and thus Virgil makes Dido address Æneas—
“Nec tibi Diva parens, generis nec Dardanus auctor,
Perfide, sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens
Caucasus, Hyrcanæque admôrunt ubera tigres.”
Tasso, who was a great imitator of the Latin poets, attributes, from the lips of Armida, a similar genealogy to Rinaldo—
“Nè te Sofia produsse, e non sei nato
Dell’ Azzio sangue tu. Te l’onda insana
Del mar produsse, e ’l Caucaso gelato,
E le mamme allattar de tigre Ircana.”
Boileau had happily enough parodied those rodomontades in the earlier editions of the Lutrin; but the passage has been omitted in all those subsequent to that of 1683—