[101] Dr Carey proposes to read our; but the alteration seems unnecessary.
NOTE
ON
ÆNEÏS, BOOK III.
And children's children shall the crown sustain.—P. 300.
Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis.
Virgil translated this verse from Homer, Homer had it from Orpheus, and Orpheus from an ancient oracle of Apollo. On this account it is that Virgil immediately subjoins these words, Hæc Phœbus, &c. Eustathius takes notice, that the old poets were wont to take whole paragraphs from one another; which justifies our poet for what he borrows from Homer. Bochartus, in his letter to Ségrais, mentions an oracle which he found in the fragments of an old Greek historian, the sense whereof is this in English, that, when the empire of the Priamidæ should be destroyed, the line of Anchises should succeed. Venus therefore, says the historian, was desirous to have a son by Anchises, though he was then in his decrepit age; accordingly she had Æneas. After this, she sought occasion to ruin the race of Priam, and set on foot the intrigue of Alexander (or Paris) with Helena. She being ravished, Venus pretended still to favour the Trojans, lest they should restore Helen, in case they should be reduced to the last necessity. Whence it appears, that the controversy betwixt Juno and Venus was on no trivial account, but concerned the succession to a great empire.