"The goats shall bear to the fold their udders distended with milk: nor shall the herds be afraid of the greatest lions. The serpent shall die, and the herb that conceals poison shall die."
Isaiah xi. 6, 7, 8. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the den of the cockatrice."—Pope.
[48] The similarity of the rhymes in this couplet to those of the preceding is a blemish to this passage.—Wakefield.
[49] Isaiah lxv. 25.—Pope. "The lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat."
[50] Pope's line may have been suggested by Ovid's description of the transformation of Cadmus and his wife into snakes. Of Cadmus it is said, Met. iv. 595, that
ille suæ lambebat conjugis ora;
and of husband and wife, when the change in both was complete, that
Nunc quoque nec fugiunt hominem, nec vulnere lædunt.
[51] Originally,
And with their forky tongue and pointless sting shall play.