Schevill — Studies in Cervantes. 495 



a beautiful meadow lie meets the Sibyl in lier palace (at the same 

 time a cave), where she prophesies to him regarding his own future 

 and that of Spain. All this is a kind of variation of Virgil and 

 very characteristic of the romances which mingled the old type of 

 chivalry with the newer story of adventure. 



The influence of Virgil's epic upon Spanish fiction, exerted 

 indirectly as well as directly, was also reinforced by Italian romances 

 in verse and prose; they, in their turn, show to what extent his 

 extraordinary prestige had maintained itself from Dante through 

 Petrarch and Boccaccio, and how prominent it is among the influ- 

 ences which are dominant in the literature of the Italian Renais- 

 sance. This is not the time to dwell on the indebtedness of Boiardo, 

 Ariosto, or Tasso^ to Homer and Virgil, but the fact that the works 

 of both were imitated in their writings may have prompted others 

 to borrow more extensively from the classics. This seems to be 

 especially true in regard to Sannazaro's Arcadia.- As there are 

 few works in Italian literature which show a freer imitation of 

 Virgil, so there is scarcely another which forms a more important 

 link between Italian and Spanish literature. The Spanish pastoral 

 novel, at least, cannot be understood without it. While Sannazaro 

 imitated the classics directly,^ later authors copied his methods and 

 either followed his manner or went to the same sources. Not 

 infrequently, where the loan was from Virgil, j)astoral writers 

 adapted both the episode and the spirit which they had borrowed 

 to the fashion of their own times. 



Among contemporaries the most important work of fiction 

 which demands attention in connection with the Persiles is Lope de 

 Vega's Peregrino en su patria, since it too shows clearly that the 

 Aeneid was looked upon, in all its essentials, as a romance. Lope 

 defends* the nature of his hero's experiences and wanderings thus : 



^ The Aeneid frequently occurs to Ariosto; cf. Orlando, Canto XIX, 35; 

 XXXV, 25, etc.; Pio Rajna, Le Fonti cleW Orlando Furioso, (Firenze, 1876) 

 and A. Romizi, Le Fonti Latine dell' Orlando Furioso, (Torino, 1896) ; 

 Tasso, Gerusalemme liberaia, Canto XVI, 40 ft'. 



"On the Spanish version of the Arcadia, cf. Menendez y Pelayo, Origenes, 

 etc., op. cit., p. cdxxvii. 



' Cf. Arcadia di Jacobo Sannazaro secondo i manoscritti e le prime 

 stampe con note ed introduzione di Michele Scherillo (Torino, 1888) ; La 

 Materia delV Arcadia del Sannazaro, studio di Francesco Torraca (Citta di 

 Castello, 1888). 



* Cf. "Coleccion de las obras sueltas de Lope de Vega," Vol. V., edition 

 Sancha (Madrid, 1776), p. 299 of El Peregrino en su patria. 



d. 



