The Roman Poets of the Augustan Age: Virgil Part 50

653 Napier's Peninsular War, Death of Sir John Moore.

654 'Is death then so sad a doom? Be ye merciful to me, spirits of the dead, since the favour of the Powers above is turned from me; a spirit, pure and untainted by that shame, I shall pa.s.s to you, never dishonouring my mighty ancestors.' Aen. xii. 6448.

655 'It is the G.o.ds that terrify me, and the enmity of Jove.'

656 'He who first won my love has taken it with him: let him keep it and treasure it in his tomb.'

657 'Often his own heroic spirit, often the glory of his race, recur to her mind: his looks remain deep-printed in her heart, and his words, nor does her pa.s.sion allow her to rest.'

658 'That forsooth is the task of the Powers above; this trouble vexes their tranquil state.'

659 'I trust indeed, if the pitiful G.o.ds avail aught, that among the rocks in mid sea thou shalt drink deep of the cup of retribution, and often call on Dido by name; I, from far away, will follow thee with baleful fires, and when chill death has separated my spirit from my frame, my shade will haunt thee everywhere; heartless, thou shalt suffer for thy crime: I shall hear of it, and this tale will reach me among the spirits below.'

660 'Arise thou, some avenger, out of my bones, who with brand and sword mayest chase the settlers from Troy, now, hereafter, whensoever there shall be strength to bring thee forth.'

661 'I have built a famous city: I have seen my own walls arise: avenging my husband, I exacted retribution from an unkind brother; fortunate, alas! too fortunate, had not the Trojan keels ever touched our sh.o.r.e.'

662 'I shall die unavenged,' she says, 'still let me die-it is thus, thus, I fain would pa.s.s to the shades: may the cruel Trojan drink in with his eyes the sight of this fire from the deep, and carry along with him the omen of my death.'

663 'Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood, Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern From her false friend's approach in Hades, turn, Wave us away, and keep thy solitude.'

The Scholar Gipsy, by Matthew Arnold.

664 'At length she started away and fled unforgiving into the shades of the forest, where her former husband, Sychaeus, feels with all her sorrows and loves her with a love equal to her own.'

665 Landor's Pentameron.

666 'It was when their first sleep begins to weary mortals.'

667 'The broad waters of Sigaeum reflect the fire.'

668 'There is dread on every side, while the very silence awes the mind.'

669 'But some way off in a lonely bay the Trojan women apart were weeping for their lost Anchises, and as they wept were gazing on the deep-"Ah, to think that so many dangerous waters, so vast an expanse of sea remained still for them, the weary ones!" was the cry of all.'

670 'In her dreams Aeneas himself fiercely drives her before him in her frenzy; and she seems ever to be left all alone, ever to be going uncompanioned on a long road, and to be searching for her Tyrians on a desert land.'

671 'Powers whose empire is over the spirits of the dead, and ye silent shades.'

672 'Behind his war-horse Aethon, with all his trappings laid aside, goes weeping, wetting his face with great drops. Others bear his spear and s.h.i.+eld-the rest of his armour Turnus keeps-then follow in mournful array the Trojans, and all the Tyrrhenian host, and the Arcadians with arms reversed.'

673 iv. 143, etc. Referred to in the 'Parallel Pa.s.sages' in Dr.

Kennedy's notes.

674 Referred to by M. Benoist.

675 'Or with the grandeur of father Appenninus himself, when he makes his waving ilexes heard aloud, and is glad as he towers with snowy summit to the sky.'

676 'Either on the banks of the Po, or by the fair Adige.'

677 'As Ganges swelling high in silence with its seven calm streams, or the Nile when with its fertilising flood it ebbs from the plains, and has already subsided within its channel.' ix. 302.

678 'As many as the leaves that fall in the woods at the first cold touch of autumn, or as many as the birds which are gathered to the land from the deep, when the chill of the year banishes them beyond the sea, and wafts them into sunny lands.' vi. 309312.

679 'Like the moon when one sees it early in the month, or fancies he has seen it rise through mists.'

'So to see, as when one sees or fancies he has seen the dim moon in the early dawn.'

680 'As when a purple flower cut down by the plough pines and dies, or as poppies droop their head wearily, when weighed down by the rain.'

681 'Like a delicate violet, or a drooping hyacinth, when plucked by a maiden, from which the bloom and the beauty have not yet departed-but the earth does not now nourish it and supply its forces.'

682 'Ac ne quid impetum moraretur quaedam imperfecta transmisit, alia levissimis versibus veluti fulsit, quos per ioc.u.m pro tibicinibus interponi aiebat ad sustinendum opus, donec solidae columnae advenirent.' Donatus, quoted by Ribbeck in the Life prefixed to his smaller edition of Virgil.

683 'But I the stately Queen of the G.o.ds.'

684 'And first Achates struck a spark from a flint, and caught the light in some leaves, and cast dry sticks about them to feed them, and blew the spark within the fuel into a flame.'

685 'Worthy to be happier in a father's command and to have another father than Mezentius.'

686 'Yield not thou to thy hards.h.i.+ps, but advance more boldly against them.'

'Learn from me, my child, to bear thee like a man and to strive strenuously, from others learn to be fortunate.'

'Have the courage, stranger, to despise riches, and mould thyself too to be a fit companion of the G.o.d.'

687 'Ah! fly that cruel land, fly that covetous coast.' Mentioned by Mr.

Symonds in his History of the Renaissance in Italy.

688 Grammar of a.s.sent, by J. H. Newman, D.D.

689 To attempt to translate these 'pathetic half-lines' etc., apart from their context, would only be to spoil them, without conveying any sense of the feeling latent in them.

690 Aut videt, aut vidisse putat.