Tactus aratro est.”
This last most beautiful image has been imitated by various poets. Virgil has not disdained to transfer it to his Æneid—
“Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro
Languescit moriens[480].”
Fracastoro has employed the same metaphor with hardly less elegance in his consolatory epistle to Turri, on the loss of his child—
—— “Jacet ille velut succisus aratro
Flos tener, et frustra non audit tanta gementem;”
and Ariosto has introduced it in the eighteenth canto of the Orlando—
“Come purpureo fior languendo muore
Che ’l vomere al passar tagliato lassa.”