He continued working at the poem which had then no name, but which we know as the _Gerusalemme Liberata_.

Envies and jealousies had not arisen to mar the serenity in which he basked.

Women contended for his smiles and sonnets.

He repaid their kindness with somewhat indiscriminate homage and with the verses of occasion which flowed so easily from his pen.

It is difficult to trace the history of Tasso's loves through the labyrinth of madrigals, odes and sonnets which belong to this epoch of his life.