Behind, [to bid men] Thetis tempt in ships,
To girdle towns with walls, to bid in earth
Furrows to cleave. Another Tiphys then
Shall be, another Argo, too, to waft

Choice heroes; there shall eke be other wars,
Ay, and again to Troy shall be despatched

The great Achilles. Then, when now established age
Shall thee have formed a man, e'en of himself
The mariner shall from the main withdraw,
Nor naval argosy shall barter wares;

All things shall every country yield. No soil
Shall harrows brook, no vine the pruning-knife;
The stalwart ploughman, too, shall now unloose
The yokes from off the bulls. Nor shall the wool
Learn motley hues to affect; but of himself
The ram shall in the meadows change his fleece,
With now the sweetly-blushing purple dye,
With now the saffron wold; of its free will
Vermilion, as they feed, shall clothe the lambs.
"Through ages such as these, career ye on,"
Have to their spindles cried, in harmony
With the unswerving will of fates, the Weirds.

60

Line 56. Or perhaps mentiri might be rendered "to forge," as Spenser says of Duessa:

"So could she forge all colours save the trew."

63. Spenser finely describes the offices of the Parcæ: F. Q. iv. 2, 48: "There she them found all sitting round about

The direfull Distaffe standing in the mid,

And with unwearied fingers drawing out

The lines of life, from living knowledge hid.

Sad Clotho held the rocke, the whiles the thrid
By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine,

That cruel Atropos eftsoones undid,

With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine :

Most wretched men, whose dayes depend on thrids so vaine !"

O enter thou on thy grand dignities,
(The time will soon arrive,) beloved child
Of gods, thou mighty foster-son of Jove!
Behold with spheric mass a nodding world,
Both lands, and ocean-paths, and sky sublime;
See, at the coming age, how all things joy!
O that to me might last the latest stage
Of such a lengthful life! a genius, too,
As shall sufficient prove to tell thy deeds!
No, nor shall Thracian Orpheus me surpass
In songs, nor Linus; though a mother that-
And this a father aid-Calliope

Orpheus, the fair Apollo Linus. If e'en Pan,
Arcadia umpire, should with me compete,
E'en Pan, Arcadia umpire, would avow
Himself surpassed. Begin, O infant boy,

70

To recognise thy mother with a smile;

80

Ten months have brought thy mother longsome qualms.

Begin, O infant boy: [that babe] on whom

His parents have not smiled, nor god of board,
Nor goddess hath deemed worthy of her bed.

Line 69. So Eve dreams that Adam says to her :
"Heaven wakes with all his eyes,

Whom to behold but thee, Nature's desire?
In whose sight all things joy."

Milton, P. L. v.

ECLOGUE V. DAPHNIS.

MENALCAS. MOPSUS.

MENALCAS.

WHEREFORE, O Mopsus, not, since we have met,
Both skilful,—thou in breathing into slender reeds,
In singing verses I,-here seat us down
Among the elms with hazels interspersed ?

MOPSUS.

Thou art the elder; it is fair that I

Give way to thee, Menalcas, whether 'neath
The fitful shades, the zephyrs waving them,
Or rather 'neath the grot we go. Behold,
How hath the wild-wood vine the grot o'erspread
With scattered bunches.

Line 3. It is evident from this whole Eclogue, and especially from comparing vv. 51, 55 of Ecl. III., that dicere versus means to sing songs, not to rehearse or indite them.

See also Ecl. IX., and compare v. 35 with v. 36.

7.

9.

"My lovely Aaron, wherefore look'st thou sad,
When every thing doth make a gleeful boast?
The birds chaunt melody on every bush ;
The snake lies rolled in the cheerful sun;
The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind,
And make a chequer'd shadow on the ground:
Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit."

Shakspeare, Tit. And. ii. 3.

"So fashioned a porch with rare device,
Archt over head with an embracing vine,

Amyntas only vies.

MENALCAS.

In our mounts with thee

MOPSUS.

What should the same

Endeavour Phoebus to surpass in song?

MENALCAS.

'Gin, Mopsus, first, if either any flames
Of Phyllis, either Alcon's lauds thou hast,
Or brawls of Codrus: 'gin; thy browsing kids
Will Tityrus watch.

MOPSUS.

Nay, I those strains which late

10

Whose bounches hanging downe seemd to entice
All passers by to taste their lushious wine."

Spenser, F. Q. ii. 12, 54.

"Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant."

Milton, P. L. 4.

"Deep in the gloomy glade a grotto bends,
Wide through the craggy rock an arch extends;
The rugged stone is clothed with mantling vines,
And round the cave the creeping woodbine twines."
Gay, The Fan, i. 99-102.

Line 11. Certat seems to have better authority than certet, and is certainly a more graphic reading.

12. Or:

What if the same

Should strive in singing Phoebus to surpass?

15, 16. So Spenser, Sh. Cal. May, 172:

"Now, Piers, of fellowship, tell us that saying;

For the lad can keep both our flockes from straying."

A. Philips varies the idea: Past. 4:

"And since our ewes have grazed, what harm if they
Lie round and listen, while the lambkins play?"

Upon a beech-tree's verdant bark I scored,

And sang and marked them down by turns, will try:
Then do thou bid Amyntas to compete.

MENALCAS.

As much as doth the supple willow yield
To th' olive wan, as much as lowly nard
To beds of crimson roses,-in our mind
So much Amyntas yieldeth unto thee.

MOPSUS.

20

But cease thou more, O swain; we have reached the grot. Quenched by fell death, the nymphs did Daphnis weep.

Ye [were] the witnesses, O hazel-shrubs

And rivers, for the nymphs, when clasping round

The pitiable body of her son,

Both gods and stars the mother felon calls.

Line 25. See Milton's Lycidas:

"But oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,
With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,
And all their echoes mourn:

The willows and the hazel-copses green

Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays."

The same miseries Spenser makes the consequence of Colin Clout's absence. Hobbinol tells him: Colin Clout, xxii. :

"Whilest thou wast hence, all dead in dole did lie:
The woods were heard to waile full many a sythe,
And all their birds with silence to complaine :
The fields with faded flowers did seem to mourne,
And all their flocks from feeding to refraine :
The running waters wept for thy returne,
And all their fish with languour did lament."

26-29. A. Philips happily imitates this passage:
"The pious mother comes, with grief oppress'd;
Ye trees and conscious fountains can attest
VOL. I.

D