Love's
“golden arrow at him should have fled, And not Death's ebon dart,”
VENUS AND ADONIS, 947.
“Our poet had probably in his thoughts the well-known fiction
of Love and Death sojourning together in an inn, and, on going away in the morning,
changing their arrows by mistake. See Whitney's Emblems, p.
132”
(MALONE)
.
“Massinger, in his Virgin
Martyr [act iv. sc. 3], alludes to the same fable:
‘ Strange affection!
Cupid once more hath chang'd his shafts with Death,
And kills, instead of giving life.’
Mr. Gifford has illustrated this passage by quoting one of the Elegies of Joannes Secundus. The fiction is probably of Italian origin. Sandford, in his Garden of Pleasure, 1576, has ascribed it to Alciato, and has given that poet's verses, to which he has added a metrical translation of his own. Shirley has formed a masque upon this story, Cupid and Death, 1650 [see Shirley's Works, vol. vi. ed. Gifford and Dyce]” (BOSWELL) .
‘ Strange affection!
Cupid once more hath chang'd his shafts with Death,
And kills, instead of giving life.’
Mr. Gifford has illustrated this passage by quoting one of the Elegies of Joannes Secundus. The fiction is probably of Italian origin. Sandford, in his Garden of Pleasure, 1576, has ascribed it to Alciato, and has given that poet's verses, to which he has added a metrical translation of his own. Shirley has formed a masque upon this story, Cupid and Death, 1650 [see Shirley's Works, vol. vi. ed. Gifford and Dyce]” (BOSWELL) .