Quid verbis opus est? hac famâ impulsus Chremes Cum dote summâ filio uxorem ut daret. Sim. Audies. Fere in diebus paucis, quibus hæc acta sunt, Sos. O factum bene! Beasti heu! metui à Chryside. Sim. Ibi tum filius [(7) Cum illis, qui amabant Chrysidem, una aderat Curabat una funus: tristis interim, [frequens: Nonnunquam conlacrumabat. Placuit tum id mihi. Sic cogitabam: hem, hic parvæ consuetudinis (7) Chremes has the same original in the moon as Cerdon in Hudibras, drawn ante in fig. 21. His prototype is composed of the entire shadows of the moon, which include, therefore, those which make up the prototype of Charinus, in which sense, he may be said to be Charinus's father. The character of Chremes is that of a dotard, and the prototype of Cerdon, as before pointed out as being the same as his, might be very properly assumed for such a character to represent. Chremes may have his name from the numerous round marks of light like coins on his person; xena, money. (8) Moritur. i. e. the portion of the moon ascribed to Chrysis, goes out of view, becomes obscured. Causa mortem hujus tam fert familiariter: Sos. Hem, quid est? Sim. Scies. Effertur, imus: interea inter mulieres, [lam, (9) Quæ ibi aderant, forte unam adspicio adolescentuFormá Sos. Bona fortasse Sim. Et voltu, Sosia, Adeo modesto, adeo venusto, ut nihil supra. (9) If the map of the moon be placed with the north side uppermost, there will be seen, composed entirely of light without shadow (formâ præter cæteras honestâ, et liberali) the appearance of a pregnant woman, as she is afterwards stated to be. This I take to be the prototype of Glycerium, otherwise called Virgo; and a drawing of her, as thus situate, is given hereafter, but under different circumstances, though not less traceable in the same space in the moon, namely, those of holding a young child in her arms. Percussit illico animum. At at, hoc illud est, Sim. Funus interim Procedit: sequimur: ad sepulchrum venimus. (10) In ignem imposita est. In one of the treatises men- . tioned in the preface to the first volume, I enumerated some particulars in which the moderns unduly take the ancients à la lettre, instead of conceiving their statements to be enveloped in fable and disguise: one of those enumerated is the supposed practice of the ancients burning the corpses of their dead: we have, here, in one line a sepulchre or grave, mentioned as being in use; and in the very next line (which is of itself sufficient to raise some doubt upon the point) a fire is also mentioned for the purpose above supposed. The true way of reconciling together the two united practices, and at the same time unveiling the mystery involved in the fable (or, rather, in the metaphorical expression) of the ancients burning their dead, is to understand that the dead corpses were laid upon quick lime, and thereby burned or consumed in their coffins; and that supposition will suffice to explain all the passages in the classics, which treat of burning the dead, wherever such passages are' found. To give one remarkable instance; the following statement appears in Thucydides on the plague of Athens: Νομοι τε παντες συνεταραχ θησαν, οις έχρώντο προτερον περι τας ταφας· εθαπτον δε ως εκατος ηδύνατο, και πολλοί ες αναισχύντες θηκας ετράποντο, Quam dixi, ad flammam accessitimprudentius, (11) Satis cum periculo, ibi tum exanimatus Pamphilus σπάνει των επιτηδείων, δια το συχνες ηδη προτεθνάναι σφισιν, επι πυράς αλλοτρίας, φασαντες της νησαντας, οι μεν, επίθεντες τον εαυτών νεκρον υφηπτον, οι δε, καιόμενε άλλες, ανωθεί επιβάλοντες οι φεροιεν, απηεσαν. There is here the same union of the two methods of disposing of the dead, as there is above in Terence; and though the passage, in the latter part of it, is the strongest of any that I remember, in apparent proof of burning the dead, yet by the words rapes and Onxas it points in an especial manner to the disposing of the dead in graves. Is it, in fact, credible, that in a plague or pestilence, when so many deaths occur, any other method than that of burying the dead under ground, would be tolerated? But even in ordinary times, and in any community whatsoever, numerous or the contrary, a little reflection will lead necessarily to the conclusion, that such a practice, otherwise than in very rare individual instances, would be impossible. Nor is the conclusion thus contended for, by any means shaken by our reading frequently in the classics, of the ashes of the dead being deposited and buried in urns: it is only a continuation, or graft, as it were, on the same fable or metaphor; for a coffin shaped for a human body has itself the general form of an urn, if placed on its end towards the feet, as may be seen from the black lines of fig. 119; the dotted lines that form the rings and cover of the urn, being supposed to be framed by the imagination of a poet or sculptor out of the cords looped at the sides, or coiled up on the top, by which cords Bene dissimulatum amorem et celatum indicat: Accurrit: mediam mulierem complectitur: [tum? Mea Glycerium, inquit, quid agis? cur te is perdiTum illa, ut consuetum facile amorem cerneres, Rejecit se in eum flens quam familiariter. Sos. Quid ais? Sim. Redeo inde iratus, atque ægre ferens. Nec satis ad objurgandum causa, diceret, Quid feci? quid commerui aut peccavi, pater? Quæ sese voluit in ignem injicere, prohibui, Servavi honesta oratio est. Sos. Rectè putas: Nam si illum objurges, vitæ qui auxilium tulit; Quid facias illi, qui dederit damnum, aut malum? the coffin is let down into the grave. It is scarcely necessary to add, that an inscription upon an urn would correspond in position with that engraved on the breast plate of a coffin. Fig. 119. (11) Ad flammam accessit imprudentius. I take the meaning of this to be that Glycerium was near falling into the grave. |