This episode moved rigid Alfieri to admiration.

It remains embedded in a burlesque poem, one of the most perfectly outlined triumphs of refined Italian romantic art.

Yet such was the strength of the master's hand, so loyal was he to his principle of contrast, that he cuts the melodious idyl short with a twang of the guitar-strings, and strikes up a tavern ballad on Lucrezia.

The irony which ruled his art demanded this inversion of proprieties.

Cynthia wooing Endymion shows us woman in her frailty; Lucrece violated by Tarquin is woman in her dignity.