ABSTRACT
Date and publication. Printed in 1685 in Sylvae (S R 10 January; advertised in The Observator 1 January); reprinted 1692; reprinted as an appendix to Creech’s Lucretius . . . and M a n iliu s . . . Translated (1700). For the likely date of composition see headnote to ‘Preface to Sylvae\
Context. For D .’s Lucretian translations generally, see headnote to ‘Lucretius: The Beginning of the First Book*. See also D .’s discussion of this passage in ‘Preface to Sylvae’ 11. 368-425. As he says there, one of the attractions o f this part of the poem was its argument against being enslaved to sexual desire, and many of D. ’s additions and emphases underline the powerful force of love and the mental agitation which it provokes. George Sandys had translated 11. 1074-1 13 in the commentary to his Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished (1632) 160.
