FOOTNOTES:
[1] Upon occasion of the death of Hercules, his mother Alcmena recounts her misfortunes to Iole, who answers with a relation of those of her own family, in particular the transformation of her sister Dryope, which is the subject of the ensuing fable.—Pope.
[2] Alcmena. Galanthis was one of her female servants.
[3] Iole was not the consort of Alcmena's son, Hercules, but of her grandson, Hyllus.
[4] Out of jealousy that Alcmena should bear a child to Jupiter, Juno employed Lucina to hinder the birth of Hercules. The malevolence of the goddess was defeated through the ingenuity of Galanthis, who was straightway turned into a weasel by the baffled and irritated Lucina.
[5] Sandys' translation:
Of all the Œchalides
For form few might with Dryope compare.
[6] This flowing couplet he has transferred into more places than one of his version of Homer.—Wakefield.
[7] Dryden, Æn. iii. 54:
The violated myrtle ran with gore.—Wakefield.
[8] "As" is put for "as though."
[9] Cowley's transformation of Lot's wife, Davideis, iii. 254:
No more a woman, nor yet quite a stone.—Wakefield.
[10] Dryden's Virg. Ecl. x. 20:
And hung with humid pearls the lowly shrub appears.—Wakefield.
[11] Sandys' translation:
If credit to the wretched may be giv'n,
I swear by all the pow'rs embowered in heav'n.
[12] This translation is faulty. "Patior sine crimine, et viximus innocuæ," is but one and the same person,—a testimony of her own innocence, but not of the mutual concord between her relations.—Bowyer.
[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 cæsa 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.
[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:
Dear husband, sister, father, all farewell.
[15] Dryden's version of Ovid, Met. viii.:
At once th' encroaching rinds their closing lips
invade.—Wakefield.