Note 503 — RAPE OF THE LOCK. (continued 2)
Reading edition
This verse is an improvement on the original, Æneid. viii. 246:
———trebidentque immisse lumine manes. And the ghosts tremble at intruding light.—Wakefield.
The concluding line of the paragraph is from Addison's translation of a passage in Silius Italicus:
Who pale with fear the rending earth survey And startle at the sudden flash of day.
There is more of bathos than of humour from ver. 43 to ver. 52. The exaggeration is carried so far that even the similitude of caricature is lost.