Page:Virgil's Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis - Dryden (1709) - volume 3.djvu/381

Rh of Merit, fond of Handsomness; and generally speaking, rather hurried away by their Appetite, than govern'd by their Reason.

L. 1191, & 1192.This let me beg; (and this no Fates withstand) Both for my self, and for your Fathers Land, &c.

The words in the Original are these, pro Latio obtestor, pro Majestate tu­orum. Virgil very artfully uses here the word Majestas; which the Ro­mans lov'd so well, that they appropriated it to themselves. Majestas Populi Ramani. this Title apply'd to Kings, is very Modern, and that is all I will say of it at present: Though the word requires a larger Note. In the word tuorum, is included the sense of my Translation, Your Father's Land: Because Saturn the Father of Jove, had govern'd that part of Italy, after his expulsion from Crete. But that on which I most insist, is the Address of the Poet, in this Speech of Juno. Virgil was suf­ficiently sensible, as I have said in the Preface, that whatever the com­mon Opinion was, concerning the Descent of the Romans from the Tro­jans; yet the Ancient Customs, Rites, Laws, and Habits, of those Tro­jans were wholly lost, and perhaps also that they had never been: And for this Reason, he introduces Juno in this place; requesting of Jupiter, that no Memory might remain of Troy, (the Town she hated) that the People hereafter should not be called Trojans, nor retain any thing which belong'd to their Predecessors. And why might not this also be