The Cardinal Luigi d'Este offered him a place in his household; and since this opened the way to Ferrara and Court-service, it was readily accepted.

It would have been well for Tasso, at this crisis of his fate, if the line of his beloved Aeneid-- Heu, fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum-- that line which warned young Savonarola away from Ferrara, had sounded in his ears, or met his eyes in some Virgilian _Sortes_.

It would have been well if his father, disillusioned by the _Amadigi's_ ill-success, and groaning under the galling yoke of servitude to Princes, had forbidden instead of encouraging this fatal step.

He might himself have listened to the words of old Speroni, painting the Court as he had learned to know it, a Siren fair to behold and ravishing of song, but hiding in her secret caves the bones of men devoured, and 'mighty poets in their misery dead.' He might even have turned the pages of Aretino's _Dialogo delle Corti_, and have observed how the ruffian who best could profit by the vices of a Court, refused to bow his neck to servitude in their corruption.

But no man avoids his destiny, because few draw wisdom from the past and none foresee the future.