Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 1.pdf/74

 Tithoni croceum linguens Aurora cubile.

[And for the Remark, we stand indebted to the curious Pencil of Pollio.] The Mourning Fields (Æneid. 6.) are crowded with Ladies of a lost Reputation: Hardly one Man gets admittance, and that is Cæneus, for a very good Reason. Latinus his Queen is turbulent, and ungovernable, and at last hangs her self: And the fair Lavinia is disobedient to the Oracle, and to the King, and looks a little flickering after Turnus. I wonder at this the more, because Livy represents her as an excellent Person, and who behav'd her self with great Wisdom in her Regency during the minority of her Son: So that the Poet has done her Wrong, and it reflects on her Posterity. His Goddesses make as ill a Figure; Juno is always in a rage, and the Fury of Heaven: Venus grows so unreasonably confident, as to ask her Husband to forge Arms for her Bastard Son; which were enough to provoke one of a more Phlegmatick Temper than Vulcan was. Rh