[Footnote 11: Sandys' translation:
If credit to the wretched may be giv'n,
I swear by all the pow'rs embowered in heav'n.]
[Footnote 12: This translation is faulty. "Patior sine crimine, et
viximus innocuae," is but one and the same person,--a testimony of her
own innocence, but not of the mutual concord between her
relations.--BOWYER.]
[Footnote 13: "New greens," from its equivocal meaning, is a burlesque
expression. "Sounding" is a feeble epithet to be applied to the axe by
Dryope, who was thinking of the wounds it would inflict upon her; and it
is still more inappropriate to make her call her transformation, "my
honours," when she regarded the metamorphose with dismay. How superior
to Pope's diluted version is the brief and simple language of the
original,--"et caesa securibus urar." Sandys is better than Pope in the
same proportion that he is more literal:
Or if I lie, may my green branches fade;
And felled with axes on the fire be laid.]
[Footnote 14: It is worth quoting the parallel line of Sandys, to show
how much more touching are the household words "husband" and "father"
than the "sire" and "spouse" substituted by Pope: