Note 125 — SCENE III.

Though the infringing it had call'd upon her A living funeral, &c.] The poet alludes to the manner in which the Vestals, who had broken their vow of chastity, were punished. They had literally a living funeral, being plunged alive into a subterraneous cavern, of which the opening was immediately closed upon them, and walled up. The confusion of countries and customs may possibly strike the critical reader; but of this, as I have already observed, our old dramatists were either not aware or not solicitous.—Gifford.