Et prope, subsultans, irrigat ora liquor.
Nate, meam sentis vocem? Nil cernis et audis,
Teque premunt placidi vincula blanda dei;
Nec mihi purpureis effundis blæsa labellis
Murmura, nec notos confugis usque sinus.
Care, quiesce, puer, sævique quiescite fluctus,
Et mea qui pulsas corda, quiesce, dolor.
Cresce puer; matris leni atque ulciscere luctus,
Tuque tuos saltem protege summe Tonans.
This admirable translation falls short of its original only in a single particular, the measure of the verse. One striking beauty of the original, is the easy and loose structure of the verse, which has little else to distinguish it from animated discourse but the harmony of the syllables; and hence it has more of natural impassioned eloquence, than is conveyed by the regular measure of the translation. That this characteristic of the original should have been overlooked by the ingenious translator, is the more remarkable, that the poem is actually quoted by Dionysius, as an apposite example of that species of composition in which poetry approaches to the freedom of prose; της εμμελους και εμμετρου συνθεσεως της εχουσης πολλην ὁμοιοτητα προς την πεζην λεξιν. Dr. Markham saw this excellence of the original; and in that fine imitation of the verses of Simonides, which an able critic[38] has pronounced to be far superior to the original, has given it its full effect. The passage alluded to is an apostrophe of a mother to her sleeping infant, a widowed mother, who has just left the deathbed of her husband.