Part 37

Walsh. "Wanton applied to a woman is equivocal, and therefore not proper. Eludes is properer than deluded. Eager is very well."]

Or rather to the version of Dryden, since the lines of Pope have a closer resemblance to the translation than to the original:

The laugh that guides thee to the mark, When the kind nymph would coyness feign, And hides but to be found again.]

Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella, Et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante videri.--POPE.

He probably consulted Creech's translation of the passage in Virgil:

Sly Galatea drives me o'er the green, And apples throws, then hides, yet would be seen.--WAKEFIELD.]

A brisk Arabian girl came tripping by; Passing, she cast at him a sidelong glance, And looked behind, in hopes to be pursued.--STEEVENS.]

STREPHON.

Go, flow'ry wreath, and let my Silvia know, Compared to thine how bright her beauties show; Then die; and dying, teach the lovely maid How soon the brightest beauties are decayed.

DAPHNIS.

Go, tuneful bird, that pleased the woods so long, Of Amaryllis learn a sweeter song; To heav'n arising then her notes convey, For heav'n alone is worthy such a lay.

The speech of Strephon is an echo of Waller's well-known song:

Go, lovely rose, Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Then die, that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee; How small a part of time they share, That are so wondrous sweet and fair.

The speech of Daphnis is from Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. iii. 113:

Winds, on your wings to heav'n her accents bear, Such words as heav'n alone is fit to hear.]

Let rich Iberia golden fleeces boast, Her purple wool the proud Assyrian coast, Blest Thames's shores, &c.--POPE.]

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold.--WAKEFIELD.

The sisters of Phæton, according to the classical fable, were, upon the death of their brother, turned into poplars on the banks of the Po, and the tears which dropt from these trees were said to be converted into amber.]

Sæpius at si me, Lycida formose, revisas, Fraxinus in silvis cedet tibi, pinus in hortis.--WAKEFIELD.

The entire speech is a parody of the lines quoted by Wakefield, and of the lines which immediately precede them in Virgil's Eclogue. The passage omitted by Wakefield is thus translated in vol. i. of Tonson's Miscellany:

Bacchus the vine, the laurel Phoebus loves; Fair Venus cherishes the myrtle groves; Phyllis the hazel loves, while Phyllis loves that tree, Myrtles and laurels of less fame shall be.]

Aret ager, vitio moriens sitit aëris herba [&c.] Phyllidis adventu nostræ nemus omne virebit.--POPE.]

All nature mourns, the birds their songs deny, Nor wasted brooks the thirsty flow'rs supply; If Delia smile, the flow'rs begin to spring, The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.--POPE.

Wakefield remarks that the last couplet of the original version, which is but slightly modified in the text, was closely imitated from Addison's Epilogue to the British Enchanters:

The desert smiles, the woods begin to grow, The birds to warble, and the springs to flow.]

And lavish nature laughs.]

If Sylvia smiles she brightens all the shore, The sun's outshined, and nature charms no more.