She had
already forgotten her vows to her Sichaeus, and varium et nutabile
semper femina is the sharpest satire in the fewest words that ever
was made on womankind; for both the adjectives are neuter, and
animal must be understood to make them grammar. Virgil does well to
put those words into the mouth of Mercury. If a god had not spoken
them, neither durst he have written them, nor I translated them.
Yet the deity was forced to come twice on the same errand; and the
second time, as much a hero as AEneas was, he frighted him. It
seems he feared not Jupiter so much as Dido; for your lordship may
observe that, as much intent as he was upon his voyage, yet he still
delayed it, till the messenger was obliged to tell him plainly that
if he weighed not anchor in the night the queen would be with him in
the morning, notumque furens quid femina possit: she was injured,
she was revengeful, she was powerful. The poet had likewise before
hinted that the people were naturally perfidious, for he gives their
character in the queen, and makes a proverb of Punica fides many
ages before it was invented.
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