[113] Much superior to the original.—Warton.
[114] Sandy's translation of Ovid's Met. bk. vi.
And calls the furies from the depth of hell.
[115] Pope copied Stephens:
devouring some
With rav'nous jaws before their parents' eyes,
And fats herself with public miseries.
[116] Inachus, according to one tradition, built the city of Argos. After his descendants had reigned for some generations, the throne was seized by Danaus.
[117] Death cutting off the fatal thread with a scythe, is not a very sublime or congruous image. Pope has blended modern ideas with classical: in the original it is "ense metit;"—"mows with his sword." Pope has introduced a "scythe," to preserve more accurately the metaphor, but it has a bad effect.—Bowles.
[118] Chorœbus.
[119] Statius states that Chorœbus withdrew, having obtained his end, and says nothing of his being "unwilling," by which Pope seems to mean that he was unwilling to accept his life. This deviation from the original destroys the generous heroism of Chorœbus, for if he was weary of his existence there was no merit in his braving death. Statius, indeed, had previously said that Apollo granted Chorœbus the "sad boon of life" out of admiration for his magnanimity; but this phrase only signifies that life is sorrowful, and not that Chorœbus would have preferred to die.
[120] Some of the most finished lines he has ever written, down to verse 854.—Warton.