Studied verses undoubtedly—musical, and mournful, and iterative. The two triplets of rhyme have unquestionably this meaning; and the bold choice of the homely-affectionate, "dear wife," to render the more ornate "dulcis conjux," is of a sincere simplicity, and as good English as may be. We see here a poetical method of equivalents—for "on thee he call'd, sigh'd, sang," is intended to render the urgency and incessancy of Te, Te, Te, Te! But the singular and purely Virgilian artifice of construction in the second and third line, is abandoned without hope of imitation.
Orpheus goes down into hell.
"Tænarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Ditis,
Et caligantem nigrâ formidine lucum
Ingressus, Manesque adiit, Regemque tremendum,
Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda."
"Even to the dark dominions of the night
He took his way, thro' forests void of light,
And dared amidst the trembling ghosts to sing,
And stood before the inexorable king."
They are good verses, and might satisfy an English reader who knew not the original: albeit they do not attain—how should they?—to the sullen weight of dark dread that loads the Latin Hexameters. Look at that—REGEMQUE TREMENDUM! And then, still, the insisting upon something more! To what nameless Powers do they belong—those unassigned hearts, that are without the experience and intelligence of complying with human prayers?
The infatuation—dementia—which, on the verge of the rejoined light, turns back too soon the head of Orpheus towards her who follows him, is by Virgil said to be
"Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes!"
A verse awful by the measure which it preserves between the human of the first half—ignoscenda quidem—and the infernal of the second half—scirent si ignoscere Manes. It places before us, in comparison, the Flexible, which lives in sunshine upon the earth—and the Inflexible, which reigns in the gloom of Erebus underneath it.
What does Dryden? He takes down the still, severe majesty of Virgil by too much of the Flexible—by a double dose of humanity.
"A fault which easy pardon might receive,
Were lovers judges, or could Hell forgive."
It is remarkable that he has himself quoted the line of Virgil with great praise, as one that approaches, within measure, to an Ovidian "turn." He has himself overstepped the measure, and made it quite Ovidian.