The next is in the twelfth AEneid, where
Venus cures her son AEneas. But in the last of these the poet was
driven to a necessity, for Turnus was to be slain that very day; and
AEneas, wounded as he was, could not have engaged him in single
combat unless his hurt had been miraculously healed and the poet had
considered that the dittany which she brought from Crete could not
have wrought so speedy an effect without the juice of ambrosia which
she mingled with it. After all, that his machine might not seem too
violent, we see the hero limping after Turnus; the wound was
skinned, but the strength of his thigh was not restored. But what
reason had our author to wound AEneas at so critical a time? And
how came the cuishes to be worse tempered than the rest of his
armour, which was all wrought by Vulcan and his journeymen? These
difficulties are not easily to be solved without confessing that
Virgil had not life enough to correct his work, though he had
reviewed it and found those errors, which he resolved to mend; but
being prevented by death, and not willing to leave an imperfect work
behind him, he ordained by his last testament that his "AEneis"
should be burned.
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