These two verses in English seem very different from the Latin-- _Discedam; explebo numerum, reddarque tenebris._ Yet they are the sense of Virgil; at least, according to the common interpretation of this place--"I will withdraw from your company, retire to the shades, and perform my penance of a thousand years." But I must confess, the interpretation of those two words, _explebo numerum_, is somewhat violent, if it be thus understood, _minuam numerum_; that is, I will lessen your company by my departure: for Deïphobus, being a ghost, can hardly be said to be of their number. Perhaps the poet means by _explebo numerum, absolvam sententiam;_ as if Deïphobus replied to the Sibyl, who was angry at his long visit, "I will only take my last leave of Æneas, my kinsman and my friend, with one hearty good wish for his health and welfare, and then leave you to prosecute your voyage." That wish is expressed in the words immediately following, _I, decus, i, nostrum_, &c. which contain a direct answer to what the Sibyl said before, when she upbraided their long discourse, _nos flendo ducimus horas_. This conjecture is new, and therefore left to the discretion of the reader. Note III. Know, first, that heaven, and earth's compacted frame, And flowing waters, and the starry flame, And both the radiant lights, &c.--P. 416. _Principio cælum, et terras, camposque liquentes, Lucentemque globum lunæ, Titaniaque astra_, &c. Here the sun is not expressed, but the moon only, though a less, and also a less radiant, light. Perhaps the copies of Virgil are all false, and that, instead of _Titaniaque astra_, he writ, _Titaniaque, et astra_; and according to these words I have made my translation. It is most certain, that the sun ought not to be omitted; for he is frequently called the life and soul of the world: and nothing bids so fair for a visible divinity to those who know no better, than that glorious luminary. The Platonists call God the archetypal sun, and the sun the visible deity, the inward vital spirit in the centre of the universe, or that body to which that spirit is united, and by which it exerts itself most powerfully. Now it was the received hypothesis amongst the Pythagoreans, that the sun was situate in the centre of the world. Plato had it from them, and was himself of the same opinion, as appears by a passage in the _Timæus;_ from which noble dialogue is this part of Virgil's poem taken. Note IV. Great Cato there, for gravity renowned, &c.--P. 421. _Quis te, magne Cato_, &c. There is no question but Virgil here means Cato Major, or the censor. But the name of Cato being also mentioned in the Eighth Æneïd, I doubt whether he means the same man in both places. I have said in the preface, that our poet was of republican principles; and have given this for one reason of my opinion, that he praised Cato in that line, _Secretosque pios, his dantem jura Catonem_--