DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.48954#0252
236 GRANDEUR AND SUBLIMITY. Ch. IV.
Rory of Penelope and her suitors , in which she is
made to declare in favor of him who should prove
the most dextrous in (hooting with the bow of
Ulvsses :
J
/9
Now gently winding up the fair ascent,
By many an easy step, the matron went:
Then o’er the pavement glides with grace divine
(With polish'd oak the level pavements Urine):
The folding gates a dazzling light display’d.
With pomp of various architrave o’erlay’d.
The bolt , obedient to the silken siring ,
Forsakes the siaple as sire pulls the ring;
The wards respondent to the key turn’d round;
The bars fall back; the ssying valves resound.
Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring ;
So roar’d the lock when it releas'd the spring.
She moves majestic through the wealthy room
Where treasur’d garments cast a rich perfume;
There from the column where aloft it hung,
Reach’d, in its splendid case , the bow unstrung.
Virgil sometimes errs against this rule : in the
following; nalsages minute circumstances are brought
into full view; and what is hill worse, they are
described with all the pomp of poetical diflion ,
ALneid, L. i. I. 214. to 219- L. 6. I. 176. to
182. L. 6. I. 212. to 231.: and the last, which
describes a funeral, is the less excusable , as the
man whose funeral it is makes no figure in the
poem.
Rory of Penelope and her suitors , in which she is
made to declare in favor of him who should prove
the most dextrous in (hooting with the bow of
Ulvsses :
J
/9
Now gently winding up the fair ascent,
By many an easy step, the matron went:
Then o’er the pavement glides with grace divine
(With polish'd oak the level pavements Urine):
The folding gates a dazzling light display’d.
With pomp of various architrave o’erlay’d.
The bolt , obedient to the silken siring ,
Forsakes the siaple as sire pulls the ring;
The wards respondent to the key turn’d round;
The bars fall back; the ssying valves resound.
Loud as a bull makes hill and valley ring ;
So roar’d the lock when it releas'd the spring.
She moves majestic through the wealthy room
Where treasur’d garments cast a rich perfume;
There from the column where aloft it hung,
Reach’d, in its splendid case , the bow unstrung.
Virgil sometimes errs against this rule : in the
following; nalsages minute circumstances are brought
into full view; and what is hill worse, they are
described with all the pomp of poetical diflion ,
ALneid, L. i. I. 214. to 219- L. 6. I. 176. to
182. L. 6. I. 212. to 231.: and the last, which
describes a funeral, is the less excusable , as the
man whose funeral it is makes no figure in the
poem.