[13]. The mandrakes diffuse, &c. Another reason for hastening away from the royal prison into the rural home. There nothing will be wanting; they have there the highly prized apples, they have all sorts of precious fruit, which she left on the trees for him. A similar passage occurs in Virgil, Ecl. i. 37, where the loved one kept fruit on the tree for her lover:—
Mirabar, quid moesta deos, Amarylli, vocares;
Cui pendere suâ patereris in arbore poma:
Tityrus hinc aberat.
“We stood amazed to see your mistress mourn;
Unknowing that she pined for your return:
We wonder’d why she kept her fruit so long,
For whom so late th’ ungather’d apples hung:
But no, the wonder ceases, since I see
She kept them only, Tityrus, for thee.”