That the vivid emphasis of a stormy sorrow--given to a picture of sound in the foregoing verses, by that distinctiveness of the multitudinous repetition--declines in the melodious four English representatives to a greatly more generalized expression, must, one may think, be ascribed to Dryden's despair of reconciling in his own rougher tongue the geography and the music. Nevertheless, the version is evidently and successfully studied, to mourn and complain. But all her fellow nymphs the mountains tear With loud lament, and break the yielding air: The realms of Mars remurmur all around, And echoes to the Athenian shores resound. It is good, but hardly reaches the purpose of the original clamour, so passionate, dirge-like, unearthly, and supernatural--at once telling the death--as they say that in some countries the king's death is never told in words, but with a clangour of shrieks only from the palace-top, which is echoed by voices to voices on to the borders of his kingdom--at once, we say, supplying this point of the relation, and impressing upon you the superhuman character of the mourners, who are able not only to deplore, but likewise mysteriously and mightily to avenge. The next three lines are also, as might be presumed, at the height, for they describe the paragon of lovers and harpers harping his affliction of love-- Ipse cava solans aegrum testudine amorem, Te dulcis conjux, te solo in litore secum, Te veniente die, te decedente, canebat! Musical, dolorous iteration, iteration! Musical, woe-begone iteration, iteration! What have we in English? "The unhappy husband, husband now no more, Did, on his tuneful harp, his loss deplore, And sought his mournful mind with music to restore. On thee, dear wife, in desarts all alone, He call'd, sigh'd, sang; his griefs with day begun, Nor were they finish'd with the setting sun." 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. "Taenarias etiam fauces, alta ostia Ditis, Et caligantem nigra 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."