Partant d’un homme sans eclat;
Ce seroient paroles exquisses,
Si c’etoit un grand qui parlàt.”
The last link in this chain of imitation, is Pope’s well-known lines—
“What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starved hackney sonnetteer or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens, how the style refines!”
Iliona sive Polydorus.—Priam, during the siege of Troy, had entrusted his son Polydorus to the care of Polymnestor, King of Thrace, who was married to Iliona, daughter of Priam, and slew his guest, in order to possess himself of the treasure which had been sent along with him. The only passage of the play which remains, is one in which the shade of Polydorus calls on Hecuba to arise and bury her murdered son.
Iphigenia.—Ennius, as already mentioned, appears invariably to have translated from Euripides, in preference to Sophocles, when the same subject had been treated by both these poets. Sophocles had written a tragedy on the topic of the well-known Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides; but it is the latter piece which has been adopted by the Roman poet.