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and quotes Cicero's "Stellarum globi." Whatever they may be in nature, the stars in art, on the authority of Cicero himself, were globi, "orbs," bowls, "patines." And the symbol for brightness is gold, whether stars in fact are bright like golden bowls, or like silvery points-or whatever they are bright like. Shakspere was constructing a beautiful figure, not photographing nature. He who is so literal-minded as to be disturbed by such a trivial detail deserves to miss the irradiant beauty.
I believe it is clear that in some way Shakspere had acquired a firm and lasting knowledge of at least the first two, the fourth, and the sixth books of the 4eneid. Professor Root finds from a study of Shakspere's classical mythology that,
Only three episodes of the /Ieneid seem to have made a deep impression on Shakespeare-the account of the fall of Troy with the stratagem of Sinon and the death of Priam [Bk. II], the grief of the forsaken Dido [Bk. IV],ua and the infernal machinery of Vergil's Hades [Bk. VI].uÎ
The infernal machinery is from the sixth book; the remainder from the second and fourth. Our instances exactly supplement this frame-work in all cases. And these instances belong to no individual. They are the winnowings from the observations of a long succession of scholars. The two types of evidence confirm each other into certainty. Professor Root is certainly correct when he says,
The story of Dido in ren. I-IV must have been familiar to Shakespeare from his boyhood. The allusions are numerous and substantially accurate 12Î
Our instances make it clear that at least part of this knowledge was directly from the Latin. Such a knowledge Shakspere should early have acquired in grammar school. If not there, then where? Certainly not from Phaer and the other translators.
Most likely Shakspere had mastered much more than the first four and the sixth books, but later found use principally for the parts which concerned the fall of Troy and the love story of Aeneas and Dido. It was the second and fourth books which Surrey translated, and the first four upon which Stanyhurst operated. Hayne had pre-pared a construe of the first six books for his boys at Merchant Taylors' before i6i 2.121 Intensive drill in grammar school was probably
118 The final speech of Dido to Aeneas is marked by a contemporary in Thomas Nashe's copy of Phaer's translation {155$, K2v-K3r) in the British Museum, these being the only contemporary marks I have noted except an inking out of Queen Mary's title to be "defendoure of the faithe." nv Root, Classical Mythology, p. 4.
150 Root, Classical Mythology, p. 56. 111 See Vol. I, p. 400.
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