visitants of flowery banks, whilst I
prepared to sing your praise in lofty verse, at peep of day I was
o'ercome by sleep, and then appeared a chorus of your tiny folk, and
from their rich mellifluous haunts, in a clear voice these words
flowed forth.... And I will sing how liquid and serene the air
distils sweet honey, heavenly gilt, on flowerets and on grass, and
how the bees, chaste and industrious, gather it, and thereof with
care and skill make perfumed wax to grace the altars of our God.'
And a didactic poem by Luigi Alamanni (born 1495), called
_Husbandry_, has: 'O blessed is he who dwells in peace, the actual
tiller of his joyous fields, to whom, in his remoteness, the most
righteous earth brings food, and secure in well-being, he rejoices in
his heart. If thou art not surrounded by society rich with purple and
gems, nor with houses adorned with costly woods, statues, and
gold;... at least, secure in the humble dwelling of wood from the
copse hard by, and common stones collected close at hand, which thine
own hand has founded and built, whenever thou awakenest at the
approach of dawn, thou dost not find outside those who bring news of
a thousand events contrary to thy desires.
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