611 ([return])
[ The erected pile—Ver. 6. Among the Romans the corpse was burnt on a pile of wood, which was called 'pyra,' or 'rogus.' According to Servius, it was called by the former name before, and hy the latter after, it was lighted, but this distinction is not observed by the Latin writers.]
612 ([return])
[ The cruel boar.—Ver. 16. He alludes to the death of Adonis, by the tusk of a boar, which pierced his thigh. See the Tenth Book of the Metamorphoses, l. 716.]
613 ([return])
[ We possess inspiration.—Ver. 17. In the Sixth Book of the Fasti, 1. 6, he says. 'There is a Deity within us (Poets): under his guidance we glow with inspiration; this poetic fervour contains the impregnating. particles of the mind of the Divinity.']
614 ([return])
[ She lays her.—Ver. 20. It must be remembered that, whereas we personify Death as of the masculine gender; the Romans represented the grim tyrant as being a female. It is a curious fact that we find Death very rarely represented as a skeleton on the Roman monuments. The skeleton of a child has, in one instance, been found represented on one of the tombs of Pompeii. The head of a horse was one of the most common modes of representing death, as it signified departure.]