The Works of Alexander Pope Part 58

[Footnote 10: Virg. Ecl. v. 41:

mandat fieri sibi talia Daphnis.]

[Footnote 11: Rowe's Ambitious Step-Mother:

And with fresh roses strew thy virgin urn.--STEEVENS.]

[Footnote 12: Ver. 23, 24, 25. Virg. Ecl. v. 40, 42:

inducite fontibus umbras.... Et tumulum facite, et tumulo superaddite carmen.--POPE.

If the idea of "hiding the stream with myrtles" have either beauty or propriety, I am unable to discover them. Our poet unfortunately followed Dryden's turn of the original phrase in Virgil:

With cypress boughs the crystal fountains hide.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 13: This image is taken from Ovid's elegy on the death of Tibullus, Amor. iii. 9. 6:

Ecce! puer Veneris fert eversamque pharetram, Et fractos arcus, et sine luce facem.--WAKEFIELD.

Ovid copied Bion. Idyl. 1. The Greek poet represents the Loves as trampling upon their bows and arrows, and breaking their quivers in the first paroxysm of their grief for Adonis. In place of this natural burst of uncontrollable sorrow, the shepherd, in Pope, invokes the Loves to break their bows at his instigation. When their darts are said in the next line to be henceforth useless, the sense must be that n.o.body would love any woman again since Mrs. Tempest was dead. Such hyperboles can neither touch the heart nor gratify the understanding. The Pastorals were verse exercises in which every pretence to real emotion was laid aside, for Pope was not even acquainted with the lady of whom he utters these extravagances.]

[Footnote 14: This is imitated from Walsh's Pastoral on the death of Mrs. Tempest in Dryden's Miscellanies, vol. v. p. 323:

Now shepherds! now lament, and now deplore!

Delia is dead, and beauty is no more.--WAKEFIELD.

Congreve's Mourning Muse of Alexis:

All nature mourns; the floods and rocks deplore And cry with me, Pastora is no more.]

[Footnote 15: Originally thus in the MS.

'Tis done, and nature's changed since you are gone; Behold the clouds have put their mourning on.--WARBURTON.

This low conceit, which our poet abandoned for the present reading, was borrowed from Oldham's version of the elegy of Moschus:

For thee, dear swain, for thee, his much-loved son, Does Phoebus clouds of mourning black put on.--WAKEFIELD.

When Pope submitted the rejected and the adopted reading to Walsh, the critic replied, "_Clouds put on mourning_ is too conceited for pastoral.

The second is better, and _the thick_ or _the dark_ I like better than _sable_." The last verse of the couplet in the text was then

See sable clouds eclipse the cheerful day.]

[Footnote 16: Dryden's pastoral elegy on the death of Amyntas:

'Twas on a joyless and a gloomy morn, Wet was the gra.s.s and hung with pearls the thorn.

So in his version of Virgil, Ecl. x. 20:

And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub appears.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 17: Spenser's Colin Clout:

The fields with faded flow'rs did seem to mourn.]

[Footnote 18: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Each flower fades and hangs its withered head, And scorns to thrive or live now thou art dead.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 19: Variation:

For her the flocks the dewy herbs disdain, Nor hungry heifers graze the tender plain.--POPE.

Dryden's Virg. Ecl. v. 38:

The thirsty cattle of themselves abstained From water, and their gra.s.sy fare disdained.

Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, November, ver. 123, where

The feeble flocks in field refuse their former food,

because Dido is dead.]

[Footnote 20: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Ye gentle swans....

In doleful notes the heavy loss bewail Such as you sing at your own funeral.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 21: Cowley in his verses on Echo:

Ah! gentle nymph! who lik'st so well In hollow solitary caves to dwell.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 22: This expression of "sweet echo" is taken from Comus.--WARTON.]

[Footnote 23: Oldham's translation of Moschus:

Sad echo too does in deep silence moan, Since thou art mute, since thou art speechless grown.--WAKEFIELD.]

[Footnote 24: The couplet was different in the early editions:

Echo no more the rural song rebounds; Her name alone the mournful echo sounds.]

[Footnote 25: In the MS.

Which but for you did all its incense yield.

This, with the reading in the text, was laid before Walsh, who selected the latter.]