The Works of Alexander Pope Part 56

[Footnote 32: Variation:

What eyes but hers, alas! have pow'r on me; Oh mighty Love! what magic is like thee?--POPE.]

[Footnote 33: Virg. Ecl. viii. 43:

Nunc scio quid sit amor. Duris in cotibus illum, etc.--POPE.

Stafford's version of the original in Dryden's Miscellanies:

I know thee, Love! on mountains thou wast bred.

Pope was not unmindful of Dryden's translation:

I know thee, Love! in deserts thou wert bred, And at the dugs of savage tigers fed.

He had in view also a pa.s.sage in the aeneid, iv. 366, and Dryden's version of it:

But hewn from hardened entrails of a rock, And rough Hyrcanian tigers gave thee suck.

Nor did our author overlook the parallel pa.s.sage in Ovid's Epistle of Dido to aeneas, and Dryden's translation thereof:

From hardened oak, or from a rock's cold womb, At least thou art from some fierce tigress come; Or on rough seas, from their foundation torn, Got by the winds, and in a tempest born.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 34: Till the edition of Warburton, this couplet was as follows:

I know thee, Love! wild as the raging main, More fell than tigers on the Lybian plain.]

[Footnote 35: Were a man to meet with such a nondescript monster as the following, viz.: "Love out of Mount aetna by a Whirlwind," he would suppose himself reading the Racing Calendar. Yet this hybrid creature is one of the many zoological monsters to whom the Pastorals introduce us.--DE QUINCY.

Sentiments like these, as they have no ground in nature, are of little value in any poem, but in pastoral they are particularly liable to censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which in tragic or heroic writings often reconciles us to bold flights and daring figures.--JOHNSON.]

[Footnote 36: Virg. Ecl. viii. 59:

Praeceps aerii specula de montis in undas Deferar.

From yon high cliff I plunge into the main. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.

This pa.s.sage in Pope is a strong instance of the abnegation of feeling in his Pastorals. The shepherd proclaims at the beginning of his chant that it is his dying speech, and at the end that he has resolved upon immediate suicide. Having announced the tragedy, Pope treats it with total indifference, and quietly adds, "Thus sung the shepherds," &c.]

[Footnote 37: Ver. 98, 100. There is a little inaccuracy here; the first line makes the time after sunset; the second before.--WARBURTON.

Pope had at first written:

Thus sung the swains while day yet strove with night, And heav'n yet languished with departing light.

"Quaere," he says to Walsh, "if languish be a proper word?" and Walsh answers, "Not very proper."]

[Footnote 38: Virg. Ecl. ii. 67:

Et sol decedens crescentes duplicat umbras.

The shadows lengthen as the sun grows low. Dryden.--WAKEFIELD.

"Objection," Pope said to Walsh, "that to mention the sunset after twilight (_day yet strove with night_) is improper. Is the following alteration anything better?

And the brown ev'ning lengthened ev'ry shade."

Walsh. "It is not the evening, but the sun being low that lengthens the shades, otherwise the second pa.s.sage is the best."]

WINTER:[1]

THE FOURTH PASTORAL,

OR

DAPHNE.

TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. TEMPEST.[2]

LYCIDAS.

Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring Is not so mournful as the strains you sing;[3]

Nor rivers winding through the vales below,[4]

So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.[5]

Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie, 5 The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky, While silent birds forget their tuneful lays, Oh sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise![6]

THYRSIS.

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost, Their beauty withered, and their verdure lost! 10 Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain, That called the list'ning dryads to the plain?[7]

Thames heard the numbers as he flowed along, And bade his willows learn the moving song.[8]

LYCIDAS.

So may kind rains[9] their vital moisture yield, 15 And swell the future harvest of the field.

Begin; this charge the dying Daphne gave,[10]

And said, "Ye shepherds sing around my grave!"

Sing, while beside the shaded tomb I mourn, And with fresh bays her rural shrine adorn.[11] 20

THYRSIS.

Ye gentle muses, leave your crystal spring, Let nymphs and sylvans cypress garlands bring Ye weeping loves, the stream with myrtles hide,[12]

And break your bows, as when Adonis died;[13]

And with your golden darts, now useless grown, 25 Inscribe a verse on this relenting stone: "Let nature change, let heav'n and earth deplore, "Fair Daphne's dead, and love is now no more!"[14]

'Tis done, and nature's various charms decay,[15]

See gloomy clouds obscure the cheerful day! 30 Now hung with pearls the dropping trees appear,[16]