FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240  
241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   >>   >|  
[Footnote 24: From Dryden's Ovid, Epist. vii.: Their daily longing, and their nightly dream. It was at first thus in Pope's MS.: Thou art at once my anguish and delight, Care of my day, and phantom of my night. [Footnote 25: In the MS.: Thy kisses then, thy words my soul endear. Glow on my lips, and murmur in my ear. [Footnote 26: Of this couplet there are two other versions in the MS.: The charming phantom flies, and I complain, As if thyself forsook me once again. And, I dread the light of cruel heav'n to view, And close my eyes once more to dream of you. [Footnote 27: "Antra nemusque" are not well rendered by "through lonely plains." Ovid is concise and specific, Pope general. Better rendered by Scrope: Soon as I rise I haunt the caves and groves.--BOWLES. [Footnote 28: In the first edition: I find the shades that did our joys conceal, Not him who made me love those shades so well.] [Footnote 29: Scrope's translation: Of Tereus she complains, and I of thee.--WAKEFIELD. Tereus married Progne, and afterwards fell in love with her sister Philomela. Both sisters conspired to revenge themselves upon him. They killed Itys, his son by Progne, gave him some of the flesh to eat. When, with savage exultation, they revealed the truth to him, and he was about to slay them, Progne was changed into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale.] [Footnote 30: The Sappho of Ovid only says that she laid down upon the bank worn out with weeping. Pope is answerable for the extravagant conceit of "her swelling the flood with her tears." In the next verse Pope calls the Naiad "a watery virgin,"--an expression which borders on the ludicrous.] [Footnote 31: There was a promontory in Acarnania called Leucate, on the top of which was a little temple dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea; for it was an established opinion that all those who were taken up alive would be cured of their former passion. Sappho tried the remedy, but perished in the experiment.--FAWKES.] [Footnote 32: Aleaeus arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap on her account; but hearing that her body could not be found, he very generously lamented her fall, and is said to have written his 215th ode on
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240  
241   242   243   244   245   246   247   248   249   250   251   252   253   254   255   256   257   258   259   260   261   262   263   264   265   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Footnote
 

Progne

 

temple

 

Leucate

 

Tereus

 

promontory

 

Scrope

 

rendered

 

shades

 

Sappho


phantom
 

Philomela

 
expression
 

virgin

 

watery

 

changed

 

swallow

 

nightingale

 

exultation

 

revealed


weeping

 
answerable
 

extravagant

 

conceit

 
swelling
 

arrived

 

Aleaeus

 
evening
 

FAWKES

 

passion


remedy

 

perished

 

experiment

 

account

 

written

 

lamented

 

hearing

 

generously

 

savage

 
Apollo

despairing

 
lovers
 
dedicated
 

ludicrous

 

Acarnania

 

called

 

secret

 

opinion

 

precipice

 

established