Æneid the 4th. Li. 945.And must I dye, she said,
And unreveng'd? tis doubly to be dead!
Yet even this Death with pleasure I receive:
On any Terms, tis better than to live.
This is certainly the Sense of Virgil; on which I have paraphras'd, to make it plain. His Words are these; Moriemur Inultæ?
Sed Moriamur ait; sic, sic juvat ire sub Umbras.
Servius makes an Interrogation at the Word sic; thus, sic? Sic juvat ire sub Umbras. Which Mr. Cowley justly Censures: But his own judgment may perhaps be question'd: For he wou'd retrench the latter part of the Verse, and leave it a Hemystic. Sed Moriamur ait. That Virgil never intended to have left any Hemystic, I have prov'd already in the Preface. That this Verse was fill'd up by him, with these words, sic, juvat ire sub Umbras, is very probable; if we consider the weight of them. For this procedure of Dido, does not only contain, that, dira Execratio, quæ nullo expiatur Carmine (as Horace observes in his Canidia) but besides that, Virgil, who is full of Allusions to History, under another Name, describes the Decii, devoting themselves to Death this way, though in a better Cause, in order to the Destruction of the Enemy. The Reader, who will take the pains to Consult Livy, in his accurate Description of those Decii, thus devoting themselves, will find a great resemblance betwixt these two Passages. And tis judiciously observ'd upon that Verse,
