The weapons round his hollow temples ring: His golden helm gives way, with stony blows Battered, and flat, and beaten to his brows. His crest is rashed away; his ample shield Is falsified, and round with javelins filled.[5] The foe, now faint, the Trojans overwhelm; And Mnestheus lays hard load upon his helm. Sick sweat succeeds; he drops at every pore; With driving dust his cheeks are pasted o'er; Shorter and shorter every gasp he takes; And vain efforts and hurtless blows he makes. Armed as he was, at length he leaped from high, Plunged in the flood, and made the waters fly. The yellow god the welcome burden bore, And wiped the sweat, and washed away the gore; Then gently wafts him to the farther coast, And sends him safe to cheer his anxious host. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Note I.] [Footnote 2: Note II.] [Footnote 3: Early editions, _beheld_.] [Footnote 4: Note I.] [Footnote 5: Note II.] NOTES ON ÆNEÏS, BOOK IX. Note I. _At the full stretch of both his hands, he drew, And almost joined, the horns of the tough yew._--P. 54. The first of these lines is all of monosyllables, and both verses are very rough, but of choice; for it had been easy for me to have smoothed them. But either my ear deceives me, or they express the thing which I intended in their sound: for the stress of a bow, which is drawn to the full extent, is expressed in the harshness of the first verse, clogged not only with monosyllables, but with consonants; and these words, _the tough yew_, which conclude the second line, seem as forceful, as they are unharmonious. Homer and Virgil are both frequent in their adapting sounds to the thing they signify. One example will serve for both; because Virgil borrowed the following verses from Homer's Odysses. _Una Eurusque Notusque ruunt, creberque procellis Africus, et vastos volvunt ad litora fluctus._ Συν δ' Ευροστε, Νοτοςτ' επεσεν. Ζεφυροστε δυσαης, Και Βορεης αιθρηγενετης, μεγα κυμα κυλινδων. Our language is not often capable of these beauties, though sometimes I have copied them, of which these verses are an instance. Note II. ---- ---- ---- ---- _His ample shield_ _Is falsified, and round with javelins filled._--P. 61. When I read this Æneïd to many of my friends in company together, most of them quarrelled at the word _falsified_, as an innovation in our language. The fact is confessed; for I remember not to have read it in any English author, though perhaps it may be found in Spenser's "Fairy Queen;" but, suppose it be not there, why am I forbidden to borrow from the Italian (a polished language) the word which is wanting in my native tongue? Terence has often Grecised; Lucretius has followed his example, and pleaded for it-- _Sic quia me cogit patrii sermonis egestus._