Part 36

Creech's translation of Eclogue iii.:

And showed the various seasons of the year.

Pope also drew upon Dryden's version of the passage:

Two figures on the sides embossed appear, Conon, and what's his name who made the sphere, And showed the seasons of the sliding year?

Virgil's commentators cannot agree upon the name which the shepherd had forgotten, but they unite in commending the stroke of nature which represents a rustic poet as unable to recall the name of a man of science.]

And cross their limits cut a sloping way, Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway.--WAKEFIELD.]

Alternis dicetis: amant alterna Camoenæ, Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos, Nunc frondent sylvæ, nunc formosissimus annus.--POPE.

Creech's translation:

play By turns, for verse the muses love by turns.

The usage was for the second speaker to imitate the idea started by the first, and endeavour to outdo him in his vaunt. All the speeches throughout the contest consisted of the same number of lines. In the third eclogue of Virgil we have two rivals and an umpire. One of the antagonists stakes a carved bowl, the other a cow; and the final effort of each poet is to propound a riddle, upon which the umpire interposes, and declares that the candidates are equal in merit. Pope keeps close to his original.]

And echo, from the vales, the tuneful voice rebound.--WAKEFIELD.]

Ye fountain nymphs, propitious to the swain, Now grant me Phoebus', or Alexis' strain.

Pope imitated Virgil, Ecl. vii. 21:

Mihi carmen, Quale meo Codro, concedite: proxima Phoebi Versibus ille facit.]

Pascite taurum, Qui cornu petat, et pedibus jam spargat arenam.--POPE.

Dryden, Æn. ix. 859:

A snow-white steer before thy altar led: And dares the fight, and spurns the yellow sands.--WAKEFIELD.

The second line of the couplet in the text ran thus in the original manuscript:

With butting horns, and heels that spurn the sand.

This also was from Dryden, Ecl. iii. 135:

With spurning heels, and with a butting head.]

Pan, let my numbers equal Strephon's lays, Of Parian stone thy statue will I raise; But if I conquer and augment my fold, Thy Parian statue shall be changed to gold.--WARBURTON.

This he formed on Dryden's Vir. Ecl. vii. 45:

Thy statue then of Parian stone shall stand; But if the falling lambs increase my fold, Thy marble statue shall be turned to gold.--WAKEFIELD.]

The lovely Chloris beckons from the plain, Then hides in shades from her deluded swain.

"Objection," he says, in the paper he submitted to Walsh, "that hides without the accusative herself is not good English, and that from her deluded swain is needless. Alteration:

The wanton Chloris beckons from the plain, Then, hid in shades, eludes her eager swain.

Quære. If wanton be more significant than lovely; if eludes be properer in this case than deluded; if eager be an expressive epithet to the swain who searches for his mistress?"