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.
[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]. Quære. 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."
[34] Virg. Ecl. ix. 33: