In his editorial notes to Poesia italiana del Seicento (Milano: Garzanti, 1978), Professor Lucio Felici has kindly provided us with this introduction:
The plot of the poem L’Adone is, in short, the following: the boy Love, punished by his mother Venus, to take revenge hurts her with his fateful dart and makes her fall in love with Adonis, a very handsome young man just come to the island of Cyprus. With him the goddess visits the palace of Love, the description of which is interleaved with various fables (Love and Psyche, Echo and Narcissus, Ganymede, Hylas, etc.); following are the “delights” of the Garden of the Pleasure (which is divided into five parts corresponding to the five senses) and the union of the two lovers. Then Mercury accompanies them from the pleasures of sense to those of the intellect, by means of the fountain of Apollo (symbol of poetry) and the first three Ptolemaic heavens. Unusual adventures, caused by the jealousy of Mars and by the sorceress Falsirena, separate the two lovers; awakening, Venus makes to appoint her lover king of Cyprus. But, while the goddess is at Citera, Mars makes a wild boar kill Adonis; Venus celebrates his obsequies magnificently and then changes his heart into a flower.
This section, Canto 3, octaves 154-161, of Giambattista Marino’s poem is called The Praise of the Rose:
The beautiful goddess, who bloodied the rose
though her bosom wounded by sour blow,
against her son did not appear scornful
in order not to make him harsher and prouder;
but pressing the hidden wound to her heart,
she bit her finger and said: “I will keep it for you.
At this time I do not want to trouble
my joy so much with another’s grief.”
Then, her lights turning to the nearby hill,
where was the brake that the beautiful foot pricked,
she lingered a little to stare at it, and she wished
to greet her flower before she departed;
and seeing it still dripping and soft
there wearing purple, so she said to it:
“May heaven save thee from all outrage and harms,
fatal cause of my happy apprehensions.
Rose, splendor of love, work of heaven,
rose by my blood made vermilion,
excellence of the world and ornament of nature
of the earth and of the sun virgin daughter,
of every nymph and shepherd delight and care,
honor of the fragrant family,
winnest thou of every beauty the first palms,
above the commons of the flowers Lady sublime.
Almost on fine throne proud empress
sittest thou there on the native bank.
A throng of lovely and flattering breaths
courts thee around and favors thee
and of prickly guards an armed cohort
defends thee from everything and surrounds thee.
And thou splendid in thy regal pride
bearest the crown of time and of purple the mantle.
Purple of the garden, pageant of the meadows,
bud of spring, eye of April,
of thee the Graces and the winged Amoretti
make garland to the locks, to the bosom a necklace.
Thou, when the fairy bee returns
to her accustomed foods or the gentle zephyr,
givest them to drink dewy and crystalline
liquors from a cup of rubies.
Not haughty, the Sun ambitious
of triumph amid the lesser stars,
that now among the jasmines and the violets
discoverest thou thy pomps proud and beautiful.
Thou art with thy beauties unique and sole
splendor of these banks, he of those,
he in his circle, thou on thy stem,
thou sun on earth, and he rose in heaven.
And well will be between you compliant desires,
of thee be the sun and thou of the loving sun.
Of those thy emblem, of thy petals
Aurora will dress his Levant.
Thou wilt unfold in thy hair and in thy leaves
her golden and flaming livery;
and to depict it and imitate it to the full
thou wilt always bear a tiny sun in thy bosom.
And because to me for this favor yet
some pleasant grace to render is expected,
thou wilt be alone among so many flowers as has Flora
my favorite, my delight.
And which woman more lovely the world reveres
I wish that, as much as she be called lovely,
just so much will she adorn thy lively hue
and cheeks and lips.” And she here is silent.
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