Who was happier than Torquato now?
Having recently experienced the discomforts of uncongenial service, he took his place again upon a firmer footing in the city of his dreams.

The courtiers welcomed him with smiles.

He was once more close to Leonora, basking like Rinaldo in Armida's garden, with golden prospects of the fame his epic would achieve to lift him higher in the coming years.
[Footnote 11: See _Lettere_, vol.ii.p.

80: to Giacomo Buoncompagno.] [Footnote 12: 'Egli mi disse, allor che suo mi fece: Tu canta, or che se' 'n ozio.'] No wonder that the felicity of this moment expanded in a flower of lyric beauty which surpassed all that Tasso had yet published.

He produced _Aminta_ in the winter of 1572-3.