the youths and maidens a good addition? The _giovani
vaghi e donne innamorate_. Both are admirable--but I incline to Ariosto.

AQUILIUS.--And do you think the Latin poet the original? You forget how
little originality the Latin authors can claim. This of Catullus is a
translation--a free one, it is true--of perhaps a still more beautiful
passage in Euripides. Reach the book: you will find it in that very
singular play the Hippolytus. Ay, here it is. He offers the garland to
the virgin goddess Artemis--(line 73)

[Greek:
"Soi tonde plekton stephanon ex akeratou
Leimonos, o despoina, kosmesas phero,
Enth' oute poimen axioi pherbein bota
Out' elthe po sideros, all' akeraton
Melissa leimon' erinon dierchetai
Aidos de potamiaisi kepeuei drosois.
Hosois didakton meden, all' en te physei
To sophronein eilechen es ta panth' homos,
Toutos drepesthai; tois kakoisi, d' ou themis."]

"I bring thee, O mistress, this woven crown, beautifully made up of
flowers of the pure untouched meadow--where never shepherd thinks it
fitting to feed his flock, nor the sickle comes; but the bee ever passes
over the pure meadow breathing of spring, and modesty waters it as a
garden with the river-dews. To them who have, untaught, in their nature
the gift of chastity, to these only it is at all times an allowed
sanctity to cut these flowers, but not to the evil-minded."

You cannot doubt that the passage in Catullus is taken from the
Greek--which is of a higher sentiment in the conclusion, and is enriched
beyond the Latin by the bee, and above all by the personification of
Modesty tending and watering the garden, or rather these especial
flowers, with the river-dews.

CURATE.--How far more pure is the sentiment, and more quiet the imagery,
in the Greek! The Greeks were the great originators of glorious thought
and beautiful diction.

GRATIAN.--Let us now to Catullus. What have we next?

AQUILIUS.--Here is a tender little piece, to his friend Ortalus. I see
it has an omission: this edition does not supply it; I only take what I
see. It seems Ortalus had requested him to send him his translation from
Callimachus, the "Coma Berenices," which for some time, through grief
for the death of his brother, he had failed to do. He now sends the
poem.

AD ORTALUM.

Though care, that unto me sore grief hath brought,
Calls me from converse with the sacred Nine,
Nor can my heart incline