Note 13 — THE FABLE OF DRYOPE.[1]
Reading edition
"New greens," from its equivocal meaning, is a burlesque expression. "Sounding" is a feeble epithet to be applied to the axe by Dryope, who was thinking of the wounds it would inflict upon her; and it is still more inappropriate to make her call her transformation, "my honours," when she regarded the metamorphose with dismay. How superior to Pope's diluted version is the brief and simple language of the original,—"et cæsa securibus urar." Sandys is better than Pope in the same proportion that he is more literal:
Or if I lie, may my green branches fade; And felled with axes on the fire be laid.