beauties, tho' sometimes I have copied them, of which these verses are an instance. Line 1094. His ample shield Is falsified, and round with javelins fill'd. When I read this Eneid to many of my friends in company together, most of them quarrel'd at the word falsified, as an innovation in our language. The fact is confess'd; for I remember not to have read it in any English author, tho' perhaps it may be found in Spenser's Fairy Queen. But suppose it be not there, why am I forbidden to borrow from the Italian (a polish'd language) the word which is wanting in my native tongue? Terence has often Greciz'd; Lucretius has follow'd his example, and pleaded for it: Sic quia me cogit patrii sermonis egestas. Virgil has confirm'd it by his frequent practice; and even Cicero in prose, wanting terms of philosophy in the Latin tongue, has taken them from Aristotle's Greek. Horace has given us a rule for coining words, si Græco fonte cadunt; especially when other words are join'd with them, which explain the sense. I use the word falsify in this place to mean that the shield of Turnus was not of proof against the spears and jav'lins of the Trojans, which had pierc'd it thro' and thro' (as we say) in many places. The words which accompany this new one make my meaning plain, according to the precept which Horace gave. But I said I borrow'd the word from the Italian. Vide Ariosto, Cant. 26: Ma si l' usbergo d' ambi era perfetto, Falsar cannot otherwise be turn'd than by falsified; for his shield was fals'd is not English. I might indeed have contented myself with saying his shield was pierc'd, and bor'd, and stuck with javelins, nec sufficit umbo ictibus. They who will not admit a new word may take the old; the matter is not worth dispute. ENEID X, line 241. Now, sacred sisters, open all your spring! The Tuscan leaders, and their army sing. The poet here begins to tell the names of the Tuscan captains who follow'd Eneas to the war; and I observe him to be very particular in the description of their persons, and not forgetful of their manners; exact also in the relation of the numbers which each of them command. I doubt not but as, in the Fifth Book, he gave us the names of the champions who contended for the several prizes, that he might oblige many of the most ancient Roman families, their descendants; and as, in the Seventh Book, he muster'd the auxiliary forces of the Latins on the same account; so here he gratifies his Tuscan friends with the like remembrance of their ancestors, and, above the rest, Mæcenas, his great patron, who, being of a royal family in Etruria, was probably represented under one of the names here mention'd, then known among the Romans, tho', at so great a distance, unknown to us. And for his sake chiefly, as I guess, he makes Eneas (by whom he always means Augustus) to seek for aid in the country of Mæcenas, thereby to indear his protector to his emperor, as if there had been a former friendship betwixt their lines. And who knows but Mæcenas might pretend that the Cilnian family was deriv'd from Tarchon, the chief commander of the Tuscans? Line 312. A choir of Nereids, &c. These were transform'd from ships to sea nymphs. This is almost as violent a machine as the death of Aruns by a goddess in the episode of Camilla. But the poet makes use of it with greater art; for here it carries on the main design. These new-made divinities not only tell Eneas what had pass'd in his camp during his absence, and what was the present distress of his besieg'd people, and that his horsemen, whom he had sent by land, were ready to join him at his descent; but warn him to provide for battle the next day, and foretell him good success: so that this episodical machine is properly a part of the great poem; for, besides what I have said, they push on his navy with celestial vigor, that it might reach the port more speedily, and take the enemy more unprovided to resist the landing. Whereas the machine relating to Camilla is only ornamental; for it has no effect which I can find, but to please the reader, who is concern'd that her death should be reveng'd. Line 662. Nor I, his mighty sire, could ward the blow. I have mention'd this passage in my preface to the Eneis, to prove that fate was superior to the gods, and that Jove could neither defer nor alter its decrees. Sir Robert Howard has since been pleas'd to send me the concur rent testimony of Ovid: 't is in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where Venus complains that her descendant, Julius Caesar, was in danger of being murther'd by Brutus and Cassius, at the head of the commonwealth faction, and desires them to prevent that barbarous assassination. They are mov'd to compassion; they are concern'd for Cæsar; but the poet plainly tells us that it was not in their power to change destiny. All they could do was to testify their sorrow for his approaching death by foreshewing it with signs and prodigies, as appears by the following lines: Talia necquicquam toto Venus aurea cœlo Fata tui generis. Legi ipse, animoque notavi; Et referam, ne sis etiamnum ignara futuri. Hic sua complevit (pro quo, Cytherea, laboras) Tempora, perfectis, quos terræ debuit, annis, &c. Jupiter, you see, is only library keeper, or custos rotulorum, to the Fates; for he offers his daughter a cast of his office, to give her a sight of their decrees, which the inferior gods were not permitted to read without his leave. This agrees with what I have said already in the preface; that they, not having seen the records, might believe they were his own handwriting, and consequently at his disposing, either to blot out or alter, as he saw convenient. And of this opinion was Juno in those words, tua, qui potes, orsa reflectas. Now the abode of those Destinies being in hell, we cannot wonder why the swearing by Styx was an inviolable oath amongst the gods of heaven, and that Jupiter himself should fear to be accus'd of forgery by the Fates, if he alter'd anything in their decrees; Chaos, Night, and Erebus being the most ancient of the deities, and instituting those fundamental laws by which he was afterwards to govern. Hesiod gives us the genealogy of the gods, and I think I may safely infer the rest. I will only add, that Homer was more a fatalist than Virgil; for it has been observ'd that the word Tux, or fortune, is not to be found in his two poems; but, instead of it, always poipa. ENEID XII, line 100. At this, a flood of tears Lavinia shed; A crimson blush her beauteous face o'erspread, Varying her cheeks by turns with white and red. Amata, ever partial to the cause of Turnus, had just before desir'd him, with all manner of earnestness, not to ingage his rival in single fight; which was his present resolution. Virgil, tho', in favor of his hero, he never tells us directly that Lavinia preferr'd Turnus to Æneas, yet has insinuated this preference twice before. For mark, in the Seventh Eneid she left her father, who had promis'd her to Eneas without asking her consent, and follow'd her mother into the woods, with a troop of Bacchanals, where Amata sung the marriage song, in the name of Turnus; which, if she had dislik'd, she might have oppos'd. Then, in the Eleventh Eneid, when her mother went to the temple of Pallas, to invoke her aid against Eneas, whom she calls by no better name than Phrygius prædo, Lavinia sits by her in the same chair or litter, juxtaque comes Lavinia virgooculos dejecta decoros. What greater sign of love than fear and concernment for the lover? In the lines which I have quoted, she not only sheds tears, but changes color. She had been bred up with Turnus, and Æneas was wholly a stranger to her. Turnus, in probability, was her first love, and favor'd by her mother, who nad the ascendant over her father. But I am much deceiv'd if (besides what I have said) there be not a secret satire against the sex, which is lurking under this description of Vir gil, who seldom speaks well of women; better, indeed, of Camilla than any other, for he commends her beauty and valor, because he would concern the reader for her death. But valor is no very proper praise for womankind, and beauty is common to the sex. He says also somewhat of Andromache, but transiently; and his Venus is a better mother than a wife; for she owns to Vulcan she had a son by another man. The rest are Junos, Dianas, Didos, Amatas, two mad prophetesses, three Harpies on earth, and as many Furies under ground. This fable of Lavinia includes a secret moral: that women, in their choice of husbands, prefer the younger of their suitors to the elder; are insensible of merit, fond of handsomeness, and, generally speaking, rather hurried away by their appetite than govern'd by their reason. Line 808. Sea-born Messapus, with Atinas, heads The Latin squadrons, and to battle leads. The poet had said, in the preceding lines, that Mnestheus, Seresthus, and Asylas led on the Trojans, the Tuscans, and the Arcadians; but none of the printed copies which I have seen mention any leader of the Rutulians and Latins but Messapus the son of Neptune. Ruæus takes notice of this passage, and seems to wonder at it; but gives no reason why Messapus is alone without a coadjutor. The four verses of Virgil run thus: Tota adeo conversæ acies, omnesque Latini, Omnes Dardanide; Mnestheus, acerque Seresthus, Et Messapus equum domitor, et fortis Asylas, Tuscorumque phalanx, Evandrique Arcadis alæ. I doubt not but the third line was originally thus: Et Messapus equum domitor, et fortis Atinas; for the two names of Asylas and Atinas are so like that one might easily be mistaken for the other by the transcribers. And to fortify this opinion, we find afterward, in the relation of Sages to Turnus, that Atinas is join'd with Messapus: Soli, pro portis, Messapus et acer Atinas In general I observe, not only in this Eneid, but in all the six last books, that Eneas is never seen on horseback, and but once before, as I remember, in the Fourth, when he hunts with Dido. The reason of this, if I guess aright, was a secret compliment which the poet made to his countrymen the Romans, the strength of whose armies consisted most in foot, which, I think, were all Romans and Italians. But their wings, or squadrons, were made up of their allies, who were foreigners. Line 1191. This let me beg (and this no fates withstand) Both for myself and for your father's land, &c. The words in the original are these: Pro Latio obtestor, pro majestate tuorum. Virgil very artfully uses here the word majestas, which the Romans lov'd so well that they appropriated it to themselves: majestas populi Romani. This title, applied to kings, is very modern; and that is all I will say of it at present, tho' the word requires a larger note. In the word tuorum is included the sense of my translation, your father's land, because Saturn, the father of Jove, had govern'd that part of Italy after his expulsion from Crete. But that on which I most insist is the address of the poet in this speech of Juno. Virgil was sufficiently sensible, as I have said in the preface, that whatever the common opinion was concerning the descent of the Romans from the Trojans, yet the ancient customs, rites, laws, and habits of those Trojans were wholly lost, and perhaps also that they had never been; and, for this reason, he introduces Juno in this place, requesting of Jupiter that no memory might remain of Troy (the town she hated), that the people hereafter should not be call'd Trojans, nor retain anything which belong'd to their predecessors. And why might not this also be concerted betwixt our author and his friend Horace, to hinder Augustus from rebuilding Troy, and removing thither the seat of empire, a design so unpleasing to the Romans? But of this I am not positive, because I have not consulted Dacier and the rest of the critics, to ascertain the time in which Horace writ the ode relating to that subject. Line 1224. Deep in the dismal regions void of light, Three sisters at a birth were born to Night. The father of these (not here mention'd) was Acheron; the names of the three were Alecto, Megæra, and Tisiphone. They were call'd Furies in hell, on earth Harpies, and in heaven Diræ. Two of these assisted at the throne of Jupiter, and were employ'd by him to punish Haud pater ipse velit, summi regnator Olympi: Probably this Dira, unnam'd by the poet in this place, might be Tisiphone; for, tho' we find her in hell, in the Sixth Eneid, employ'd in the punishment of the damn'd: Continuo sontes ultrix accincta flagello yet afterwards she is on earth, in the Tenth TRANSLATIONS FROM OVID'S ART OF LOVE AND AMOURS [None of the following translations were published during Dryden's lifetime. The only information that the present editor can find in regard to them is in a letter from Dryden to Tonson, written just before the second edition of the Virgil, 1698: "You told me not, but the town says you are printing Ovid de Arte Amandi. I know my translation is very uncorrect; but at the same time I know, nobody else can do it better, with all their paines" (Malone, I, 2, 63). Thus it is at least probable that Dryden made his translation from The Art of Love while at work on his Virgil, or just after finishing it. Had he done the piece earlier, he would probably have inserted it in The Annual Miscellany for the Year 1694. It seems convenient also, in the absence of any exact information, to assign the two elegies from the Amores to the same period. For some unknown reason, Tonson delayed the publication of these translations; the town talk to which Dryden refers apparently lacked foundation. In Poetical Miscellanies, the Fifth Part, 1704, he inserted the two elegies from the Amores, with titles as below; and two episodes from The Art of Love, lines 111-151 and 590-635, under the titles of The Rape of the Sabines and The Meeting of Bacchus with Ariadne. Finally, in 1709, he published a complete translation of Ovid's Art of Love, of which the first book is ascribed to Dryden and the third to Congreve; the translator of the second book is not named.] To Pompey's cool and shady portico, Or Venus' temple, where, on annual nights, On Sabbaths, rest from everything but love; Nor Isis' temple, for that sacred whore Makes others what to Jove she was before. And if the hall itself be not belied, |