smoke signifies tears, because it produces them, and flames happiness. And therefore Virgil says, that this ostent was not only mirabile visu, but horrendum. Line 367. One only daughter heirs my crown and state. This has seemed to some an odd passage: that a king should offer his daughter and heir to a stranger prince and a wanderer, before he had seen him, and when he had only heard of his arrival on his coasts. But these critics have not well considered the simplicity of former times, when the heroines almost courted the marriage of illustrious men. Yet Virgil here observes the rule of decency: Lavinia offers not herself: it is Latinus who propounds the match; and he had been foretold, both by an augur and an oracle, that he should have a foreign son-in-law, who was also a hero; fathers, in those ancient ages, considering birth and virtue, more than fortune, in the placing of their daughters: which I could prove by various examples: the contrary of which being now practised, I dare not say in our nation, but in France, has not a little darkened the lustre of their nobility. That Lavinia was averse to this marriage, and for what reason, I shall prove in its proper place. Line 1020. And where Abella sees, From her high tow'rs, the harvest of her trees. I observe that Virgil names not Nola, which was not far distant from Abella; perhaps, because that city (the same in which Augustus died afterwards) had once refused to give him entertainment, if we may believe the author of his life. Homer heartily curses another city which had used him in the same manner: but our author thought his silence of the Nolans a sufficient correction. When a poet passes by a place or person, though a fair occasion offers of remembering them, it is a sign he is, or thinks himself, much disobliged. ENEÏD VIII. Line 34. So, when the sun by day, or moon by night, Strike on the polish'd brass their trembling light, &c. This similitude is literally taken from Apollonius Rhodius; and it is hard to say whether the original or the translation excels. But, in the shield which he describes afterwards in this Æneïd, he as much transcends his master Homer, as the arms of Glaucus were richer than those of Diomedes Χρύσεα χαλκείων. Lines 115 and 116. Æneas takes the mother and her brood; And all on Juno's altar are bestow'd. The translation is infinitely short of Virgil, whose words are these: Tibi enim, tibi maxima Juno, Mactat, sacra ferens, et cum grege sistit ad aram — for I could not turn the word enim into English with any grace, though it was of such necessity in the Roman rites, that a sacrifice could not be performed without it. It is of the same nature-(if I may presume to name that sacred mystery) in our words of consecration at the altar. ENEÏD IX. Lines 853, 854. At the full stretch of both his hands, he drew, And almost join'd, the horns of the tough yew. The first of these lines is all of monosyllables, and both verses are very rough; but of choice; for it had been easy for me to have smoothed them. But either my ear deceives me, or they express the thing which I intended in their sound: for the stress of a bow which is drawn to the full extent, is expressed in the harshness of the first verse, clogged not only with monosyllables, but with consonants; and these words, the tough yew, which conclude the second line, seem as forceful, as they are unharmonious. Homer and Virgil are both frequent in their adapting sounds to the thing they signify. One example will serve for both; because Virgil borrowed the following verses from Homer's Odysses. Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis Συν δ' Ευροςτε, Νοτοςτ' επεσεν, Ζεφυροςτε δυςαής, Our language is not often capable of these beauties though sometimes I have copied them; of which these verses are an instance. Line 1095. His ample shield Is falsify'd, and round with jav❜lins fill'd. ; When I read this Eneïd to many of my friends in company together, most of them quarreled at the word falsify'd, as an innovation in our language. The fact is confessed; for I remember not to have read it any English author; though perhaps it may be found in Spencer's Fairy Queen: but, suppose it be not there, why am I forbidden to borrow from the Italian (a polished language) the word which is wanting in my native tongue? Terence has often Grecised: Lucretius has followed his example; and pleaded for it— Sic quia me cogit patrii sermonis egestas. Virgil has confirmed 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 cadant; especially, when other words are joined 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 javelins of the Trojans, which had pierced it through and through (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 borrowed the word from the Italian. Vide Ariosto, Cant. 26. *Ma sì l' usbergo d' ambi era perfetto, Che mai poter falsarlo in nessun canto. Falsar cannot otherwise be turned, than by falsify'd; for his shield was falsed, is not English. I might indeed have contented myself with saying his shield was pierced, and bored, 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 312. A choir of Nereids, &c. These were transformed from ships to sea-nymphs. This is almost as violent a machine, as the death of Arruns 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 Æneas what had passed in his camp during his absence, and what was the present distress of his besieged 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 vigour, 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 concerned that her death should be revenged. Lines 241, 242. 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 followed Æneas 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 mustered 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 mentioned, then known among the Romans, though, at so great a distance, unknown to us. And, for his sake chiefly, as I guess, he makes Æneas (by whom he always means Augustus) to seek for aid in the country of Mæcenas, thereby to endear his protector to his emperor, as if there had been a former friendship betwixt their lines. |