The End of the Sixth Book
1 This Virgil imitates.
2 Bellerophontis literæ. Ad Eras. This long speech many critics tax as untimely, being, as they take it, in the heat of fight; Hier. Vidas, a late observer, being eagerest against Homer. Whose ignorance in this I cannot but note, and prove to you; for, besides the authority and office of a poet, to vary and quicken his poem with these episodes, sometimes beyond the leisure of their actions, the critic notes not how far his forerunner prevents his worst as far; and sets down his speech at the sudden and strange turning of the Trojan field, set on a little before by Hector; and that so fiercely, it made an admiring stand among the Grecians, and therein gave fit time for these great captains to utter their admirations, the whole field in that part being to stand like their commanders. And then how full of decorum this gallant show and speech was to sound understandings, I leave only to such, and let our critics go cavil.
3 Φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς, Mentem ademit Jup., the text hath it; which only I alter of all Homer’s original, since Plutarch against the Stoics excuses this supposed folly in Glaucus. Spondanus likewise encouraging my alterations, which I use for the loved and simple nobility of the free exchange in Glaucus, contrary to others that, for the supposed folly in Glaucus, turned his change into a proverb, χρύσεα χαλχείων, golden for brazen.
4 Hector dissembles the cowardice he finds in Paris turning it, as if he chid him for his anger at the Trojans for hating him, being conquered by Menelaus, when it is for his effeminacy. Which is all paraphrastical in my translation.
5 Thebes, a most rich city of Cilicia.
6 The names of two fountains: of which one in Thessaly, the other near Argos, or, according to others, in Peloponnesus or Lacedæmon.
7 His simile, high and expressive; which Virgil almost word for word hath translated, Æn. xi. (v. 492).