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xxxvii
PREFACE.
xxxvii

sadness. This relief may be derived from the works of Marlow himself, who seems, after all, to have had a considerable leaning to voluptuous reposing fancies, and to have dallied with love, like an accomplished amorist.—The beautiful tradition of the "broad Hellespont" is of undoubted antiquity, though unfortunately no fragment has reached us of the parent stock. Virgil alludes to it in a manner sufficient to show its notoriety in his day.

"Quid juvenis, magnum cui versat in ossibus ignem
Durus amor?—Nempe abruptis turbata procellis
Nocte natat cæcâ serus freta: quem super ingens
Porta tonat cœli, et scopulis illisa reclamant
Æquora: nec miseri possunt revocare parentes,
Nec moritura super crudeli funere virgo."

Georg. Lib. iii. 258.

The two Heroides of Naso are familiar to every school-boy; in Lucan, l. 9, 954, Cæsar beholds the

"————————Amore notatum[1]
Æquor, et Heroas lacrymoso littore turres;"

  1. So Burmann-Oudendorp has natatum, which perhaps is best.