[Footnote 32: Imitated from Virg. Ecl. vii. 24:
Hic arguta sacra pendebit fistula pinu.--WAKEFIELD.
Dryden's translation:
The praise of artful numbers I resign,
And hang my harp upon the sacred pine.]
[Footnote 33: This thought is formed on one in Theocritus iii. 12, and
our poet had before him Dryden's translation of that Idyllium:
Some god transform me by his heav'nly pow'r,
E'en to a bee to buzz within your bow'r.--WAKEFIELD.
Warton prefers the image of Theocritus, as more wild, more delicate, and
more uncommon. It is natural for a lover to wish that he might be
anything that could come near to his lady. But we more naturally desire
to be that which she fondles and caresses, than to be that which she
avoids, at least would neglect. The superior delicacy of Theocritus I
cannot discover, nor can indeed find, that either in the one or the
other image there is any want of delicacy.--JOHNSON.
Pope had at first written:
Some pitying god permit me to be made
The bird that sings beneath thy myrtle shade.
He submitted this couplet and the emendation in the text to Walsh, and
said, "The epithet _captive_ seems necessary to explain the thought, on
account of _those kisses_ in the last line [of the paragraph]. Quaere. If
these be better than the other?" Walsh. "The second are the best, for it
is not enough to _permit_ you to be made, but to make you."]
[Footnote 34: Virg. Ecl. ix. 33:
me quoque dicunt
Vatem pastores.--WAKEFIELD.]
[Footnote 35: Milton's Lycidas, ver. 34:
Rough satyrs danced.
Dryden's Virgil, Ecl. vi. 42:
He raised his voice, and soon a num'rous throng
Of tripping satyrs crowded to the song.
Pan was the god of shepherds, the inventor of the pastoral pipe of
reeds, and himself a skilful musician. "The ancient images," says
Archbishop Whately, "represent him as partly in the human form, and
partly in that of a goat, with horns and cloven hoofs. And hence it is
that, by a kind of tradition, we often see, even at this day,
representations of Satan in this form. For the early christians seem to
have thought that it was he whom the pagans adored under the name of
Pan."]
[Footnote 36: Spenser's Elegy on the death of Sir P. Sidney:
Come forth, ye nymphs, forsake your wat'ry bowers,
Forsake your mossy caves.]
[Footnote 37: Spenser's Astrophel:
And many a nymph both of the wood and brook,
Soon as his oaten pipe began to shrill,
Both chrystal wells, and shady groves forsook
To hear the charms of his enchanting skill;
And brought him presents, flow'rs if it were prime,
Or mellow fruit if it were harvest time.]
[Footnote 38: From the Shepherd's Calendar of Spenser:
His clownish gifts and courtsies I disdain,
His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit;
Ah, foolish Hobbinol, thy gifts been vain,
Colin them gives to Hobbinol again.]
[Footnote 39: Virg. Ecl. ii. 60:
habitarunt dii quoque sylvas.
Ecl. x. 18:
Et formosus oves ad flumina pavit Adonis.--POPE.