The poet, it seems, had found it out, and
therefore brings the deserting hero and the forsaken lady to meet
together in the lower regions, where he excuses himself when it is
too late, and accordingly she will take no satisfaction, nor so much
as hear him. Now Segrais is forced to abandon his defence, and
excuses his author by saying that the "AEneis" is an imperfect work,
and that death prevented the divine poet from reviewing it, and for
that reason he had condemned it to the fire, though at the same time
his two translators must acknowledge that the sixth book is the most
correct of the whole "AEneis." Oh, how convenient is a machine
sometimes in a heroic poem! This of Mercury is plainly one; and
Virgil was constrained to use it here, or the honesty of his hero
would be ill defended; and the fair sex, however, if they had the
deserter in their power, would certainly have shown him no more
mercy than the Bacchanals did Orpheus: for if too much constancy
may be a fault sometimes, then want of constancy, and ingratitude
after the last favour, is a crime that never will be forgiven.
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