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IDYLLIUM I.

All the beauties and graces that can poffibly embellish a poem of this nature, are united in this delicate Idyllium. And, therefore, the most polite fcholars, and the beft critics of every age, have defervedly esteemed it one of the finest and moft perfect remains of antiquity.

Ver. 20. See Mofchus, ver. 97, &c. See Venus too her beauteous bofom beat! She lov'd her fhepherd more than kiffes sweet, More than those last dear kiffes which in death She gave Adonis, and imbib'd his breath. Ver. 43. Virgil, Eclogue 5.

Daphni, tuum interitum, montes fylvæque lo

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Mofchus.

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Ver.

er. 72. Thus Spenfer, Faery Queen, B. 3. C. 4. St. 38.

O! what avails it of immortal feed

To been ybred, and never born to die?
For better I it deem to die with speed,
Than waste in woe, and wailful miferie.

Ver. 14 Thus Catullus,
At vobis malè fit, malæ tenebræ
Orci, quæ omnia Bela devoratis.
Ah! death, relentless to destroy
All that's form'd for love or joy.

Ver. 81 The Ceftus of Venus is thus defcribed by Homer.

Η, και απο τηθίσειν έλυσα το κεσον, κ. τ. λ.

Iliad 14. ver. 214.

She from her fragrant breast the zone unbrac'd,
With various fkili and high embroidery grac'd;
In this was every art, and every charm,
To win the wifeft, and the coldest warm:
Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay defire,
The kind deceit, the ftill furviving fire,
Perfuafive speech, and more perfuafive fighs,

Ver. 55. There is a fimilar beautiful defcription Silence that fpoke, and eloquence of eyes. Pope. in Ovid's Metamorphofes, Book 4.

But when her view her bleeding love confefs'd,
She fhriek'd, he tore her hair, fhe beat her breast:
She rais'd the body, and embrac'd it round,
And bath'd with tears unfeign'd the gaping
wound:

Then her warm lips to the cold face apply'd,
"And is it thus, ah! thus we meet?" the cry'd!
"My Pyramus! whence fprung thy cruel fate?
My Pyramus! ah! fpeak, ere 'tis too late :

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Ver. 93. Some authors fay, that anemonies, and not roles, fprung from the blood of Adonis. Sec Ovid's Metamorph. Book 1o. at the end.

-Where the blood was fhed,

A flower began to rear its purple head :
Such as on Punic apples is reveal'd,
Or in the filmy rind, but half conceal'd.
Still here the fate of lovely forms we fee
So fudden fades the fweet anemony.

The feeble ftems to ftormy blasts a prey,
Their fickly beauties droop, and pine away.
The winds forbid the flow'rs to flourish long,
Which owe to winds their name in Grecian fong.
Eufden.

Ver. 114. Mofchus imitates this in his poem on the death of Bion:

The little loves, lamenting at his doom,

ancients differ greatly in their accounts of this`di"
vinity. Plutarch maintains, that he and Bacchu
are the fame; and that the Jews abstained from
fwine's flesh, because Adonis was killed by a boar.
Aufonius, in Epigram 30. affirms that Bacchus,
Ofiris, and Adonis, are one and the fame.
Langborne.
Ovid makes Venus inftitute this festival, Meta-

Beat their fair breasts, and weep around his tomb. morph. book ro at the end.
Thus Ovid,

Ecce puer Veneris fert everfamque pharetram,

Et fractos arcus, & fine luce facem. Afpice demiffis ut eat miferabilis alis,

Pectoraque infefta tundit aperta manu. Excipiunt lacrymas fparfi per colla capilli, Oraque fingultu concutiente fonant.

Amor. B. 3. El. 9.

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The custom of catching the parting breath may be compared with the 65th and 66 verses above, "ill in my breaft," &c. See a beautiful complaint made by the mother of Euryalus, in the Eneid, book 9. ver. 486.

-nec te tua funera mater
`Produxi, preffive oculos, aut vulnera lavi, &c.
Nor did thy mother clofe thy eyes in death,
Compofe thy limbs, nor catch thy parting breath;
Nor bathe thy gaping wounds, nor cleanfe the
gore,

Nor throw the rich embroider'd mantle o'er. Pitt.
Ver. 120.

-Cupid caught my trembling hand,
And with his wings my face he fann’d.

Ver. 136. The time appointed for mourning for the dead, among the ancients, was ten months which was originally the year both of the Greeks

and Romans,

The anniversary of the death of Adonis was celebrated through the whole Pagan world. The

-luctus monumenta manebunt
Semper, Adoni, mei repetitaque mortis imago
Annua plangoris peraget fimulamina noftri.
For thee, loft youth, my tears and restless pain,
Shall in immortal monuments remain :
With folemn pomp, in annual rites return'd,
Be thou for ever, my Adonis mourn'd.

IDYLLIUM II.

Eufden

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THE WORKS

OF

MOSCH US.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK,

BY

FRANCIS FAWKES, M. A.

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