Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/350

824 the Sheep and Oxen of Admetus (with whom he was in Love) on the Hill Amphrysus.

Pastoral 4th. Line 73. Begin Auspicious Boy, &c. In Latin thus. Incipe parve Puer, risu cognoscere Matrem, &c. I have Translated the Passage to this Sense; that the Infant smiling on his Mother, singles her out from the rest of the Company about him. Erythraeus, Bembus, and Joseph Scaliger, are of this Opinion. Yet they and I may be mistaken. For immediately after, we find these words, Cui non risere Parentes, which imply another Sense, as if the Parents smil'd on the New-born Infant: And that the Babe on whom they vouchsaf'd not to smile, was born to ill Fortune. For they tell a Story, that when Vulcan, the only Son of Jupiter and Juno came into the World, he was so hard favour'd, that both his Parents frown'd on him: And Jupiter threw him out of Heaven; he fell on the Island Lemnos, and was Lame ever afterwards. The last Line of the Pastoral seems to justify this Sense, Nec Deus hunc Mensâ, Dea nec dignata Cubili est. For though he mar­ried Venus, yet his Mother Juno was not present at the Nuptials to bless them; as appears by his Wife's Incontinence. They say also, that he was banish'd from the Banquets of the Gods: If so, that Punish­ment could be of no long continuance, for Homer makes him present at their Feasts; and composing a Quarrel betwixt his Parents, with a Bowl of Nectar. The matter is of no great Consequence; and there­fore I adhere to my Translation, for these two Reasons: First, Virgil has this following Line. Matri longa docem tulerunt