Had their _liaison_ been scandalous, as some have fancied, his life would not have been worth two hours' Purchase either in the palace or the prison of Alfonso.
Whatever may be thought of Tasso's love-relations to these sisters--and the problem is open to all conjectures in the absence of clear testimony--it is certain that he owed a great deal to their kindness.
The marked favor they extended to him, was worth much at Court: and their maturer age and wider experience enabled them to give him many useful hints of conduct.

Thus, when he blundered into seeming rivalry with Pigna (the Duke's secretary, the Cecil of that little state), by praising Pigna's mistress, Lucrezia Bendidio, in terms of imprudent warmth, it was Leonora who warned him to appease the great man's anger.
This he did by writing a commentary upon three of Pigna's leaden Canzoni, which he had the impudence to rank beside the famous three sisters of Petrarch's Canzoniere.

The flattery was swallowed, and the peril was averted.

Yet in this first affair with Pigna we already hear the grumbling of that tempest which eventually ruined Tasso.

So eminent a poet and so handsome a young man was insupportable among a crowd of literary mediocrities and middle-aged gallants.