Part 40

Quæ nemora, aut qui vos saltus habuere, puellæ Naïades, indigno cum Gallus amore periret? Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga, nam neque Pindi, Ulla moram fecere, neque Aoniæ Aganippe.--POPE.

Ogilby's translation:

Say, Naïades, where were you, in what grove, Or lawn, when Gallus fell by ill-matched love.--WAKEFIELD.]

Or where the Seine her flow'ry fields divides, Or where the Loire through winding vineyards glides.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope wrote at random. The Cam does not divide vales, but runs, or rather creeps, through one of the flattest districts in England.]

Oft in the crystal spring I cast a view, And equalled Hylas, if the glass be true; But since those graces meet my eyes no more, shun, etc.

Virgil again (Ecl. ii. 25), from the Cyclops of Theocritus:

nuper me in littore vidi, Cum placidum ventis staret mare; non ego Daphnim, Judice te, metuam, si nunquam fallit imago.--POPE.

In his first version, which is closer to Virgil than the second, Pope had in his mind Dryden's translation, Ecl. ii. 33:

and if the glass be true, With Daphnis I may vie.]

And every herb that sips the dew.--WAKEFIELD.]

herbarum subjecta potentia nobis. Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis; Nec prosunt domino, quæ prosunt omnibus, artes.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation:

What herbs and simples grow In fields and forests, all their pow'rs I know. To cure the pains of love no plant avails, And his own physic the physician fails.

It is remarkable that the imitation in the text of some of the most hacknied lines in classical literature, should be one of four passages quoted by Ruffhead, to prove that all the images in Pope's Pastorals had not been borrowed from preceding poets.]

Est mihi disparibus septem compacta cicutis Fistula, Damoetas dono mihi quam dedit olim, Et dixit moriens, Te nunc habet ista secundum.--POPE.

Pope's couplet originally ran thus:

Of slender reeds a tuneful flute I have. The tuneful flute which dying Colin gave.

"Objection," he says to Walsh, "that the first line is too much transposed from the natural order of the words, and that the rhyme is inharmonious." He subjoined the couplet in the text, and asked, "Which of these is best?" to which Walsh replies, "The second."]

Surely Dr. Johnson's decrying the affected introduction of "crook and pipe," &c., into English pastorals, is not a condemnation of all pastoral poetry. Dr. Johnson certainly could not very highly relish this species of poetry, witness his harsh criticisms on Milton's exquisite Lycidas; but we almost forgive his severity on several genuine pieces of poetic excellence, when we consider that he has done a service to truth and nature in speaking with a proper and dignified contempt for such trite puerilities.--BOWLES.]

Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida silvas.--WAKEFIELD.]

Hic arguta sacra pendebit fistula pinu.--WAKEFIELD.

Dryden's translation:

The praise of artful numbers I resign, And hang my harp upon the sacred pine.]

Some god transform me by his heav'nly pow'r, E'en to a bee to buzz within your bow'r.--WAKEFIELD.

Warton prefers the image of Theocritus, as more wild, more delicate, and more uncommon. It is natural for a lover to wish that he might be anything that could come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire to be that which she fondles and caresses, than to be that which she avoids, at least would neglect. The superior delicacy of Theocritus I cannot discover, nor can indeed find, that either in the one or the other image there is any want of delicacy.--JOHNSON.

Pope had at first written:

Some pitying god permit me to be made The bird that sings beneath thy myrtle shade.