Will you, my Friends, united Strength employ, Against one many, Men against a Boy?
When the Thoughts are thus set against each other, they appear with Energy, and strike the Mind with redoubled Force.
Another Elegance in a Writer, is to convey the whole of his Idea to the Reader, by expressing only some Circumstances of it.
[181] Dixerat; atque illam media inter talia ferro Collapsam aspiciunt comites, ensemque cruore Spumantem, sparsasque manus.
Thus, while she spoke, th' Attendants saw her fall, The Sword all frothing, and her Hands besmear'd With Blood.
Thus Virgil describes Dido killing herself: An inferior Poet, no doubt, would have represented her in the fatal Act, rushing upon the Sword with all her Strength, the Blood gushing out, and that Part of her Body which receiv'd the Wound expos'd to View. But how much better are all these passed over, and suggested to us only by their Adjuncts and Effects? There is another Example, of this kind, in the fourth Georgic, which is truly wonderful:
[182] Illa quidem, dum te fugeret per flumina præceps, Immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella Servantem ripas alta non vidit in herba. At chorus æqualis Dryadum clamore supremos Implerunt montes; flerunt Rhodopeiæ arces, &c.
She doom'd to Death, while, heedless, thee she fled, Along the River's Side, before her Steps, In the high Grass saw not the monstrous Snake, Which, unperceiv'd, lay lurking on the Bank. But all the beauteous Quire of Woodland Nymphs, Her Fellows, fill'd with Shrieks the lofty Hills; The Rhodopeian Mountains wept, &c.
How concise, and ingenious! This Artifice of insinuating only the Sense to the Reader, is so useful in Epigram, that the whole Thought often turns upon it. Thus in that of Martial:
[183] Pexatus pulchre, rides mea, Zoile, trita; Sunt hæc trita quidem, Zoile; sed mea sunt.