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100
PRINCIPLES OF
Chap. VI.
tioned by Pliny[1], in which, a mother wounded, and in the agony of death, is represented as giving suck to her infant for the last time:
Ελκε τάλαν παρα μητρος ον ακ ετι μαζον άμελξεις,
Ελκυσον ύστατιον ναμα καταφδιμενης.
Ηδη γαρ ξιφέεσσς λιπόπνοος· άλλα τα μητρος
Φιλτρα και εν αϊδη παιδοκομειν εμαθον.
Ελκυσον ύστατιον ναμα καταφδιμενης.
Ηδη γαρ ξιφέεσσς λιπόπνοος· άλλα τα μητρος
Φιλτρα και εν αϊδη παιδοκομειν εμαθον.
Thus happily translated into English by Mr Webb:
Suck, little wretch, while yet thy mother lives,
Suck the last drop her fainting bosom gives!
Suck the last drop her fainting bosom gives!
- ↑ Hujus (viz. Aristidis) pictura est, oppido capto, ad matris morientis e vulnere mammam adrepens infans; intelligiturque sentire mater et timere, ne emortuo lacte sanguinem infans lambat. Plin. Nat. Hist. l.35. c. 10.—If the epigram was made on the subject of this picture, Pliny's idea of the expression of the painting is somewhat more refined than that of the epigrammatist, though certainly not so natural. As a complicated feeling can never be clearly expressed in painting, it is not improbable that the same picture should have suggested ideas somewhat different to different observers.
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