ght be presumed, at the height, for
they describe the paragon of lovers and harpers harping his affliction of
love--

Ipse cava solans aegrum testudine amorem,
Te dulcis conjux, te solo in litore secum,
Te veniente die, te decedente, canebat!

Musical, dolorous iteration, iteration! Musical, woe-begone iteration,
iteration! What have we in English?

"The unhappy husband, husband now no more,
Did, on his tuneful harp, his loss deplore,
And sought his mournful mind with music to restore.
On thee, dear wife, in desarts all alone,
He call'd, sigh'd, sang; his griefs with day begun,
Nor were they finish'd with the setting sun."

Studied verses undoubtedly--musical, and mournful, and iterative. The two
triplets of rhyme have unquestionably this meaning; and the bold choice of
the homely-affectionate, "_dear wife_," to render the more ornate "_dulcis
conjux_," is of a sincere simplicity, and as good English as may be. We
see here a poetical method of equivalents--for "on _thee_ he _call'd,
sigh'd, sang_," is intended to render the urgency and incessancy of _Te,
Te, Te, Te!_ But the singular and purely Virgilian artifice of
construction in the second and third line, is abandoned without hope of
imitation.

Orpheus goes down into hell.

"Taenarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Ditis,
Et caligantem nigra formidine lucum
Ingressus, Manesque adiit, Regemque tremendum,
Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda."

"Even to the dark dominions of the night
He took his way, thro' forests void of light,
And dared amidst the trembling ghosts to sing,
And stood before the inexorable king."

They are good verses, and might satisfy an English reader who knew not the
original: albeit they do not attain--how should they?--to the sullen
weight of dark dread that loads the Latin Hexameters. Look at
that--REGEMQUE TREMENDUM! And then, still, the insisting upon something
more! To what nameless Powers do they belong--those unassigned hearts,
that are without the experience and intelligence of complying with human
prayers?

The infatuation--_dementia_--which, on the verge of the rejoined light,
turns back too soon the head of Orpheus towards her who follows him, is by
Virgil said to be

"Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes!"

A verse awful by the measure which it preserves between the human of the
first half--_ignoscenda quidem_--and the infernal of the second
half--_scirent si ignoscere