You remember, perhaps, in some papers published awhile ago, an odd poem
written by an old Latin tutor? He brought up at the verb _amo_, I love,
as all of us do, and by and by Nature opened her great living dictionary
for him at the word _filia_, a daughter. The poor man was greatly
perplexed in choosing a name for her. _Lucretia_ and _Virginia_ were the
first that he thought of; but then came up those pictured stories of
Titus Livius, which he could never read without crying, though he had
read them a hundred times.
Lucretia sending for her husband and her father, each to bring one friend
with him, and awaiting them in her chamber. To them her wrongs briefly.
Let them see to the wretch,——she will take care of herself. Then the
hidden knife flashes out and sinks into her heart. She slides from her
seat, and falls dying. “Her husband and her father cry aloud.”——No,——not
Lucretia.
——Virginius,——a brown old soldier, father of a nice girl. She engaged
to a very promising young man. Decemvir Appius takes a violent fancy to
her,——must have her at any rate. Hires a lawyer to present the arguments
in favor of the view that she was another man’s daughter. There used to
be lawyers in Rome that would do such things.——All right. There are two
sides to everything. _Audi alteram partem._ The legal gentleman has no
opinion,——he only states the evidence.——A doubtful case. Let the young
lady be under the protection of the Honorable Decemvir until it can be
looked up thoroughly.——Father thinks it best, on the whole, to give in.
Will explain the matter, if the young lady and her maid will step this
way. _That_ is the explanation,——a stab with a butcher’s knife, snatched
from a stall, meant for other lambs than this poor bleeding Virginia!
The old man thought over the story. Then he must have one look at the
original. So he took down the first volume and read it over. When he came
to that part where it tells how the young gentleman she was engaged to
and a friend of his took up the poor girl’s bloodless shape and carried
it through the street, and how all the women followed, wailing, and
asking if that was what their daughters were coming to,——if that was
what they were to get for being good girls,——he melted down into his
accustomed tears of pity and grief, and, through them all, of delight at
the charming Latin of the narrative. But it was impossible to call his
child Virginia. He could never look at her without thinking she had a
knife sticking in her bosom.
_Dido_ would be a good name, and a fresh one. She was a queen, and the
founder of a great city. Her story had been immortalized by the greatest
of poets,——for the old Latin tutor clove to “Virgilius Maro,” as he
called him, as closely as ever Dante did in his memorable journey. So he
took down his Virgil,——it was the smooth-leafed, open-lettered quarto
of Baskerville,——and began reading the loves and mishaps of Dido. It
wouldn’t do. A lady who had not learned discretion by experience, and
came to an evil end. He shook his head, as he sadly repeated,
“——misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore”;
but when he came to the lines,
“Ergo Iris croceis per cœlum roscida pennis
Mille trahens varios adverso Sole colores,”
he jumped up with a great exclamation, which the particular recording
angel who heard it pretended not to understand, or it might have gone
hard with the Latin tutor some time or other.
“_Iris_ shall be her name!”——he said. So her name was Iris.