Neque haec in faedera veni is the very excuse which AEneas makes
when he leaves his lady. "I made no such bargain with you at our
marriage to live always drudging on at Carthage; my business was
Italy, and I never made a secret of it. If I took my pleasure, had
not you your share of it? I leave you free at my departure to
comfort yourself with the next stranger who happens to be
shipwrecked on your coast; be as kind an hostess as you have been to
me, and you can never fail of another husband. In the meantime I
call the gods to witness that I leave your shore unwillingly; for
though Juno made the marriage, yet Jupiter commands me to forsake
you." This is the effect of what he saith when it is dishonoured
out of Latin verse into English prose. If the poet argued not
aright, we must pardon him for a poor blind heathen, who knew no
better morals.
I have detained your lordship longer than I intended on this
objection, which would indeed weigh something in a Spiritual Court;-
-but I am not to defend our poet there.
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