Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/362

836 to Parents, being a most popular Vertue among the Romans.

Æneid the 6th. Line 586. The next in place and Punishment are they, Who prodigally throw their Lives away, &c.

Proxima sorte tenent mæsti loca, qui sibi letum Insontes peperere manu, lucemque perosi, Projecere animas, &c.

This was taken, amongst many other things, from the Tenth Book of Plato de Republicâ: No Commentator besides Fabrini, has taken no­tice of it. Self-Murther was accounted a great Crime by that Divine Philosopher: But the Instances which he brings, are too many to be inserted in these short Notes. Sir Robert Howard in his Translation of this Æneid, which was Printed with his Poems in the Year 1660; has given us the most Learned, and the most Judicious Observations on this Book, which are extant in our Language.

Line 734.Lo to the secret Shadows I retire, To pay my Penance, till my Years expire.

These two Verses in English seem very different from the Latin.

Yet they are the Sense of Virgil; at least, according to the common Interpretation of this place: