Musa, mihi causa memora, &c.
And, confiding in his own genius, he begins his poem without soliciting supernal inspiration,
Arma, virumque cano, &c.
To which may be added, that this placing himself before the Muse, resembles the ego et meus rex of Wolsey. On the contrary, divinely-inspired poets, as Hermeas well observes, knock, as it were, at the gates of the Muses, and thus being filled from thence exclaim,
Εσπετε νυν μοι Μουσαι
And,
Μηνιν αειδε θεα—
And,
Ανδρα μοι εννεπε Μουσα.
For being always extended to them, they dispose the whole of what they afterwards say as derived from their inspiring influence. With an arrogance too, peculiar to the Romans, who, as a certain Greek poet[[163]] says, were a people