Virgil, Aeneid VI

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Virgil, Aeneid VI

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VIRGIL

AENEID VI EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY BY

SIR FRANK FLETCHER, M.A. HON. FORMERLY AND

FELLOW OF BALLIOL MASTER

HEADMASTER

OF MARLBOROUGH OF CHARTERHOUSK

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

Oxford Unmersity Press, Amen House, London E.C.4 GLASGOW BOMBAY

NEW YORK CALCUTTA

CAPE TOWN

TORONTO MADRAS

SALISBURY

MELBOURNE KARACHI

NAIROBI

KUALA LUMPUR

WELLINGTON

LAHORE

IBADAN

DACCA

ACCRA

tfONG KONG

FIRST EDITION I94I REPRINTED (WITH CORRECTIONS) 1948, I951, PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

ONUiP

1955, 1962

PREFACE In editing this book I have kept in mind readers and students who, whatever their age or attainments, have enough knowledge of Latin to approach Virgil and wish to be enabled to study, understand, and enjoy his greatest work without constant recourse to books of reference. The poet, writing for Romans of his own time, assumed a certain background of knowledge and associations familiar to his contemporary readers: it is the function of a commentator to supply this background as far as he can for those who read the poem to-day. I have tried to anticipate the questions that they would ask by explaining beforehand the references in each passage, so that they may come to the reading prepared to recognize and appreciate the allusions when they occur. The edition is not overburdened with irrelevant leaming, but supplies, I hope, sufficient information to enable the student to discover for himself and appreciate the meaning of what he reads. In steering a middle course between too much and too little explanation I have been more careful to avoid the sin of omission: it is better to be reproached for explaining the obvious than for omitting aids or explanations which less well-informed readers require. Those who have read and remember the first five books of the Aeneid will not need the summary of their contents with which I have prefaced the text of the sixth. But for the convenience of those who have not read them, or have forgotten the details, I have told the story briefly, stressing the passages which are needed for the understanding of this book. Again, a reader familiar with Greek mythology will not require to be told the story of Daedalus, and one who knows his Roman history will find the list of the early kings and the stories of Roman heroes, given in the later notes, superfluous. But they are provided for those who need them: a knowledge of

VI

PREFACE

these stories is required for a full appreciation of the text, and there may well be readers who have no previous experience of Virgil and little knowledge of Roman history, yet wish to read in the original what is for most of us the high-water-mark of the Aeneid, the book that links the primitive mythology of Homer with the Christian imaginations of Dante, in which the philosophy and pathos and patriotism and humanity of Virgil find their noblest expression. On the other hand, I have not limited my commentary to purely elementary explanations. There are many readers, especially to-day when Latin is begun generally at a later age than it used to be, whose power of appreciation and literary interest is far in advance of their historical or linguistic knowledge: and I have tried to provide for them what they will need. Further, any commentator must be allowed a certain licence to enlarge on passages or problems in which he feels a special interest, and I hope I may be forgiven occasional discursiveness. I have tried throughout to keep before me the primary object of a commentary— not to add to the sum of what the student has to remember, but to enable him to read a great book, even if it be a subject for examination, with understanding and appreciation and enjoyment. The essay on the sources of the Sixth Aeneid, though printed at the beginning of the book, is intended to be read after the Latin text has been studied: it is supplementary to the notes.

CONTENTS LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOURCES OF AENE ID VI.ix STORY OF AENEID I-V.xxix TEXT OF BOOK VI.i NOTE ON THE MANUSCRIPTS

....

27

COMMENT ARY.29 APPENDIX A.

THE FUNERAL OF PATROCLUS

[ILIAD XXIII).103 APPENDIX B.

TPIE VISIT OF ODYSSEUS TO

HADES (ODYSSEY XI).104 EXCURSUS: THE VIRGILIAN HEXAMETER

.

107

LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOURCES OF AENEID VI ‘ All Virgil is full of wisdom, but especially this book, the greater part of which is taken from Homer. Some things in it are stated simply, many are historical, many deal in lofty wisdom of pliilosophers, theologians, and Egyptians, so that whole treatises have often been written on individual passages of the book.’

These words, with which Servius (early in the fifth century a.d.) begins his commentary on the Sixth Aeneid, may serve as our introduction to an account of some of the sources on which Virgil drew for this part of his poem. We may doubt the suggestion of any direct indebtedness to Egyptian writings: we need not look beyond Greek literature for the origin of the philosophical parts. But in treating Homer as the chief literary creditor Servius is on safer ground. For Roman writers no less than for Greek Homer was the established and undethronable king of epic poetry, and it is primarily on the Homerie poems that the Aeneid is modelied. The fighting narratives of the later books are based upon the Iliad: only the strength of the Homerie tradition could have turned the gentle and scholarly Virgil into a minstrel of battles. One episode also in the sixth book, the burial of Misenus, is based on Iliad xxiii.1 But the rest of the Sixth Aeneid and the incidents and general framework of the earlier books follow the pattern of the Odyssey.

Virgil telis his tale varepov trpoTepov ’OjxrjpLKOJs :2 he follows what Horaee notes as the Homerie practice and plunges his reader at the start in medias res. As the Odyssey begins with Odysseus a shipwrecked prisoner in Calypso’s Island, and the story of his coming there over sea from Troy is provided later by his own narrative at the palace of Alcinous,

1 See Appendix A. 2 Cicero, ad Att. i. 16. i (I will answer you) ‘backsyfore, in Homer’s way’.

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LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL

so the start of the Aeneid is not the fall of Troy but the shipwreck of Aeneas on the north African coast: the story of the sack of Troy and the voyage which brought him to Sicily and Libya is told by himself at Dido’s court. There is correspondence in episodes as well as in construction. Aeneas is detained by Dido as Odysseus by Calypso. Odysseus remains faithful to Penelope and in obedience to the heavenly messenger is sent horne from Calypso’s island; Aeneas, wamed by the same messenger of the gods, leaves Carthage for his destined home in Italy and the fate to which he is wedded. He is hunted by Juno as Odysseus by Poseidon; Juno and Poseidon alike are overruled by the other Powers. And as Odysseus, before he reaches his home, must go to the land of the Dead and learn from Tiresias of his future fate, so Aeneas must go down through the gates of Avemus and be taught his destiny by Anchises. It was as natural and indeed inevitable that Virgil should imitate Homer as it was afterwards for Paradise Lost to be modelled upon the Aeneid. But what he borrows and imitates he stamps with his own personality and purpose: he touches nothing which he does not make peculiarly his own. The greatest moments of the Aeneid are by common consent the episodes of the capture of Troy, the love and desertion of Dido, and the visit to the underworld. The first has no Homerie prototype: the second has so far outsoared the Calypso episode that the superficial resemblance is hardly remembered. In the two visits to Hades there is more correspondence of detail, as will appear from a comparison of Aeneid vi with the passages from Odyssey xi of which I have given a translation.1 But we recognize the similarity only to realize the vast gulf that separates the two accounts. Some of the parallels between the two books are noted in the commentary: others will readily occur to anyone who turns from reading Book vi to the Homerie passages. The

1 See Appendix B

SOURCES OF AENEID VI

ad

unburied Palinurus recalls Elpenor. Dido’s silent rejection of Aeneas’ approaches reminds us of the sullen silence of Ajax and his refusal to be reconciled to Odysseus in Hades. The sacrifices that precede the approach to the dead have many resemblances. Odysseus, like Aeneas, sees the heroes and heroines of the past; and we get a glimpse of great criminals like Sisyphus and Tityos suffering their appointed punishments, and of Minos ‘judging’ the dead.1 But in Homer, except for these criminals, the description of whose fate is generally regarded as a later addition to the book, there is no distinction of lot between the various ghosts, no separation into various classes and different districts of Hades such as we have in Virgil. The differences between the two books, as between the two epics, are not merely superficial. The Odyssey is pure story-telling: the Aeneid is a poem with a purpose. Each work by its title and its opening purports to be the story of a man: Virgil’s arma virumque cano at once challenges comparison with the Homerie ‘Teli me, O muse, of the man’ that begins the Odyssey. But in Homer the personal interest is the central motif throughout. It is the man Odysseus whose endurance and success we care about, who for his own sake is helped by Athena and for his own act in blinding the Cyclops is hunted by Poseidon. He is the great adventurer, the man of resource. But Aeneas is the man of destiny, whose personality is merged in the future of his race. It is as the founder of a nation that he is favoured by Heaven: it is for national reasons, as the ancestor of the future destroyers of Carthage, that he is dogged by the anger of Juno. The Aeneid is the epic of Rome, not of Aeneas: he is the instrument rather than the hero. His adventures and endurances are not merely the experiences of a man; they are the birth-pangs of a great nation: and the text of the poem is given, not by the opening line, but

1 The nature of the ‘judging’ is different in the two accounts, as the reader may discover by comparing them.

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by that which closes the first stanza, tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem.

Book vi is permeated with this national purpose, and by it differentiated throughout and fundamentally, in spite of superficial resemblances, from the corresponding episode in the Odyssey which suggested it. Odysseus visits Tiresias that he may be told of his own voyage home and his future fate: and it is with the former that the prophecy deals in detail. Aeneas similarly leams from Anchises of the peoples he is to find in Latium and the wars and adventures he must meet there. But these are dismissed in two lines: the main prophecy deals with the future heroes of Rome, in the great national passage which is the climax and chief purpose of the book. **£****£

Virgil has travelled a long way from the primitive storytelling of Homer: he has woven into a Homerie framework not only national ideals but philosophic and poetical speculations from many sources. Audita loquitur; he telis what he has leamt from many. His account owes something, how much it is hard to estimate, to Orphism and the Mysteries: something has been derived directly or indirectly from Pindar and more from Plato; and with the literary sources are combined legends and folk-lore of Greece and of Italy, and ideas borrowed from Stoic philosophy. In the composite picture which he has constructed out of these varied elements it is not surprising that there are inconsistencies and obscurities which no explanations can elimi¬ nate. But we can get light on some of the obscurities from such of his sources as we know; and it is reasonable to suppose that if we knew more of them other difficulties which now puzzle us would be solved. In considering the second element in the account, Orph¬ ism and the Mysteries, we are hampered by the absence of direct literary evidence. The so-called Orphic literature which has come dowm to us is apocryphal and of uncertain

SOURCES OF AENEID VI

xm

date: it is unlikely that any of the hymns and prayers and songs of consecration in hexameter verse which have survived were in existence in the first century b.c. It is difficult to distinguish the Orphic ideas of Virgil’s day and earlier from later accretions. The same doubt arises when we consider the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were akin in character to Orphism. Carent vate sacro. Our information has to be collected from a few early inscriptions and from passages in literature which seem to embody Orphic doctrines. The conjecturat reconstructions based upon these may be left to leamed scholars: we must be content with a bare outline of ascertained fact. Orphism began, or was revived, in the sixth century b.c. Its mystical doctrines dealt with the life after death, and with initiation and consecration in this life as a preparation for immortality. Like the similar teaching of Pythagoras, whose life belongs to the same century, Orphism was esoteric, the secret of small societies, only revealed to the initiated. It taught that immortality was attainable by men, and that in the after-life there were punishments and rewards and a purgatorial process through which the soul gradually attained to divine life. Pythagoreanism added to this the doctrine of transmigration of souls, of a series of lives to be lived by each. This and similar teaching was the basis of the various ‘ Mysteries’, of which those at Eleusis were the most famous. In regard to these also we have to distinguish between con¬ jectures and ascertained facts. The secrets of the religious societies were carefully preserved. To reveal them was sacrilege; Horaee classes the offence among sins which make a man an outcast.1 As a resuit the veil rests over them stili, and we can only guess at the nature of the ceremonies and the doctrines taught. But if, as is probable, the Mysteries involved ‘a theatrical representation of all 1 ‘vetabo, qui Cereris sacrum | vulgarit arcanae, sub isdem | sit trabibus fragilemve mecum | solvat phaselon’ Odes, in. ii. 26-8.

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that was believed or imagined of the lower world, and the aspirant was conducted through the mimic scenes of Erebus, Tartarus and Elysium,’1 we have a parallel in them to the scenery and mythology of Aeneid vi. We may note further that the centre of the Mysteries at Eleusis was a temple of Demeter and Persephone: and Hermes had been sent down to Hades to bring back Persephone, as Orpheus went afterwards to recover his wife Eurydice. Thus in both instances there was a Descent into Hades; and there seems to have been in use a popular manual with this title, ‘a sort of guide-book for the use of the dead, in which the vicissitudes endured by the immortal soul, till it frees itself by penance from the Cycle of Births, were described—a work which lay at the foundation of Pindar’s theology, was ridiculed by Aristophanes in the Frogs, and was the ultimate source of the Nekuia of Virgil’.2 The opening scenes of the Frogs provide evidence in farcical form of the popular ideas about the Mysteries and the world of death which prevailed in Athens at the end of the fifth century b.c. Dionysus, wearing the lion-skin and carrying the club of Heracles (details which suggest that some well-known ‘Descent of Heracles’ is being parodied), is going down to Hades to bring back Euripides from the dead. First he must call on Heracles, who has been down in the past to bring up the dog Cerberus, to ask him the quickest way. Heracles telis him, as the Sibyl told Aeneas, that that’s easy enough. He has only to hang himself, or drink hemlock, or fling himself from the top of a tower. Rejecting such methods of facilis descensus, Dionysus asks to be told the way by which the hero himself had gone down. The answer provides some interesting parallels with Virgil’s description. Her. Nay but the journey’s long. First you will come to a lake, a great big lake Of fathomless deptli. 1 Gibbon.

2 Stewart, Myths of Plato, p. 66.

SOURCES OF

AENEID

VI

XV

Dion. And how am I to cross it ? Her. An old old sailor-man will put you over In a boatlet, just so big, for a fare, two obols. Then shall you see serpents and beasts in thousands, Most terrible beasts.

Dion.

Don’t try to frighten me!

You won’t scare me!

Her.

And then a mass of mire

And dung perennial, and within it lying Whoever wronged a guest, or banged his mother, Or smote his father’s jaw, or swore false oaths, Or copied out a speech of Morsimus.1 Next on the air shall come the sound of flutes. And you’ll behold a lovely light, like ours. And groves of myrtle, and rejoicing bands, Women and men, who clap their hands in joy.

Dion. And who are they ? Her. These are the initiated.

Journeying on they come to the lake, and see Charon, who is heard calling out the names of the places he is bound for: Who’s for the resting-place from ilis and troubles ? For the Plain of Lethe ? For the Donkey’s shearing ? Who’s for Cerberia, Crow-land, Taenarus ?

He takes Dionysus on board, but sends his slave round the lake, to wait for them ‘at the Stone of Withering, by the Resting-places’. Having reached the other side, escorted by the chorus of frogs, and passed through the place of the monsters, they meet the initiated, who are chanting a hymn to Iacchus and waving torches. Their song reproduces the mingled banter and seriousness of the processions which marched to Eleusis for the Mysteries. It closes with lines in which they invite one another to joumey to ‘the rosy,

1 A boring writer of the day. The insertion of the trivial literary crime as a climax to the list of moral offences serves to remind us that the passage is farce.

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flowery meadows’.

‘For we alone have sun and cheerful

light, we who are initiated and who in our lives dealt righteously with strangers and citizens alike.’ The scenes, except for the chorie song, are pure farce, and we are not to suppose that Virgil derived his ideas from Aristophanes. But they show that certain elements of his description were already part of the popular tradition four hundred years before he wrote. Features such as the lake and Charon its ferryman, the short list of typical sinners and the meadows of the blessed with their special sunlight, are common mutatis mutandis to both the comic and the epic writers and have a common origin in the Orphic tradition. There is evidence of a more direct connexion between Virgil and the passages from Pindar and the Myths of Plato of which translations are given in the next section. The reader who comes to them with Aeneid vi fresh in his memory will observe similarities of descriptions and ideas which suggest that Virgil was familiar with these writers, and that in many passages he deliberately echoes them, as he so constantly echoes Homer. If we go back then to the Aeneid, we shall find that we have a clue to some of its difficulties. The Orphic passages of Pindar and Plato give us a glimpse of the poetical and philosophical background of VirgiTs picture. Pindar I.

Olympians, ii. 58 foll.

(Blessed is the man who, having wealth,) ‘remembers what will come afterwards, that after death the helpless souls of men are punished, and wrongs done in this realm of Zeus are judged by one who giveth sentence with hateful doom.

But

the good by day and night alike have the sun, and a toilless life is theirs.

They vex not the earth with their strong hands

nor the wave of the sea for food that satisfieth not, but beside the honoured gods such as rejoiced in truth have a life without tears, while those others endure labour ill to look upon. Then as many as stedfastly, through three Uves in this world and in that, have kept their souls altogether away from unrighteous-

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ness, travei along the path of Zeus to the Tower of Cronos, where the Ocean-born breezes blow about the Isles of the Blessed, and flowers of gold blaze, some from shining trees on the land, and others that the water feedeth, with chains whereof they wreathe their arms and heads.

Such is the righteous

counsel of Rhadamanthus, whom Father Cronos keepeth for a ready counsellor at his side. . . . Among these are numbered Peleus and Cadmus, and hither his mother brought Achilles, when she had persuaded by prayers the heart of Zeus.’

II. Fragment 114 (in Oxford Text) ‘For them the strength of the sun shineth below while here the night lasteth, and in meadows of bright roses before their city the land is shady with the tree of incense and laden with golden fruits.

And they take their pleasure there, some in

horses and wrestlings, and some in draughts, and some with harps, and beside them all flowery happiness bloometh.

And

through the lovely place spreadeth ever an odour of them that mix all manner of incense on the altars of the gods in a farshining fire.’ Quoted by Plutarch (Consol. ad Apoll. 35).

III. Fragment 127 ‘From whomsoever Persephone hath received the penalty for old trouble, their souls in the ninth year she giveth back into the sunlight above. From these spring up noble kings and men mighty in strength and excelling in wisdom. And for all time afterwards men call them holy heroes.’ Quoted by Plato (Meno, 81 b). Plato I. The Myth in the Phaedo

The myth of the Phaedo closes the arguments of Socrates about the immortality of the soul.

It has a geographical

framework, a detailed description of the earth elaborated in order to lend verisimilitude to the picture.

Four great

rivers are described, of which the largest and outermost is Oceanus, encircling the earth. The second, Acheron, flows through desert places, and passing underground enters ‘ the

4663

b

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LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL

Acherusian Lake, where the souls of most of the dead come and abide for their appointed times, some longer, some shorter, before they are sent back again to be born as living creatures’. The third 'falis into a great place burning with much fire and makes a lake, larger than our sea, boiling with water and mud; thence it flows round thick and muddy, and after many windings pours out its waters into a place below Tartarus. This is Pyriphlegethon. . . . Opposite this again the fourth river falis first, they teli us, into a place fearful and savage which is wholly the colour of blue steel; this they call Stygian, and the lake which the inflowing of the river makes they call Styx.’ This river sinking under the earth comes into the Acherusian Lake from the side opposite to Pyriphlegethon, and falis into Tartarus over against it. ‘Its name, the poets teli us, is Cocytus.' •







‘Now this is the tale that is told, that every man when he dies is led byhis attendant spirit (Sai/xniv) to a place where those who have been assembled must be judged, and proceed after judgement to Hades with the guide whose appointed task it is to lead thither those who come from this world. Then when they have received there whatever they must receive and have waited for the time appointed to them, another guide brings them hither again after many long cycles of time.’ ‘Now when the dead are come to the place whither the attendant spirit of each guideth him, first they are judged, and those that have lived fair and holy lives are parted from those that have not. Then as many as are found to have lived in a moderate fashion (fieatos) journey to Acheron, and embarking on such vessels as they find there are conveyed on these to the lake. Here they dwell and are purified, being released by punishment from the wrongs they have committed, and receiving honour for their good deeds, each according to his deserts. But as many as by reason of the greatness of their offences are found to be incurable, who have committed many grave crimes of sacrilege or many unjust and lawless slayings

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or the like, these their appointed fate flings into Tartarus, whence they never come forth. But such as are found to have committed offences great but not beyond cure, who have done violence in anger to father or mother and throughout their lives afterwards have repented of it, or who have slain men after some like fashion, these must indeed be cast into Tartarus, but when they have been there a year the wave casts them forth, the man-slayers by Cocytus and the father-beaters and motherbeaters by Pyriphlegethon.’

Then they call on those whom they have injured, and if they win their consent they are released. * But those who are found to have lived with especial righteousness are set free from these places within the earth and released as if from prison; they come up to the pure dwellingplace above and have their habitations upon the earth. Of them again those that have fully purified themselves by philosophy live altogether without bodies thereafter, and come to yet fairer dwellings than these, which may not easily be described. Therefore, by reason of these things which we have recounted, a man should do ali he may to partake of virtue and wisdom during his life: for the prize is fair and the hope great. It becomes not a sensible man to affirm that these things are indeed just as I have described: but to say that either this or something like this is true in regard to our souls and their habitations— for that the soul is immortal we have seen—this I count both fitting and a hazard worthy to be taken: for it is a noble hazard, and words like these are as it were charms which a man should sing over to his own heart. Indeed it is for this purpose that I have told my tale at such length.’

II. The Myth in the Gorgias This is again a myth of judgement. Zeus, says the tale, to avoid wrong judgement, ordained that man should be judged not in life but after death, naked souls stripped of all that had protected and disguised them in this life, such as noble birth or position or riches or a fair outward shape. And he appointed his sons Minos and Rhadamanthus and Aeacus to sit as judges ‘in the Meadow at the parting of the

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ways, whence the two ways lead, one to the Isles of the Blessed and the other to Tartarus’. 'So when Rhadamanthus has before him a man such as I have told about, he knows nothing about him, neither who he is nor of what parentage but only that he is wicked; and perceiving this he sends him away to Tartarus, having caused a mark to be set upon him to show whether he is found curable or not to be cured: who being come thither suffers what is fitting for him. Sometimes again he sees another soul that has lived righteously and with truth .. . and in him he rejoices, and sends him to the Isles of the Blessed.’

III. The Myth in the Phaedrus The theme of this myth is the famous comparison of the soul to a two-horse chariot. Reason the charioteer drives the two winged steeds Spirit and Appetite, of which one is noble and one base. With the main details of the long allegory we are not concerned here. It tums mainly on the doctrine of rebirth and the recollection by the soul of what it has seen in an earlier existence in the heavenly places: for Plato, as for Wordsworth in his Immortality Ode, birth into this life is ‘a sleep and a forgetting’, but not an ‘entire forgetfulness’. For the souls that have fallen from the heavenly places there is a period of 10,000 years during which in a series of lives they are gradually fitted to return whence they came. A few, such as those ‘who have followed True Wisdom (“ philosophy ”) without deceit’, have a shorter period of three thousand. ' But the other souls, when their first life is ended, come to judgement, and after trial some pass to the places of punishment beneath the earth and are punished there, others being lifted up by their sentence into a place in the sky dwell there in such a manner as their life in human form has deserved. Then in the thousandth year both kinds of soul come to the casting of the lots and the choosing of their second life, each choosing what life it will.’

SOURCES OF AENEID VI

IV. The Myth of Er (Repuhlic 613

xxi

E-621 d)

This is the story of Er the Pamphylian, who having been killed in battle came to life again on the twelfth day and told what he had seen in the world of the dead. He had come, he said, with other souls to a place where there was a great meadow, and four openings, two in the earth and two in the sky, between which sat judges to judge the dead. These sent those who had been righteous up to the sky by the right-hand opening, and the unrighteous below the earth by the chasm on the left. Meanwhile from the other two openings in the sky and in the earth other souls were coming, those pure and clean and these covered with dust. Each told their experiences, their happiness or their punishments during the thousand years of their journeying. The sinners had paid ten times over (‘once every hundred years, for this is the period of human life’) for each wrong they had done. ‘ They that had caused many deaths, who had either betrayed cities or armies or cast men into slavery, paid tenfold in suffering for what they had done, and likewise those who had done good to others and were righteous and holy received what they had deserved. About those who had lived only a little while after birth he said other things not worthy of record; and for acts of piety and impiety to gods or parents and for murderers there were yet greater rewards and penalties which he described.’ He was told also that there were some great criminals who after the thousand years were not sent up to earth but carried off to be cast into Tartarus. The souls that retumed by the openings were led away after seven days from the meadow to a place where sat Necessity tuming her spindle, and in front of her the three Fates, her daughters. Here, after lots had been cast for the order of choice, each soul chose its new life from the many samples of lives that were put before them: and they chose wisely or unwisely according to their characters.

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From the place of choosing they journeyed, each having his own attendant spirit, to the Plain of Forgetfulness (‘Lethe’) ‘through buming heat and frost’, and encamped at eve ‘ beside the Unmindful River, whose water no vessel can hold’. Of this all the souls, except Er himself, who was prevented, had to drink. The foolish drank deep, the wise sparingly: and whoever drank straightway forgot everything. Then they feli asleep; and at midnight there was thunder with an earthquake, and the souls,' shooting up like stars’, were suddenly bome away each to its own birth. But Er woke up on the funeral pyre. ‘And so this story was saved, and may save us if we hearken to it; and we shall cross the River of Forgetfulness aright and our souls will not be polluted. Therefore, according to my counsel, believing that the soul is immortal and able to endure all good and all evil, we shall always keep to the upward path and in every way practise righteousness with wisdom, so that we may be friends both with ourselves and with the gods both while we remain here and afterwards, and may fare well in this life and in the thousand-year journeying of which I ha ve told.'

The three passages from Pindar, dating from the middle of the fifth century, give us a picture of the life of the blessed after death which in many details resembles VirgiTs Elysium. We note especially the bright sunshine they enjoy and the music and horses and wrestling which are their pleasures. (It is worth observing that Pindar does not dwell on the punishment of sinners but on the happiness of the blessed: in this respect he seems to represent Orphic teaching.) In the third passage we have a glimpse of the doctrine of rebirth after purification which is referred to in the speech of Anchises (735-51). But far the best parallel to the Sixth Aeneii and the most valuable indications of what Orphism at its best taught are provided by the Myths of Plato. A Platonic ‘myth’ was ‘truth embodied in a tale’, an exposition in allegorical, symbolical, often highly poetical language of doctrines to

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which the ‘closest words’ of logic and Science could not be applied. Plato, like Virgil, puts his account of the life after death in a setting of popular mythology and folk-lore: his doctrines, like Virgil’s, owe something to Orphism and the Pythagoreans. But whereas Virgihs motive is primarily, as we have seen, national and patriotic, Plato’s is preeminently ethical. It is as a justification and incentive for righteousness that he insists on the soul’s immortality. The aims of the two are different: but there are many resemblances both of scenery and ideas in the pictures of the after-life of the soul which each draws. The four rivers in Virgil resemble, though they do not exactly correspond to, the four in the Phaedo. It is tempting to see in Virgil’s description of Acheron, the torrent which boils turbidus caeno, a reminiscence of the Lake ‘boiling with water and mud’ which the Fire-River passes through in the Phaedo myth. His accounts of Lethe and of the parting of the ways, partes ubi se via findit in ambas, echo, as is noted in the commentary, the actual language of the Gorgias. The hundred years of the wanderings of the unburied in the Aeneid and the thousand years which pass between the successive lives on earth have their parallels in Plato: the ten thousand which he gives as the full period after which the souls (in the Phaedrus) return to heaven throw light on one of the difficulties in the speech of Anchises. Another obscurity in that compressed account becomes clearer when we read in Plato of certain holiest spirits who either remain in their paradise with no return to earth or are freed sooner than ordinary souls from the cycle of births. The distinction in Plato between curable and incurable sinners, between punishment which is purifying and remedial and that which can only serve as a warning to others, is reproduced in Virgihs account of Hades and Tartarus, which supplied the model for Dante’s Purgatorio and Inferno.

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That Virgil was influenced and inspired by the philosophy and literary genius of Plato I cannot doubt. There isnothing to suggest that he had read Plato’s great pupil, Aristotle: it is to the Stoics that we must tum for the other main source of his philosophical thought. Stoicism, which began at Athens with Zeno about 310 B.c., had been introduced to Rome in the middle of the second century and was a steadily increasing influence during the years before and after Virgibs day. This school taught that all true being was corporeal, consisting of two elements, matter and force, the material and the divine element which permeated it. The Stoics believed in a ‘purpose through the ages’, the will of the divine element or ‘world-god’, a conception approximating to what Virgil calls Fate and we express as Providence. They spoke of an anima mundi permeating the whole universe, and of each individual soul as what Horaee called divinae particula aurae, a ‘ fiery particle ’ of divine origin, which by contact with the material body gathered pollution and needed purification to restore it to its original uncorrupted essence. The famous speech of Anchises1 contains an exposition of these ideas: the spirit which ‘ sustains sky and earth and the watery plains and moon and stars ’ is the anima mundi of the Stoics. With their theories of the origin of things went a strongly developed ethical doctrine. They taught independence of extemals, declaring that the philosopher could be happy under all circumstances,2 that he was ‘ the master of his fate ’ and ‘ captain of his soul ’, and that in the last resort he could always free himself by death. The hard heroic tjrpe of character produced by this teaching, which was admirable rather than lovable, cannot have been wholly congenial to a poet so full of tender humanity as Virgil. But there is a good deal of the Stoic hero about his Aeneas. That he did not accept entirelv the ethical teaching of the 1 See commentary on lines 724 fi.

1 'except', a9 Horaee said, ‘when he is troubled by a cold’.

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Stoics is shown by the implied condemnation of suicide in vi- 434~9- Like his friend Horaee, nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri, he cannot be set down as the disciple of any one philosophical school: his ideas and beliefs were drawn from many sources. But it is fair to say that ‘Stoicism by the time of the Aeneid was more than any other philo¬ sophical theory Virgil’s creed’.1 As a young man, if we may believe his biographers, whose statements are confirmed by passages in the Eclogues and Georgics, he had ‘held Epicurus strong’, and he could not fail to be influenced by his great poetical predecessor Lucretius. But the permanent results of that influence were literary rather than philosophical. He repeatedly echoes his language: and the pleasure of reading the Aeneid is greatly enhanced by familiarity with the De Rerum Natura. Yet he is no longer under the spell of his philosophy. Lucretius had rejected as fictions or explained away as allegories ali accounts of Hades and of life after death; the climax of his poem is a paean of thanksgiving for the mortality of the soul and the gospel of materialism. Virgil has passed through this phase of thought and come out at the other side, if not to ciear conviction, at least to ‘the larger hope’. Lucretius had influenced his poetry. So too had the other great Roman poet of the same generation, Catullus. The two passages in the sixth book which recall his verses are ciear evidence that Virgil was familiar with his writing. The first (27-30) is a careful and deliberate reminiscence: the language of Catullus and the sound of his lines are skilfully reproduced and interwoven into the texture of Virgil’s description of the Labyrinth. The second (460) is a less happy echo, perhaps accidental: if so, the mere fact that he could reproduce a line so unconsciously and inappropriately is evidence of his familiarity with the original. Catullus in a few poems, Lucretius in his whole work, 1 Bailey, Religion in Virgil.

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had used hexameters. Those of the former are often mag¬ nificent, but monotonous: the Lucretian lines combine beauty with an unpolished form that makes for strength but often leads to harshness. Virgil spared no pains to polish his individual lines, and he avoids monotony by a wonderful variety of rhythm and a skilful use of the period. The reader, especially if he will take the trouble to commit some passages to memory, may gradually discover these qualities for himself. A suggestive comparison of the rhythm of the three poets is given in Mackail’s Virgil (Introduction, p. lxxvi). None of the writings so far quoted afford any parallel for the patriotic and national motive which is so conspicuous in Virgil. This is supplied in two Roman works, the Annales of Ennius, finished about 180 B.c., and the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero (about 51 B.c.). The former, a work of ‘lumberingmagnificence’,1 ‘affording the earliest example in literature of a national epic', was a long poem in eighteen books, of which about 450 fragments, mostly single lines, have been preserved. They are enough to show the national and historical character of the work and the experimental nature of both the vocabulary and the hexameters. His verses are sometimes absurd, sometimes heavily prosaic, sometimes noble and satisfying.2 But for all its unevenness and primitive roughness his poem ranked high in Roman estimation. For them, as Horaee telis us, he was alter Homerus, a Roman Homer, and Virgil was steeped in his verses no less than in the Homerie poems. Perhaps if the whole work had survived we should find as many echoes of the Annales in the Aeneid as we have of the Iliad and Odyssey. The two notable instances in the sixth book, the

1 Garrod. * The following three lines may serve as illustrations types: Massili- portabant iuvenes ad litora -fanas, introducuntur legati Minturnenses, moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque.

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line about Fabius Cunctator (846) and the description of the woodcutting (179-82), show the use that Virgil made of his great predecessor and must be typical of other imitations which we cannot trace. The national poet of the Augustan age borrowed freely and deliberately from the national epic of the Republic. The Somnium, Scipionis is a Latin myth on Platonic lines, in which Cicero sets out in the form of a dream his views of life after death and the virtues on which future happiness depends. The younger Scipio sees in a dream his father, who shows him from the Milky Way, where dwell the spirits of the blest, the whole universe, sun and moon and the planets, and below them Earth, whither things mortal sink by their weight, and where nothing is deathless except the souls of men, these being derived from those ‘ everlasting fires’ which men call stars. A man’s body, his father telis him, is mortal, but not the man himself: for a man is not the outward and visible shape which we see. It is the soul of a man that is the real man (mens cuiusque, is est quisque). Therefore a man must follow virtue in this life, especially justice and pietas, above ali the highest form of pietas which is patriotism, so that he may pass after death to the abodes of the blessed, when he has been released from the ‘ prison ’ of the body. It will be observed that in Cicero’s myth, as in Virgil, it is a dead father who acts as guide and reveals the secrets of the other world. Here also we have a doctrine of immortality and a life of blessedness for the good. Here too, as in Virgil but not in Plato, goodness is identified with patriotism and the Service of the State. Plato’s saints are philosophers: Cicero’s are soldiers and statesmen. Apart from these points of contact there is not much to connect VirgiTs vision with Scipio’s, though I have noted in the commentary two instances (lines 734 and 801) of possible verbal reminiscence. But Cicero’s work is of interest to students of Virgil as showing what an educated Roman of

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the previous generation thought about life after death. He too has abandoned the materialism of Epicurus for a philosophy which looks beyond this life, in which Stoic and Platonic teachings are blended. The Somnium Scipionis is not to be compared for literary value and inspiration with A eneid vi: but the two works give us a valuable insight into the views about life and death and immortality held by the greatest prose writer and the greatest poet of the last century before the birth of Christ. Each of them, like Plato, uses the veil of myth to protect himself from the charge of dogmatizing about the unknowable, and it is open to the reader to read either work as a mere story with no deeper meaning. But I prefer to believe that both the orator and the poet, if questioned, would have replied, in the words of Socrates, ‘though to affirm these things as exact truth is not the part of a sensible man, yet to believe that either this or something like this is true in regard to men’s souls and their habitations is both fitting and a noble hazard, worthy to be taken.' Cicero records his speculations in the form of a dream: we need not for that reason dismiss them as not seriously intended. Virgil makes Aeneas approach the Sibyl through doors on which a maze is depicted; and he parts from her at the gates of sleep. But the maze is not without a plan; and his account of the world beyond the grave is more than the ‘ baseless fabric of a vision When Dante chose the poet of the Sixth A eneid for his guide through Hell and Purgatory, he ranged himself with those who throughout the centuries have found in it, besides poetical fancy and pagan mythology and Italian folk-lore, a partial unveiling of Virgibs own thoughts on life and death and immortality and the soul of man.

THE STORY OF AENEID I-V the night when Troy was taken and sacked by the Greeks Aeneas, son of the Trojan prince Anchises and the goddess Venus, being warned by his mother that Troy was doomed and no defence any longer possible, escaped from the city, taking with him the Penates or household gods of Troy and of his horne, carrying on his shoulders his invalid father, and leading by the hand his young son Iulus (called also Ascanius). During the flight his wife Creusa was lost, and he returned to search. Her ghost appearing to him assured him that ali was well with her, and foretold for him long wanderings across the sea which should bring him to ‘ Hesperia ’ and the river Thybris, to a kingdom and a royal bride. (Book ii.) The fugitives from Troy, having gathered on Mount Ida, spent the winter in building a fleet, with which they went first to Thrace and began to build a town there. But being warned by an omen they abandoned it, and sailed south to Delos. Here in the temple of Apollo the voice of the god bade Aeneas antiquam exquirere matrem, promising that there ' the house of Aeneas should reign over all lands, and their sons and their sons’ sons after them’. Anchises interpreted the oracle as referring to Crete, whence Teucer the ancestor of the Trojans had come, and sailing thither they made a second attempt to build a city. But a pestilence came upon them, and Aeneas was warned in a dream by the Penates which he had brought from Troy that not Crete but ‘Hesperia’ was the land intended by Apollo—the ‘ westem land’ called also Italia, where Dar¬ danus, another ancestor, had been born. Anchises confirmed this, recalling old prophecies about Hesperia and Itala regna uttered in Troy by Cassandra, the prophetess whom no one believed. Accordingly they set sail again, but were caught by a storm and landed in the Strophades, islands in the On

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Ianian Sea. Being driven thence by the Harpies, they sailed an along the east coast of the Ionian Sea to Leucas, where they wintered. Leaving Leucas, they came to Epirus, and found there Helenus, son of Priam, married to Hector’s widow Andro¬ mache and ruling in the country. By him they were warmly welcomed, and being a prophet he foretold the future to Aeneas, warning him that before landing in Italy he must visit Sicily, and that when at last he left Sicily for Italy he must go first to Cumae, divinosque lacus et Averna sonantia silvis. Here dwelt, he said, the ‘mad prophetess’, the Sibyl, who chanted oracles at the foot of a rock and wrote her messages on leaves —foliisque notas et nomina mandat— which, when the door was opened, the wind scattered about the cave. Aeneas must without fail visit her, and beg her to speak, not write, her answer (ipsa canat, vocemque volens atque ora resolvat). ‘She will teli you of the peoples of Italy and wars to come’, et quo quemque modo fugiasque fer as que laborem. Following Helenus’ directions they sailed first north, then across the head of the Ionian Sea, then southward round the heel of Italy, past the Bay of Tarentum and round the Southern coast of Sicily to Drepanum at the north-west comer of the island, where Anchises died. (Book iii.) From Drepanum they set sail for Italy, but were caught by a storm and swept away south, with the loss of one ship, to the coast of Africa near Carthage, where Dido the Phoenician Queen, widow of Sychaeus, was building a city. She welcomed the Trojans and feli in love with Aeneas, who stayed with her through the autumn and winter. (Book i.) Then being wamed by a message from Jupiter that he was forgetting in dalliance the great future of his family and his descendants, destined one day to bring the whole world under their laws, he deserted her and sailed away, steeling his heart against her passionate reproaches and entreaties, and pleading in excuse the commands of heaven. As his

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fleet left the shore he saw in the city behind him the flames of the pyre on which, though he did not know it, the body of Dido, who had killed herself, was burning. (Book iv.) During the voyage from Africa to Italy the fleet was once more smitten by a storm; they took refuge in a Sicilian harbour under Mount Eryx near the tomb of Anchises, and held funeral games there on the anniversary of his death. The description of these games occupies most of Book v. The close of the book telis how the spirit of Anchises, appearing at night to Aeneas, bade him follow a suggestion already made by one of his company, and leave their women and older men behind in Sicily with Acestes, ruler of that district. With the rest he was to set sail at once for Italy, where a hardy race in Latium must be fought and conquered. But first he must go down to ‘ the dwellings of Dis below, through the depths of Avernus ’ to visit Anchises in Elysium, whither the Sibyl would lead him. They set sail with a foflowing breeze on a calm sea, with Aeneas’ ship leading the way. During the night Palinurus, his steersman, overcome by the god of sleep, feli overboard. Aeneas, awaking to find his ship without a pilot, took the helm himself, and the book closes with his few words of lamentation for his lost comrade (o nimium caelo et pelago confise sereno, nudus in ignota, Palinure, iacebis harenal). The scene is thus set for the arrival in Italy and the visit to the Sibyl, the climax of the first half and the prelude to the second half of the Aeneii.

P. VERGILI MARONIS

AENEIDOS LIBER VI Sic fatur lacrimans, classique immittit habenas et tandem Euboicis Cumarum adlabitur oris, obvertunt pelago proras; tum dente tenaci ancora fundabat navis, et litora curvae praetexunt puppes, iuvenum manus emicat ardens 3 litus in Hesperium; quaerit pars semina flammae abstrusa in venis silicis, pars densa ferarum tecta rapit silvas inventaque flumina monstrat, at pius Aeneas arces quibus altus Apollo praesidet horrendaeque procul secreta Sibyllae, 10 antrum immane, petit, magnam cui mentem animumque Delius inspirat vates aperitque futura, iam subeunt Triviae lucos atque aurea tecta. Daedalus, ut fama est, fugiens Minoia regna praepetibus pennis ausus se credere caelo insuetum per iter gelidas enavit ad Arctos,

Chalcidicaque levis tandem super astitit arce. redditus his primum terris tibi, Phoebe, sacravit remigium alarum posuitque immania templa. in foribus letum Androgeo; tum pendere poenas Cecropidae iussi (miserum!) septena quotannis corpora natorum; stat ductis sortibus urna. contra elata mari respondet Gnosia tellus: hic crudelis amor tauri suppostaque furto Pasiphae mixtumque genus prolesque biformis Minotaurus inest, Veneris monimenta nefandae; hic labor ille domus et inextricabilis error ; magnum reginae sed enim miseratus amorem Daedalus ipse dolos tecti ambagesque resolvit, caeca regens filo vestigia, tu quoque magnam partem opere in tanto, sineret dolor, Icare, haberes. 4663

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bis conatus erat casus effingere in auro, bis patriae cecidere manus, quin protinus omnia perlegerent oculis, ni iam praemissus Achates adforet atque una Phoebi Triviaeque sacerdos, Deiphobe Glauci, fatur quae talia regi: ‘ non hoc ista sibi tempus spectacula poscit; nunc grege de intacto septem mactare iuvencos praestiterit, totidem lectas de more bidentis.' talibus adfata Aenean (nec sacra morantur iussa viri) Teucros vocat alta in templa sacerdos. Excisum Euboicae latus ingens rupis in antrum, quo lati ducunt aditus centum, ostia centum, unde ruunt totidem voces, responsa Sibyllae, ventum erat ad limen, cum virgo ‘poscere fata tempus ’ ait; ‘ deus ecce deus! ’ cui talia fanti ante fores subito non vultus, non color unus, non comptae mansere comae; sed pectus anhelum, et rabie fera corda tument, maiorque videri nec mortale sonans, adflata est numine quando iam propiore dei. ‘ cessas in vota precesque ? Tros' ait ‘Aenea, cessas? neque enim ante dehiscent attonitae magna ora domus.' et talia fata conticuit, gelidus Teucris per dura cucurrit ossa tremor, funditque preces rex pectore ab imo: ‘ Phoebe, gravis Troiae semper miserate labores, Dardana qui Paridis derexti tela manusque corpus in Aeacidae, magnas obeuntia terras tot maria intravi duce te penitusque repostas Massylum gentis praetentaque Syrtibus arva, iam tandem Italiae fugientis prendimus oras; hac Troiana tenus fuerit fortuna secuta. vos quoque Pergameae iam fas est parcere genti, dique deaeque omnes, quibus obstitit Ilium et ingens gloria Dardaniae, tuque, o sanctissima vates, praescia venturi, da (non indebita posco regna meis fatis) Latio considere Teucros

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AENEIDOS VI errantisque deos agitataque numina Troiae. tum Phoebo et Triviae solido de marmore templum instituam festosque dies de nomine Phoebi. te quoque magna manent regnis penetralia nostris: hic ego namque tuas sortis arcanaque fata dicta meae genti ponam, lectosque sacrabo, alma, viros, foliis tantum ne carmina manda, ne turbata volent rapidis ludibria ventis: ipsa canas oro.' finem dedit ore loquendi. At Phoebi nondum patiens immanis in antro bacchatur vates, magnum si pectore possit excussisse deum; tanto magis ille fatigat os rabidum, fera corda domans, fingitque premendo. ostia iamque domus patuere ingentia centum sponte sua vatisque ferunt responsa per auras: ‘o tandem magnis pelagi defuncte periclis! sed terrae graviora manent: in regna Lavini Dardanidae venient, mitte hanc de pectore curam, sed non et venisse volent, bella, horrida bella, et Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno. non Simois tibi nec Xanthus nec Dorica castra defuerint; alius Latio iam partus Achilles, natus et ipse dea; nec Teucris addita luno usquam aberit, cum tu supplex in rebus egenis quas gentis Italum aut quas non oraveris urbes! causa mali tanti coniunx iterum hospita Teucris extemique iterum thalami. tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito quam tua te fortuna sinet, via prima salutis, quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe.’ Talibus ex adyto dictis Cumaea Sibylla horrendas canit ambages antroque remugit, obscuris vera involvens: ea frena furenti concutit et stimulos sub pectore vertit Apollo, ut primum cessit furor et rabida ora quierunt, incipit Aeneas heros: ‘ non ulla laborum,

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o virgo, nova mi facies inopinave surgit; omnia praecepi atque animo mecum ante peregi. 105 unum oro: quando hic inferni ianua regis dicitur et tenebrosa palus Acheronte refuso, ire ad conspectum cari genitoris et ora contingat; doceas iter et sacra ostia pandas. illum ego per flammas et mille sequentia tela no eripui his umeris medioque ex hoste recepi; ille meum comitatus iter maria omnia mecum atque omnis pelagique minas caelique ferebat, invalidus, viris ultra sortemque senectae. quin, ut te supplex peterem et tua limina adirem, 115 idem orans mandata dabat, natique patrisque, alma, precor, miserere; potes namque omnia, nec te nequiquam lucis Hecate praefecit Avernis. si potuit manis accersere coniugis Orpheus Threicia fretus cithara fidibusque canoris, 120 si fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit itque reditque viam totiens—quid Thesea magnum, quid memorem Alciden?—et mi genus ab Iove summo.’ Talibus orabat dictis arasque tenebat, cum sic orsa loqui vates: ‘sate sanguine divum, 125 Tros Anchisiade, facilis descensus Averno: noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis; sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, hoc opus, hic labor est. pauci, quos aequus amavit Iuppiter aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus, 130 dis geniti potuere, tenent media omnia silvae, Cocytusque sinu labens circumvenit atro, quod si tantus amor menti, si tanta cupido est, bis Stygios innare lacus, bis nigra videre Tartara, et insano iuvat indulgere labori, i35 accipe quae peragenda prius, latet arbore opaca aureus et foliis et lento vimine ramus, Iunoni infernae dictus sacer; hunc tegit omnis lucus et obscuris claudunt convallibus umbrae.

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sed non ante datur telluris operta subire 140 auricomos quam quis decerpserit arbore fetus, hoc sibi pulchra suum ferri Proserpina munus instituit, primo avulso non deficit alter aureus, et simili frondescit virga metallo, ergo alte vestiga oculis et rite repertum 145 carpe manu; namque ipse volens facilisque sequetur, si te fata vocant; aliter non viribus ullis vincere nec duro poteris convellere ferro, praeterea iacet exanimum tibi corpus amici (heu nescis) totamque incestat funere classem, 150 dum consulta petis nostroque in limine pendes, sedibus hunc refer ante suis et conde sepulcro, duc nigras pecudes; ea prima piacula sunto, sic demum lucos Stygis et regna invia vivis aspicies.’ dixit, pressoque obmutuit ore. 155 Aeneas maesto defixus lumina vultu ingreditur linquens antrum, caecosque volutat eventus animo secum. cui fidus Achates it comes et paribus curis vestigia figit, multa inter sese vario sermone serebant, 160 quem socium exanimum vates, quod corpus humandum diceret, atque illi Misenum in litore sicco, ut venere, vident indigna morte peremptum, Misenum Aeoliden, quo non praestantior alter aere ciere viros Martemque accendere cantu. 165 Hectoris hic magni fuerat comes, Hectora circum et lituo pugnas insignis obibat et hasta. postquam illum vita victor spoliavit Achilles, Dardanio Aeneae sese fortissimus heros addiderat socium, non inferiora secutus. 170 sed tum forte cava dum personat aequora concha, demens, et cantu vocat in certamina divos, aemulus exceptum Triton, si credere dignum est, inter saxa virum spumosa immerserat unda, ergo omnes magno circum clamore fremebant. 175

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praecipue pius Aeneas, tum iussa Sibyllae, haud mora, festinant flentes aramque sepulcri congerere arboribus caeloque educere certant. itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum, procumbunt piceae, sonat icta securibus ilex fraxineaeque trabes cuneis et fissile robur scinditur, advolvunt ingentis montibus ornos. Nec non Aeneas opera inter talia primus hortatur socios paribusque accingitur armis, atque haec ipse suo tristi cum corde volutat aspectans silvam immensam, et sic forte precatur: * si nunc se nobis ille aureus arbore ramus ostendat nemore in tanto! quando omnia vere heu nimium de te vates, Misene, locuta est.’ vix ea fatus erat geminae cum forte columbae ipsa sub ora viri caelo venere volantes, et viridi sedere solo, tum maximus heros maternas agnoscit avis laetusque precatur: ‘ este duces, o, si qua via est, cursumque per auras derigite in lucos ubi pinguem dives opacat ramus humum, tuque, o, dubiis ne defice rebus, diva parens.’ sic effatus vestigia pressit observans quae signa ferant, quo tendere pergant. pascentes illae tantum prodire volando quantum acie possent oculi servare sequentum. inde ubi venere ad fauces grave olentis Averni, tollunt se celeres liquidumque per aera lapsae sedibus optatis gemina super arbore sidunt, discolor unde auri per ramos aura refulsit. quale solet silvis brumali frigore viscum fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos, et croceo fetu teretis circumdare truncos, talis erat species auri frondentis opaca ilice, sic leni crepitabat brattea vento. corripit Aeneas extemplo avidusque refringit cunctantem, et vatis portat sub tecta Sibyllae.

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AENEIDOS VI Nec minus interea Misenum in litore Teucri flebant et cineri ingrato suprema ferebant, principio pinguem taedis et robore secto ingentem struxere pyram, cui frondibus atris intexunt latera et feralis ante cupressos constituunt, decorantque super fulgentibus armis, pars calidos latices et aena undantia flammis expediunt, corpusque lavant frigentis et unguunt, fit gemitus, tum membra toro defleta reponunt purpureasque super vestis, velamina nota, coniciunt. pars ingenti subiere feretro, triste ministerium, et subiectam more parentum aversi tenuere facem, congesta cremantur turea dona, dapes, fuso crateres olivo, postquam conlapsi cineres et flamma quievit, reliquias vino et bibulam lavere favillam, ossaque lecta cado texit Corynaeus aeno, idem ter socios pura circumtulit unda spargens rore levi et ramo felicis olivae, lustravitque viros dixitque novissima verba, at pius Aeneas ingenti mole sepulcrum imponit suaque arma viro remumque tubamque monte sub aerio, qui nunc Misenus ab illo dicitur aeternumque tenet per saecula nomen. His actis propere exsequitur praecepta Sibyllae, spelunca alta fuit vastoque immanis hiatu, scrupea, tuta lacu nigro nemorumque tenebris, quam super haud ullae poterant impune volantes tendere iter pennis: talis sese halitus atris faucibus effundens supera ad convexa ferebat: [unde locum Grai dixerunt nomine Aornon.] quattuor hic primum nigrantis terga iuvencos constituit frontique invergit vina sacerdos, et summas carpens media inter cornua saetas ignibus imponit sacris, libamina prima, voce vocans Hecaten caeloque Ereboque potentem.

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supponunt alii cultros tepidumque cruorem suscipiunt pateris, ipse atri velleris agnam Aeneas matri Eumenidum magnaeque sorori 250 ense ferit, sterilemque tibi, Proserpina, vaccam. tum Stygio regi nocturnas incohat aras et solida imponit taurorum viscera flammis, pingue super oleum fundens ardentibus extis. ecce autem primi sub lumina solis et ortus 255 sub pedibus mugire solum et iuga coepta moveri silvarum, visaeque canes ululare per umbram adventante dea. 'procul, o procul este, profani’ conclamat vates, ' totoque absistite luco; tuque invade viam vaginaque eripe ferrum: 260 nunc animis opus, Aenea, nunc pectore firmo.’ tantum effata furens antro se immisit aperto; ille ducem haud timidis vadentem passibus aequat. Di, quibus imperium est animarum, umbraeque silentes et Chaos et Phlegethon, loca nocte tacentia late, 265 sit mihi fas audita loqui, sit numine vestro pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas. Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram perque domos Ditis vacuas et inania regna: quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna 270 est iter in silvis, ubi caelum condidit umbra Iuppiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem, vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus Orci Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae, pallentesque habitant Morbi tristisque Senectus, 275 et Metus et malesuada Fames ac turpis Egestas, terribiles visu formae, Letumque Labosque; tum consanguineus Leti Sopor et mala mentis Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum, ferreique Eumenidum thalami et Discordia demens 280 vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis. In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia vulgo

AENEIDOS VI

vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent, multaque praeterea variarum monstra ferarum, Centauri in foribus stabulant Scyllaeque biformes et centumgeminus Briareus ac belua Lernae horrendum stridens, flammisque armata Chimaera, Gorgones Harpyiaeque et forma tricorporis umbrae, corripit hic subita trepidus formidine ferrum Aeneas strictamque aciem venientibus offert, et ni docta comes tenuis sine corpore vitas admoneat volitare cava sub imagine formae, inruat et frustra ferro diverberet umbras. Hinc via Tartarei quae fert Acherontis ad undas. turbidus hic caeno vastaque voragine gurges aestuat atque omnem Cocyto eructat harenam. portitor has horrendus aquas et flumina servat terribili squalore Charon, cui plurima mento canities inculta iacet, stant lumina flammae, sordidus ex umeris nodo dependet amictus, ipse ratem conto subigit velisque ministrat et ferruginea subvectat corpora cumba, iam senior, sed cruda deo viridisque senectus, huc omnis turba ad ripas effusa ruebat, matres atque viri defunctaque corpora vita magnanimum heroum, pueri innuptaeque puellae, impositique rogis iuvenes ante ora parentum: quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto quam multae glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus trans pontum fugat et terris immittit apricis, stabant orantes primi transmittere cursum, tendebantque manus ripae ulterioris amore, navita sed tristis nunc hos nunc accipit illos, ast alios longe summotos arcet harena. Aeneas miratus enim motusque tumultu ‘dic’ ait, ‘o virgo, quid vult concursus ad amnem? quidve petunt animae ? vel quo discrimine ripas

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hae linquunt, illae remis vada livida verrunt ?' olli sic breviter fata est longaeva sacerdos: ‘ Anchisa generate, deum certissima proles, Cocyti stagna alta vides Stygiamque paludem, di cuius iurare timent et fallere numen. haec omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est; portitor ille Charon; hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti. nec ripas datur horrendas et rauca fluenta transportare prius quam sedibus ossa quierunt. centum errant annos volitantque haec litora circum; tum demum admissi stagna exoptata revisunt.’ constitit Anchisa satus et vestigia pressit multa putans sortemque animo miseratus iniquam. cernit ibi maestos et mortis honore carentis Leucaspim et Lyciae ductorem classis Oronten, quos simul a Troia ventosa per aequora vectos obruit Auster, aqua involvens navemque virosque. Ecce gubernator sese Palinurus agebat, qui Libyco nuper cursu, dum sidera servat, exciderat puppi mediis effusus in undis, hunc ubi vix multa maestum cognovit in umbra, sic prior adloquitur: ‘quis te, Palinure, deorum eripuit nobis medioque sub aequore mersit ? dic age. namque mihi, fallax haud ante repertus, hoc uno responso animum delusit Apollo, qui fore te ponto incolumem finisque canebat venturum Ausonios, en haec promissa fides est ?' ille autem: ‘neque te Phoebi cortina fefellit, dux Anchisiade, nec me deus aequore mersit, namque gubernaclum multa vi forte revulsum, cui datus haerebam custos cursusque regebam, praecipitans traxi mecum. maria aspera iuro non ullum pro me tantum cepisse timorem, quam tua ne spoliata armis, excussa magistro, deficeret tantis navis surgentibus undis, tris Notus hibernas immensa per aequora noctes

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AENEIDOS VI vexit me violentus aqua; vix lumine quarto prospexi Italiam summa sublimis ab unda, paulatim adnabam terrae; iam tuta tenebam, ni gens crudelis madida cum veste gravatum prensantemque uncis manibus capita aspera montis ferro invasisset praedamque ignara putasset. nunc me fluctus habet versantque in litore venti, quod te per caeli iucundum lumen et auras, per genitorem oro, per spes surgentis Iuli, eripe me his, invicte, malis: aut tu mihi terram inice, namque potes, portusque require Velinos; aut tu, si qua via est, si quam tibi diva creatrix ostendit (neque enim, credo, sine numine divum flumina tanta paras Stygiamque innare paludem), da dextram misero et tecum me tolle per undas, sedibus ut saltem placidis in morte quiescam.' talia fatus erat coepit cum talia vates: ‘ unde haec, o Palinure, tibi tam dira cupido ? tu Stygias inhumatus aquas amnemque severum Eumenidum aspicies, ripamve iniussus adibis ? desine fata deum flecti sperare precando. sed cape dicta memor, duri solacia casus. nam tua finitimi, longe lateque per urbes prodigiis acti caelestibus, ossa piabunt et statuent tumulum et tumulo sollemnia mittent, aeternumque locus Palinuri nomen habebit.’ his dictis curae emotae pulsusque parumper corde dolor tristi; gaudet cognomine terra. Ergo iter inceptum peragunt fluvioque propinquant, navita quos iam inde ut Stygia prospexit ab unda per tacitum nemus ire pedemque advertere ripae, sic prior adgreditur dictis atque increpat ultro: ‘ quisquis es, armatus qui nostra ad flumina tendis, fare age quid venias iam istinc, et comprime gressum, umbrarum hic locus est, somni noctisque soporae: corpora viva nefas Stygia vectare carina.

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nec vero Alciden me sum laetatus euntem accepisse lacu, nec Thesea Pirithoumque, dis quamquam geniti atque invicti viribus essent. Tartareum ille manu custodem in vincla petivit ipsius a solio regis traxitque trementem; hi dominam Ditis thalamo deducere adorti.’ quae contra breviter fata est Amphrysia vates: ‘nullae hic insidiae tales (absiste moveri), nec vim tela ferunt; licet ingens ianitor antro aeternum latrans exsanguis terreat umbras, casta licet patrui servet Proserpina limen. Troius Aeneas, pietate insignis et armis, ad genitorem imas Erebi descendit ad umbras. si te nulla movet tantae pietatis imago, at ramum hunc’ (aperit ramum qui veste latebat) ‘agnoscas.’ tumida ex ira tum corda residunt. nec plura his. ille admirans venerabile donum fatalis virgae longo post tempore visum caeruleam advertit puppim ripaeque propinquat. inde alias animas, quae per iuga longa sedebant, deturbat laxatque foros; simul accipit alveo ingentem Aenean, gemuit sub pondere cumba sutilis et multam accepit rimosa paludem. tandem trans fluvium incolumis vatem que virumque informi limo glaucaque exponit in ulva. Cerberus haec ingens latratu regna trifauci personat adverso recubans immanis in antro, cui vates horrere videns iam colla colubris meile soporatam et medicatis frugibus offam obicit. ille fame rabida tria guttura pandens corripit obiectam, atque immania terga resolvit fusus humi totoque ingens extenditur antro, occupat Aeneas aditum custode sepulto evaditque celer ripam inremeabilis undae. Continuo auditae voces vagitus et ingens infantumque animae flentes in limine primo

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quos dulcis vitae exsortis et ab ubere raptos abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo, hos iuxta falso damnati crimine mortis. nec vero hae sine sorte datae, sine iudice, sedes: quaesitor Minos urnam movet; ille silentum conciliumque vocat vitasque et crimina discit, proxima deinde tenent maesti loca, qui sibi letum insontes peperere manu lucemque perosi proiecere animas, quam vellent aethere in alto nunc et pauperiem et duros perferre labores! fas obstat, tristisque palus inamabilis undae alligat et novies Styx interfusa coercet, nec procul hinc partem fusi monstrantur in omnem Lugentes Campi; sic illos nomine dicunt, hic quos durus amor crudeli tabe peredit secreti celant calles et myrtea circum silva tegit; curae non ipsa in morte relinquunt, his Phaedram Procrimque locis maestamque Eriphylen crudelis nati monstrantem vulnera cernit, Euadnenque et Pasiphaen; his Laodamia it comes et iuvenis quondam, nunc femina, Caeneus rursus et in veterem fato revoluta figuram. inter quas Phoenissa recens a vulnere Dido errabat silva in magna; quam Troius heros ut primum iuxta stetit agnovitque per umbras obscuram, qualem primo qui surgere mense aut videt aut vidisse putat per nubila lunam, demisit lacrimas dulcique adfatus amore est: ‘ infelix Dido, verus mihi nuntius ergo venerat exstinctam ferroque extrema secutam ? funeris heu tibi causa fui ? per sidera iuro, per superos et si qua fides tellure sub ima est, invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi. sed me iussa deum, quae nunc has ire per umbras, per loca senta situ cogunt noctemque profundam, imperiis egere suis; nec credere quivi

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hunc tantum tibi me discessu ferre dolorem. siste gradum teque aspectu ne subtrahe nostro. quem fugis ? extremum fato quod te adloquor hoc est.’ talibus Aeneas ardentem et torva tuentem lenibat dictis animum lacrimasque ciebat. illa solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat; nec magis incepto vultum sermone movetur quam si dura silex aut stet Marpesia cautes. tandem corripuit sese atque inimica refugit in nemus umbriferum, coniunx ubi pristinus illi respondet curis aequatque Sychaeus amorem. nec minus Aeneas casu concussus iniquo prosequitur lacrimis longe et miseratur euntem. Inde datum molitur iter, iamque arva tenebant ultima, quae bello clari secreta frequentant, hic illi occurrit Tydeus, hic inclutus armis Parthenopaeus et Adrasti pallentis imago, hic multum fleti ad superos belloque caduci Dardanidae, quos ille omnis longo ordine cernens ingemuit, Glaucumque Medontaque Thersilochumque, tris Antenoridas Cererique sacrum Polyboeten, Idaeumque etiam currus, etiam arma tenentem. circumstant animae dextra laevaque frequentes: nec vidisse semel satis est; iuvat usque morari et conferre gradum et veniendi discere causas, at Danaum proceres Agamemnoniaeque phalanges ut videre virum fulgentiaque arma per umbras, ingenti trepidare metu; pars vertere terga, ceu quondam petiere rates, pars tollere vocem exiguam: inceptus clamor frustratur hiantis. Atque hic Priamiden laniatum corpore toto Deiphobum vidit, lacerum crudeliter ora, ora manusque ambas, populataque tempora raptis auribus et truncas inhonesto vulnere naris, vix adeo agnovit pavitantem ac dira tegentem supplicia, et notis compellat vocibus ultro:

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‘Deiphobe armipotens, genus alto a sanguine Teucri, quis tam crudelis optavit sumere poenas ? cui tantum de te licuit ? mihi fama suprema nocte tulit fessum vasta te caede Pelasgum procubuisse super confusae stragis acervum, tunc egomet tumulum Rhoeteo litore inanem constitui et magna manis ter voce vocavi, nomen et arma locum servant; te, amice, nequivi conspicere et patria decedens ponere terra.’ ad quae Priamides: ‘nihil o tibi, amice, relictum; omnia Deiphobo solvisti et funeris umbris. sed me fata mea et scelus exitiale Lacaenae his mersere malis; illa haec monimenta reliquit, namque ut supremam falsa inter gaudia noctem egerimus, nosti: et nimium meminisse necesse est. cum fatalis equus saltu super ardua venit Pergama et armatum peditem gravis attulit alveo, illa chorum simulans euhantis orgia circum ducebat Phrygias; flammam media ipsa tenebat ingentem et summa Danaos ex arce vocabat, tum me confectum curis somnoque gravatum infelix habuit thalamus, pressitque iacentem dulcis et alta quies placidaeque simillima morti, egregia interea coniunx arma omnia tectis amovet et fidum capiti subduxerat ensem; intra tecta vocat Menelaum et limina pandit, scilicet id magnum sperans fore munus amanti, et famam exstingui veterum sic posse malorum, quid moror ? inrumpunt thalamo, comes additur una hortator scelerum Aeolides, di, talia Grais instaurate, pio si poenas ore reposco. sed te qui vivum casus, age fare vicissim, attulerint, pelagine venis erroribus actus an monitu divum ? an quae te fortuna fatigat, ut tristis sine sole domos, loca turbida, adires ? Hac vice sermonum roseis Aurora quadrigis

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iam medium aetherio cursu traiecerat axem; et fors omne datum traherent per talia tempus, sed comes admonuit breviterque adfata Sibylla est: ‘nox ruit, Aenea; nos flendo ducimus horas. hic locus est partis ubi se via findit in ambas: dextera quae Ditis magni sub moenia tendit, hac iter Elysium nobis; at laeva malorum exercet poenas et ad impia Tartara mittit.’ Deiphobus contra: ‘ne saevi, magna sacerdos; discedam, explebo numerum reddarque tenebris. i decus, i, nostrum; melioribus utere fatis.’ tantum effatus, et in verbo vestigia torsit. Respicit Aeneas subito et sub rupe sinistra moenia lata videt triplici circumdata muro, quae rapidus flammis ambit torrentibus amnis, Tartareus Phlegethon, torquetque sonantia saxa, porta adversa ingens solidoque adamante columnae, vis ut nulla virum, non ipsi exscindere bello caelicolae valeant; stat ferrea turris ad auras, Tisiphoneque sedens palla succincta cruenta vestibulum exsomnis servat noctesque diesque. hinc exaudiri gemitus et saeva sonare verbera, tum stridor ferri tractaeque catenae, constitit Aeneas strepitumque exterritus hausit. ‘ quae scelerum facies ? o virgo, effare; quibusve urgentur poenis ? quis tantus clangor ad auris ? ’ tum vates sic orsa loqui: ‘dux inclute Teucrum, nulli fas casto sceleratum insistere limen; sed me cum lucis Hecate praefecit Avernis, ipsa deum poenas docuit perque omnia duxit. Gnosius haec Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna castigatque auditque dolos subigitque fateri quae quis apud superos furto laetatus inani distulit in seram commissa piacula mortem. continuo sontis ultrix accincta flagello Tisiphone quatit insultans, torvosque sinistra

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AENEIDOS VI intentans anguis vocat agmina saeva sororum. tum demum horrisono stridentes cardine sacrae panduntur portae, cernis custodia qualis vestibulo sedeat, facies quae limina servet; quinquaginta atris immanis hiatibus Hydra saevior intus habet sedem, tum Tartarus ipse bis patet in praeceps tantum tenditque sub umbras quantus ad aetherium caeli suspectus Olympum. hic genus antiquum Terrae, Titania pubes, fulmine deiecti fundo volvuntur in imo. hic et Aloidas geminos immania vidi corpora, qui manibus magnum rescindere caelum adgressi superisque Iovem detrudere regnis. vidi et crudelis dantem Salmonea poenas, dum flammam Iovis et sonitus imitatur Olympi. quattuor hic invectus equis et lampada quassans per Graium populos mediaeque per Elidis urbem ibat ovans, divumque sibi poscebat honorem, demens, qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen aere et cornipedum pulsu simularet equorum. at pater omnipotens densa inter nubila telum contorsit, non ille faces nec fumea taedis lumina, praecipitemque immani turbine adegit. nec non et Tityon, Terrae omniparentis alumnum, cernere erat, per tota novem cui iugera corpus porrigitur, rostroque immanis vultur obunco immortale iecur tondens fecundaque poenis viscera rimaturque epulis habitatque sub alto pectore, nec fibris requies datur ulla renatis. quid memorem Lapithas, Ixiona Pirithoumque ? quo super atra silex iam iam lapsura cadentique imminet adsimilis; lucent genialibus altis aurea fulcra toris, epulaeque ante ora paratae regifico luxu; Furiarum maxima juxta accubat et manibus prohibet contingere mensas, 4663

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exsurgitque facem attollens atque intonat ore. hic, quibus invisi fratres, dum vita manebat, pulsatusve parens aut fraus innexa clienti, aut qui divitiis soli incubuere repertis nec partem posuere suis (quae maxima turba est), quique ob adulterium caesi, quique arma secuti impia nec veriti dominorum fallere dextras, inclusi poenam exspectant, ne quaere doceri quam poenam, aut quae forma viros fortunave mersit. saxum ingens volvunt alii, radiisque rotarum districti pendent; sedet aetemumque sedebit infelix Theseus, Phlegyasque miserrimus omnis admonet et magna testatur voce per umbras: “discite iustitiam moniti et non temnere divos." vendidit hic auro patriam dominumque potentem imposuit; fixit leges pretio atque refixit; hic thalamum invasit natae vetitosque hymenaeos: ausi omnes immane nefas, ausoque potiti. non, mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum, ferrea vox, omnis scelerum comprendere formas, omnia poenarum percurrere nomina possim.’ Haec ubi dicta dedit Phoebi longaeva sacerdos, ‘sed iam age, carpe viam et susceptum perfice munus; acceleremus’ ait; ‘Cyclopum educta caminis moenia conspicio atque adverso fornice portas, haec ubi nos praecepta iubent deponere dona.’ dixerat et pariter gressi per opaca viarum corripiunt spatium medium foribusque propinquant, occupat Aeneas aditum corpusque recenti spargit aqua ramumque adverso in limine figit. His demum exactis, perfecto munere divae, devenere locos laetos et amoena virecta fortunatorum nemorum sedesque beatas, largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit purpureo, solemque suum, sua sidera norunt, pars in gramineis exercent membra palaestris,

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AENEIDOS VI contendunt ludo et fulva luctantur harena; pars pedibus plaudunt choreas et carmina dicunt, nec non Threicius longa cum veste sacerdos obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum, iamque eadem digitis, iam pectine pulsat eburno, hic genus antiquum Teucri, pulcherrima proles, magnanimi heroes, nati melioribus annis, Ilusque Assaracusque et Troiae Dardanus auctor. arma procul currusque virum miratur inanis. stant terra defixae hastae passimque soluti per campum pascuntur equi, quae gratia currum armorumque fuit vivis, quae cura nitentis pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos. conspicit, ecce, alios dextra laevaque per herbam vescentis laetumque choro paeana canentis inter odoratum lauri nemus, unde superne plurimus Eridani per silvam volvitur amnis. hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artis, quique sui memores aliquos fecere merendo: omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta. quos circumfusos sic est adfata Sibylla, Musaeum ante omnis (medium nam plurima turba hunc habet atque umeris exstantem suspicit altis): ‘ dicite, felices animae, tuque, optime vates, quae regio Anchisen, quis habet locus ? illius ergo venimus et magnos Erebi tranavimus amnis.’ atque huic responsum paucis ita reddidit heros: ‘ nulli certa domus; lucis habitamus opacis, riparumque toros et prata recentia rivis incolimus, sed vos, si fert ita corde voluntas, hoc superate iugum, et facili iam tramite sistam/ dixit, et ante tulit gressum camposque nitentis desuper ostentat; dehinc summa cacumina linquunt.

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At pater Anchises penitus convalle virenti inclusas animas superumque ad lumen ituras lustrabat studio recolens, omnemque suorum forte recensebat numerum, carosque nepotes fataque fortunasque virum moresque manusque. isque ubi tendentem adversum per gramina vidit Aenean, alacris palmas utrasque tetendit, effusaeque genis lacrimae et vox excidit ore: ' venisti tandem, tuaque exspectata parenti vicit iter durum pietas ? datur ora tueri, nate, tua et notas audire et reddere voces ? sic equidem ducebam animo rebarque futurum tempora dinumerans, nec me mea cura fefellit, quas ego te terras et quanta per aequora vectum accipio! quantis iactatum, nate, periclis! quam metui ne quid Libyae tibi regna nocerent! ’ ille autem: ' tua me, genitor, tua tristis imago saepius occurrens haec limina tendere adegit; stant sale Tyrrheno classes, da iungere dextram, da, genitor, teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro.' sic memorans largo fletu simul ora rigabat, ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum; ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago, par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno. Interea videt Aeneas in valle reducta seclusum nemus et virgulta sonantia silvae, Lethaeumque domos placidas qui praenatat amnem, hunc circum innumerae gentes populique volabant, ac velut in pratis ubi apes aestate serena floribus insidunt variis et candida circum lilia funduntur, strepit omnis murmure campus, horrescit visu subito causasque requirit inscius Aeneas, quae sint ea flumina porro, quive viri tanto complerint agmine ripas, tum pater Anchises: ‘ animae, quibus altera fato corpora debentur, Lethaei ad fluminis undam

AENEIDOS VI

21

securos latices et longa oblivia potant. 715 has equidem memorare tibi atque ostendere coram, iampridem hanc prolem cupio enumerare meorum, quo magis Italia mecum laetere reperta.' * o pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est sublimis animas iterumque ad tarda reverti 720 corpora ? quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido ? ’ ‘dicam equidem nec te suspensum, nate, tenebo' suscipit Anchises atque ordine singula pandit. ‘ Principio caelum ac terram camposque liquentis lucentemque globum lunae Titaniaque astra 725 spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet, inde hominum pecudumque genus vitaeque volantum et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus, igneus est ollis vigor et caelestis origo 730 seminibus, quantum non corpora noxia tardant terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra, hinc metuunt cupiuntque, dolent gaudentque, neque auras dispiciunt clausae tenebris et carcere caeco, quin et supremo cum lumine vita reliquit, 735 non tamen omne malum miseris nec funditus omnes corporeae excedunt pestes, penitusque necesse est multa diu concreta modis inolescere miris, ergo exercentur poenis veterumque malorum supplicia expendunt: aliae panduntur inanis 740 suspensae ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto infectum eluitur scelus aut exuritur igni; quisque suos patimur manis; exinde per amplum mittimur Elysium et pauci laeta arva tenemus; donec longa dies perfecto temporis orbe 745 concretam exemit labem, purumque relinquit aetherium sensum atque aurai simplicis ignem, has omnis, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos, Lethaeum ad fluvium deus evocat agmine magno, scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant 750

22

P. VERGILI MARONIS

rursus, et incipiant in corpora velle reverti.’ Dixerat Anchises natumque unaque Sibyllam conventus trahit in medios turbamque sonantem, et tumulum capit unde omnis longo ordine posset adversos legere et venientum discere vultus. ‘Nunc age, Dardaniam prolem quae deinde sequatur gloria, qui maneant Itala de gente nepotes, inlustris animas nostrumque in nomen ituras, expediam dictis, et te tua fata docebo, ille, vides, pura iuvenis qui nititur hasta, proxima sorte tenet lucis loca, primus ad auras aetherias Italo commixtus sanguine surget, Silvius, Albanum nomen, tua postuma proles, quem tibi longaevo serum Lavinia coniunx educet silvis regem regumque parentem, unde genus Longa nostrum dominabitur Alba. proximus ille Procas, Troianae gloria gentis, et Capys et Numitor et qui te nomine reddet Silvius Aeneas, pariter pietate vel armis egregius, si umquam regnandam acceperit Albam. qui iuvenes! quantas ostentant, aspice, viris atque umbrata gerunt civili tempora quercu! hi tibi Nomentum et Gabios urbemque Fidenam, hi Collatinas imponent montibus arces, Pometios Castrumque Inui Bolamque Coramque. haec tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terrae. quin et avo comitem sese Mavortius addet Romulus, Assaraci quem sanguinis Ilia mater educet, viden, ut geminae stant vertice cristae et pater ipse suo superum iam signat honore ? en huius, nate, auspiciis illa incluta Roma imperium terris, animos aequabit Olympo, septemque una sibi muro circumdabit arces, felix prole virum: qualis Berecyntia mater invehitur curru Phrygias turrita per urbes laeta deum partu, centum complexa nepotes,

755

760

765

770

775

7S0

785

AENEIDOS VI omnis caelicolas, omnis supera alta tenentis, huc geminas nunc flecte acies, hanc aspice gentem Romanosque tuos, hic Caesar et omnis Iuli progenies magnum caeli ventura sub axem. hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti saepius audis, Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet saecula qui rursus Latio regnata per arva Saturno quondam, super et Garamantas et Indos proferet imperium; iacet extra sidera tellus, extra anni solisque vias, ubi caelifer Atlas axem umero torquet stellis ardentibus aptum. huius in adventum iam nunc et Caspia regna responsis horrent divum et Maeotia tellus, et septemgemini turbant trepida ostia Nili. nec vero Alcides tantum telluris obivit, fixerit aeripedem cervam licet, aut Erymanthi pacarit nemora et Lemam tremefecerit arcu; nec qui pampineis victor iuga flectit habenis Liber, agens celso Nysae de vertice tigris. et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis, aut metus Ausonia prohibet consistere terra? quis procul ille autem ramis insignis olivae sacra ferens ? nosco crinis incanaque menta regis Romani primam qui legibus urbem fundabit Curibus parvis et paupere terra missus in imperium magnum, cui deinde subibit otia qui rumpet patriae residesque movebit Tullus in arma viros et iam desueta triumphis agmina, quem iuxta sequitur iactantior Ancus nunc quoque iam nimium gaudens popularibus auris. vis et Tarquinios reges animamque superbam ultoris Bruti fascisque videre receptos ? consulis imperium hic primus saevasque securis accipiet, natosque pater nova bella moventis ad poenam pulchra pro libertate vocabit, infelix! utcumque ferent ea facta minores:

23

790

795

800

805

810

815

820

24

P. VERGILI MARONIS

vincet amor patriae laudumque immensa cupido. quin Decios Drusosque procul saevumque securi aspice Torquatum et referentem signa Camillum. illae autem paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, concordes animae nunc et dum nocte premuntur, heu quantum inter se bellum, si lumina vitae attigerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt, aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci descendens, gener adversis instructus Eois! ne, pueri, ne tanta animis adsuescite bella neu patriae validas in viscera vertite viris; tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo, proice tela manu, sanguis meus!— ille triumphata Capitolia ad alta Corintho victor aget currum caesis insignis Achivis. eruet ille Argos Agamemnoniasque Mycenas ipsumque Aeaciden, genus armipotentis Achilli, ultus avos Troiae templa et temerata Minervae. quis te, magne Cato, tacitum aut te, Cosse, relinquat ? quis Gracchi genus aut geminos, duo fulmina belli, Scipiadas, cladem Libyae, parvoque potentem Fabricium vel te sulco, Serrane, serentem? quo fessum rapitis, Fabii ? tu Maximus ille es, unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem. excudent alii spirantia mollius aera, credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus, orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento (hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.' Sic pater Anchises atque haec mirantibus addit: ‘aspice, ut insignis spoliis Marcellus opimis ingreditur victorque viros supereminet omnis, hic rem Romanam magno turbante tumultu sistet eques, sternet Poenos Gallumque rebellem,

825

830

835

840

845

850

855

AENEIDOS VI

tertiaque arma patri suspendet capta Quirino.’ atque hic Aeneas (una namque ire videbat egregium forma iuvenem et fulgentibus armis, sed frons laeta parum et deiecto lumina vultu) ‘quis, pater, ille, virum qui sic comitatur euntem? filius, anne aliquis magna de stirpe nepotum ? qui strepitus circa comitum! quantum instar in ipso! sed nox atra caput tristi circumvolat umbra.’ tum pater Anchises lacrimis ingressus obortis: ‘ o nate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum ; ostendent terris hunc tantum fata neque ultra esse sinent, nimium vobis Romana propago visa potens, superi, propria haec si dona fuissent. quantos ille virum magnam Mavortis ad urbem campus aget gemitus! vel quae, Tiberine, videbis funera, cum tumulum praeterlabere recentem! nec puer Iliaca quisquam de gente Latinos in tantum spe tollet avos, nec Romula quondam ullo se tantum tellus iactabit alumno. heu pietas, heu prisca fides invictaque bello dextera! non illi se quisquam impune tulisset obvius armato, seu cum pedes iret in hostem seu spumantis equi foderet calcaribus armos. heu, miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas, tu Marcellus eris, manibus date lilia plenis purpureos spargam flores, animamque nepotis his saltem accumulem donis, et fungar inani munere.’ sic tota passim regione vagantur aeris in campis latis atque omnia lustrant. quae postquam Anchises natum per singula duxit incenditque animum famae venientis amore, exim bella viro memorat quae deinde gerenda, Laurentisque docet populos urbemque Latini, et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem. Sunt geminae Somni portae, quarum altera fertur cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris,

25

860

865

870

875

880

885

890

26

P. VERGILI MARONIS AENEIDOS VI

altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto, sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia manes, his ibi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam prosequitur dictis portaque emittit eburna. Ille viam secat ad navis sociosque revisit; tum se ad Caietae recto fert limite portum, ancora de prora iacitur; stant litore puppes.

NOTE ON THE MANUSCRIPTS There are few textual difficulties in Book vi, and a short account of the manuscripts will suffice. I have followed, by permission of the Clarendon Press, the Oxford Classical Text edited by Sir F. A. Hirtzel, with a few alterations, mainly of punctuation. Of these I append a list for the benefit of those who prefer, or for examination purposes are required, to use the Oxford text. In the following passages I have departed, from the punctua¬ tion of the Oxford text: 4, 51 and 52, 60 and 61, 83 and 84, 117 and 118, 122 and 123, 133, 162, 274, 427, 575, 742 and 744, 821, 847 and 848, 858, 883 and 884, 898 and 899. In the following I have adopted a different reading: Line 96 141 177 203 300 528 664 852 900

Oxford Text qua (Seneca) qui (M) sepulcro (P) geminae (R) flamma (M2P) additus (PR) alios F2 pacis (a few poor MSS.) litore (all the best MSS.)

My Text quam (all MSS.) quis (cett.) sepulcri (MR) gemina (cett.) flammae (MP2R) additur (FM) aliquos (all MSS.) paci (all the rest) limite (a few poor MSS.)

The relevant manuscripts are the Medicean (M), the Palatine (P), the Roman (R), and the Vatican (F). Of these the Roman is the least accurate and the Vatican is fragmentary, containing altogether less than 400 out of the 901 lines of the book. I have only found eleven instances in the Oxford text where a reading is adopted which has not the authority of either M or P or both: and in four of these (96, 203, 664, and 852) I have returned to their reading. Where textual uncertainties affect the interpretation the alternative readings are noted and discussed in the commentary, but I have not thought it necessary to call attention to unimportant and uninteresting variants. The manuscript authority is good: we may feel that we know with reasonable certainty the text as published after Virgil’s death by his friends and literary executors Varius and Tucca. But we cannot guess what alterations he would himself have made had he lived to give the three years’ further revision which he intended. We know that he was so dissatisfied with his work that he expressed when he was dying a wish to burn the manuscript, and had previously asked Varius to destroy it in

28

NOTE ON THE MANUSCRIPTS

the event of his death. Augustus prevented this, instructing the editors to ‘correct’ (emendare) and remove 'redundant passages’ (superflua) ‘but add nothing’. The uncompleted Lines which occur in every book are evidence of their obedience to the last of these instructions: but we cannot conjecture what amount of correction or omission was required. It may be supposed that decisions had to be taken as to the order of certain passages and the retention of some lines, and we are entitled to believe, when we find inconsistencies or obscurities or repetitions, that they do not represent what the poet would have written had he lived to do his own revision. Book vi is less unfinished than some of the others: we know that it was sufficiently complete to be read by Virgil, with the second and fourth, to Augustus and Octavia some time after the death of young Marcellus in September 23 b.c. But there are two unfinished lines (94 and 835); in several places (notably 602, 608-24, 795, 836) the connexions are obscure and we have a sense of incompleteness; and there are obscurities and incon¬ sistencies in the account of Elysium which the poet would no doubt have wished to eliminate. It is doubtful whether his fastidious taste would ever have been satisfied, especially with a theme of such mystery as that of the sixth book, and we may agree with Mackail that ‘while in one sense it is his highest achievement, it is at the same time one of his least complete. For completeness was in the nature of things impossible.’

COMMENTARY [References will be found in the notes to the following: Henry’s Aeneidea; the editions of Virgil by Conington, T. E. Page, and J. W. Mackail, of Book vi by Norden (Berlin, 1934) and H. E. Butler; dissertations by G. Funaioli (VOltretomba nell’ Aeneide di Virgilio), Jackson Knight (Cumaean Gates and Accentual Symmetry in Virgil), and Sparrow (Half-lines and Repetitions in Virgil); verse-translations by W. Morris, J. Rhoades, R. Whitelaw, R. Bridges, and J. E. Flecker. Also to T. R. Glover’s Virgil and to Religion in Virgil by C. Bailey, to whom I am indebted also for many helpful criticisms and suggestions.] 1. immittit habenas: immittere habenas, which means primarily to ‘fling the reins loose’ and ‘give a horse its head’ to let it gallop freely, is used metaphorically in various senses. Lucretius, describing how trees sprang up over the earth, speaks of crescendi . . . immissis certamen habenis (v. 787). The vine-shoot in the Georgics, allowed to grow up freely, rises laxis per parum immissus habenis (G. ii. 364). When rivers pour in unchecked flood3 over the land, it is because Neptune has bidden the river gods fluminibus .. .totas immittite habenas (Ovid, M. i. 280); when fire rages uncontrolled, furit immissis Volcanus habenis (Virgil, A. v. 662); one who gives way to uncontrolled anger irarum omnis effundit habenas (id. xii. 499). In this passage Aeneas, whose ship is leading the rest and setting the pace, ‘lets them drive’ at full speed before the favourable wind which, as has been described at the end of Book v, was blowing them on to Italy (ferunt sua flamina classem, v. 832). 2. adlabitur: the word suggests the easy quiet motion. Euboicis Cumarum . . . oris. The scene of this book is the neighbourhood of Cumae, north-west of the Bay of Naples, colonized by Greeks from Chalcis in Euboea many years after the supposed date of Aeneas. The epithet Euboicis, lilce Chalcidica in 17, is thus a historical reminiscence which had a meaning for Virgil and his readers, though an anachronism as far as his story is concerned. The whole neighbourhood was familiar to the poet and his contemporaries. It included Baiae, the fashionable summer resort. Virgil himself spent much of his life in the district; and it was near Naples, on the road to Puteoli, that he was buried. In 36 b.c. Agrippa, friend and minister of Augustus, had cut down the forests round Lake Avernus and, to make a safe harbour for the fleet, united that lake with the Lucrine Lake and the sea, an engineering feat which Virgil glorifies in Georgics, ii. 161-4.

3o

COMMENTARY

In the Sixth Aeneid he describes the country-side as he knew it before these operations took place, a scene of prime val forests and mysterious gloom. 3-5. obvertunt . . . puppes. These lines describe the normal process of a temporary landing. Having sailed into the bay, lowered the sails, and taken to the oars, they tumed their ships round to be ready for sailing out again, and proceeded to throw out anchors from the prows, back water till the anchors held, and further secure the ships by stern-ropes (:retinacula) attached to the shore. See 901 of this book (repeated from iii. 277), where the whole process is compressed into one line. Here, as he is describing the culminating point of their wanderings, their first landing on Italian soil, he goes into fuller detail. obvertunt, fundabat, praetexunt: the imperfect denotes the gradual and complicated process of ‘mooring’: the simpler operation of tuming and the final resuit, when the curved sterns ‘ line’ the shore, are described by the present, used, as so often in Latin narrative, in a past or ‘ historic’ sense. 5. emicat: the word is used to describe any sudden emergence (:micare denotes quick motion of any kind), as of flames out of smoke or blood spurting from a wound. Virgil applies it elsewhere to a runner shooting ahead in a race (v. 319) and to Turnus leaping up into his chariot (xii. 327). 6, 7. quaerit . . . silicis. Cf the fuller description in i. 174-6 (after the landing near Carthage): ac primum silici scintillam excudit A chates suscepitque ignem foliis atque arida circum nutrimenta dedit, rapuitque in fomite flammam. (fomes = ‘tinder’ or ‘touchwood’.) semina flammae: ‘seeds’ or ‘atoms’ of flame. This phrase for sparks is generally regarded as a reminiscence of Homer’s oTrepixa Tropos- But Virgil is probably thinking more of the‘atoms’ of Lucretius. Cf. especially De Rerum Natura, vi. 160—2, where the semina ignis, struck out by the clouds and causing lightning, are compared with what happens when sparks resuit from striking stone or iron against stone. 8. rapit: they ‘raid’ the woods for fuel. Others take it of hunting down the game (ferae) for food. But see 179 below, where the forests which they visit in order to cut down trees for the pyre are called stabula alta ferarum. Fuel and water are their first need. 9. pius: this is the adjective deliberately chosen by Virgil to characterize his hero, whom he describes at the very beginning of the Aeneid as insignem pietate virum (i. 10). In

LINES 2-13

31

this use of a ‘constant epithet’ he is following Homerie tradition: but there is more than a poetical convention about its application. pietas is the quality shown in a faithful discharge of natural duties, first to the gods and then to those who have similar claims upon a man—his parents, his kinsmen, and his country. Aeneas is pius because of his faithful obedience to the commands of heaven and his traditional care and love for his father Anchises and his son Iulus. ‘ Gradually, as his destiny unfolds itself to him, he gains a new and far wider conception of the will of the gods and his own part in its fulfilment, and at the same time his human pietas reaches out from his own family and following to loyalty to the great state which it is his function to found.’1 arces: ‘heights’, the two tops of the hili of Cumae, which rises from the shore to a height of about 300 ft., the base being less than half a mile from the sea. The bay of Cumae extends in a gentle curve from C. Miseno, about 5 miles to the south, to C. Gaeta, far away in the north. The Trojans have landed somewhere between Miseno and Cumae.2 9-11. at pius . . . petit: ‘But good Aeneas goes apart [procul) to seek . . . the vast cave, secret horne of the weird Sibyl.’ horrendae: ‘awe-full’, suggesting the supematural. procul (which does not necessarily imply a great distance) goes with petit, not with secreta. The mosaic or interlacing pattem, whereby words agreeing with or qualifying one another are kept apart, is characteristic of Roman poetry (especially of Virgil and Horaee) and rhetorical prose. Cf. 42 below. II. mentem animumque: Lucretius, when he does not treat these words as synonymous, distinguishes mens as ‘ intellect’ from animus ‘emotion’. Here perhaps ‘breathes into her power of wisdom and inspiration’ (or ‘his mighty mind and spirit’) would represent the meaning. 13. Triviae: Trivia, the ‘Threeways-goddess’, is a translation of a Greek epithet for Hecate, the lower-world deity with whom Artemis, sister of Apollo, the ‘Delos-born’ prophetgod, was associated. When the Roman Diana was identified with Artemis she was credited also with the attributes of Hecate. The temple of Cumae, like the Palatine temple built 28 b.c. by Augustus, is connected with both Apollo and his 1 C. Bailey, R. in V., p. 83 (following Warde Fowler). 2 ‘ The curved roadstead according to the local guide-book, ‘ is stili bordered by dark ilexes and low impenetrable brushwood, which until but a few years ago were the scene of royal hunts (stabula alta ferarum).’

32

COMMENTARY

sister. No doubt the original shrine of a local deity had been taken over by later settlers who worshipped Apollo, and the original cult, associated in some way with an Oracle of the dead, was blended with that of the invading god. The Sibyl (35) is Phoebi Triviaeque sacerdos. 14-41. Until line 41 we are outside the great folding-doors, on which four scenes are represented in bas-relief. Virgil assumes that his readers know the stories referred to. Pasiphae, wife of Minos King of Crete, being cursed by Venus with a passion for a bull, gave birth to a monster, half bull and half man. For this ‘ Minotaur’ Daedalus constructed a maze or ‘labyrinth’. Now Androgeus, son of Minos, had been killed while visiting Athens, and for this his father exacted from the Athenians an annual tribute of seven youths (or, according to one version of the story, seven youths and seven maidens), who were chosen by lot and sent to Crete to be flung to the Minotaur. Theseus, son of the King of Athens, contrived to be one of those sent, and with the help of Ariadne, daughter of Minos, who feli in love with him and gave him a ball of thread to serve as a clue in the labyrinth, he killed the monster and escaped. Afterwards Daedalus, being imprisoned by Minos for providing the clue, got away from Crete with his son Icarus by means of wings fastened on with wax. They flew northwards to Samos, and here Icarus feli into the sea through flying too near the sun, which melted the wax. Daedalus flew westwards and landed at the place which was afterwards Cumae. Why does Virgil insert here this description of the work of Daedalus ? There are two possible reasons. In the first place there may well have been local traditions of an earlier Minoan settlement at Cumae. Mackail finds in Virgil’s descriptions of the lower world (where Cretan Minos and ‘Cnossian’ Rhadamanthus are judges) many resemblances to the Minoan palace excavated by Sir Arthur Evans at Cnossus. No remains of the Minoan date have been found at Cumae, but Italian archaeologists in 1932 discovered and excavated a long gallery1 cut along the seaward side of the ‘ Euboean rock’ whose architectural style strikingly resembles the prehistoric galleries of Tiryns and Mycenae, which belong to the same civilization as the buildings of Crete. The gallery itself is not earlier than the sixth century b.c. But it would seem to have preserved a traditional type of architecture, and suggests a possible legacy of Cretan influence. A second reason for the reference to Daedalus has been 1 See additional note after 260 (p. 50).

LINES 13-27

33

pointed out by Jackson Knight in his book The Cumaean Gates. He shows that there is in many forms of primitive religion a definite association of the labyrinth or maze with initiation and with mysteries associated with the dead. He suggests that in setting a representation of the Cretan labyrinth on the doors of the temple which guards an approach to Hades, Virgil is following the same primitive belief which made the Makelulan natives in the New Hebrides represent the world of death as approached through a cave (kept by a female guardian) with a maze or labyrinth at its entrance, a belief which survived also in Christian times, as the mazes in medieval churches and churchyards bear witness. 15. praepetibus: in its technical sense the word praepes is used with the meaning of ‘favourable’ in augury, a bird ‘flying forward’ being a lucky omen. But there are passages such as this where it seems merely to denote swiftness, with no augural associations. 17. levis: ‘hovering’. 19. remigium alarum: ‘the wings which were his oars.’ The metaphor of enavit ‘swam out’ in 16 is slightly changed in this phrase, taken by Virgil from Lucretius, who in vi. 743 speaks of birds remigi oblitae pennarum. Homer calls oars ‘ the wings of a ship’. 20. letum: nominative, est being understood, as sunt with Cecropidae in 21. 21. miserum 1 ‘ alas!’: an exclamatory neuter. So infandum! = ‘oh horror!’ (e.g. A. i. 251 navibus [infandum!) amissis). The analogy of phrases like 0 rem totam odiosam! suggests that the case is accusative. 22. stat ductis sortibus urna: ‘there stands the urn; the lots have been drawn.' The bas-relief shows the seven youths on whom the lot has fallen standing beside the emptied urn. 23. contra: on the other door. Gnosia tellus: Crete, from Cnossus the capital of Minos. The importance of this city, whose name could thus be used for the whole island 1,000 years and more after its destruction, is strikingly confirmed by the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans. The vast palace, whose foundations he has laid bare, is thought by many to have given rise, by its numerous passages, to the legend of the Labyrinth, the name of which he derives from the ‘axe-head’ (Xdfjpvs) carved on the pillars. 26. Veneris monimenta nefandae: ' memorial of that monstrous passion.’ 27-30. The story of Ariadne and Theseus had been told by 4663

£>

24

COMMENTAR Y Catullus in his Peleus and Thetis. Virgil has here deliberate echoes in phrasing and metre of lines 112-15 of that poem: inde pedem sospes multa cum laude reflexit errabunda regens tenui vestigia filo, ne labyrintheis e flexibus egredientem tecti frustraretur inobservabilis error.

labor, &c.: ‘that house of pains and baffling tangled wandering.’ The labor may be either the toil of the builder (as in Georgics, ii. 155 operum laborem describes the laborious work by which the hill-cities of Italy were built) or the difficulties and agony of those lost in the maze (cf. Horaee, quanta laborabas CharybdiI Od. 1. xxvii. 19). Norden is probably right in supposing that Virgil means to suggest a derivation of labyrinthus from labor. inextricabilis is derived from extricare, ‘to release from difficulties’ {tricae), ‘disembarrass’, ‘disentangle’ (cf. Horaee, Od. ni. v. 31, extricata densis cerva plagis, ‘the hind released from the nets’). The genitive domus is to be taken both with labor and with error, which has here its literal sense of ‘wandering’. There is a parallel description of the Labyrinth in v. 588-91.

27. hic

ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta parietibus textum caecis iter ancipitemque mille viis habuisse dolum, qua signa sequendi frangeret indeprensus et irremeabilis error.

i.e. Ariadne. sed enim, here placed unusually late in the sentence, is an intensified form of sed, ‘howbeit’. In spite of the inextrica¬ bilis error Theseus was enabled to escape. 29. resolvit (perfect, not aorist), ‘has solved’. The design, we must suppose, represents the Minotaur confronted by Theseus, in whose hand is seen the ball of thread by means of which Daedalus ‘ has himself given a clue to the tricks and windings of the dwelling’. 31. sineret . . . haberes: the logical prose expression would be si sivisset, habuisses. Compression and vividness, two essentials of poetry, are attained by the omission of si and the use of the imperfect. The effect of substituting imperfect for pluperfect is as if we were actually present watching the event (literally ‘you would be having your place in the work, if grief permitted’). So again in 32, 33 (‘they would be going on to study the whole, if Achates were not already at hand’). Cf. for a slightly different nuance 292—4. 33- patriae: the adjective gives the reason for the failure: the father could not bear to depict his son’s fate. 28. reginae:

LINES 27-56

35

omnia: the last two vowels are pronounced as one syllable. This very unusual scansion gave rise to the variant omne in R and some later MSS. 36. Glauci: ‘ (daughter of) Glaucus’, a sea-god. 37. ista: ‘those you are looking at'. 38. intacto: untouched by the yoke. 39. praestiterit: 'it would be better’. The perfect subjunctive is a courteous way of putting a command in the form of a suggestion, like av with the optative in Greek. The beasts chosen are to be male and female for the male and female deities Apollo and Hecate. The necessary preliminary to a consultation of the oracle, here as at Delphi, is a sacrifice. 40. 41. The narrati ve is compressed. The followers of Aeneas, whose presence has been implied by the use of the plural in 13 (subeunt) and 34 [perlegerent), perform the ‘sacrifices ordered’ by the Sibyl, and the party go in through the doors into the temple at the farther end of which is the cavem now described. For a fuller explanation of this scene and of the details of the temple and cave see additional note, pp. 50 ff. 42. ‘The side of the Euboean rock is hollowed into a vast cavem.’ ingens should be taken with antrum, not with latus (see note on 10 above). 43. centum is used for an indefinite number. 45. limen: the entrance to the antrum. 47. non . . . unus suggest a series of changes: ‘kept changing’. 49. videri, either the ‘historic’ infinitive, which is used in vivid narrative in place of the imperfect indicative, or a poetic imitation of the Greek ‘explanatory’ infinitive, equivalent to the regular prose visu. There is a ciear instance of this in Horaee, Od. iv. ii. 59 [niveus videri), but no exact parallel in Virgil. In the instances quoted by Page, praestantior ciere and certa mori, the dependence of the infinitive on the adjective is much closer. ventum . . . dei. 45-51, with 77-80, are a carefully elaborated description of prophetic frenzy, * one of the most detailed records of oracular possession in antiquity’ (C. Bailey). 51. cessas in vota precesque?: ‘ art thou slow to vow and pray ’ ? The speech of Aeneas which follows begins with prayer and ends with a vow, the promise to build a temple. 53. attonitae: the shrine, like a man dumb with awe, is ‘held in spell-bound silence’ (Henry): its ‘lips’ are sealed. 56 ff. In Homer most of the gods, but especially Hera, Poseidon, and Pallas Athene, are opposed to the Trojans. But Phoebus,

36

COMMENTAR Y

to whom the opening prayer of Aeneas is addressed, is always on their side: and in Ili ad, xxii. 359 the dying Hector prophesies to Achilles of ‘ that day when Paris and Phoebus Apollo shall slay thee at the Scaean Gate’. Oracles of Phoebus had guided Aeneas on his wanderings. In 28 b.c., shortly before the time at which this book was written, Augustus had built on the Palatine a marble temple of Apollo, containing also a statue of Diana (Trivia), to which the Sibylline books were transferred from the Capitol. There had been since 212 b.c. ‘Ludi Apollinares’, annual games which had been first a one-day holiday, then a week (6—13 July). Special ofiicials, two at first, afterwards ten, and in Virgibs day fifteen {quindecimviri sacris faciundis) were in charge of the Sibyl¬ line books. These facts, which are alluded to in the prayer which follows, would be familiar to Virgibs readers. It is to be remembered also that Augustus seems deliberately to have chosen Phoebus Apollo as his special patron. 57-62. As Page points out, the real principal clause does not come till 62; intravi and prendimus, though not subordinate in construction, are so in sense: ‘ O Phoebus, who didst guide the hand and shaft of Paris, led by whom I have penetrated to so many seas . . . now, when at last the flying shores of Italy are within our grasp, grant that Troy’s (ili) luck may follow us no farther.’ 58. Aeacidae: Achilles was the grandson of Aeacus. obeuntia: ‘visiting’. Cf. 801, ‘washing the shores of’. 60. The Massyli were a Numidian tribe on the coast west of Carthage; the Syrtes proper were quicksands east of it. In A. i. iii, three of Aeneas’ ships are described as driven on the Syrtes and rescued by Neptune. Massylum and Syrtibus together represent vaguely, with a touch of natural exaggeration, the coast of Libya, on part of which the fleet of Aeneas was driven. prae,tentaque Syrtibus arva: ‘the fields that front the Syrtes’. So in A. iii. 692, Sicanio praetenta sinu iacet insula, where sinu is dative, as Syrtibus here. In Livy, x. 2. 5, a strip of coast’ between the lagoons and the sea near Venice is tenue litus praetentum. This being the normal meaning of the passive, it is unnecessary to suppose, as some editors do, that Syrtibus is ablative and that the whole phrase is equivalent to quibus praetenduntur Syrtes. 62. hac ... secuta: may Troy’s (ill) fortune have been following us so far and no farther’. 62. fortuna is ‘luck’, good or bad according to the context. The fortune of Troy’ (cf. note on 95, 96, and the passage from Horaee quoted there) is bad. So far it has dogged

LINES 56-83

37

Aeneas: may that following be henceforth a thing of the past! fuerit is the subjunctive, with optative sense, of fuit used to express ‘ has been and is no longer’, as in A. ii. 325, fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium et ingens gloria Teucrorum. 64. obstitit: the existence of Troy 'hindered the pians of’ the deities who favoured the Greeks. 66. Unreasonably, though not unnaturally, Aeneas appeals to the Sibyl as though she controlled the destiny about which she prophesied. 67. fatis is probably ablative, ‘the kingdom that my fates owe me’. Cf. vii. 120, fatis mihi debita tellus. 69 ff. Virgil is deliberately suggesting a legendary origin for both the temple and the games of Apollo. At the same time he wishes his readers to think of Augustus as fulfilling the vow of his ancestor. The comment of Servius is ut solet, miscet historiam. 71. penetralia: the word is used for the adytum of a temple. 73. lectos . . . viros: the quindecimviri. See 56 ff. note. 74-6. This is in accordance with the warning given to him by Helenus in iii. 441-57. See Introduction, p. xxx. 77-8. At . . . vates: ‘But not yet subdued to the god the wild prophetess raves.’ Phoebi is objective genitive, nondum patiens being treated as an adjective hke impatiens. in antro: the Sibyl is now within the cave. 79. excussisse: there is a slight difference between this and excutere, which would be the normal prose use: it is the difference between ‘to be rid of’ and ‘to get rid of’. The metaphor is from a horse trying to unseat its rider: the figure is maintained in the words that follow and recalled in 100 and 101 below. 80. fingit premendo: ‘curbs and constrains to his purpose’, literally ‘moulds by constraining’. 81. ostia . . . patuere: cf. iii. 92, where at the prayer of Aeneas (visa) mugire adytis cortina reclusis. 82. per auras: it would seem that the part of the temple outside the adytum is open to the sky. 83-97. The prophecy is intentionally couched in obscure language, with allusions, which neither Aeneas nor Virgil’s readers are expected yet to understand, to events destined to happen in the later books. The opening is studiedly irregular in structure: sed follows in line 84 as though the vocative defuncte had been, like venient in the next sentence, a finite verb. ‘You have won through dangers by sea, but worse on land await you: the Trojans shall reach Italy, but they will wish they hadn’t.'

38

COMMENTAR Y

84. Lavini: Lavinium was a city of Latium. 86. sed non . . . volent: they will not, besides coming, also (et) be glad to have come. 88. Xanthus and Simois, rivers of the Troad, will have their counterpart in Italian rivers, Tiber and Numicius, destined like them to be scenes of fighting: there will be a Latin instead of a Greek camp against the Trojans; and instead of Achilles, son of Thetis, there will be Turnus, cui diva Venilia mater (x. 76), to lead their enemies. As Helen, the foreign bride of Paris, caused the Trojan war, Lavinia the daughter of Latinus will bring about the war in Latium. ‘ A Greek city’, Pallanteum, the horne of the Arcadian Evander, will help the Troj ans. 90. Teucris addita luno: addita has here more than its usual meaning. Juno will be stili ‘ attached to’, ‘ attendant upon’, the Trojans—a hostile attendant pursuing them with her hatred, a thom in their side. 91. cum = et tum: ‘Then in thy hour of need what race, what city of Italy will not have heard thy prayers ? ’ 94. In nearly all the instances where unfinished hexameters such as this occur in Virgil the sense is complete: and there is often an effectiveness about the broken lines, so that it is difficult to believe that they could have gained by being finished. On the strength of this it has been suggested (notably by Sparrow in Half-lines and Repetitione in Virgil) that they are a metrical de vice deliber ately used by Virgil in the Aeneid, and that many of them would have remained as half-lines if he had lived to give the poem its final revision. It is a conjecture incapable of proof or disproof: the objection to it is that none of Virgil’s models from Homer onwards had incomplete lines, that none of his imitators used them, and that there are none in the Eclogues and Georgics, his finished works. 95-6. contra . . . sinet: a much disputed passage. All the MSS. have quam, but Seneca quotes the line with qua. Mackail, keeping quam, puts a full stop at ito and removes the stop after sinet, making via prima the antecedent to quam. He does not explain the construction of te: it is to be supposed that he understands ire from the previous sentence, for sino cannot take a double accusative. Others who keep quam translate ‘go forward more boldly than thy fortune permits’, quoting v. 710 superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est. This is the interpretation of Servius; but, apart from the unnaturalness of the expression, it gives an inadequate force to tua te, which is emphatic (cf. viii. 131-3, mea me virtus .. . tua terris didita fama coniunxere tibi).

LINES 84-119

39

I have no doubt that Seneca’s qua, whether we read it or not, gives Virgil’s meaning, and that quam, if the correct reading, is for quam viam, ire viam (cf. 122) being normal Latin no less than ire via. ‘ But thou, yield not to misfortunes, but go against them the more boldly along the path which thine own fortune will allow thee to follow.' audentior is equivalent to eo audentior, as in ix. 291 (hanc sine me spem ferre tui, audentior ibo in casus omnes), and tua emphasized by its combination with te suggests a contrast between the fortune of Aeneas and the Troiana fortuna which he had referred to in line 62. The star of Troy has set: that of Aeneas is destined to rise. Let him follow Iris own star. A similar contrast is expressed in Hor. Od. m. iii (esp. 60-2, Troiae renascens alite lugubri fortuna tristi clade iterabitur), where a warning is put into the mouth of Juno against identifying the fortune of Rome with that of Troy. 98. The adytum is the same as the antrum of lines 42 and 99. 100. ea, ‘such’. ‘On her neck Such maddening rein Apollo shakes’ (Whitelaw). 105. ‘I have forestalled them ali and faced them beforehand in my thoughts’: animo . . . peregi explains praecepi, which is here used in its primary sense of ‘take beforehand’ and corresponds in derivation to our ‘ anticipate’. He has counted the cost and is prepared. 107. Dicitur: esse is understood. ‘Since here, it is said, is the door of the infernal king.’ tenebrosa . . . refuso: ‘the gloomy marsh of (formed by) Acheron’s overflow.’ The ablative is descriptive. Cf. 225, fuso crateres olivo, ‘bowls of outpoured olive-oil’. The Avernian lake is the crater of an old volcano and fed by springs from below. Page compares i. 126 stagna refusa, which he explains as 'the pools of ocean welling up’ from the bottom of the sea. 108. ad conspectum ... et ora: ‘to see him and hear his voice’, or ‘ and look on his face’. ora normally means ‘ mouth’, as in ora tenere, ‘to keep silence’. But it may mean ‘face’, as in 191 and 495, and ii. 531 (ante oculos evasit et ora parentum). 114. viris . .. senectae: ‘enduring hardships beyond the strength and natural lot of old age’. See Introduction. 115, 116. quin . . . dabat. A reference to A. v. 722—37 (see Introduction, p. xxxi). 118. lucis ... Avernis. Cf. 564, where the Sibyl refers to Hecate as having ‘given her the charge of the Avernian groves’, using the same expression as here. Oracles were thought of as coming up from the lower world, as at Delphi. 119—23. If Orpheus and Pollux, not to mention Theseus and

4o

COMMENTARY

Hercules, could go and return, why should not I ? I, too, am descended from Jupiter. Orpheus was able to ‘ cross the unpermitted ferry’s flow’ and win back his wife Eurydice by his music, only to lose her again, as they returned, by looking back too soon. Virgil telis the story with singular beauty and pathos in the end of Georgics iv, a passage written later than the rest of the book, probably during the time when he was composing the Aeneid. The reference to Orpheus is further interesting because of his association with the ‘Mysteries’ and the ‘Orphic’ literature, both of which were connected with the world of the dead and the after-life. For manis see note on 743. The word has no singular but can be used, as here, of a single ‘ghost’ or ‘spirit’. Pollux, son of Jupiter, was immortal: Castor, son of the same mother by a human father, was mortal. Pollux was allowed to share his immortality with his brother, so that the two were alternately in heaven and in Hades. Theseus and Alcides (Hercules) afford a less suitable example, and perhaps for that reason are only parenthetically mentioned. Theseus went down with his friend Pirithous to seize Persephone (Proserpine), wife of Pluto, and according to one legend they were kept below in eternal punishment. Hercules, as one of his twelve labours, was commanded by Eurystheus to bring up to earth the dog Cerberus. (See 392-7, 601, 617, 618; the last passage implies a different version of the story of Theseus from that suggested by Aeneas here.) 122-3. quid . . . Alciden? Most editors put the comma after Thesea, regarding Hercules as a more suitable subject for the epithet magnum. To my ear it makes a better rhythm to join it with Thesea. The sentence would be in prose quid Thesea et Alciden, viros magnos, memor emi Both magnum and memorem go with both names: balance is obtained by distributing them in this way. An elementary instance of such balance is 133, quod si tantus amor menti, si tanta cupido est, where menti and est are distributed between the two clauses. So in 161—2, quem socium exanimum vates, quod corpus humandum diceret, where vates and diceret are distributed. A closer parallel is 841, quis te, magne Cato, tacitum aut te, Cosse, relinquat? There the balance requires us to take tacitum with the first te and relinquat with the second, though in meaning they go

together and belong to both. 126. facilis descensus Averno: Both Averno (MP) and Averni (P2R) have good MSS. authority. The dative, for which cf, G. iv. 562, viamque adfectat Olympo, and vi. 178, caelo educere, is to be preferred as the less ordinary and more poetical

LINES 119-141

41

construction. It also gives the meaning more clearly: descen¬ sus Averni might mean the descent of the district round the lake, Averno can only mean ‘to Avemus’, i.e. the world of the dead. To go down to that world is easy: mankind are passing thither night and day through the gate of death. But for them it is a country from whose bourn no traveller returns. The difhculty is to go as Orpheus and those others went, without dying, and to return. The phrase, so pathetic in its context, has become a Virgilian ‘ tag’ and lost its true meaning by being quoted and remembered without the line that immediately follows it. It means much more than ‘it’s easy to go downhill’, whether literally or metaphorically, which is the usual idea associated with it. Even when read in their context the lines have received scanty justice from those who, like Conington, with a literalness which would rob the poetry of its suggestiveness and pathos, object that in actual fact it is of the difficulties of the descent that Virgil goes on to teli, and that we hear of no difficulties in retuming. I hope that my paraphrase, given above, has disposed of that objection. But it is not the voice of the Sibyl answering Aeneas that we hear when we read the lines, but Virgil, so ‘majestic in his sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind’, speaking to all generations of his readers about man’s mortality. 129. ‘This is the task and this is the struggle’: hic, which logically should be hoc, is attracted to the gender of labor. 132. Cocytus: the four traditional rivers of hell were Cocytus ('wailing’), Styx (‘hate’), Phlegethon (‘burning’), and Acheron (‘pain’). Page quotes Milton, P.L. ii. 577 ff. 134. bis: cf. Odyssey, xii. 21, where Circe exclaims to Odysseus and his companions ‘ O reckless ones, who went alive down to the house of Hades, twice-dying, whereas other men die but once!’ 135. insano is a reminiscence of the Homerie oyerXioi (‘reck¬ less’) in the passage quoted. The expression ‘if you are pleased to give yourself up to this senseless toil’ recalls ii. 776, quid tantum insano iuvat indulgere dolori? (Creusa telling Aeneas not to mourn for her). 138. Iunoni infernae: ‘ Juno of the world beneath’: as in iv. 638 Pluto or Dis, king of the lower world, is called Iovi Stygio, so here apparently luno inferna is equivalent to his wife Proserpine (see 142), though there is no exact parallel for this use. 139. obscuris . . . umbrae: ‘the shades of (in) the dark gorges enclose it.’ 141-2. sed non . . . fetus: ‘it is not granted to anyone to visit

42

COMMENTARY

the secret places of earth before he has gathered’—literally 'it is not granted to visit. . . before a man has gathered’, the word for ‘anyone’ being transferred in Latin to the subordinate clause, and quis used as if ante quam were nisi ante. Quis is the reading of PR, supported by all the minor MSS. M has qui, which most editors print as (i) more musical, (2) more difficult and therefore less hkely to have been substituted by a scribe (on the principle difficilior lectio -potior). It could perhaps be explained as a (deliberate) confusion of the two expressions nemini qui non ante and nemini antequam. As so many scholars have accepted this I dare not say it is impossible Latin. But I do not believe it is what Virgil wrote. auricomos: ‘golden-haired’, a translation of xpvooKOfios. Compound adjectives of this kind, formed in imitation of Greek, are found in early Latin writers, and are stili frequent in Lucretius, but rare in Virgil. Here he has coined a new word to describe a strange phenomenon. 142. The position of pulchra between sibi and suum suggests a parallel between the beauty of Proserpine and of the gift. Mackail paraphrases ‘the due of her beauty’, and Page happily quotes Milton, P.L. iv. 269. ‘Of Enna, where Proserpin gathering flowers, | Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis | Was gathered.’ 145. alte, ‘aloft’, needed here, as Page notes, to distinguish the meaning from the normal use of vestigare, to track footsteps on the ground. rite, qualifying carpe, ‘pluck it duly with your hand’ ; you won’t need any weapon: for if you are not called by fate no violence and no tool will sever it. 153. nigras pecudes. The victims are to be black because they are to be ofiered to the gods of the lower world; cf. 243 and 249. piacula (cf. 569) are offerings for atonement or (as here) purification. They are required, apparently, because contact with the dead body will have polluted Aeneas and his fieet. 156. defixus lumina: ‘keeping his eyes fixed on the ground’. In this phrase, as in crinem vittis innexa (281), the passive participle is used goveming an accusative, like the Greek ‘ middle’ voice, in the sense of doing something to oneself. 159. figit implies deliberate movement. 160—2. multa . . . diceret: ‘of many things they were discoursing together in varied talk (asking) which of their companions’, &c. The idea of asking or wondering is easily understood, to introduce the dependent question. sermone serebant: the verb is here used with the meaning

LINES 141-177

43

of its compound disserere ‘to discourse’. sermo is derived from serere ‘to join’; VirgiTs phrase is a variant of the common expression serere sermonem ‘to join word to word’, ‘hold a conversation’. His use of the ablative is imitated by Livy (vii. 39) haec occultis sermonibus serunt, and by Statius (Achilleis, i. 711), eunt campumque patentem . . . alterno sermone serunt—a doubtful reading which, if correct, suggests that he is thinking of serere ‘to sow’. 162-3. atque . . . vident: (they were discoursing) ‘when lo! on the dry beach they saw . . atque, following the imperfect, has the force of ‘when’. illi is unnecessary and unnatural, as there is no change of subject. illic would avoid this difficulty and may, I suggest, be what Virgil wrote, though all the MSS. and editors read illi. There is a somewhat similar expression in iv. 261 (atque illi . . . ensis erat) and 663 (dixerat, atque illam media inter talia ferro conlapsam aspiciunt), but in both these passages there is a change of subject to account for the use of illi and illam. 164. Aeoliden: possibly so called because, as Servius says, the blower of a wind instrument is associated with Aeolus the god of the winds. But we hear of a Trojan named Aeolus in xii. 542. 165. ciere, (skilled) ‘to summon’, is poetical for the prose ciendo, ‘at summoning’. The last words of the line, ‘and to kindle the war spirit with his music’, are said to have been improvised by Virgil when he was reading this book to Augustus. 171. personat aequora: ‘filis the seas with sound’, as in 417, 418. concha: the shell is Triton’s instrument (cf. x. 209): Misenus challenges him by using it instead of the trumpet. 173. exceptum (cf. xi. 517), used as in Horace’s phrase (Od. iii. xii. 10) latitantem excipere aprum. The verb means to he in wait for and catch. si credere dignum est: this expression of doubt is interesting. Virgil is perhaps excusing himself for attributing such action to a sea-god. 177. sepulcri (MR and Servius) has better MSS. authority than sepulcro (P) and is confirmed by Silius Italicus, xv. 387 (alta sepulcri protinus exstruitur caeloque educitur ara, manifestly an imitation of this passage). Whatever the explanation of the phrase ara sepulcri, which early Latin commentators found puzzling, it must be the same thing as ingentem pyram of 215, where the story of the funeral is resumed after the digression. Ovid, Met. viii. 480, has the phrase sepulcrales aras in connexion with a funeral pyre, and in Tristia, 111. xiii.

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COMMENTAR Y 21, he contrasts a birthday altar with an 'altar of death’ (funeris ara mihi ferali cincta cupresso convenit et structis flam¬ ma parata rogis). Bailey (R. in V. 289 fi.) discusses the significance of the

phrase in relation to the question of ofierings to the dead, and arrives at the conclusion that the ‘tomb-altar’ was actually an altar to the dead Misenus. Cf. iii. 62-8, the account of the funeral rites paid to Polydorus, esp. 63, stant manibus arae, and 66-7: inferimus tepido spumantia cymbia lacte sanguinis et sacri pateras.

179 ff. The original lines of Ennius, from which Virgil took this passage, have been preserved, and afford a good illustration of his use of the older poet: incedunt arbusta per alta, securibus caedunt, percellunt magnas quercus, exciditur ilex, fraxinus frangitur atque abies consternitur alta, pinus proceras pervortunt: omne sonabat arbustum fremitu silvai frondosai.

Cf. also A. xi. 133-8. 182. montibus: ‘from the mountains’. 186. The forte, repeated in line 190, ‘ emphasizes the remarkable coincidence’ (Page) which causes Aeneas to regard the doves as miraculously sent to guide him. But Servius regards the last half of this line as one of VirgiTs stopgaps. voce is the reading of R, forte of MP. 191. caelo: ‘from Heaven’. 193. maternas: doves were sacred to Venus. 197. vestigia pressit: ‘moved slowly on’ (Henry, who quotes instances in support of this meaning) or perhaps ‘stood stili’ (so Servius, who explains that it wras usual, ad captanda auguria, to sit or stand motionless after praying). 198. observans . . . pergant: ‘watching to see what signs they bring him, and whither they proceed to move’. The second clause interprets the first. 199. prodire: historic inf. (see 49 n.). ‘they kept advancing, feeding the while, just so far in their flight as the eyes of those who followed, keenly gazing (acie), could keep them in sight.’ 200. possent: the subjunctive implies that this was the purpose of the birds. They fed, and feeding flew, but at a flight No further went than those who followed stili Might keep them in their view. (Whitelaw.) 201. grave olentis: see 239-41.

LINES 177-211

45

203-4. sedibus . . . refulsit: ‘choosing their resting-place they perched high on a two-fold tree, from which flashed through its boughs an alien-hued gleam of gold’. optatis: ‘desired’ by Aeneas, or ‘chosen’ by the birds ? The use of optare elsewhere (e.g. i. 425, iii. 109 and 132), of choosing a spot for a building or settlement, makes the second meaning the more likely. gemina (MP) has better MSS. authority than geminae (read by R only), and should be kept. Ovid applies the adjective in this sense of ' double-natured’ to Chiron the centaur, half man and half horse, and to the Minotaur, the man-bull. It is an unusual but not impossible sense; the strange expression is used, like aura in the next line, to describe a strange phenomenon. arbore seems to me to need the descriptive epithet to fix it as antecedent of the relative clause discolor unde, &c., which explains gemina. aura refulsit: there is no exact parallel to this use of aura for something visible. Servius interprets it as splendor, and derives aurum from this sense of the word. Mackail traces the use to an original meaning of ‘efBuence’ or ‘radiation’, something which emanates from an object and conveys an impression to the senses. 206. quod non sua seminat arbos: ‘not gendered by the tree on which it grows’. non is not to be joined with sua but with seminat. Whatever the origin of the mistletoe, about which the ancients were doubtful, ‘its own tree’ is not the parent. 208. frondentis. Cf. the use of frondescit 144. 209. sic . . . crepitabat: equivalent to talis erat brattea quae crepitabat, ‘such was the leaf which tinkled’. It is not the verb which gives the point of the comparison. 211. cunctantem: ‘slowly yielding’ (Morris ‘the tough stem’). Mackail compares v. 856 (cunctantique natantia lumina solvit, of the ‘swimming eyes’ of Palinurus slowly yielding to the relaxation of sleep). cunctari never implies active resistance; the participle cunctans, used adjectivally in the sense of ‘sluggish’, is applied to soil by Virgil and to honey by Lucretius. There is an apparent, but not, I think, a real, inconsistency with 146-8. The slowness, or appearance of it, is created by the impatience of Aeneas. Servius interprets rightly ut ostendat tantam fuisse avellendi cupiditatem ut nulla ei satisfacere posset celeritas. This was not the supernatural resistance that he feared, which would have meant that the fates were not ‘summoning’ him (147). The golden bough has been a fertile subject of discussion and conjecture for editors both ancient and modern. It seems to have been an invention of Virgil’s: at any rate

46

COMMENTARY

there is nothing corresponding to it in any known accounts of journeys to the world of the dead. Servius unaccountably associates it with Aricia and Lake Nemi, the home of ‘the priest who slew the slayer and shall himself be slain’, where there was a tree from which the fugitive who wished to fight the priest and take his place must first break off a branch. This suggestion, though of no value as a comment on Virgil, is of interest as having afforded a starting-point for Sir James Frazer’s great anthropological work The Golden Bough. There is more to be said for the idea, which Norden discusses at length, that the magic qualities ascribed to the golden bough are connected with those often assigned in European folk-lore to the mistletoe, whose greenness in the depths of winter and brightness in the midst of dark foliage suggested life in the midst of death. We are not to identify VirgiTs golden bough with the mistletoe piant: the fact that he compares them (205-7) is proof that they are not the same. It is a magic growth, not a real piant: the material is metal, not vegetable, as is ciear from 144 (simili metallo) and 209 (where brattea means ‘gold-leaf’, such as was found in the Mycenaean tombs). But Virgil may have known beliefs about the mistletoe, similar to those common in Teutonic folklore, which suggested to him the magic power attributed by him to his golden bough. 213. cineri ingrato: in the Copa, a poem sometimes supposed to be an early work of Virgil, there is a line (35) of which this seems to be a reminiscence: quid cineri ingrato servas bene olentia serta? (Why do you keep fragrant wreaths for the dead who cannot be grateful ?) But there the word cinis has its ordinary meaning of the ashes of the body already burnt. I know no parallel for its application to a corpse before burning, and to say with Donatus that it is used ‘ in anticipation’ is not satisfactory. I prefer to think that Virgil is using the term metaphorically here; the corpse without the spirit is like what Shelley calls ‘ sparkless ashes’, the remains of a fire which has gone out. For the suggestion that there is something pathetic and futile about funeral rites cf. 885 fungar inani munere. 2I4-I5- pinguem . . . ingentem: ‘resinous with pinewood and high-built with planks of oak’. 216. feralis: Spenser, in his list of trees in Faerie Queene, 1. i. 8, speaks of ‘the cypresse funerali’. Servius quotes Varro as saying that the odoriferous cypress wood was burnt to counter the odour of the burning flesh. 217. super fulgentibus armis: the dead man’s arms are burnt with the body so that he may have them in the spirit-world.

LINES 211-34

47

218-19. pars . . . expediunt: ‘make ready warm water and caldrons boiling on the fire’. pars: 'some', can take a singular or plural verb according to the needs of the metre. Cf. 6-8, where the singular is used. 223. triste ministerium: the accusative is not the object of the verb, but qualifies or characterizes its action. The lifting of the bier is ‘a melancholy Service’. The use of the dative feretro after subiere, instead of the more usual accusative, avoids any confusion with the construction of ministerium. 224. aversi: the eyes were turned away ‘after their fathers’ custom’ lest they should see the dead man’s spirit leaving the pyre. So in Homer Odysseus, when he flings back into the sea the veil of the sea-goddess, is bidden to tum his eyes away lest he should see her when she comes to take it. 225. The meaning of dapes is uncertain. The incense and oliveoil appear to be offerings to the dead man (or to the spirits of the dead): the ‘ feast’ may be cakes and honey or the like, used for the same purpose. fuso crateres olivo: ‘bowls of outpoured oil'—‘Virgil’s characteristic way of saying “oil poured from bowls”’ (Mackail). But Servius notes that in sacrifices to the gods below the vessels as well as the contents were thrown on the fire, whereas to the superi libations only were poured. 229. socios pura circumtulit unda: the original construction would be puram undam circum socios tulit or sociis circum¬ tulit: circumferre has become one word with a special religious sense of purifying, equivalent, according to Servius, to purgavit (antiquum est, he says). This is the lustratio, the purification of the spectators from pollution caused by contact with a dead body. 230. felicis: ‘fruitful’, as opposed to the oleaster or wild olive. 231. novissima verba: the words of farewell to the dead man. 233. viro: ‘for him’—‘the dead man’s own tools, his oar, and trumpet’. Virgil remembers that in the Odyssey, when they buried Elpenor, one of the crew of Odysseus, they ‘fixed on the topmost point of the tomb his shapely oar’ (Od. xii. 15). 234. monte sub aerio: the Punta di Miseno, 300 ft. high, in the north-west comer of the Bay of Naples, the west boundary of the Gulf of Puteoli, a very conspicuous object from both sides. In this elaborate description of the funeral of Misenus Virgil has combined Homerie details, from the funeral rites of Patroclus, with the ritual of a Roman funeral. The account in Homer (II. xxiii. 109-256) of which a translation is given in Appendix A, is much more detailed: it is worth while to read the whole of it for comparison with Virgil. The features

48

COMME NTARY

to be noted as common to both descriptions are the joumey to the forest, the tree-cutting and the building of the pyre, the j ars of oil, the quenching of the fading flames with wine, the collecting of the bones and their depositing in an urn (golden in Homer, bronze in Virgil), and finally the heaping up of the mound. The un-Homeric features in Virgil are the variety of the trees felled, the dark evergreen leaves woven into the sides of the pyre, the cypresses set in front of it, the shining arms that were burnt and the purple robes flung over the corpse, the averted faces of those who kindled the flame, the incense and the dapes, the lustratio of the spectators, and the novissima verba. The last two Bailey (R. in V., pp. 287-91) notes as characteristically Roman. 236. praecepta Sibyllae: a reference to 153. 237. spelunca .. . hiatu: the sound of this line is to be noticed: the broad a repeated gives the effect of the wide gaping mouth of the cavem. 238. scrupea: either referring to the gravel floor or to the rugged sides of the cave. 239. impune: ‘unharmed’—the neuter accusative being used adverbially. volantes: ‘winged creatures’ as in 728. Lucretius, vi. 738-48, has a longer description of Lake Avemus and its effect on birds that attempt to fly over it. 242. Aornon: a Greek adjective = ‘birdless’. This dull etymological Une is omitted by M and F, and may be regarded as spurious. 243. nigrantis terga iuvencos: these are the nigras pecudes of 153246. libamina, generally used of the drops of wine poured as a ‘Ubation’ before drinking, is used here of the hairs of the victim burnt as a Symbol of the whole animal. ‘ First-fruits’, by a parallel metaphor, is used in the same way. 247. voce: ‘aloud’. Hecaten: cf. 13 note. 250. matri: Night. sorori: ‘ her sister’, i.e. (according to Servius) Earth. The Eumenides or Erinyes of Greek mythology were identified with the Latin Furiae or Dirae. They were the personification of divine vengeance who, according to Greek ideas, punished any violation of natural laws. Aeschylus in the Eumenides and Virgil himself in A. xn. 846, speak of them as daughters of Night. Why Earth is called Night’s sister we do not know. 252. incohat: ‘sketches out’ or ‘lays the foundation of’, not as Servius says a ritual word for perficit. It is not a finished altar but an extemporized erection that is needed. ‘Begins to build’ (Whitelaw).

LINES 234-58

49

nocturnas aras: ‘midnight altars’, an indication of the time now reached. But the epithet also suggests a sacrifice to the powers of darkness. Servius interprets ‘ intended to burn through the night’. 253. viscera: ‘carcass’, ali the animal under the skin. The offering is a ‘ holocaust’: the whole is burned. 254. The last syllable of super is lengthened, though before a vowel, owing to the stress or ictus of the foot. Ali the chief MSS. read superque, which could only be explained by supposing that a line had been omitted, or was to be added, after 254. For the lengthening cf. i. 668, iactetur odiis, where similarly some MSS. read iacteturque. The line is a reminiscence of Homer II. xi. 775, airevScov aldoira olvov or’ aido[levoLs lepoioL.

The detailed account of the sacrifice, like the description of the funeral of Misenus, is part of what Mackail calls ‘ the elaborate preparation for the main theme’ of the book, the descent through Hades. The sacrificial ritual is partly Homerie; e.g. the wine poured on the forehead of the victims and the hairs plucked ofi and thrown into the flame. Further, the sacrifices made by Aeneas, of a black ewe-lamb to Earth and Night, and sterilem vaccam (line 251) to Proserpine, recall the vow of Odysseus (Od. xi. 30) made before calling up the ghosts, to sacrifice to the dead ‘a barren cow’ on his retura to Ithaca, and a black ram to Tiresias. It is to be noted that the victims are black because offered to the Di Inferi, the powers below, and that the sex of the victim corresponds to that of the deity receiving the sacrifice. Cf. 38, 39. 255. primi sub lumina solis et ortus: ‘ just before the light of the sun’s first rays and its rising’. F and M read limina for lumina (PR): but ‘just near the threshold of the sun’ is awkward as a description of time. In Catullus lxiv. 271, aurora exoriente vagi sub limina solis, quoted by Norden, the opening words lead up naturally to the description of place: there is nothing here to correspond to them. 256-7. sub pedibus . . . umbram: ‘came a roaring of the earth beneath their feet, the ridges of the woods began to quake and there was a sound as of bitehes howling through the darkness’. 256. mugire, historic infinitive, cf. 49 n.; moveri after coepta (passive because the infinitive also is passive in form). 256-7. iuga . . . silvarum: the ridges being regarded as belonging to the woods (Conington). 258. profani: i.e. the uninitiated, in this instance ali who were present except Aeneas, who had the golden bough. The Sibyl’s cry represents the proclamation made before the 4663

E

5o

COMMENTARY

Mysteries. Horaee recalls it metaphorically at the opening of Book iii of the Odes, when he proclaims himself the Muses’ priest and bids the profanum vulgus keep away: he sings, he says, for the few who understand, not for the ' common herd’. 260. ferrum: the sword is to terrify the spirits who were supposed to fear ‘cold iron’, but not for further use against them, as we see in 292-4 below. In Homer, whom Virgil is following, Odysseus draws his sword to keep all the ghosts from drinking the sacrificial blood except those with whom he wishes to speak. Additional Note on 1-264 The account of the Sibyl’s cave given in this passage should be compared with the description in the prophecy of Helenus, A. iii. 441-51 (see Introd., p. xxx). She is described there as prophesying rupe sub ima.1 Her oracles, written on leaves, remain antro seclusa, hidden away and undisturbed within the cave as long as the door is closed. But when this door (janua) turns on its hinge and opens, the draught which it admits scatters them, and their order is irrecoverably lost. The account in Book vi is more detailed, but by no means complete: much is left to the imagination of the reader. The following seems to be the picture which we are intended to call up. On the hill-side of Cumae, in an open space among trees, stood the temple of Apollo and Diana, which Aeneas and his companions approached from below (subeunt Triviae lucos 13). Having offered outside the great sculptured doors the sacrifices required from those who came to consuit the oracle, they were admitted by the Sibyl into the temple and came (45) to the limen, the threshold of the door (fores 47, janua A. iii. 449) leading to the adytum or inner shrine, in front of which there was an altar (124). This adytum was a vast cavem hollowed out artificially (excisum) in the side of the cliff against which the temple was built. Besides the door there were innumerable (centum) openings in the clifE-wall leading into the cavern, described as ‘entrances’ (aditus) and ‘doors’ or ‘mouths’ (ostia), from which the answers of the oracle issued. These are expressly said to have opened by supematural agency (sponte sua 82) during the first prayer of Aeneas. Whether the door (fores) opened at the same time we are not told: but after the prayer the Sibyl was seen in her oracular frenzy within the cave (77), through which her answer echoes (99). Throughout 1 i.e. 'in the depths of her rock-cavem', as tellure sub ima (vi. 459), ■"in the depths of earth’.

LINES 258-64

51

the scene Aeneas remained outside the antrum (in limine 151) by the altar. So much we may assume without going beyond the details supplied by Virgil. He has not made ciear the nature of the aditus and ostia in the rock-wall, which is not easily imagined. There have been various interpretations, none of them quite convincing. Henry conceives of them as passages radiating from the Central adytum. Mackail speaks of ‘a vast mass of chambers and corridors, partly at least underground’. An interesting suggestion has been made by the Italian discoverers of the gallery referred to in the note on 14-41, which they identify with the Sibybs cave and its approaches. It is an underground passage cut in the seaward side of the hili, about I35 yards long and 3 broad, ending in a vaulted underground room. There are various openings in the walls and roof of the gallery, with sockets in which wooden doors may have been fitted. The Italians see in these the aditus and ostia which Virgil mentions, and regard the vaulted room at the end as the adytum from which the Sibyl prophesied. But the openings do not appear to me to answer the description: it is very difhcult to see how the Sibybs answers could have come out through them. All the Cumaean rock is of tufa, porous, and pierced by many natural openings: it is of these that I think when I read Virgibs account. We must remember also, as an objection to this identification of the Sibybs cave, that it is expressly said by the sixth-century historian Agathias to have been destroyed by Narses in a.d. 565 when Cumae was a stronghold of the Goths. Further, this gallery has no apparent connexion with the temple of Apollo, through which Virgil implies that Aeneas entered the Sibybs cave. It is unnatural and unnecessary to suppose, as Norden and others do, that between 41 and 42 he and Achates come out of the temple again and proceed to a cavern at the foot of the hili. Travellers who visit the ruins of Cumae with the hope of identifying the exact site described by Virgil will be disappointed. Volcanic action and the wars of men have destroyed and altered much. Nor are we justified in assuming that Virgil meant to describe precisely an actual temple and shrine which he had seen. He is reconstructing an imaginary and glorified past from scenes which no doubt were familiar to him. We find at Cumae to-day the ruins, not of the temple visited by Aeneas but of the buildings and caverns which were known to Virgil and suggested his imaginary description. We can stand on the acropolis and see beneath us and in the distance what Virgil saw, the curving shore and the woods that fringe it (densa jerarum tecta), and south of the bay the mons

52

COMMENTAR Y

aerius, Cape Miseno, beneath which he imagined the burial of its eponymous hero to have taken place. In the immediate neighbourhood of Apollo’s temple on the hili we can grope our way down dark tunnels cut by Agrippa in VirgiTs day, leading from the citadel down to Lake Avemus. These formed no part of the Sibyl’s habitation, but they may well have given to Virgil, as he found his way through their dimness, suggestions for his description of the passage to the underworld. At any rate the modern traveller who visits them will remember the ghost-faces which Aeneas hardly recognized through the gloom, vix multa . . . cognovit in umbra (340). He will find also, in the sulphurous exhalations of Solfatara, between Naples and Cumae, and the pitchy oozings of the soil, natural features which the poet’s imagination converted into the rivers of fire and mud boiling in his underworld. From the cave Aeneas and Achates retumed to the shore, where they found the dead Misenus surrounded by the lamenting Trojans. They proceeded to raise a funeral pyre, going for wood into the primeval forest which bordered, and stili in parts borders, the line of coast between Cumae and Cape Miseno, reaching inland to Lake Avemus. Somewhere in this forest Aeneas saw the two doves, which guided him past the lake (201) to the golden bough. Having gathered this and deposited it at the Sibyl’s dwelling (tecta Sibyllae 211), he retumed to complete the funeral of Misenus under Cape Miseno (234), and then pro¬ ceeded to the spelunca alta, hidden somewhere in the dark woods behind Lake Avemus (tuta lacu nigro). Here was ‘the door of the infernal king’ beside the ‘ gloomy marsh of Acheron’s overflow’ referred to earlier in his prayer to the oracle (106—7). Thence after sacrifice Aeneas followed the Sibyl into the darkness and mystery of the loca turbida, the uncharted regions below the earth. 264-7. Di • • • mersas: The invocation marks a crisis in the story. But instead of the usual appeal to the Muses he turns for sanction and inspiration to the dead and the gods of the dead and mysterious names taken from the ghost-world which he is about to describe, Chaos the elementorum confusio, as Servius calls it, the primeval darkness ‘ without form and void’ out of which things came into being, and Phlegethon the fire-river of Hell, both of which in a strange way he personifies and almost deifies. The phrase numine vestro implies deity, whether we understand it as ‘inspired by you’ (as in 50, adflata est numine quando \ iam propiore dei) or with your consent’ (cf. 368, neque enim, credo, sine numine divum | fluminat anta paras . . . innare).

LINES 264-73

53

266. audita: he cannot speak with knowledge but only teli what others (philosophers, poets, prophets) have taught him about secrets ‘ hidden in darkness and the depths of earth ’. The passage is no mere conventional poetic device, but a serious prayer, half invocation and half apologia, resembling in this respect mutatis mutandis the Prologue to Tennyson’s In Memoriam and some of Milton’s invocations, and is to be remembered when we ask how far Virgil believed in the truth, actual or symbolical, of his account of life beyond the grave. 268. Ibant obscuri, etc. Suddenly, as in a dream, we find ourselves, we know not how, moving in the dim mysterious world of the dead. The effect of the magnificent line is enhanced by the ‘slow spondees’. Servius comments on the ‘hypallage’ or transference of epithets. How much this adds to the imaginative effect of the line we can see if we suppose that we had obscura and soli, which the scribes of one or two inferior MSS. actually wrote. We may say here, if we care to analyse, that the darkness of the night has passed into the hearts of the travellers, and the loneliness of their feelings seems to be part of the night itself. 269. vacuas and inania, as Conington notes, develop the idea of loneliness, and there is perhaps also a suggestion that in the house of death there is always ‘room for all who come’. It is all loneliness and emptiness because the inhabitants are ‘ unsubstantial ’ (inanes). 270-2. incertam: does he mean that moonlight is always uncertain, or only under the particular circumstances here described ? I take the former view. Henry discusses the meaning at length, with many illustrative quotations, none of which seem to be quite decisive. The most helpful passage is Horaee, Od. 11. xvi. 2 Simul atra nubes | condidit lunam, neque certa fulgent | sidera nautis, where not only neque certa but also atra and condidit parallel Virgil’s description. In Horaee neque certa, etc., means that the stars usually to be relied upon by sailors are not visible. Analogously in Virgil the ‘uncertainty’ of the moonlight means that the walkers cannot count upon it to guide them. Anyone who has walked on a rough path by moonlight knows what this means, how holes look like hillocks and hillocks like holes. Moonlight is always incerta: but in this simile the gloom is increased by the scantiness of the moonlight, by the woods which surround the path, and by the umbra which hides the sky. maligna: ‘grudging’, the opposite of benigna ‘generous’. 271. umbra is used vaguely for any darkening of the sky: actual clouds are not specified, and perhaps not intended. 273. vestibulum . . . Orci: ' at the forefront of the porch, in the

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COMMENTARY

very jaws of hell’. Vestibulum was the space between the Street and the door of a Roman house: the door opened outwards and was set back. Fauces, a metaphorical word for the same; ‘the jaws of hell’ are the open entrance to the cavernous depths they are going into: the vestibulum is the approach to those depths. Orcus: a Latin deity identified with Dis. So Charon in Georgics, iv. 502 is portitor Orci. 274. ultrices Curae: ' the Thoughts that punish’ are those which follow crime, the stings of conscience and the fears of consequences, which are here personified. 276. The rare epithet malesuada, used once by Plautus, recalls Odyssey, xvii. 286-9, ‘the hungry belly, accursed thing, cause of many evils to men’. Hunger is a ‘temptress’. turpis: ‘ugly’. 278. Sopor suggests a swoon or lethargy rather than ordinary sleep, which could hardly be included among the ilis of life. Both sopor and somnus are used of restful slumber, but it is doubtful whether Virgil would have used the latter here, where it is the other aspect of sleep, its weakness and unconsciousness, by which it resembles death, that he is suggesting. ‘ The sleep which is akin to death ’ recalls Homer’s phrase ‘Sleep, brother of Death’ (Iliad, xiv. 231), imitated by Tennyson in In Memoriam (‘ Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, knows not Death’): but neither Homer nor Tennyson means what Virgil means here. 278-9. mala mentis gaudia: a rather surprising phrase, apparently meant to refer to lusts and the baser pleasures. Bridges translates ‘all the Pleasures of Sin’. 280. Eumenidum: see 250 n. Discordia suggests civil war, which to one like Virgil, born in 70 b.c., who had lived through the wars of Pompey and Caesar and of Octavius and Antony, seemed naturally the climax of human evils. 281. crinem . . . innexa: the construction is the same ais in 156; ‘having her hair bound with’. 283. The suggested resemblance to a Roman house, where trees grew in the impluvium or open inner court, is maintained. vulgo (‘everywhere’), with tenere (‘occupy’). It is explained by foliis sub omnibus. The representation of dreams as birds and their association with trees is supposed to be a piece of folk-lore, but no exact parallel can be quoted. 284. The normal prose arrangement would give haerere (after ferunt), avoiding the change of subject. 285. The genitive defines the monstra: ‘many wild shapes of various beasts’.

LINES 273-93

55

286. stabulant: the verb of the sentence, goes with all the subjects, but has a special appropriateness to the centauri, halfmen, half-horses, as its position suggests. Scyllae: the sea-monster of Odyssey xii is multiplied by Lucretius (iv. 372) and Virgil: the use of the plural suggests a class of Scyllae, like the Centaurs. Conington quotes Milton, P.L., ii. 628 (see 289 n.). 287. centumgeminus: the termination is vague: the word means ‘ hundredfold’: what part of Briareus was multiplied 100 times we are supposed to know. According to Homer he was hundred-handed. belua Lernae: the fifty-headed hydra of the Lernaean marsh near Argos, which Hercules slew. 288. horrendum: adverbial or ‘ internal’ accusative (see 223 n.). Chimaera: The creature slain by Bellerophon, one-third lion, one-third goat, and one-third snake, which has given us our English word for a mere fantasy. 289. Gorgones . . . umbrae: A fine mysterious-sounding line, made more effective by the unexplained allusion to the ‘ghostly three-bodied shape’, suggesting Geryon, the giant killed by Hercules. Milton’s passage (P.L., ii. 624 ff.), imitated from Virgil, has a similar climax: Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, unutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived, Gorgons and Hydras and Chimaeras dire. 292-4. ni . . . admoneat . . . inruat (the logical prose tenses would be admonuisset . . . inruisset): literally, ‘ if his wise companion did not warn him, he would rush on them’, as though we were watching the scene and there were stili a (remote) possibility of this happening. See note on 31, where, however, the imperfect subjunctive gives a different turn of meaning. A closer parallel is v. 325-6 (in the account of the foot-race), spatia et si plura supersint, \ transeat elapsus prior (i.e. if there had been a few more yards to run, he would have passed him). 292-3. tenuis ... formae: ‘ They are but bodiless lives fiuttering there, having an appearance of form without substance {cava).’

volitare recalls the famous line in Homer {Od. x. 495) where Tiresias, retaining his wisdom among the dead, is contrasted with the others who ‘are but fiuttering shades’. It is hard to give the force of vitas, which is deliberately used in an exceptional sense to imply the minimum of substantiality.

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COMMENTAR Y

Whitelaw translates ‘flit bodiless their unsubstantial lives’. 294. frustra . . . umbras: Page quotes Milton, P.L. vi. 329-31, ‘ The griding sword with discontinuous wound Pass’d through him; but th’ ethereal substance closed Not long divisible’, the descriptiori of the wounding of Satan. Those who feel with Johnson ‘the confusion of spirit and matter’, in Milton, ‘which pervades the whole narration of the war in heaven and filis it with incongruities’ will appreciate the artistic taste by which Virgil avoids such absurdity. 295 ff. The geography of Virgil’s underworld is vague, like the scenes in a dream, which no doubt he meant it to resemble. The well-known names of the rivers are given; they are needed for the associations which he wishes to recall; they are part of the tradition. But no map of their courses or their relation to one another could be drawn: even when, as here, he suggests a geographical description, we get no ciear pic¬ ture. Homer links the four together in two lines: ‘there into Acheron fiow Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of Styx’ (Od. x. 513). In Virgil Acheron is a river which floods up from below into Lake Avernus (107) and in hell pours its muddy waters into Cocytus. Cocytus and Styx seem to be two branches of an underground swamp (Cocyti stagna alta vides Stygiamque paludem 323). In 438—9 novies Styx interfusa is apparently identified with the palus inamabilis, and it performs the same function of preventing a return to the upper world which is ascribed in 132 to Cocytus. 296. hic: not the adverb, which w'Ould be awkward after the hinc of the previous line, but ‘this river’, i.e. Acheron. ‘This is a torrent turbid with mire that boils in a wild abyss and disgorges into Cocytus all its sand.’ vasta voragine is a descriptive ablative qualifying gurges in the same way as turbidus caeno, with which the -que connects it (‘ muddy and deep-gulfed’). Cf. ix. 105 (a description of Stygii flumina fratris), pice torrentis atraque voragine ripas.

297. Cocyto: poetical for in Cocytum, like Averno (126) and caelo (178). 298. portitor, from portus, properly ‘harbour-officer’, ‘exciseman’. It is applied to Charon, not primarily because he ferries the dead across, but rather as the guardian of the passage who takes the toll-money. So in Georgics, iv. 502 he is the portitor Orci, the ‘ frontier-warden of Hades’, who refuses to let Orpheus go back to the underworld. 300. The MSS. authority for flammae (MP2R) is slightly better than for flamma (M2P). Most editors prefer the ablative on the analogy of pulvere caelum stare vident, xii. 407 (* they see

LINES 293-314

57

the sky one mass of dust’) and vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte, Horaee, Od. 1. ix. 1. But were Charon's eyes ‘one mass of fire’ ? If we read flammae it should be taken as nominative, not genitive of description, which would re¬ quire a qualifying adjective. ‘His staring eyes are flames.’ Ihe emphasis is on flammae, not stant. The latter is hardly more than a strengthened sunt, balancing i acet, which also, while suggesting lankness, serves to avoid the dullness of the ordinary copulative verb. 301. ex umeris: ‘off (not “from”) his shoulders’ (Henry). The cloak is knotted, not fastened by a brooch, on the left shoulder, the right arm and shoulder being bare. It is the dress of a boatman at work. 302. ipse . . . ministrat: he punts the boat out from the shore and then ‘attends to the sails’. Cf. x. 218 (of Aeneas) Ipse sedens clavumque regit velisque ministrat. (Alternatively ‘works the boat with the sails’, a construction supported by Tacitus, Germ. xliv. naves velis ministrantur, implying a transitive use of ministro in this sense, with the accusative.) 303. ferruginea: the boat is called caeruleam in 410. It is hard to fix the definite meaning of either adjective: colourdescriptions both in Greek and in Latin tend to be vague. But of the two caeruleus seems to give the colour, a sort of dull dark blue, and ferrugineus the tone: it means little more than ‘dusky’ or ‘dingy’. Both are associated with the sea. Servius interprets ferrugineus as vicinus purpurae subnigrae. corpora: ‘ the dead’; as in 306, it is used of the forms without substance of the spirits. They are to be distinguished from the corpora viva, living men, referred to in 391, and again from the tenues sine corpore vitae of 292, which are mere unreal phantoms, whereas the spirits of the dead are real (they are verae umbrae: cf. 894). 304. senior . . . senectus: ‘ old, but the god’s old age is fresh and green’. deo suggests the reason (cf. the use of patriae in line 33): cruda is literally ‘unripe’, the opposite of ‘sere’ or ‘ withered’. 305-14. The opening lines of this famous passage are modelled on Homer’s description of the ghosts that flocked to the trench dug by Odysseus {Od. ii. 36-41; see Appendix B, p. 104). The first of the two similes which follow is also a reminiscence of Homer’s comparison of mankind to leaves, 0*77 7rep fvXXow yevefj, toit) he nai avhpcov {II. vi. 146). The whole passage is to be compared with Georgics, iv. 471-7, the last three lines of which are identical with 306-8 here. In the Georgics the ghosts are compared to birds that hide among the leaves, vesper ubi aut hibernus agit de montibus imber (474).

58

COMME NTARY It is to be observed that here the two similes strike different notes. The leaves fall and die: the birds pass to brighter lands. And it is on the happier note that Virgil ends. Among passages in English literature which recall the first of the comparisons there are two which should be remembered: Milton’s description of the fallen angels, Thick as autumnal leaves, that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa, where Etrurian shades High overarched embower, and the inversion of Virgil’s simile by Shelley, who describes the dead leaves chased by the west wind of autumn as like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

313. primi transmittere is a poetical construction, imitated from Greek, for ut primi transmitterent, cursum is the socalled 'cognate’ accusative; the substantive repeats and completes the idea of the verb transmittere, which is here intransitive (‘that they might be the first to make the Crossing’). 314. The pathetic music of this line has been the admiration of ali critics and the despair of all translators. 3x7. enim: intensifying the word it follows, as in viii. 84 (of Aeneas sacrificing the sow), quam pius Aeneas tibi enim, tibi, maxima Juno, mactat. ‘Then Aeneas marvelled indeed.’ But the emphasis seems out of place here, and it is possible to make miratus . . . tumultu a parenthesis, understanding est and giving enim its usual sense of ‘for’. 319. quo discrimine? ‘by what distinction ?’ discrimen is the noun of discerno (‘separate’). 324. iurare et fallere: ‘to swear by and break their oath’, is equivalent to one verb, ‘to swear falsely by’, and takes an accusative. Cf. maria aspera iuro (351). 325. inops: ‘helpless’, explained by inhumata with which it is coupled. They are helpless because, not having received burial, they can do nothing to obtain a passage. Cf. 333. 327-8. ripas transportare: ‘to carry across the banks’, i.e. from bank to bank. 331. constitit... et vestigia pressit: ‘halted, checking his footsteps’: vestigia premere is to ‘slow down’ (see 197 n.), an action which of course precedes that described by constitit. So in ii. 353, moriamur et in media arma ruamus, ‘let us die, let us rush into the midst of the fight’, where as here the main idea is first expressed and then the process which it involves. The order is an order of importance, not of time. Cf. also 361 and 366.

LINES 313-48

59

332. iniquam:‘unkind’ (Whitelaw),‘unmeet’ (Morris); but the word suggests more. It is the ‘unfair’ or 'uneven’ lot that Aeneas silently protests against: why should one be taken and another (through no fault of his own, as Servius comments) be left ? 333. maestos . . . carentis: ‘sad, lacking the honour due to death’. Here, as in 325, the second epithet explains the first. 334. See Introduction, p. xxx. The story of the wrecking of the ship of Orontes is given in i. 112, and the death of Palinurus in v. 833-71. 336. obruit . . . virosque: the sound-effect of this line is noteworthy—the elision across the caesura, and the w sound begun in 335, taken up in aqua, and four times repeated in the following three words. 337. sese . . . agebat: ‘was moving’, ‘drew near’. 338. Libyco ... cursu should mean the voyage to or from Libya, i.e. either that in which they were blown out of their course to Carthage or their retum journey to Sicily. It is not a natural expression for the continuation of the latter to Italy, the occasion of the death of Palinurus as told in Book v. There are other apparent inconsistencies in the two versions; it is probable that Virgil wrote the two books at different periods and altered his plot during the period of composition. It is one of the inconsistencies which he would no doubt have removed if he had lived to revise the whole Aeneid. 339. mediis ... in undis: ‘in’ (not ‘into’) ‘mid-ocean’. 345. ponto. The relation of the ablative to incolumem is vague, and suits the ambiguity of the oracle. 346. en haec promissa fides est? ‘is this the fulfilment’ (or ' protection’) he promised ? fides had acquired both meanings: cf. for the former Ovid, M. iii. 527, dicta fides sequitur (‘the prophecy was fulfilled’), and for the latter such phrases as recipere in fidem and deum atque hominum fidem implorare. But Virgil’s expression also suggests the common phrase for keeping a promise, fidem servare, and is taken up in the answer of Palinurus by fefellit (‘broke faith with’) in 347, which, while referring to fallax (343), recalls also the phrase fidem fallere, ‘to break a promise’. For the unusual scansion of the ending see Excursus, p. 108. 347. cortina: the tripod from which the priestess of Delphi prophesied. The name, which means ‘ caldron’, was probably given to it because of the vapours from the midst of which she gave her oracles. 348. nec . . . mersit: ‘ nor was I drowned by a god in the sea’ : the negative goes with aequore mersit rather than with deus. The oracle was thus literally true, and as misleading as the

60

COMMENTARY

promises given to Macbeth in his second interview with the witches. 352. The subject of the infinitive (me) is understood—a licence permitted in verse but not in the more precise language of prose. 353. excussa magistro. Again Virgil suggests but avoids the usual phrase, which would be excusso magistro, excutere is used of a horse ‘fiinging’ its rider (cf. 79): here by an inversion the ship is ‘flung loose from her pilot’. 354-6. In Book v we have the impression of a calm sea: cf. also vi. 2 (adlabitur). The inconsistency need not be pressed if we remember the different points of view of men on board sailing before a following wind and of the lonely swimmer in the sea. The interval of at least four days implied by the rest of Pali¬ nurus’ narrative cannot be accounted for in the present book. 358. terrae is either dative after adnabam or genitive after tuta according as we put the stop before or after it. I prefer the dative (1) as giving more variety in pattern; the natural division in 357 and 359 comes in the middle of the third foot (at Italiam and crudelis) and a break at adnabam in 358 would make for monotony; (2) because the carrying on of the sentence beyond the ordinary caesura increases the im¬ pression of efifort and gradual progress given by the spondaic opening. iam tuta tenebam ni . . 'even now I had found safety, but. . The irregular form of conditional sentence is one of many devices for avoiding the prosaic and heavy double pluperfect subjunctive (cf. 31). 'I was already safe, if only that savage folk had not attacked me.’ Cf. Cic. Leg. i. 19. Labebar longius, nisi me retinuissem (‘I was by way of slipping farther, but I stopped myself’). 359. cum: the accompanying circumstances are also the cause of his being ‘weighed down’: hence the apparently unnecessary preposition where an ablative of cause would be enough. 360. capita aspera montis must mean the rough top or edges of a rock jutting out of the water. The description recalls, and no doubt was derived from, Homer’s more detailed account of the attempt of Odysseus to escape from the sea by clinging to the reef, especially the opening words, Od. v. 428-9: ‘ He rushed in, and with both his hands clutched the rock, whereto he clung till the great wave went by.’ 361. ferro ... putasset: ‘had assailed with weapons, ignorantly deeming me a prize’. Again, as in 331, the second verb is in sense subordinate; it expresses something earlier in time but not the main idea.

LINES 348-85

61

362. nunc . . . venti: his body lies in the waves at the water’s edge (in litor e), rolled about in the wind-tossed sea. It is as if he had said fluctus ventique habent versantque in litore. See 122 n. for the ‘distribution’ of the words between the two clauses in the Latin. The idea is similar to but not quite the same as that of a line in Euripides which Virgil must have had in his mind—Hecuba 28, where also the speaker is a ghost; ‘on the shore I lie, and sometimes in the surge of the sea’. 363. quod: ‘wherefore’, literally ‘in respect of which’, an adverbial accusative (cf. 239) often used to introduce a prayer. 366. Again the main idea is put first and the necessary preliminary process second, as in 331. Velia, the Greek Elea, lay south of the Bay of Naples, between Paestum and Cape Palinuro. 367. aut tu: the unusual repetition of tu emphasizes the personal appeal. 371. sedibus . . . quiescam: ‘that I may at least, being dead, rest in peace’. The position of saltem shows that it does not go with in morte so much as with the whole sentence. Servius has an interesting note, et bene, quia nautae semper vagantur— —a comment which will suggest to modern readers R. L. Stevenson’s Requiem: ‘ This be the verse you grave for me. Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hili.’ 374. amnem: Cocytus, as in Georgics, iii. 37. 376. ‘Deem not that prayers change the decrees of heaven.’ fata here is used with a reminiscence of its derivation from fari.

379. piabunt: ‘will make atonement to’. Cf. 153 n. 381. Cape Palinuro, between the gulfs of Salerno and Policastro, is to be found stili on modern maps of Italy, fulfilling the Sibyl’s prophecy. 383. terra: MPR and all except a few inferior MSS. read terrae. Servius had terra, and took cognomine as the ablative from the adjective cognominis: ‘he rejoices in his namesake land’. The objection to this is that the termination of the ablative of the adjective would normally be i, and some editors (including Page, who quotes iii. 133, laetam cognomine gentem) make terra the subject of gaudet, ‘now the land re¬ joices in his name’. This abrupt change to contemporary time is awkward: and the short sentence gives a jerky effect. terrae is an easier but duller reading. I prefer to foliow Servius. 385. iam inde with Stygia ab unda: ‘even from where he was od the river’.

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386. per tacitum nemus: ‘through the dead hush of the grove’ (Morris)—a rendering which brings out the implication of tacitum. Everything that gives life to a scene, such as sound or colour, is absent, or so faint as to seem absent, in the world of death. 389. iam istinc: ‘from where you are’. comprime gressum: ‘ halt there! ’ A similar expression to vestigia premere (see 197 n. and 331 n.), but stronger. 392. See 122-3, and Introd., p. xiv. 394. quamquam . .. essent: in Ciceronian prose quanquam was normally followed by the indicative, quamvis by the sub¬ junctive. Poetry and later prose writers did not maintain this distinction. 398. Amphrysia is a far-fetched epithet. Amphrysus was a river in Thessaly, where Apollo once served Admetus. Thus it means first ‘Thessalian’ and then ‘Apolline’. 400-2. nec vim . . . limen: ‘nor do our weapons threaten violence; the monster door-keeper may scare with his barking to all etemity the bloodless shades, and Proserpine abide chastely faithful to her uncle’s home’. The tone is one of dry sarcasm. Cerberus may go on barking at ghosts whom his bite could not injure, and Proserpine be faithful to her unnatural marriage and her uncle-husband. Dis (Pluto) had carried off Proserpine, daughter of Ceres and his brother J upiter, to be his wife in hell. The words servet. . . limen recall the Roman ideal epitaph for a good wife, domum servavit, lanam fecit. 405. si te ... imago: ‘ if the picture of such affection moves thee not at all’. nulla: the adjective used instead of non makes a stronger negative. Cf. Catullus, viii. 14, at tu dolebis cum rogaberis nulla.

pietatis: see 9 n. 407. It is natural to take tumida corda as the angry heart of Charon. But we cannot understand respondit with nec plura his. The words cannot refer to Charon, as ille which follows implies a change of subject. It would be easier if we could regard the anger which died down as the Sibyl’s (‘then the wrath of her swelling heart was quieted, and she said no more’), and but for the preceding two speeches this would be the natural rendering. But there is more anger in Charon’s words: the Sibyl’s tone is one of contemptuous irony. Servius interprets ‘nor was anything further said either by the Sibyl or by Charon’: i.e. he understands dicta sunt with nec plura his.

409. fatalis: ‘fateful’ (cf. si te fata vocant, 147). As the golden bough is unknown outside Virgil, the reference to previous

LINES 386-429

63

occasions on which it had been seen by Charon remains unexplained. 410. caeruleam: ‘coal-blue’ (Morris). Cf. 303 n. and iii. 194, where the word describes the colour of a storm-cloud. 411—12. inde alias ... deturbat: ‘ then he clears away the others, the ghosts who were sitting along the benches’, not, of course, ‘the other ghosts’. This is an imitation of Greek, in which aXXos is constantly so used, as for instance Hdt. i. 216 (a description of cannibalism), ‘they sacrifice the old man kcli aXXa Trpojiara a/ta avraj’, i.e. ‘and alsosheepwithhim’, not, of course, ‘and other sheep’. iuga is here, as Servius notes, a transliteration of the Greek £uya, for which the Latin equivalent is transtra. 412. alveo: the last two vowels are scanned as a diphthong. 414. sutilis: ‘stitched’, i.e. of skins, not wood: ‘the boat of skins groaned under his weight, and through its leaks the marsh-water poured in.’ The boat sank lower in the water than its normal level; and the dry upper portion was not watertight. 415. tandem, as Henry points out, is one of several touches which remind us that it is a wide extent of water, not a narrow river, that has to be crossed. 417. The lower world proper begins now, apparently approached through a cavern, full in the entrance of which hes the threeheaded Cerberus, who is described with a deliberate monotony of language, ali implying monstrous and uncouth size. 424. occupat: ‘hastens to secure’, sepulto: ‘buried in sleep’. 425. ‘and passes quickly from the shore of that returnless stream.’ evadit is here transitive, with the sense and construction of relinquit, inremeabilis: ‘unrepassable’, a word coined by Virgil, which he used also to describe the labyrinth (inremeabilis error, v. 591). It is formed as if from a phrase remeare undam, meaning ‘ to retum over a stream’. Lowell in his poem on Ali Saints’ Day speaks of ‘ that chill ford repassed no more’. Dante, as Norden points out, took two lines to translate the Virgilian adjective, ‘ (that lonely shore) which never saw sail over its waters a man who afterwards returned’ (Purg. i, ad fin.). 426-9. Continuo ... acerbo, in limine primo might, so far as the Latin goes, be taken either with flentes or as part of the relative clause; and some editors put a comma before it, making vitae genitive after limine as well as after exsortis. To my ear this spoils the rhythm without improving the meaning. We do not need to be told explicitly, what we feel without being told, that these babes haunt the threshold of Hades because they were cut off on the threshold of life.

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These four lines form a period complete in itself, the metre of which matches the beauty of the ideas—three spondaic lines, with variety given by one dactyl variously placed in each, leading up to the dactylic fourth, which is prepared for by the ending of the third. ‘Four lines, and they are worth a whole canto: the first, slow with spondees and elisions, which represent the longdrawn-out indistinct wailing: the two half-lines which follow the caesura of the third Une flying off like an arrow to describe the tearing away from mothers’ breasts: then, turning over like the wave which seizes and overwhelms its victim, the last half-line, that plunges the frail beings into nothingness’ (G. Funaioli, L' Oltretomba nell' Eneide di Virgilio). acerbo, ‘ bitter’, has often, as here, the sense of ‘ untimely’, ‘unripe’. 429 is repeated xi. 28 in describing the death of young Pallas. 430. ‘condemned to death on false charge.’ mortis may be constructed with crimine, ‘a charge involving death’ ; but this phrase has no parallel, and damnare capitis, ‘ to condemn on a capital charge’, supplies a justification for the other rendering. 431-3. nec vero . . . discit. To understand these lines we must think of the procedure of a Roman law court (quaestio). The presiding praetor called together those whose cases were to be tried, and assigned by lot the order in which they would be judged. This was the process of sortitio; tablets with the names were shaken in the um: the order in which they came out gave the order of trial. ‘nor were these dwellings assigned without lots and a judge’ (i.e. not without due process of law, to investigate whether the condemned were falsely condemned or not). ‘ Minos presiding shakes the urn; he calls the dead together, and learns of their lives and the accusations against them.’ This is the explanation of Servius, who explains concilium of the ‘gathering’ of the dead: silentum goes with ali three nouns, as the position of -que indicates. The MSS. vary between concilium (MR) and consilium (P), 'a jury’, which some editors prefer, following the explanation of an old commentator on Cicero who quotes this passage. He understands consilium vocat as referring to the selection of jurors. This involves either separating consilium from silentum (‘calling a jury he hears the charges against the dead’), which is awkward, or treating -que as misplaced (which is possible but unattractive Latin) and translating ‘both calls a jury of the (other) dead and hears the charges against them’ (i.e. those wrongly condemned). But there is awkwardness in

LINES 429-42

65

this change from one genitive to another: and concilium has the best MSS. authority. Nor is there any reason to give Minos a jury. quaesitor: ‘investigator', the president over a quaestio. 436-7* quam vellent . . . labores! the words recall the famous answer of the ghost of Achilles to Odysseus in Homer (Od. xi. 489), ' I had rather be a serf above ground to a landless man than rule over ali the dead’. This passage suggests that Virgil’s views on suicide differed from those of his contemporaries. The Stoics glorified it, and Horaee was reflecting a general opinion when he spoke of Catonis nobile letum (Odes, 1. xii. 35, 36). Socrates and his follower Plato had condemned it: so did the Epicureans. 441. Lugentes Campi: ‘the “Mourning Fields”’; ‘Weeping Fields’ (Bridges); ‘ Broken-hearted Fields’ (Flecker). ‘A phrase worthy of Bunyan and apparently Virgibs own’ (Page). This comment and the renderings of the two poettranslators remind us that the Latin expression is a strange one. Fields cannot moum: and the logical Roman mind recognized this. Even in poetry Virgil apologizes for the phrase: the last half of the line virtually puts the first two words of it in inverted commas. Normal Latin would be lugentum campi, which avoids the personification. For a similar but less bold phrase cf. securos latices 715. A good English parallel is the name of ‘The Wailing Wall’ given to the place where Jews gather in Jerusalem to wail for the fate of the Holy City. [It should be noted that English expressions like ‘ banqueting-halls ’, ‘ playing-fields ’, are not parallel: these are compound words, of which the first halves are verbal nouns, not present participles.] 442 ff. Into a ‘dream of fair women’ who died for love, Virgil suddenly introduces with tremendous effect the deserted Dido, whom his readers have seen as a living woman in Book iv. The others are mere names of legend: Phaedra, wife of Theseus, who killed herself for love of her stepson Hip¬ polytus ; Procris, accidentally killed by her husband Cephalus, to watch whom, being jealous, she had concealed herself; Eriphyle, bribed by a necklace to induce her husband Amphiaraus to fight for the Seven against Thebes (where he was killed), and slain by her son Amphion; Evadne, wife of Capaneus, another of the Seven, on whose funeral pyre she killed herself; Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, referred to in 25 supra; Laodamia, well known from Wordsworth’s poem, who died after her husband Protesilaus had been allowed to return for three hours from the dead; and Caeneus, originally ♦663

p

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COMMENTAR Y

Caenis, born a woman and changed at her own request by Neptune into a man. Dido might equally well have been classed among the suicides; so also might Evadne and Phaedra. The last is included here because of the passage in Homer (Odyssey, xi. 321) where she is coupled with Procris in a line whose exact metre Virgil reproduces. Dido's inclusion is a mark of Virgil’s sympathy for her. 444. curae: 'their love’—a common meaning of the word in poetry. 448. et . . . figuram: ‘And Caeneus, once a man, now a woman and restored again by fate to her earlier shape.’ Ovid, who telis in M. xii. 171-526 the story of Caenis or Caeneus, knows nothing of this return to female form. The unnatural construction of the feminine revoluta with the masculine name Caeneus is ingeniously contrived to fit the unnatural transformation described. It was perhaps for the sake of this ‘conceit’ that the irrelevant character was introduced by Virgil into his list; for Caeneus is no instance of one ‘consumed by wasting love’. 450 fi. This passage is to be read with constant recollection of Book iv, especially of the last interviews in that book between Dido and Aeneas. In those Dido appealed, and Aeneas was obdurate: now the position is reversed. There are deliberate reminiscences of the language of the earlier book. The much discussed question of the conduct of Aeneas in relation to Dido cannot be satisfactorily considered without reference to this scene in the underworld. In Book iv we are made to feel that, having to choose between personal and national claims, he relentlessly, though not perhaps unregretfully, sacrificed the former. In this scene we realize that it was not a sacrifice which cost him nothing. Weak though his excuses sound to our ears, we can yet pity him as he ‘toils on’ in his loneliness, leaving Dido (we rejoice to think) once more united to her first lover. 453~4- obscuram . . . lunam: ‘dimly seen, as when at the month’s beginning a man sees, or thinks he saw, showing through the clouds, the moon’. The Latin is compressed: written in full it would be ‘ as a man sees the moon who sees it appear’, &c. surgere, not ‘rise’: for the new moon does not rise. The word is used of stars ‘appearing’ at nightfall (astra ignea surgunt, iv. 352, quoted by Mackail). Note the art which in the Latin keeps us waiting for lunam till the last word. 458. funeris ... fui? ‘alas! was it death I brought thee?’ As

LINES 444-71

67

the subject of fui is not expressed, no emphasis must be placed on ‘I’. 459. per superos, etc.: ‘ by the gods above I swear, by whatever pledge of truth there is in the depths of earth’. 460. invitus . . . cessi: ‘unwillingly, O Queen, I left thy shore’. This is a surprising, and presumably unconscious, echo of a line of Catullus (lxvi. 39) in the Coma Berenices (invita, o regina, tuo de vertice cessi, ' unwillingly, O Queen, I left thyhead’). As the speaker in that highly artificial poem is a lock of hair cut from the head of Berenice in fulfilment of a vow, the reminiscence for those who remember the context produces a sense of incongruity, much as we should feel if we came upon a line from Pope’s Rape of the Lock in Keats’ Hyperion. 462. senta situ: literally ‘rough with neglect’, and so ‘ragged and forlorn’ (Page). 466. quem fugis? a reminiscence of Dido’s words in iv. 314, mene fugis? extremum ff.' this speech of mine to thee is the last that fate allows.’ The Latin is unusual, but this must be the meaning. quod is akin to a 'cognate’ accusative. Cf. 313 n. 467. ardentem et torva tuentem: ‘fierce and grim-eyed’ {torva, the neuter plural used poetically as an adverbial accusa¬ tive, cf. 239 n.). These two epithets go apparently with animum: but ‘grim-eyed’ cannot be said of the mind, and both participles have to be taken in sense with Didonem understood. The difficulty has caused some editors to con¬ jecture animam (‘ghost’), which Mackail accepts. I prefer to believe that Virgil wrote originally lenibat dictis only, and that the rest of the line is one of the ‘props’ (tibicines), temporary makeshifts which, as we are told by his biographers, he used to insert with a view to future revision. lacrimasque ciebat, an expression which leaves it doubtful whether he was ‘ calling up’ his own tears or ‘ trying to move’ Dido’s, is also, as Mackail points out, unsatisfactory and reads like a stopgap. 469-71. illa . . . cautes: ‘But she, turning aside, kept her eyes fixed on the ground, nor was her look changed by the speech he had begun more than if she were hard flintstone or mountain cliff of Paros.’ incepto: because she had turned away while he was stili speaking, as siste gradum and quem fugis imply. stet is an effective substitute for sit, the verb being appropriate to the solid immobility of stone. The simile recalls lines 438-49 of Book iv, where Aeneas, firm and immovable in the face of Dido’s messages and prayers, is compared to an oak beaten by the wind, which yet remains firmly rooted in the rocks. Henry compares Bums, ‘Duncan fleeched and Duncan

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COMMENTARY

prayed .. . Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig’, where the naming of Ailsa has something the same effect as VirgiTs Marpesia. Marpessos was a mountain in Paros, the island of marble quarries. 472. corripuit sese: roused herself as it were from a trance and ' sprang away’—'a sudden convulsi ve movement’ (Page). Cf. xi. 461-2, nec plura locutus | corripuit sese et tectis citus

extulit altis. 474. ‘answers all her cares and equals ali her love’ (Dryden). The second clause explains the first, in Virgil’s manner. curis, as in 444, has the meaning of ‘love’. 475-6. nec minus . . . euntem: ‘Even so Aeneas, moved deeply by her hard lot, follows her from afar with tears, and pities her as she goes.’ prosequi lacrimis is in effect to ‘ weep over’: cf. the similar use with dictis in 898. 477. Dido remains comforted by her husband: Aeneas con¬ tinues on his toilsome journey, the task assigned {datum) to him. 477 ff. In the fields of famous warriors, which are the last section of the underworld before we come to the parting of the ways that lead to Tartarus and Elysium, are heroes of the war of the Seven against Thebes, and the Trojans and Achaeans killed in the siege of Troy. These form a background of names, from which emerges the pathetic figure of Deiphobus, as Dido from among the legendary women. Adrastus had led the expedition of the Seven against Thebes in the generation which preceded the Trojan war: Tydeus (father of Diomedes who fought against Troy) and Parthenopaeus were among his allies. The story is dramatized in the Septem contra Thebas of Aeschylus. 478. ultima and secreta: because they are on the farthest borders of the district where those not yet dismissed to Tartarus or Elysium have their habitations. 480. Adrasti pallentis imago: ‘ the ghost of pale Adrastus’; there is no special reason for this epithet, so far as we know. It is merely an instance of a characteristic which applies to all, a reminder that they are all pale ghosts, not living men. 481. multum fleti: ‘much-wept’, translates the Homerie adjective ttoXvkXclvtos. ad superos may mean ‘to the gods above’, but as Cicero uses ad inferos for ‘in the world below’ it is simpler to take it as ‘in the earth above’, equivalent to apud superos. So superum lumen = the light of earth (680). caduci = qui ceciderant, a substitute for the non-existent perfect participle. Again bello caduci translates a Homerie adjective (dprjifaToi). 483. ingemuit . . . Thersilochumque: a Homerie line trans-

LINES 471-505

69

literated (r\avKov re MeSovra re QepalXo^ov re, II. xvii. 216), Medonta being the Greek accusative. 484. tris . . . Polyboeten: The first half of the line i9 again Homer (II. xi. 59). The second half seems to echo another Homerie half-line (II. xiii. 791), ‘god-like Polyphetes’. Virgil has changed the name to Polyboetes or perhaps Polybotes (P) (‘rich in oxen’) and made him ‘dedicated to Ceres’, the farmeris goddess. 485. Idaeus: the charioteer of Priam. etiam = ‘stili’ (like the Greek en to which it corresponds). 488. veniendi: ‘of his Corning’ (to the lower world). 492. A reference to episodes in Iliad viii. 75 and xv. 320, when the Greeks were driven back to their ships from before Troy. 493. The position of exiguam and the sound of this line, with the elision across the colon, and the repeated a (cf. 237 and 576) serve to represent the circumstance described. ‘Some raise the war-cry—so feebly! the imperfect utterance mocks their gaping mouths.’ 495. Deiphobus (Iliad, xxii. 233 ff.) was the brother of Hector whose shape Apollo took in order to persuade Hector to stand and fight Achilles. His death is not told in Homer, though in Od. viii. 517 ff. we hear that Odysseus and Menelaus went from the Wooden Horse to his house. In the story which follows Virgil has used accounts given in later poems of the Homerie cycle, some of which we may suppose represented Deiphobus as killed fighting, others as butchered and mutilated in his own chamber by Menelaus and Odysseus. As the chief surviving son of Priam (Hector calls him ‘far the dearest of my brothers’) he took Helen to wife after the death of Paris. F reads vidit, M videt et ; the other MSS. have videt only. vidit is better than videt et, which some texts give; for lacerum explains laniatum: ‘ with body all torn, face brutally maimed, his face and both his hands, ears reft from the ravaged temples, nostrils lopped by shameful wounding’. 496—7. tempora and naris are accusative of respect, expressing the part of the body affected, with lacerum, parallel to ora and manus. 500. genus: ‘descendant’ as in 792. 501—2. quis . . . licuit? ‘who could choose to take such cruel vengeance ? who could have such power against thee ? ’ de te is an unusual expression with licuit: but as sumere poenas ‘to punish’, which is regularly constructed with de, has immediately preceded this clause, the meaning is easily understood. 505. egomet: ‘I myself’, with my own hands. The Rhoetean promontory was in the Troad. north of Troy.

7o

COMMENTARY

506. magna ter voce vocavi. It is generally assumed that the reference is to the thrice-repeated ave atque vale, with the name of the dead man, which closed a funeral ceremony. But vocavi should mean 'summoned’ rather than ‘hailed’: and Virgil is, as so often, echoing Homer. In Odyssey ix. 65 Odysseus, speaking as here of a situation where the actual bodies could not be buried, says ‘ nor did we sail away until we had thrice called (the names of) each of our comrades who had been slain’. May it not mean that, the body being absent, the manes or spirit was called from it (wherever it was) to come to the tomb ? This seems consistent with what Dei¬ phobus says in 510 about funeris umbris. Here, as in 119 above, manes is used of a single spirit. 507. arma. Deiphobus’ own weapons would not be available, and Servius supposes that the reference is to arms sculptured on the tombstone. te amice. This scansion, whereby a long vowel or diphthong was not elided but shortened before another vowel, is found in early Latin (e.g. in the comedies). Virgil uses it in the Edogues (ii. 65 6 Alexi and viii. 108 an qui amant), but not elsewhere in the Aeneid. It was the regular practice in Greek epic, elegiae, and lyric verse. Here, as in 362, the dead body is identified with the man himself. It was this idea against which Socrates protested at the end of the Phaedo, when Crito asked, after the discourse on the immortality of the soul, ‘How shall we bury you, Socrates ? ’ and was answered, ‘ In any way that you like, if you can catch me.‘ 510. funeris umbris: a strange expression. Funus is occasionally used of a dead body (e.g. funus lacerum, ix. 491); the plural umbrae is applied, like manes above, to a single ghost. What Aeneas could not do for the dead body itself, which he had looked for in vain, he has done for that 'body’s ghost’. 511. Lacaenae. ‘The Laconian woman’ is a contemptuous term for Helen, recalling a similar description in Euripides Troades 861. 512. monimenta also has a sneering effect, the word being usually associated with honourable things, as Conington observes. (So also egregia in 523.) If Aeneas ‘requires a monument’ of Helen, let him look at Deiphobus. 513. ut: ‘how’. 5i5-r6. cum . . . alveo. The language of these lines, more especially saltu, is a reminiscence both of Aeschylus (Aga¬ memnon, 825-6) and Ennius (Alexander, fr. 9: nam maximo | saltu superabit gravidus armatis equus | qui cum suo partu ardua perdat Pergama). cum here is purely temporal, equiva-

LINES 506-34

71

lent to eo tempore quo, and therefore takes the indicative: ‘that time when’. 517. orgia is ‘cognate’ accusative (cf. 313 n.) with the intransitive verb euhantis: ‘celebrating triumphant rites’ like a Bacchante. 519. The torch was itself the ‘summons’ (vocabat): ‘she was holding a great torch and (thereby) summoning’. summa ex arce: i.e. the signal was given from the Trojan citadel to the Greeks outside the city, who had stolen back from Tenedos in the darkness. 522. dulcis et alta quies: ' sweet sleep profound, so like to easeful death’. The line is a close translation of Homer, who writes of sleep as ‘deep and most sweet, resembling death most nearly’, Odyssey, xiii. 79. 523. egregia: ‘peerless’, ironical, see 511 n. 524. The pluperfect subduxerat leads up to vocat. No sooner had she withdrawn the sword than she calls in Menelaus. (This is more reasonable than to suppose that the stealing away of the sword had preceded the removal of the weapons from the house, as Ribbeck takes it, putting et fidum . . . ensem in a parenthesis.) 526. amanti: ‘her lover’, as though Menelaus were the wronger instead of the wronged husband. 529. hortator scelerum Aeolides. Odysseus was called by his detractors the bastard son of Sisyphus (son of Aeolus), a notorious deceiver. Virgil takes his attitude to Odysseus from the Greek tragedians, with whom he is always a type of knavery, not from Homer, to whom he is a hero. Virgil skilfully omits the details of the killing and mutilation, already sufficiently indicated, and merely suggests them by talia. 530. instaurate:'repeat for the Greeks’ the treatment they gave to me, ‘if with duteous lips I claim this vengeance’. The pietas of Deiphobus, i.e. his observance of his duties in his life to gods and men, gives him a right to claim fulfilment for his prayer. There is not, I think, any apology for the nature of the prayer. 533. an quae ... adires: ‘or what fortune besets thee, that thou didst come to these gloomy sunless dwellings, this place of confusion?’ fatigare is to ‘tease’, to ‘keep on the move’, cf. 79. adires follows the present fatigat in accordance with the rule, which supersedes the so-called ‘sequence of tenses’ (a misleading phrase), that Latin says exactly what it means. The fortune, whatever it was, is stili ‘hunting’ him: his approach to the sunless dwellings is already past. 534. turbida. For this striking epithet Conington quotes the

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description of Sheol in Job x. 22, 'A land of the shadow of death, without any order’. 535. Hac vice: ‘amid this interchange of talk’; the ablative is loosely connected with the sentence. 536. medium . . . axem: ‘The goddess of day in her roseate chariot had passed in her heavenly course the middle of the sky.’ The sudden reminder of the sunshine of the world above comes with a startling flash of contrast after the line about the ‘sad sunless dwellings’ of death where they are moving. Aurora was imagined as riding with the sun across the sky. The journey of Aeneas had begun before sunrise (255) and was to end before midnight (898). It is now past noon. 537-8. In normal prose this would be fortasse . . . traxissent, nisi . . . admonuisset, fors (elliptical for ‘there is a chance that’ used adverbially, and analogous to our English ‘ maybe’) is poetical. For traherent see 31 n. The sed clause in 538 is substituted for a clause with nisi. 540. ambas: ‘the two’, not merely ‘two’, which would be duas or binas. The two roads were part of the tradition of Hades. So Plato in the myth at the end of the Gorgias (524 a) speaks of the judging of the dead ‘at the parting of the ways, from which the two ways lead, one to the isles of the blest, one to Tartarus’. See Introd., p. xix. 541 ff. dextera . . . mittit: ‘ Along this road, which leads on the right up to the walls of Dis, lies our path to Elysium; the leftward punishes evil-doers and sends them to unhallowed Tartarus.' 543. exercet: literally ‘sets going’: as often, the second part of the line explains the first. impia: the place in which the ungodly are punished is unholy, as the threshold which admits the criminals is sceleratum (563). 545. discedam . . . tenebris: 'I will go, and fili up the number and be restored to the darkness.’ As in 543, the end of the line explains the obscure phrase which precedes it. Explere numerum is used in Livy and Caesar of a general making up the total of his regiments: e.g. Caesar, Bell. Civ. iii. 4 eum quem demonstravimus numerum expleverat. It is possible to give it a similar meaning here: Deiphobus will return to the other ghosts and ‘make up the total’ which his absence had left incomplete. But the expression suggests more than this. numerus has associations elsewhere of ‘mere number’, as of a flock of sheep or an undistinguished crowd: e.g. in Horaee, Epistles, 1. ii. 27 nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati (a ‘mere crowd’, ‘mere ciphers'). Nettleship quotes Seneca, ad Marciam, xii. 3, where a degenerate son is described as numerum tantum nomenque filii expleturum (one who would

LINES 534-68

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merely ‘count as’ a son and be called by that name, but perform none of the duties of sonship). We are meant to feel the contrast between Deiphobus, who will go back and be lost in the crowd, just one ghost among many in the darkness, and Aeneas going on to ‘enjoy his happier destiny’. 547. torsit: a variant pressit (MR) would mean that he ‘stood stili’ and let them go on. It is probably a mistake of the scribe, who had 197 in his mind. torsit is the reading of P. ‘So he spake, and with the word he tumed away’ (leaving them to continue without him). Readers of Dante will be reminded of the abruptness with which he closes similar interviews in the Inferno. 548-626. The account of Tartarus which follows was traditional. It owes much to Homer and more to Plato. The description is distinguished from the previous episodes by being put in the mouth of the Sibyl, and by the purely mythological character of the persons named. (In this respect it differs markedly from Dante’s Inferno, which he filled with personages of his own time.) There is some internal evidence for the suggestion put forward by several editors that the passage was left in an unfinished state, and that Virgil, had he lived, would have revised the order and added some lines. See notes on 601 ff. and 608-15. 548. ‘He turns round, being already on the right-hand path, to look at the departing Deiphobus (respicit) and sees the walls of Tartarus’ (Page). 555. Tisiphone: the name means ‘murder-avenger’. She is one of the Furies. 557. exaudiri: ‘historic’ infinitive. Cf. 49 n. 558. tum . . . catenae: ‘creaking of iron too (tum) anddragging chains’. 559. The MSS. vary between strepitum (FPR) . . . hausit (P), ‘listened to the clamour in terror’, and strepitu (M) . . . haesit (MFP2) ‘stood fast terrified by the clamour’. 564. cum with indicative, as in 515, ‘at the time when’. Hecate: cf. 118. 566. Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus were the three tra¬ ditional judges of the underworld. 567. castigatque auditque . . . subigitque. Another instance where the verbs coupled together do not represent successive actions, but describe the same process. ‘ He punishes, hearing their (concealed) crimes and compelling each to confess the sins which in the world above, rejoicing in a futile deceit, he left unatoned till the (too) late hour of death.' 568. quis: used as if si had introduced the clause.

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569. piacula means primarily ‘atonement’, but is used also for ■ crimes that call for atonement’. distulit is appropriate to the former meaning, commissa (in its ordinary sense) to the latter. But Cicero uses committere with poenam and multam (‘afine’) in the sense of‘incur’, ‘render oneself liable to’, and this is probably the meaning here: ' postponed the atonement incurred’. 570. sontis: i.e. those whom he finds guilty. ultrix suggests the derivation of the name Tisiphone given above. 571-2. quatit. . . sororum: ‘hounds them on, leaping on them and waving over them in her left hand grim snakes, and summons her savage pack of sisters’ (i.e. the other Furies). The metaphor in quatit is from driving animals. Cf. Georgics, iii. 132. The que of torvosque connects insultans and intentans, which both go with quatit. 573. sacrae: perhaps ‘accursed’, or merely 'sacred’ to the infernal gods. 574- The reference to Tisiphone, the ‘ guardian sitting in the entrance, the shape that keeps the threshold’, is introduced in order to lead up to the description of the ' crueller Hydra’ that has her dwelling within. Aeneas sees the former: he is only told about the latter: for there is no reason to think that the gates are opened while he is looking at them. 576. Note the sound of the line: see 493. 579. caeli suspectus: 'a sky-ward gaze’, i.e. as far as a man has to look upward for his gaze to reach Olympus (the heavens). Cf. Georgics, ii. 291-2 aesculus in primis, quae quantum vertice ad auras | aetherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit. 580-607. The lines that follow describe some of the typical criminals of Greek mythology, associated in one way or another with impiety and rebellion against heaven. The Titans were the older generation of earthbom Giants, cast out of heaven by Zeus and the new generation of gods. The story of the ‘sons of Aloeus’, Otus and Ephialtes, is told in Odyssey, xi. 305-20. Virgil in Georgics, i. 280 associates them with the Titans, calling them coniuratos caelum rescindere fratres, and describes their rebellion and defeat in three fine lines: ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam scilicet, atque Ossae frondosum involvere Olympwn; ter Pater exstructos disiecit fulmine montes. Salmoneus had pretended to divine honours and been killed by a thunderbolt. For Tityos, whose punishment is described here with elaborate art, see Odyssey, xi. 576-81. ‘There saw I Tityos, the son of glorious Gaia, lying upon the ground:

LINES 569-93

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over nine roods he stretched: and on either side two vultures sitting tore his liver, piercing even to the bowels, nor could his hands ward them off. For he had outraged Leto, wife of Zeus.' Ixion had attempted to assault Hera, and his brother Pirithous to seize Proserpine. 581. deiecti agrees with the sense and not the form of the subject. 585-6. vidi... Olympi: ' And I saw Salmoneus cruelly punished, while he mimicked the fires of Jove and the thunders of heaven.’ This is the natural translation: anyone who read these lines by themselves would suppose dum to mean that a punishment simultaneous with the crime is described. To escape the difficulty some commentators translate dum as equivalent to quod (‘ punished for imitating’), which is at best doubtful Latin: others suppose that Salmoneus was condemned to repeat his crime in Tartarus while suffering punishment: others put a full stop at poenas and make the dum clause go with the foliowing sentence. None of these Solutions is satisfactory: the Latin definitely implies that the Sibyl saw the punishment overtake him * in the very hour of his pride and guilt’. (So Page, who, however, evades the difficulty by saying ' he is stili suffering the punishment which feli upon him even while he was imitating’.) This is one of the passages where I suspect incompleteness and a change of plan. The two verses read as if Virgil had originally intended to describe a picture or bas-relief, such as those on the doors of the Sibyl’s temple referred to in the beginning of this book. 588. Elis, as Servius notes, was the district of Olympia, the very centre of the worship of Jupiter. Either the town or the dis¬ trict may be meant here. If the latter, ‘ the city in the midst of Elis’ will be Salmone, said to have been founded by Salmoneus and afterwards destroyed by lightning. 591. demens ... simularet: ‘mad fool! to mimic . . .’ simularet, subjunctive as giving the reason for calling him demens. aere: either by dragging bronze vessels on the ground, as Apollodorus telis the story, or by driving his horses over a bridge paved in bronze (Manilius, v. 91). 593. ille: i.e. but what he hurled was no mere ‘torch or smoky pinewood flare’. For the whole of this passage there is a modera parallel in Browning’s ‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’: It’s like those eerie stories nurses teli, Of how some actor on a stage played Death,

?6

COMMENTARY

With pasteboard crown, sham orb and tinselled dart. And called himself the monarch of the world; Then going in the tire-room afterward, Because the play was done, to shift himself, Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly By Death himself. Thus God might touch a Pope At unawares, ask what his baubles mean, And whose part he presumed to play just now. 595. Terrae omniparentis alumnum: ‘ foster-child of Earth, the mother of ali’. Homer calls him ‘son of glorious Earth’. 597 ff. rostroque . . . renatis: ‘ and a monstrous vulture with hooked beak, feeding on his undying liver and bowels fruitful for new pains, gropes as he feasts, dwelling deep in his breast, nor have the ever-renewed entrails any respite’. Lucretius, iii. 984-94, had criticized and rationahzed the Tityos legend, rejecting the miraculous renewal of the liver as impossible, and interpreting the vulture as the pangs of love and other unfulfilled desires. 601 ff. Here we have a difficulty for which there is no satisfactory solution. Ixion’s punishment was traditionally the whirling wheel mentioned in 616, and Pirithous was regarded as sharing the punishment of Theseus referred to in 617. Whether we read quos (MR) or quo (R), Virgil is departrng from the tradition by assigning to either Ixion and Pirithous or to Pirithous alone the torture of the overhanging stone, associated in Pindar and Lucretius with Tantalus, who was also connected in the legends with the torture of frustrated hunger and thirst suggested by 603-7. It is remarkable that Statius, who imitates this passage in Thebais, i. 713 ff., assigns both these punishments to Phlegyas, who is mentioned by Virgil without any definite description of his punishment in 6x9. Valerius Flaccus, ii. 192, has a description of a frus¬ trated banquet, obviously imitated from Virgil, which he makes the punishment of Phlegyas and Theseus. The simplest solution (though it does not account for the versions of Statius and Flaccus) is that of Madvig, who inserts et at the end of 601, reading quo in 602. 602—7 would then refer to Tantalus. Others assume a hiatus, never filled up by Virgil, after 601. The difficulty must be left to the ingenuity and the preference of readers. Some will be content to say with Heyne that Virgil ‘is introducing a story different from the common ver sion’. 602. The elision of -que at the end of the line is deliberately intended to suggest, by the overlapping syllable, the justfalling stone. See Excursus, p. 108.

LINES 593-614

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603. ‘There gleam the golden supports of high festal couches.’ genialis may mean ‘festal’ only, but it suggests lectus genialis, the marriage-bed, and there may be an allusion to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, with vvhich the crime of Tantalus was associated in one version of the myth. 605. Furiarum maxima: the Harpy Celaeno, who prevented the Trojans from eating the food they had prepared, gives herself this title in iii. 252, and Virgil seems to have meant to recall the description given there. But the words facem attollens, 607, suggest one of the Eumenides rather than the Harpies. 608-15. hic, quibus . . . mersit. The position of these lines is puzzling. Why should Virgil interrupt an account of the punishments to give a list of offences, then retum in 616 to the punishments, and resume the list of offences at 620 ? It would be easier if 616—24 came immediately after 607 and 608-15 followed 620. No rearrangement is completely satisfactory, but we are entitled to conjecture that Virgil would have altered the order in a final revision and made some changes to avoid the awkwardness of the transitions. See ‘ Note on the MSS,’, p. 27. 608-13. Here and in 621-4, with the parallel list of the blessed in 660-4, we have Virgil’s ethical judgement: a writer’s character is indicated by the sins and the virtues which he selects for condemnation or praise. 610. repertis: ‘acquired’, not ‘discovered’. 613. impia: i.e. civil war, as being unnatural, a violation of humani ties. nec veriti . . . dextras: ‘ nor feared to be false to the faith they owed their masters’—lit. ‘to the right hands of their masters’, which they had clasped in token of mutual trust. The expression is an unusual one. Servius connects this clause with arma impia, which he interprets as the civil wars started by Sextus Pompeius against the triumvirs, in which he armed the slaves of Sicily. 614. poenam exspectant. The conception is of recurring punish¬ ments, with intervals between them of waiting for the time when the scourge Inexorably, and the torturing hour Calis (them) to penance. (Milton, P.L. ii. 90-2.) 614-15. ne quaere . . . mersit: ‘do not ask what punishment (each awaits), or about the manner of crime or circumstance that overwhelmed them’. With quam poenam we understand exspectent, the ordinary subjunctive of a dependent question. The indicative mersit,

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if correct, makes the second clause relative, as though he had written formam fortunamve quae. Madvig reads merset, sub¬ junctive of merso. As Virgil has just specified the crimes, and goes on immediately (if we retain the MSS. order of the lines) to give a further list of punishments and crimes, we must suppose him to mean here ‘ don’t ask me to describe in detail the crimes and their respecti ve punishments’. forma according to this interpretation = forma sceleris (cf. 626): but Servius interprets it as ‘legal formula’ or ‘charge’. 616-17. saxum . . . pendent: ‘some’ (such as Sisyphus) 'roll a huge stone, others’ (Ixion) ‘hang spread on the spokes of wheels’. If 616 followed immediately on 607 the single alii might have its usual meaning of ‘others’. As our text stands we must regard alii . . . -que as equivalent to alii . . . alii. 617. sedet ff. ‘ Theseus condemned to endlesse slouth by law' is Spenser’s reminiscence of this passage (F.Q. 1. v. 36). Legend represented Theseus as fixed in a seat in Hell immovably, till he was rescued by Hercules. Pausanias the traveller describes a picture by Polygnotus at Delphi of Odysseus in the lower world, where among other figures is Theseus seated. Virgil seems here to ignore the rescue. See 123 and 393-7 and the notes ad loc. 618. Phlegyas was father of Ixion and king of the Lapithae. He represents the sin of sacrilege, having set fire to the temple at Delphi. The words of Phlegyas, which are a reminiscence of Pindar, Pyth. ii. 39 ff., are, as Henry points out in reply to the criticism of the French epigrammatist Scarron (‘ Cette sentence est bonne et belle, Mais en enfer de quoi sert-elle ?’), a symbolic expression of the waming which the fate of Phlegyas gives to mankind. He appositely compares Genesis iv. 10. ‘Thy brother’s blood cries to me from the ground.’ Cf. Dr. Jortin (quoted by Gibbon): ‘ But his instruction might be for the use of the living. You will say, How can that be ? Surely nothing is more easy and intelligible. The Muses hear him. The Muses reveal it to the poet, and the inspired poet reveals it to mankind.’ 621. hic. No definite persons are specified, but Virgil’s contemporaries would think both of Curio, whose action as tribune in 49 b.c. in taking refuge with Julius Caesar started the civil war,1 and of Antony, who after Caesar’s death ‘ made 1 emere omnes, hic vendidit urbem (Pharsalia, iv. 824) was Lucan’s later epitaph upon him.

LINES 614-41

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and unmade laws ’ by means of his possession of Caesar’s papers. The phrase fixit leges pretio atque refixit is taken bodily from a poem by Virgil’s friend and contemporary Varius. Laws were inscribed on bronze tablets nailed on walls: hence the phrase figere leges. 624. ausi . . . potiti: ‘ Ali dared to will monstrous iniquity, and achieved their will.’ This is one of the great single lines of Virgil. Immanis here as elsewhere implies ‘unnatural’, ‘inhuman’. 630-1. Cyclopum . . . portas: ‘the walls built up by the forges of the Cyclopes and the arch of the gates confronting us’. The Cyclopes were the workmen of Vulcan: the walls are therefore of iron. 632. praecepta: either (1) with dona, ‘the appointed tribute’ (Rhoades), or (2) subject of iubent, whichthe former interpretation leaves without an expressed subject. But ‘the commands (of the gods) bid us’ is not a natural expression; and the order of the words is in favour of (1), which seems to me to give the better pattern. 633- ‘ moving side by side along the shadowy ways they speed over the space between.’ opaca viarum: this use of the genitive after a neuter plural adjective is one of the linguistic features in which Virgil imitates Lucretius. ‘ After the Sibyl has finished her account, they go forward again through an arched gateway on the right and along dark corridors to an entrance where Aeneas deposits his golden bough on the threshold. By this touch Virgil indicates that what follows is, in some fuller sense than what has preceded, a vision or initiation rather than an actual journey’ (Mackail). 635. occupat as in 424, where, however, there is a different reason for the haste. The lustration (‘ like holy water in Roman Catholic Churches’, Page) is to purify one who enters upon holy ground. 638. devenere: the verb has the force of ‘ arriving’ at a destination: Elysium is the climax of the journey. Cf. i. 365 (of the arrival of Dido at the site of her future city) devenere locos ubi nunc ingentia cernes | moenia. virecta: green spaces, ‘lawns’. 640-1. largior . . . purpureo: An ampler ether, and with radiant light. Here clothes the plains. Such an expression is possible in verse only, whether in Latin or English. The et is apparently superfluous; it joins the adjective largior to the adverbial phrase lumine purpureo.

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COMMENTAR Y The effect is to cause our attention to dwell on the two features separately, first on the broader expanse of sky, then on the radiance of the light. (Cf. for a similar use of -que x. 734, obvius adversoque.) It would have been simpler, but far less poetically effective, to write largior hic aether, et campos . . . aether, as distinet from aer, is the higher, purer air. Cf. 747 aetherium sensum, purpureus implies dazzhng brightness rather than colour: it is used of lilies in 883, and in Horaee, Odes, iv. i. 10 of the radiant whiteness of swans. VirgiTs meaning here is ciear if we remember the passage in Homer which he had in his mind, the description of the abode of the gods, Od. vi. 44-5; ' the ciear air spreads wide about it unclouded, and white radiance floats above it’ (p.aA’ aWprj |

Trerrrarai avipeXos XevKrj 8' im8d8pop.ev alyXrj).

642. pars . . . exercent: the plural is used as m 218. 645. Threicius . . • sacerdos. The ‘Thracian priest’ is Orpheus, whose presence here is one more reminder that Virgil’s account of the underworld owes something to Orphism. 646. obloquitur numeris: he accompanies with his voice the rhythm of the dancing. numeris is dative after the ob in the compound verb. septem discrimina vocum, the seven different notes which he ‘utters’ (loquitur) correspond to the seven strings of the lyre: his voice ranges over all the notes of the scale. The lyre is played sometimes with the finger, sometimes with the ‘ quili’, which was used to strike the strings when a louder note was desired. 648. hic genus . . . proles: the line echoes 580, hic genus anti¬ quum Terrae, Titania pubes. The lowest place in Tartarus is occupied by the rebel Titans: the chief place in Elysium is assigned to the ancestors of the Romans and of Augustus. 651. procul: ‘apart’ from their owners. inanis: ‘phantom’, ‘unsubstantial’ (rather than ‘empty’: this idea has already been supplied by procul). 653. currum: an unusual contracted form of the genitive plural. gratia here suggests the ordinary meaning of gratus, ‘pleasant’. ‘The pleasure they had in chariots and armour while they lived and the care they gave to feed glossy steeds, attend them stili beyond the grave.’ 654-5. cura . . . pascere: a phrase derived from the use of the verb curo with infinitive. 657. paeana: a song in honour of Apollo. 658-9- In Georgics, iv. 365-73 we have a list of rivers, ending with Eridanus, whose sources are seen below the earth, and on the strength of this superne here is generally interpreted as ‘in (or ‘up to’) the world above’. It seems to me more

LINES 640-98

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natural to take it as describing the course of Eridanus in Elysium: ‘whence the strong stream of Eridanus rolls down from above through a wood’. Eridanus was identified with various large rivers on earth, notably the Po, which runs underground for two miles near its source. 660 ff. The lines deliberately recall, by their rhythm and phrasing, the contrasting list of sinners in 608-14. 663. vitam excoluere: ‘enriched life', added to its comfort and amenities by discoveries and de vices. 664. aliquos, the reading of ali the MSS., is rejected by the Oxford text in favour of alios, an easier and more obvious (and therefore less likely) reading given as a correction in F. But ‘ such as left a memory of themselves with some by their Service’ gives a satisfactory sense. Virgil does not limit his Elysium to those who have done sensational Service: it is enough that they have helped some. 667. Musaeus: son of Orpheus. 670. ergo: ‘for the sake of’, an archaic preposition. 674. riparumque ... rivis: ‘cushioned banks and meadows kept fresh by rills’. In riparum toros the genitive describes the second word: the banks are their couches. 676. facili . . . sistam: ‘the way in which I shall set you now will be easy’. A contrast is suggested with the difficuities of the joumey before Elysium was reached (cf. molitur 477). 680. superumque ad lumen ituras: these are the spirits, as becomes ciear later, who after 1,000 years are to be reborn. See 748-51. 682. forte: he was just counting them when Aeneas came. 683. fataque ... manusque: ‘ their fates and fortunes, characters and feats’. manus, ‘the works of their hands’, the deeds they were destined to do. Cf. i. 455 where Aeneas admires at Carthage artificum manus, ‘the work of the builders’. In this verse the alliteration helps the meaning. 688. pietas here has its full sense of natural affection due to a parent, ‘ waited for by thy father’, as something which could be counted upon. 691. nec me . . . fefellit: ‘my anxious thought did not mislead me.’ 692. per is easily understood by anticipation with terras. 697. stant. . . classes: i.e. the dangers of the sea to which you referred are over now. 698. This line recalls his similar appeal to Dido, 465: and 700-2 are repeated verbatim from ii. 793-4, where they describe Aeneas’ attempt to embrace the ghost of his wife Creusa. Mackail notes the repetitions as deliberate: the love of Aeneas 4663

G

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COMMENTARY

for Anchises is his strongest emotion; ‘ his father means more to him than wife or lover’. The whole description is taken from Odyssey, xi. 206-8, where Odysseus tries to embrace the ghost of his mother: ' Three times I sprang forward and my heart bade me clasp her, and three times she flitted out of my arms like a shadow or a dream.’ The parallel indicates that by somno Virgil means to suggest a dream rather than sleep. But, as Sparrow points out, a description suitable to the scene in Book ii where Creusa disappears, and to the passage in the Odyssey, where it is at the end of the conversation with his mother that Odysseus tries to embrace her, is inappropriate here, where Anchises remains to guide and instruet his son. The omission of 702, which is not in the text of R, would remove the difficulty. 703. Interea is used by Virgil to introduce a new scene, and indicates a loose connexion of time. It is rather ‘Hereupon’ or ‘And now’ than ‘Meanwhile’. 707-9. ac velut ff.: ‘even as when in the meadows in summer’s calm bees settle on the varied flowers and swarm about white lilies, and ali the plain is loud with murmuring sound.’ ac velut came to be a recognized phrase for introducing a simile, and the co-ordinating force of ac was lost. There is a ciear instance of this in ii. 626-31 (unless the text there is regarded as incomplete) and a doubtful one in iv. 402-7. It is possible here to give ac its ordinary sense of ‘and’, if we make strepit in 709 the principal sentence and regard the actual simile as ending with funduntur. This would limit the comparison to the one point of sound, the murmurs of the crowd (cf. turbam sonantem in 753 and qui strepitus circa comitum in 865) being compared to the buzzing of the bees. But it is the sight which startles Aeneas, as 710 shows, and the movement as much as the murmuring of the bees is an essential part of the simile. The souls were ‘flitting’ on the river-bank like bees about flowers. 711. porro has here its literal sense as an adverb of place, ‘in the distance’. It has the effect of an adjective qualifying flumina. 715* securos latices: ‘the unmindful draught’ (Bridges). The adjective is used with special reference to its derivation: the waters are ‘care-free’ because they release from care (cf. 441 n.). The phrase is explained by longa oblivia, which again deliberately recalls the derivation of Lethaeum from the Greek XfjOrj ‘forgetfulness’. Both words are a reminiscence of the myth at the end of Plato’s Republic, which describes the ‘Plain of Forgetful-

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ness’ and the ' Unmindful River’, tov AfieArjTa Trorafiov (Rep. 621 a). See Introd., p. xxii. 716-17. has equidem . . . meorum: ‘To teli these over to thee and show them before thine eyes has long been my desire, to number over this progeny of my sons.’ The construction would be simpler without 716, which some editors wish to remove. But the expression would be less effective: it would be a real weakening of the sentence, as Henry points out, to omit tibi and ostendere coram. The piling up of unnecessary words is appropriate to the eagerness of Anchises. 719 -21. o pater . . . cupido ? ‘My father, are we to think that some lofty spirits go hence to the air above and return to sluggish bodies ? how comes to hapless souls so feli a longing for the light of day ?’ sublimis is taken by most editors with ire, 'go up to the air’: but the natural order of the words is against this, and the adjective so understood adds nothing not already expressed by ad caelum. There is a real point in it as translated above. Grovelling spirits, ‘of the earth, earthy’, might be expected to hanker after earth; but that lofty souls such as these should desire it is surprising. Cf. 758 illustris animas noslrumque in nomen ituras, a line which echoes 720 and confirms this interpretation. 719. ad caelum, as in 896, means ‘to the upper air’, i.e. to life on earth under the sky. He does not say ad terram because the world of the dead was thought of as part of the earth. But both this phrase and the use of lucis in 721, for earthly life as opposed to life in Elysium, have an apparent awkwardness where life on earth is being depreciated. Page, quoting to illustrate lucis the words of Ecclesiastes xi. 7, ‘ Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun’, sees in the association with it of the word dira a deliberate paradox. 724-51. In these lines Virgil sets the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, derived from Plato and the Pythagoreans, in a framework of Stoic philosophy, which taught that there was an anima mundi, a ‘soul of the universe’, the source of all life. To this creed he gives poetical expression here such as Wordsworth gives in his lines on ‘Tintern Abbey’: A sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought. And rolls through all things.

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COMMENTARY

With this Stoic doctrine of the spiritual essence in all things he combines, in 730 fi., the Platonic teaching about the relation of soul and body in human nature and the process by which after death the soul is gradually purified and made fit to retum, after many lives and a cycle of 10,000 years (according to Plato), to communion with the divine. (See Introd., pp. xvii fi.) The passage is poetry, not Science, and the object of the speech is not to set out a consistent system of philosophy but to answer the pessimistic question of Aeneas and by an explanation of the ‘ transmigration of souls’ lead up to the pageant of Roman heroes which is to follow. Such obscurities or inconsistencies as are found in the speech are due partly to the combination of two philosophical theories and partly to the omission of explanations not relevant to the question of Aeneas. 724. Principio: ‘Know first that’—a common formula in Lucretius, whose philosophical language, though not his doctrines, Virgil echoes frequently in this speech. 725. Titania astra: the phrase is a strange one, and the meaning is not certain. The Titan Hyperion was associated especially with the sun, and in spite of the plural it may be that astra here means the sun only. Mackail rejects this as ‘quite impossible’, and it is certainly difficult, though there are definite instances from Statius (Thebais, i. 304 and xi. 93, quoted by Henry) in which astra is so used. We should expect the stars as well as the sun to be mentioned, and the phrase may be intended to include both (‘the Titanian host of heaven’), though the stars are not elsewhere associated with the Titans. Dryden, feeling the difficulty of either interpretation, conjectured Titanaque et astra, which Conington called ‘a plausible suggestion from an amateur critic’. 726-7. spiritus . . . miscet: ‘Spirit within them sustains, and mind interfused through the members stirs the whole mass and mingles with the mighty whole.’ corpore: the ‘ body’ is the universe. Pope’s use of the same metaphor is familiar: ‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is and God the soul’ (Essay on Man, i. 267—8). 728. inde: i.e. from the mingling of mind or soul and matter. 729. ‘And all the strange creatures that the sea holds beneath its gleaming surface.' marmoreus suggests the Greek word fiapnapeos, applied in Homer to the sea, meaning ‘flashing’. monstra: because the sea is the horne of marvels and mystery. 730-1* igneus . . . tardant: ‘They have fiery force in their seeds

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and a heavenly birth, but’ (quantum non = ‘save in so far as’) ‘baneful bodies clog them.’ ollis: dative (referring to the men, beasts, &c.); seminibus: ablative. These ‘first beginnings’ (semina is one of the Lucretian words for the atoms) are the particles of spirit diffused through ali nature. caelestis origo gives the reason for the igneus vigor: it is the latter which is ‘clogged’ by contact with matter. 733. hinc: from the union of matter with spirit. 733~4- neque ... caeco: ‘They get no glimpse of the sky, being imprisoned in darkness and a blind dungeon.’ dispiciunt: though not the reading of the MSS., gives the sense required: despiciunt (FMPR) is probably a mere mistake of spelling. auras, as often in Virgil, is the upper air; dispicere is to discern through mists or some intervening hindrance to the view: the carcere caeco is the body; cf. Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode, ‘Shades of the prisonhouse begin to close About the growing boy’; and Cicero, Somnium Scipionis, iii, qui e corporum vinculis tanquam e carcere evolaverunt, clausae shows that the subject of all the verbs is animae. The souls are identified with the semina of the previous sentence. Each soul is, for the Stoic, a ‘seed’ or ‘spark’ of life within the body. 735. ‘Nay, even when their last day has dawned and life has left them’: supremo lumine is apparently an unusual variant for supremo die. 737-8. penitusque . . . miris: 'And it cannot but be that much (evil) long ingrained becomes in strange fashions part of them.’ inolescere is used (Georgics, ii. 77) of the process by which an engrafted slip ‘grows into’ and becomes part of the tree. 740-2. The evil is purged away by air, water, or fire. 743. manis: the word manes (= ‘the good’) is used to mean 'ghost’ or ‘ghosts’ (the Latin has no singular), that part of a man that survives death. It is used also generally of the ‘ world of the dead’ and of the Powers of that world. The use here comes nearest to the first meaning. But ‘each of us has his own ghost’ inadequately represents the phrase. It is rather ‘each endures his own ghost-life’, or ‘state of death’, his own experiences in what Christians call Purgatory, before passing on through Elysium to abide there or wait for rebirth. The general sense is ciear, whatever the exact explanation of this famous and deliberately arresting phrase may be. [The following passages give the various senses of the word: si potuit manis accersere coniugis Orpheus, A. vi. 119, where it means the individual spirit of the dead wife.

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COMMENTARY sunt aliquid manes; letum non omnia, finit (' There are

euch things as spirits of the dead') Prop. iv. vii. i. ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes (‘ if the Powers below could pardon’) Georgics, iv. 489. nil feret ad manis divitis umbra suos, Ovid, Tristia, V.

xiv. 12, where the sense comes very near to that in our passage here (‘A rich man when he dies will take nothing with him to his state of death’). Ovid probably intends a reminiscence of Virgil.] There is more uncertainty as to the connexion of 743 and 744 with what goes before and after. The interpretation depends on the punctuation, as to which the MSS. give no guidance. If we read the passage as printed in the text, with no parenthesis, the implication is that ali have a longer or shorter period of purgatorial expiation, from which they pass through Elysium, a few to remain there and the rest (has omnis 748) to retum after 1,000 years, having drunk the Water of Forgetfulness, to another life on earth. At last, after a period which Virgil does not specify but which Plato fixes as 10,000 years, when the process of purification is complete, the soul is left free from all stains of matter: it has become pure spirit, fit to ascend (as Plato taught, and as Virgil says in Georgics, iv. 225—7) t° Heaven and to God. Virgil does not actually state whether those who, like Anchises, ‘abide in the Happy Fields’ are exempt from rebirth; but he seems to imply that lapse of time in Elysium effects for them what is done for the others by a succession of lives and purgatorial experiences. According to this punctuation and interpretation donec follows both mittimur and tenemus. It is possible, by putting the words et pauci . . . tenemus in brackets, to connect it with mittimur only: the dwellers in the Happy Fields would then not be included in the final purifying process described in the next lines. The Oxford text makes the whole of 743 and 744 a parenthesis: donec would then follow on eluitur and exuritur, and the relation of Elysium and the laeta arva to the process of final purification would be left unexplained. Another punctuation, suggested by Guthrie (Orpheus and Greek Religion, pp. 186 and 193) removes the comma after tenemus, definitely confining the reference in 745-7 to the souls who are free from any further rebirth. Whichever interpretation be adopted, there is, I think, in pauci a deliberate reference to the saying quoted by Plato, Phaedo, 69 c: ‘It would seem that these men who instituted the rites are not to be despised: they have really this long time been telling us in a parable that whosoever comes to

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Hades uninitiated and unperfected will lie in the mire, but he that is purified and perfected shall dwell with gods. For indeed, as they who have to do with the rites say, Many are the wand-bearers, but the ‘bacchoi’ arefew (ttoAAoi juev vapdgKo pl- troubles 274, 382; love-pangs, love 444, 474; (perhaps) duties, work 520. Cures, -ium, m. & f. pl. 811 n. curro, cucurri, cursum (3) run. currus, -fis, m. (gen. pl. -um 653) chariot. cursus, -fis, m. course, voyage. curvus curved. custodia, -ae, f. watch, guardian 574custos, -6dis, com. wateher, guardian.

VOCABULARY Cyclops, -6pis m. 630-1 n. Daedalus, -i, m. a mythical mechanician & flying man 14-41 n. damno (1) condemn 430 n. Danai, -um, m. pl. the Danai (i.e. Greeks). dapis, -is, f. feast, solemn meal (pl.) 225 n. Dardania, -ae, f. the city or land of Dardanus [i.e. Troy]. Dardanidae, -um m. pl. sons or children of Dardanus [i.e. Trojans]. Dardanius Dardanian [i.e. Trojan]. Dardanus, -i, m. founder of Troy 650. Dardanus Dardanian, Dardan [i.e. Trojan]. de w. abi. from, of, concerning; (more) in accordance with; de nomine Phoebi named from Phoebus 70; de gente of the race 757dea, -ae, f. goddess. debello (1) tr. fight down, war to th» end against. debeo, -ui, -itum (2) owe; pass. be owed or due. decedo, -cessi, -cessum (3) depart. decerpo, -psi, -ptum (3) w. acc. & abi. pluck off (from). decorO (1) adorn. decus, -oris, n. glory. deduco, -duxi, -ductum (3) w. acc. & abi. lead away (from). deficio, -feci, -fectum (3) intr./a»7, be lacking, succumb; w. dat. fail, forsake (a person or situation). defigo, -fixi, -fixum (3) fasten, piant; fix [downward] 156 n. defleo, -evi, -etum (2) tr. weep one's fili for; defletus that has received full meed of tears 220. defungor, -functus (3) w. abi. get, pass, or win, through. dehinc (monosyllable) thereupon. dehisco (3) yawn, open. deicio (Rem. 5), -ieci, -iectum (3)

121

cast down; deiecto vultu with downcast look 862. deinde (dissyllable) then, next, thereafter; hereafter 756. Delius adj. Delian, of Delos (the Aegean isle on which Apollo & Artemis were born). deludo, -lusi, -lusum (3) mock, deceive. demens, -mentis mad; in 172, 590 emphatic (being) mad, madman ! demitto, -misi, -missum (3) let fall. demum at last; sic d. this done and not before 154 cf. 637; tum d. then and not before. dens, dentis, m. tooth, fluke. densus thick, dense. dependeo, -ere hang down. depono, -posui, -positum (3) lay down. derigo, -rexi, -rectum (3) send straight, guide; derexti short form of 2nd sg. perf. ind. 57. descendo, -scendi, -scensum (3) go or come down. descensus, -us, m. going down, downward way. describo, -scripsi, -scriptum (3) mark out, map out. desino, -sii or -sivi, -situm (3) cease. desuetus participial adj. w. abi. having lost the custom (of). desum, -esse, -fui to be lacking. desuper adv./row above. detrudo, -si, -sum (3) w. acc. & abi. thrust down (from). deturbo (1) dislodge. deus, -I, m. nom. pl. di, gen. deum & -orum, abi. dis god; deum (poenas) divine i.e. exacted by the gods, 565. devenio, -veni, -ventum (4) w. acc. arrive (at) 638 n. dexter, -era, -erum on the right 541 ff. n. dextera or -tra, -ae, f. right hand; 613«.; advl. abi. dextra lae¬ vaque to right and left 486, 656.

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VOCABULARY

dico, dixi, dictum (3) say, speak, call; teli of 850; (carmina) utter (i.e. sing) 644; dictus sacer w. dat. dedicated 138; hic dicitur ianua here is what is called the portal. dictum, -i, n. saying, utter ance; pl. words. Dido (no gen. in Virgil), f. 45off. n. dies, -ei, m. & (in sg.) f. day, ierm, space of time. differo, -ferre, distuli, dilatum put off. digitus, -i, m. fnger. dignus w. abi. worthy, fitting; si credere dignum est, if tn believe is fitting 173 «. dinumero (1) count over. dirus ill-boding, dreadful. Dis, -itis, m. Dis, lord of the lower world. discedo, -cessi, -cessum (3) depart. disco, didici (3) leam, siudy, find out. discolor, -oris adj. of different hue. discordia, -ae, f. strife. discrimen, -inis, n. distinction 319 m.; -mina vocum different notes 646 n. dispicio, -spexi, -spectum (3) see (through to), descry. distringo, -nxi, -ctum (3) stretch out. diu adv. long. diva, -ae, f. goddess. diverbero (1) smite asunder, cleave. dives, -itis, rich; precious 195. divitiae, -arum, f. pl. riches, wealth. divus, -i, (gen. pl. -um) god (the deified Julius 792). do, dare, dedi, datum w. acc., w. acc. & dat.; w. inf.; w. subjunctive give, grant, assign; (finem) make 76; (poenas) suffer-, (dicta) give forth, utter; see also circumdo, doceo, -ui, doctum (2) teach, teli; w. acc. teli 0/565, 891; w. two accs. teli (a person) of (something).

doctus learned, wise. doleo, -ere, -ui feel pain. dolor, -oris, m. pain, grief. dolus, -i, m. deceit, trick; secret sin 567. domina, -ae, f. mistress (of servants, of a household) 397. dominor (1) hold sway. dominus, -i, m. master (of servants); autocrat, tyrant 621. domo, -ui, -itum (1) subdue. domus, -us, f. dwelling. donec until. donum, -i, n. gift. Doricus Dorie (i.e. Greek), 88. dubito (r) w. inf. hesitate 806. dubius doubtful, critical. duco, -uxi, -uctum (3) lead, bring; reckon, think 690; (time) spend w. abi. ‘in’) 539; (sortes) draw 22; (genus) trace w. abi. (‘from’); (vultus) mould 848. ductor, -oris, m. leader. dulcis, -e, sweet, dear; (amor) tender 455. dum while; 585-6 n. durus hard, strong; stem, ruthless; d. iter the hardships of the journey 688. dux, -ucis m. leader; duce te under thy leadership. e, ex w. abi. out of from, after. eburnus adj. (of) ivory. ecce w. nom. or sentence lo, behold. educo, -uxi, -uctum (3) carry up (a building), rear; bring forth (a child) 779 & prob. 765 (n.). effingo, -finxi, -fictum (3) shape out, represent. effor, -fatus (1) speak. effugio, -fugi (3) tr. escape, elude. effundo, -fudi, -fusum (3), tr. pour out; drop 339; sese e. pour out (intr.); pass. stream (out); w. abi. 686; effusus streaming 305. egenus needy. egestas -atis, f. poverty. ego I; pl. nos we. egomet an emphasized ego 505 w.

VOCABULARY egregius excellent, outstanding 523 n. elatus part. adj. lifted up, lofty, w. abi. rising high from. elephantus, -i, m.elephant; ivory. Elis, -idis, f. 588 n. eluo, -ui, -utum (3) (w. dat. of person) wash out {from). Elysium, -i, n. Elysium, the abode of the blessed dead. emic5 (1) dart, or spring, out. emitto, -misi, -missum (3) send forth. emoveo, -movi, -motum (2) cast out. en see! enim indeed, for; 317 n.; sed enim see sed. eno (1) swim, or float, forth. ensis, -is, m. sword. enumero (1) count over. eo, Ire, ivi or ii, itum go; itur impers. pass. there is a movement 179; euntem on his way 392, cf. 476 n. Eoi, -orum, m. pl. sons of the East 831. epulae, -arum. f. pl. feast, banquet; epulis 599 (597 ff. n.) perhaps abi. with or in his feasting. eques, -itis, m. horseman. equidem indeed, truly. equus, -I, m. horse. Erebus, -I, m. Erebus, the lower world. ergo therefore', so; well then. ergo w. gen. before it, for the sake _ °fEridanus, -I, m. 658—9 n. Eriphyle, acc. -en, 442 ff. n. eripio, -ipul, -eptum (3) w. acc. & dat. or abi. rescue; draw out; snatch from. erro (1) wander. error, -oris, m. wandering, going astray, cause of wandering 27; pelagi -es wanderings due to the sea 532. eructo (1) belch out, disgorge (w. dat. of recipient or goal 297). eruo, -ui, -utum (3) root out.

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Erymanthus, -I, m. 802 n. et and\ even; also, too 86 n.; et... et both . . . and, alike . . . and, 137, etc. etiam adv. even; stili (485 n.). Euadne, -es, f., acc. -en, 442 ff. n. Euboicus Euboean, connected with Euboea 2 n. euhans, -antis, participle uttering the cry 'evoe'; e. orgia uttering Bacchie cries in wildrites 517 n. Eumenides, -um, f. pl. 250 n., 280, 375. evado, -asl, -asum (3) move (intr.) forth or up; w. acc. leave behind 425 n. eveho, -vexi, -vectum (3) carry up. eventus, -us, m. outcome, issue. evoco (1) summon forth. ex, see e. exanimus lifeless. exaudio, -Ivi, -Itum (4) hear effectually, pass. reach the ear. excedo, -cessi, -cessum (3) depart. excido, -eidi (3) w. abi. fall from. excido, -Idl, -Isum (3) hew out. excipio, -cepi, -ceptum (3) catch\ exceptum . . . immerserat had caught and plunged 173 f. excolo, -colui, -cultum (3) civilize, adorn 663 n. excudo, -di, -sum (3) beat or hammer out. excutio, -cussl, -cussum (3) w. acc. & abi. shake off, fling off 79; w. acc. & dat. wrest or dash from (a person, i. e. from his grasp) 353exerceo, -ui, -itum (2) exercise, set in motion, ply 543 n. exigo, -egi, -actum (3) complete, bring to a close. exiguus feeble, scanty. eximo, -emi, -emptum (3) remove, exinde, exim thereafter. exitialis, -e deadly. exitus, -us, m. going forth, issuing out. exopto (1) tr. long for. expedio, -Ivi or -ii, -Itum (4) make ready or slraight; e. dictis un-

VOCABULARY fold, set forth in words, declare w. indirect questions & acc. 759 (cf. 891-2). expendo, -pendi, -pensum (3) weigh out, pay. expleo, -plevi, -pletum (2) fili up. expono, -osui, -ositum (3) tr. land. exsanguis, -e bloodless. exscindo, -scidi, -scissum (3) deslroy. exsequor, -secutus (3) carry out. exsomnis, -e sleepless. exsors, -rtis w. gen. without share in. exspecto (1) to wait for, eagerly await; exspectatus w. dat. 688 n. exstinguo, -nxi, -netum (3) quench, do away, deprive oflife. exsto, -are rise above the rest (umeris by head and shoulders). exsurgo, -surrexi, -surrectum (3) rise up. exta, -orum, n. pl. entrails. extemplo straightway. extendo, -tendi, -tentum (-ten¬ sum) (3) tr. streteh out, carry further; pass streteh (out) (intr.). externus foreign. exterreo, -ui, -itum (2) strike with terror. extra w. acc. outside. extremus, superi, adj. last; -a n. pl. as sb. thine end (i.e. death). exuro, -ussi, -ustum (3) burn out. facies, -ei, f. shape, form. facilis, -e easy, unreluctant 146. facio, feci, factum (3) make, do. factum, -i, n. deed. fallax, -acis deceitful. fallo, fefelli, falsum (3) tr. deceive; break an oath (by) 324 n.; be false to 613. falsus false, mistaken. fama, -ae, f. report; renown \ f. est the story runs. fames, -is, f. (abi. -e 421) hunger. fas indecl. n. a right thing, lawful\ divine law 438; f. (est) w. acc. or dat. & inf. 63, 266, 563.

fasces, -ium, m. pl. [bundles oi rods, with or without an axe in each, carried before kings and magistrates], rods of office. fatalis, -e of destiny. fateor, fassus (2) confess. fatigo (1) harass, give no rest to. fatum, -i, n. destiny, utterance of destiny, oracle; -o by (decree of) destiny, fata deum 376 n. fatus see (for). fauces, -ium, f. pl. throat; entrance, approach (w. gen. 'to') [Lake Avernus, or the cavern by it (237, 262), is a throat emitting stench]. favilla, -ae, f. embers, ashes. fax, facis, f. torch, brand. fecundus fertile, fruitful; f. poe¬ nis perhaps multiplying itself for punishment (dat.) 598 (597 ff. n.). felix, -icis adj. fruitful; (w abi.) blessed (in), femina, -ae, f. woman. fera, -ae, f. wild creature feralis, -e, funereal. feretrum, -i, n. bier. ferio, Ire, defect. strike. fero, ferre, tuli, latum, bear, bring (with one), offer; produce, breed; endure; cause (or allow) to go, send 82, lead 295; se (sese) betake oneself, advance, rise; (gressum) move, guide; (abso¬ lute) tend or prompt 675; bring word, report (w. predicate 893), say. ferreus adj. (ferrei 280) (of) iron; ofiron strength or endurance6z6. ferrugineus dark, dusky. ferrum, -I, n. iron, steel; sword. ferus wild, untamed. fessus weary; -um rapitis hasten my weary steps 845 n. festino (1) hasten (intr.); w. acc. promptly perform 177. festus festal. fetus, -us, m. offspring; scion, shoot, growth. fibrae, -arum, f. pl. entrails; esp. the liver.

VOCABULARY Fidena, -ae, f. (also -ae, -arum) a town near Rome, now Castel Giubileo. fides, -ei f. honour, truth; promise; fulfilment or protectiori 346 n.; pledge of truth 459 n. fides, -ium, f. pl. a stringed instrument. fidus trusty, loyal. figo, fixi, fixum (3) set, piant, fix 159 n., 469-71 n.; nail up 621 n.; pier ce. figura, -ae, f. shape. filum, -i, n. thread, clue. findo, fidi, fissum (3) tr. split; se f. split (intr.). fingo, finxi, fictum (3) tnould, shape. finis, -is, m. end\ pl. territory, land. finitimus adj. dwelling near; m. pl. as sb. the neighbouring folk. fio, fieri, factus become, be made or done. firmus steadfast. fissilis, -e cleavable. flagellum, -i, n. scourge. flamma, -ae, f. flame. flecto, -exi, -exum (3) bend, tum (aside), deflect; guide, drive. fleo, -evi, -etum (2) tr. & intr. weep (for) 481 n. fletus, -us, m. weeping. flos, -oris, m. flower. fluctus, -us, m. wave, flood. fluentum, -i, n. stream. flumen, -inis, n. river, stream. fluvius, -i, m. river. fodio, fodi, fossum (3) dig, prick (with the spur). folium, -i, n. leaf. (for) fari, fatus, defect, speak. fores, -um f. pl. (folding) doors (carved or chased with reliefs 20). forma, -ae, f. shape; species; kind (of guilt or punishment or both, cf. 569 n.) 614-15 n. cf. 626 f.; beauty. formido, -inis, f. fear. fornix, -icis, m. arch. fors adv. perchance.

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forte by chance, as it feli out 186 n., 190. fortis, -e, brave. fortuna, -ae, f. fortune. fortunatus blessed, fortunate. forus, -i, m. space between the benches on a ship. frater, -tris, m. brother. fraus, -audis, f. harm. fraxineus, ashen. fremo, -ui, -itum (3) make plaint. frenum, -i, n. bridle. frequens, -entis adj. in numbers, in a crowd. frequento (1) fili (a place), people. fretus w. abi. relying on. frigeo, -ere, be cold; corpus fri¬ gentis the cold corpse 219. frigidus adj. cold. frigus, -oris, n. cold. frondeo, -ere bear leaves. frondesco, -dui (3) bear leaves. frons, -ondis, t. foliage. frons, -ontis, f. brow, forehead. fruges, -um, f. pl. (sg. rare) meal, grain. frustra vainly, without effect. frustror (1) disappoint, trick. fugiens, -entis, part. adj .fugitive [accustomed to flee] 57-62 n. fugio, fugi, fugitum (3) tr. & intr. flee (from), shun 892. fugo (1) put to flight. fulcrum, -i, n. head or end-board of a couch. fulgeo, -Isi (2), but -Sre in 826 (see n.), flash, shine. fulmen, -inis, n. thunderbolt. fulvus yellow. fumeus smoky. funditus from the bottom, utterly. fundo (1) establish, make stable. fundo, fudi, fusum (3) tr. pour; pass. stream, crowd; fusus (out-) spread 423; -6 olivo 225 n. fundus, -i, m. bottom, (lowest) depth. fungor, functus (3) w. abi. perform. funus, -eris, n. funeral, death; (dead) body 510 n. furens, -entis, part. adj. mad(ly).

126

VOCABULARY

Furiae, -arum, f. pl. Furies 605 n., cf. 250 n., 555 n. furo, -ere be mad, rave. furor, -oris, m. madness. furtum, -I, n. theft; deceit, concealment; furto by a trick 24. futurus fut. part. of sum; n. pl. as sb. things that shall be, the future 12. Gallus, -!, m. a or the Gaul (col¬ lective sg. 858). Garamantes, -um, m. pl., acc.-as 788-807 n. gaudeo, -ere, gavisus sum w. abi. rejoice (in), feel joy (at). gaudium, -I, n. joy, rejoicing. gelidus, frozen, cold. geminus adj. twin\ (of) twofold (nature) 203-4 n.; pl. twain, (a) pair of, the two. gemitus, -us, m. lamentation. gemo, -ui, -itum (3) groan. genae, -arum f. pl. cheeks; prob. eyes in 686. gener, -eri, m. son-in-law. genero (1) beget', -atus w. abi. son of. genialis, -e festive; g. torus banqueting couch 603. genitor, -oris, m. father. genitus see gigno, gens, gentis, f. race, tribe, people. genus, -eris, n. kind; breed, descent; brood, family, descendant(s),ojfspring25,500n., 792. gero, gessi, gestum (3) carry; (bellum) wage. gigno, genui, genitum (3) beget \ genitus w. abi. begotten or born (of). glaucus grey. globus, -I, m. sphere. glomero (1) tr. gather into a ball; pass. gather together (intr.). gloria, -ae, f. glory. Gnosius adj. of Gnosus or Gnossus 23 n. Gorgo, -onis, f., nom. pl. -ones, Medusa & her sisters, bogy women with horrible faces, 289 n.

gradior, gressus (3) step, tread; gressus stepping. gradus, -us, m. step(s), walking. Graius adj. Greek\ Grai, Graium (588) m. pl., dat. Grais Greeks. gramen, -inis, n. grass. gramineus grassy. gratia, -ae, f. w. gen. pleasure, delight (in) 653 n. gravis, -e heavy, grievous; -is attulit alveo [being heavy brought in its wornb] brought in its burdened womb 516; grave olens noisome 201. gravo (1) weigh down. gressus, -us, m. going, advance. grex, -egis, m. herd. gubernaclum (shortened poet. form of gubernaculum) -I, n. rudder. gubernator, -oris, m. steersman. gurges, -itis, m. [a wild mass of water], flood, torrent, 296 n. guttur, -uris, n. throat. habenae, -arum, f. pl. reins. habeo, -ui, -itum (2) have.possess, hold. habito (1) dwell. hactenus (written as two words 62) thus far (&■ no farther). haereo, -si, -sum (2) intr., sts. w. dat. cling, hold fast (to). halitus, -us, m. breath, exhalation. harena, -ae, f. sand. Harpyiae, -arum, f. pl. harpies [ibird-women who snatch]. hasta, -ae, f. spear. haud not. haurio, -si, -stum (4) drink in. hebeto (1) make dull. Hecate, -es, f., acc. -en, 13 n. Hector, -oris, m., acc. -a 166. herba, -ae, f. grass. heros, -ois, m. hero. Hesperius, adj. [of the evening sun], Western. heu alas, ah. hiatus, -us, m. gaping moutk. hibernus wintry, stormy. hic, haec, hoc (hic 791 n.) this, this man (etc.), he (etc.); h.

VOCABULARY cura anxiety concerning this 85; hunc tantum dolorem the great grief shown by this 464; h. limina the entrance io this place 696. hic here, in the place of which I speak; hereupon. hinc hence, from here, from this; h. metuunt hence it comes that they fear 733. hio (1) open the moulh 493 n. homd, -inis, com. human being, man. honor, -oris, m. honour, homage, token of honour; mortis h. 333 n.; divum h. the honour given io gods 589 cf. 780. hora, -ae, f. hour. horrendus terrible, awe-inspiring; -um 288 n. horreo, -ul (2) w. abi. bristle (with); (shiver) be full of shuddering awe (through) 799. horresco (3) be startled. horridus dreadful. horrisonus of dr e ad sound. hortator, -oris, m. instigator, encourager. hortor (1) encourage. hospita, -ae, f. a (woman) stranger. hostis, -is, m. enemy (one person or collective), huc hither, to the place. humo (1) commit to the earth, bury. humus, -I, f. soil; humi (locative) on the ground. Hydra, -ae, f. (a water-snake); a Hydra (i.e. a fabulous manyheaded monster). hymenaei, -orum, m. pl. nuptials. ibi there, thereupon. Icarus, -x, m. 14-41 n. ico, ici, ictum (3) smile. Idem, eadem, idem the same; it was he too that, he also 116, 229; (that) also 655. ignarus not knowing; 361 n. igneus fiery. ignis, -is, m. fire. Ilex, -icis, f. holm-oak. Iliacus Ilian [i.e. Trojari].

127

Ilium, -I, n. Ilium [i.e. Troy]. ille, -a, -ud that, he (more emphatic than is); that famous; that (he) yonder 767, 836 n.; the other 347 ; in 162 it perh. reinforces the emphasis of atque (but see n.); ille ... hi [‘the former . . . the two last’] Hercules_the others 395, 397 ; 593 nimago, -inis, f. likeness, semblance; spectre; (presentation to eye and/or mind) pietatis i. affection brought before thee 405 n. imitabilis, -e; non i. inimitable. imitor (1) copy, imitate. immanis, -e, vast; monstrous; wild. immemor, -oris, adj. unremembering. immensus boundless. immergo, -rsi, -rsum (3), tr. w. abi. plunge, whelm (in). immineo (2) hang threatening. immitto, -misi, -missum (3) w. acc. & dat. send into 312; fling into 262; classi i. habenas give the fleet its head 1 n. immortalis, -e that cannot die. imperium, -I, n. rule, sway, authority (w. gen. 'over'); behest. impius unholy, unnatural. impono, -posui, -positum (3) w. acc. & dat. place on, set over; impose, enforce (on). impune adv. without scathe 239 n., 878-80 n. imus lowest, in the depths; I. pectus, terra the bottom, or depths, of the heart, earth; fundus i. the bottommost depth 581. in w. acc. into, on to, against; in partem, -tis in (a) direction, directions 440, 540; huius in adventum 798 n.; in tantum (tollo) to so great a height. in w. abi. in, on, at ; in verbo 547 ninamabilis, -e unlovely.

128

VOCABULARY

inanis, -e empty, void 269 n.; «ai», futile 568; unsubstantial 651 n. incanus hoary. incendo, -endi, -ensum (3) kindle. incertus uncertain 270-2 n. incesto (1) pollute. incipio, (-cepi), -ceptum (3) (coepi is used as the perf.) begin, attempt. includo, -clusi, -clusum (3) shut in, imprison, enfold. inclutus famed, renowned. incoho (1) begin 252 n. incolo, -ui (3) inhabit, have as one's abode. incolumis, -e unhurt. increpo, -ui, -itum (1) upbraid. incubo, -ui, -itum (1) w. dat. lie on; (metaph.) guard jealously. incultus unkempt, untended. inde adv. frotn there, thence, from that; after that, then; iam inde see iam. indebitus adj. not owed; non -a posco regna the kingdom I ask is but what is due. Indi, -orum, m. pl. Indians. indignus unfitting, undeserved, cruel. indulgeo, -ulsi (2) w. dat. give the rein to 135 n. inextricabilis, -e adj. not to be disentangled. infans, -antis, m. & f., gen. pl. -tum, habe. infelix, -icis adj. ill-starred. inferior, -oris adj. non inferiora leadership no less noble 170. infernus adj. below, of the lower world. inficio, -feci, -fectum (3) put in, usually stain, taint, but in¬ fectum scelus the inwrought guilt 742. informis, -e unsightly, ugly. infundo, -udi, -usum (3) pour in; infusus (per) interfused (through), permeating 726. ingemo, -ui, -itum (3) groan (over something) 483. ingens, -entis adj. great, vast.

ingratus unthankful. ingredior, -gressus (3) go, walk; (enter on), begin. inhonestus unseemly, disfiguring. inhumatus unburied. inicio (Rem. 5), -ieci, -iectum (3) w. acc. & dat. throw upon. inimicus adj. in hostile wrath 472. iniquus, uneven, unfair; (one’s lot, etc.) hard, cruel. iniussus unbidden. inlustris, -e renowned, distinguished. innecto, -exui, -exum (3) bind 281 n.; (metaph.) weave, contrive 609. inno (1) w. acc. swim on,float on. innumerus countless. innupta adj. f. unwed (of a woman). inolesco, -olui, -olitum (3) grow in 737—8 n. inopinus unlooked-for. inops, -opis adj. helpless. inremeabilis, -e which may not be repassed. inrumpo, -rupi, -ruptum (3) w. dat. burst into. inruo, -ui (3) rush upon (afoe). insanus mad, senseless. inscius adj. not knowing. insidiae, -arum f. pl. arnbush, hidden design. insido, -sedi, -sessum (3) w. dat. settle on. insignis, -e distinguished, glorious; w. abi. (for, with) 167, 403. 855. insisto, -stiti (3) w. acc. tread (on), set foot on. insomnium, -I. n. dream. insons, -ontis innocent. inspiro (1) w. acc. & dat. breathe into. instar indecl. n. greatness 865 n. instauro (1) repeat, renew 530 n. instituo, -ui, -utum (3) build, establish; ordain w. acc. & inf. x43instructus w. abi. equipped, arrayed. insuetus unwonted, novel. insulto (1) do outrage.

VOCABULARY insum, -esse, -fui, to be in (the relief 26). intactus untouched 38 n. intento (1) hold out (something) towards (e.g. them). inter w. acc. between, amid, among; i. se or sese with, against, etc., each other, together 160, 828. interea adv. meanwliile; 703 n. interfusus flowing between. intexo, -xui, -xtum (3) form by interlacing. intono, -ui (1) thunder [at). intra w. acc. within. intro (1) enter. intus adv. within. invado, -asi, -asum (3) w. acc. enter upon; thrust oneself into; attack. invalidus weak. inveho, -exi, -ectum (3) tr. carry or bear (in); pass. ride. invenio, -eni, -entum (4) find. invergo, -ere w. acc. & dat. cause (a liquid) to fall (on). invictus undefeated, invincible. invisus hateful. invitus adj. unwilling(ly). invius w. dat. not to be traversed (by), impenetrable (to). involvo, -Ivi, -lutum (3) wrap, cover. ipse, -a, -um, myself (thyself, etc.) ; et ipse (he) likewise, he too; (ramus) -e of itself 146, ipse suo his own 185; ipsa sub ora right under his eyes 191. ira, -ae f. anger. is, ea, id that, sts. where English has such 100 n. iste, -a, -ud that (esp. that of yours). istinc from that place of yours; iam i. 389 n. ita thus, so. Italia, -ae, f. Italy. Italus Italian; m. pl. (gen. -um 92) Italians. iter, itineris, n. way, path; journey; iter (sc. est) nobis w. acc. of goal 541 ff. n. 4663

iterum adv. a second time; i. reverti (ad) return to dwell a second time in (iterum stresses the idea of re-) 720. ito imperat, of eo. Iulus, -i, m. son of Aeneas, also called Ascanius, 789 n. Ixion, -onis, m., acc. -a 580-607w. iaceo, -ui (2) lie; (of hair) hang down. iacio, ieci, iactum (3) throw. iactans, -antis part. adj.; iactantior too prone to self-display. iacto (1) toss; -are se w. abi. boast oneself in, be proud of. iam (for elision in 629 seep. 110, n. 2) now, already; presently; iam... iam now . ..now; i. nunc even now; iam iam lapsura on the point of sliding down 602; i. inde, istinc 385 n., 389 n. iampridem w. present (I have) long (done so and so). ianitor, -oris, m. door-keeper. ianua, -ae, f. door, portal. iecur, iecoris or iecinoris, n. liver. iubeo, iussl, iussum (2) bid, enjoin. iucundus pleasant. iudex, -icis, m. judge. iugerum, -I, n. a juger (a measure of land, about f of an acre). iugum, -I, n. yoke; ridge ; (rowers') bench 411-12 n.; (pl.) yohed beasts, team 804. iungo, iunxi, iunctum (3) tr. join; -ere dextram (sc. dextrae meae) to knit thy hand to mine, clasp thy hand 697. luno, -onis, f. Juno, wife of Jupiter; I. inferna 138 n. Iuppiter, lovis, m. fupiter, fove. iuro (1) swear; w. acc. swear by 324 n., 351. iussum, -i, n. command. iustitia, -ae, f. righteousness. iuvencus, -i, m. steer, bull. iuvenis, -is, youth, young man, warrior. iuvo, iuvi, iutum (1) tr. and absol. to please; iuvat w. inf. it is joy (487), thou artpleased (135).

E

VOCABULARY iuxta adv. & (w. acc. after or before it) prep. near. labes, -is f. stain, blot. labor and (older form) labos, -oris, m. toil, distress; fruit of toil or cause of distress 27. labor, lapsus sum (3) slip, glide, glide down; lapsa gliding down 310. Lacaena, -ae, f. Laconian woman, Spartan woman 511 n. lacer, -era, -erum torn. lacrima, -ae, f. a tear. lacrimo (1) weep. lacus, -us, m. lake, pool [therivers of the lower world form lakes or pools]. laetor (1) w. abi. rejoice (in)-, w. acc. & inf. (non) me sum laeta¬ tus accepisse it was no joy to me that I had received 392. laetus adj. joyful(ly); w. abi. rejoicing in. laevus adj. on the left; laeva see dextera. lampas, -adis, f., acc. -a torch. lanio (1) mangle, lacerate. Laodamia, -ae, f. 442 ff. n. Lapithae, -um or -arum, m. pl., acc. -as, the Thessalian tribe to which Ixion & Pirithous belonged. largus spacious, abundant. lateo, -ui (2) lie, or be, hid. latex, -icis, m. liquid, water 715 n. Latinus Latin, of Latium-, Lati¬ nus, i, m. Latinus, king of Latium 891 (84 n., 756—87 n.). Latium, -i, n. Latium, the part of Italy inhabited by the Latins. latratus, -us, m. barking. latro (1) bark. latus wide, spacious; late widely, far and wide\ longe lateque/ar and wide. latus, -eris, n. side, flank. Laurens, -entis Laurentine (belonging to the ager Laurens SE. of the Tiber mouth; used 891 of the peoples of Latium, or of Central Italy).

laurus, -I or -us, f. laurei or bay. laus, -dis, f. praise; pl. glory. Lavinium, -i, a city founded by Aeneas (756-87 n.). lavo, lavi, lautum (1) tr. wash. laxo (1) loosen, make roomy, ciear. lego, legi, lectum (3) choose; gather-, survey, review 755. lenio, -Ivi or -ii, -Itum (4) soothe; -Ibat was seeking to soothe 468. lenis, -e gentle. lentus pliant. Lerna, -ae, f. a town, perhaps also a lake, in Greece, S. of Argos. Lethaeus adj. of Lethe, i.e. of Forgetting, cf. 715 n. letum, -i, n. death. Leucaspis (gen. prob. -idos) acc. -im, m. 334. levis, -e adj. light, hovering. lex, -egis, f. law. libamen, -inis, n.; -a prima firslfruits (of an offering). Liber, -eri, m. an Italian god identified with Bacchus (Bac¬ chus is meant 805). libertas, -atis, f. freedom. Libya, -ae, f. Libya [i.e. Carthage] 694, 843. Libycus Libyan, from etc. Libya 338 n. licet, -uit (-itum est) (2) impers. it is allowable; w. subj. 1. ter¬ reat he may terrify 400—2 n.; w. de 501—2 n. licet conjunction w. subj. albeit, although 802. lilium, -i, n. lily. limen, -inis, n. threshold, entrance; haec -ina see hic. limes, -itis, m. path, way; recto -ite in straight line, straight 900. limus, -1, m. slime. lingua, -ae, f. tongue. linquo, liqui (3) tr. leave. liqueo, -ere to be liquid; -ens part. adj. watery. liquidus ciear. litus, -oris, n. shore, beach.

VOCABULARY lituus, -I, m. a trumpet with curved end, horn. liuidus adj. of leaden colour, leaden. locus, -i, m., pl. usually loca n., in 638 loci m., place, region; (proxima) lucis loca (the nearest) place for life in the daylight 761 n. longaevus aged. longe at or to a distance, far. longus long; per iuga -a along the length of the benches. loquor, locutus (3) speak. luceo, luxi (2) shine, glitter. luctor (1) wrestle. luctus, -us, m. mourning, sorrow. lucus, -i, m. grove. ludibrium, -i, n. plaything, sport. ludus, -I, m. sport; ludo in sport. lugeo, luxi, luctum (2) mourn; -entes campi 441 n. lumen, -inis, n. light, daylight; day 356, 735; pl. eyes. luna, -ae, f. moon, moonlight. lustro (1) purify by lustration (229 n.); survey, review. lux, -ricis i. light, light of day. luxus, -us, m. extravagance. Lycius Lycian, of Lycia (a part of SW. Asia Minor). mact5 (1) sacrifice (tr.). madidus wet. Maeotius Maeotie, i.e. of the Maeotae, who lived by the Sea of Azov (palus Maeotis), maestus sorrowful. magis adv. more. magister, -tri, m. master (i.e. controller, director); pilot. magnanimus adj., gen. pl. -um 307, high-souled. magnus compar, maior sup. maximus great, mighty; (vox) loud; maior videri perh. taller to the view 49 n.; maxima eldest 605. malesuadus adj. that prompts to evil. malignus grudging 270-2 n. 4663

K

I31

malum, -I, n. evil, trouble, woe; pl. misdeeds 527. malus evil, bad; m. pl. as subst. 542. mandatum, -I, n. order, injunc¬ ti on. mando (1) commit, entrust. maneo, mansi, mansum (2) intr. & tr. remain ; await, be destined [for), be in store. manes, -ium, m. pl. spirit[s) of the dead 506 n.; the spirit world 896; 743 n. manus, -us f. hand, pl. hands, arms, grasp 701; uncis -ibus withbent fingers; band, company (-us .. passi 660, cf. 581«.); manu by might, by violence; manus mighty deeds 683 n. mare, -is, n. sea. marmor, -oris, n. marble. marmoreus gleaming, 729 n. Marpesius adj. of Marpessos 469-71 n. Mars, -rtis, m. the War God; 165 n. Massyli, -orum or -um, m. pl., see 60 n. mater, -tris, f. mother. maternus adj. of [a) mother, his mother’ s. Mavors, -rtis, m. a form of the name of Mars. Mavortius adj. of Mars, son of Mars 777. meatus, -us, m. going, path. mecum, see cum. medico (1) medicate, drug. medium, -I, n. the middle. medius adj. middle, in the midst; in between; -us hostis, -um aequor the midst of the enemy, of the sea; inter -a cornua in the midst between the horns 245; -um hunc habet has him in its midst 667; -a omnia ali that lies between 131. Medon, -ontis, m., acc. -onta 483. mei, mellis, n. honey. melior, -us adj. better; melius adv. membrum, -I n. litnb. memini, -isse (perf.), imperat. 2

VOCABULARY 2nd sg. memento, remember, be mindful. memor, -oris, adj. w. gen. mind¬ ful, remembering; cape -or receive and remember 377; sui -es aliquos fecere made some remember them 664. memoro (1) tr.makemention (of), speak (of). mens, mentis, f. mind, intellect 11 n. mensa, -ae f. table. mensis, -is, m. month. mentum, -i, n. chin. mereor, -itus (2) & mereo, -ui, -itum (2) eam, deserve; merendo by Service done 664. mergo, -rsi, -rsum (3), tr. w. acc. & abi. plunge, sink, drown (in); (metaph.) engulf, overwhelm, 615, etc. metallum, -I, n. metal. metuo, -ui, -utum (3) fear. metus, -us, m .fear. meus my, mine; -i my sons (i.e. descendants) 716-17«. mi = mihi dat. of ego. mille indecl. adj. a thousand. minae, -arum, f. pl. threats. Minerva, -ae, f. an Italian goddess identified with the Greek Pallas Athene. minime, adv. (7ess than anything else], not at ali, in no wise. ministerium, -i, n. Service. ministro (1) w. acc. manage; w. dat. attend to. Minoius adj. of Minos. minores, -um., m. pl. [younger persons], posterity. Minos, -ois, m. an early king of Crete. Minotaurus, -i, m. the Minotaur 14-41 n. minus adv. less; nec minus, see nec. miror (1) tr. & intr. wonder (at). mirus wonderfui; modis -is wonderfully (i.e. a heightened ‘very much', ‘strongly’, etc.) 737-8 n. misceo, -scui, -xtum (2) tr. mix;

miscere se w. abi. mix, mingle (with) (intr.). Misenus, -i, m. a Trojan trumpeter; mons -us 234 n. rniser, -era, -erum wretched, hapless; superi, miserrimus; -um as exciam. 21 n.; m. as subst. -o to thy hapless comrade; 736 express by 'alas!' with ‘from them'. misereor, -itus (2) w. gen. pity. miseror (1) tr. pity, -a.tus pitying (perh. struck by pity (for))’, -andus 882-3 nmitto, misi, missum (3) send, dismiss; offer, make (offerings to the dead). modus, -i, m. measure, manner. moenia, -ium, n. pl. city walls; walled city, stronghold. moles, -is, f. mass. molior, -itus (4) do, or work at, with effort; (iter) strain forward on. molliter adv., comp. -lius, with flowing grace. moneo -ui, -itum (2) warn. monimentum, -i, n. that which brings a person or thing to mind, memorial; 26, 512 n. monitus, -us, m. [a putting into one’s mind]; -us divum intimation from the gods. Monoecus, -i (the Lone dweller) epithet of the Hercules who had a shrine at, and was lord of, Portus Monoeci, now Monaco. mons, -ntis, m. hili, height (often of something much less than a mountain); montibus from the heights 182. monstro (1) show, point out. monstrum, -i, n. portent, strange thing 285 n.; strange creature 729 n. mora, -ae, f. delay; haud -a (sc. est) ['there is no delay’, a paren¬ thesis] without delay. morbus, -I, m. disease. moribundus dying, in death’sgrip. moror (1) delay (tr. & intr.); linger, stay; nec -antur and perform without delay 40.

VOCABULARY mors, -rtis, f. death 371 n. mortalis, -e mortal; -e (advl. acc.) see sonans, mortifer, -era, -erum deadly. mos, moris, m. custom, tradition (perh. a good tradition in 852); more (parentum) after the cus¬ tom-, mores character {s) 683 n. moveo, -ovi, -otum (2) tr. move, touch, affect, shake; stir up 813, 820; pass. w. acc. respect 470; pass. quake 256; he disturbed; be wroth 399. mugio, -ivi or -ii, -itum (4) roar. multum adv. much. multus adj. much, many; (um¬ bra) deep; n. pl. [many things i.e.] many evils 737-8 n. munus, -eris, n. Service, task, duty; m. divae (gen.) duty to the goddess 637; gift. murmur, -is, n. buzz, hum. murus, -i, m. wall, rampart. Musaeus, -i, m. 667 n. Mycenae, -arum, f. pl. 838 n. myrteus adj. of myrtle. nam for. namque for. nares, -ium f. pl. noslrils. nascor, natus (3) to be born; natus w. abi. born or son {of), sprung {from). nata, -ae, f. daughter. natus, -I, m. son. navis, -is, f. ship. navita, -ae, f. (old form of nauta) boatman. ne not in wish, command, etc.; ne ... ne (emphatic repetition) nay ... do not 832; {in order) that. . . not, lest. -ne enclitic interrogative particle translated only by the form of the English sentence. nec, neque nor, and . . . not-, neque (nec) . . . neque (nec) neither . . . nor; neque enim surely . . . not, for not; nec minus and equally, and... also; nec non likewise, also; nec vero and assuredly . . . not.

necesse n. adj.; n. est w. inf. or acc. & inf. it must needs be, cannot but be. nefandus abominable, hideous, unholy. nefas indecl. n. sin, {a thing) unlawful. nemo (also nemo later) acc. -minem (gen. not used in classical Latin) no one, nobody. nemus, -oris, n. vtiood, grove. nepos, -otis, m. grandson; pl. children’s children, descendants. neque, see nec. nequeo, -ire, -ivi (defect.) to be unable. nequiquam adv. without effect. nescio, -ivi or -ii, -itum (4) not to know. neu nor in prohibitions. ni if. . . not, unless. niger, -gra, -grum black. nigro (1) tobe black; w. acc. resp. 243nihil indecl. n. nothing. Nilus, -i, m. the Nile. nimbus, -I, m. storm cloud. nimium adv. too much, too; (memini) too well. niteo, -ui (2) shine, be sleek; for 895 see perficio. nitor, nixus or nisus (3) w. abi. rest, lean {upon). niveus, snowy, snow-white. noceo, -ui, -itum (2) w. dat. work harm. nocturnus adj. of the night 252 n. nodus, -i, knot; -6 dependet hangs knotted {by or from a knot) 301. nomen, -inis, n. name; -e by name; ire in -en 758 n. (perh. race, stock); (in apposition to the name used to mean the man) 763-7 w.; pl. namedplaces 776. non not. nondum not yet. nos see ego. nosco, novi, notum (3), shortened 3rd pl. perf. norunt,getto know, recognize; perf. know. noster, -tra, -trum our, ours.

134

VOCABULARY

notus known, familiar. Notus, -I, m. south wind novem nine. novies, adv. nine times. novus new; strange; -issimus last. nox, -ctis, f. night, darkness; -cte in darkness. noxius harmful. nubila, -orum, n. pl. adj. as subst. clouds. nullus adj. no; -a movet imago 405 n.; -us, -ius m. sg. as subst. no one (regularly used to supply gen. & abi. for nemo) in dat. 673 cf. 563. numen, -inis, n. divine will, consent, or power 264-7 n■ >' deity. numerus, -i, m. number 545 n.; pl. numbers, rhythm 646 n. Numitor (-or 768), -oris, m. 756-87 M. nunc now. nuntius, -I, m. tidings. nuper lately, of late. Nysa, -ae, f. 805 «. 6 interj. O, oh. ob w. acc. on account of, for. obeo, -Ire, -ii (or Ivi), -itum, tr. take part in; visit 801 n., cf. 58 n.; cover, envelop. obicio (Rem. 5) -iecl, -iectum (3) w. acc. & dat. throw before. oblivium, -I, n. forgetfulness. obloquor, -locutus w. dat. utter in accompaniment to. obmutesco, -utul (3) fall silent. oborior, -ortus (4) (tears) rise to the eyes. obruo, -ul, -utum (3) overwhelm. obscurus dark, dim 453-4«.; (ibant) -i dim figures 268 n.; n. pl. -a dark sayings 100. observo (1) watch. obsto, -stiti (r) w. dat. stand in the way (of), be a hindrance io 64 n. obuncus hooked. obverto, -tl, -sum (3) w. acc. & dat. tum towards. obvius adj. w. dat. meeting.facing. occupo (1) take or do before an-

other or before one is prevented 424 n., (aditum) hasten to enter or approach. occurro, -rri, -rsum (3) w. dat. meet, come before. oculus, -I, eye. odoratus scented. offa, -ae, f. lump, cake. offero, offerre, obtuli, oblatum, w. acc. & dat. present; oppose (to) 291. oleo, -ul (2) emit a smell, smell (intr.). oleum, -i, n. oil. oliva, -ae, f. olive (tree). olivum, -I, n. olive oil. olle old form of ille. Olympus, -I, m. Olympus, the home of the gods, originally a mountain; 579, 782 clearly the sky, heaven, cf. 586. omniparens, -entis, f. adj. allmother, mother of ali. omnipotens, -entis, adj. allpowerful. omnis, -e ali, every; n. pl. -ia (-ia 33) everything. opaco (1) shade, overshadow. opacus shady; -a viarum 633 n. operio, -rui, -rtum (4) cover; n. pl. -rta secret places. opimus rich, splendid 855 n optimus best, most worthy. opto (1) desire, choose, 203-4 n. opus, -eris, n. work, production; task, labour; -us (est) w. abi. there is need of. ora, -ae, f. coast. orbis, -is, m. circle, cycle. Orcus, -i, m. 273 n. ordior, orsus (4) begin. ordo, -inis, m. row, file; ordine in succession, one after another. orgia, -orum, n. pl. ecstatic rites. origo, -inis, m. source, birth. ornus, -I, f. rowan, mountain ash. oro (1) tr. & intr. entreat; w. subj. (without ut) 76; w. nom. & inf. 313 n.; (causas) plead. Orontes, -I, m., acc. -en, 334. Orpheus, -ei or -ei, m. 119-23 n. ortus, -us, m. ris>i 551Phoebus, -I, m. see Apollo. Phoenissus adj. Phoenician. Phrygius adj. Phrygian; -ae f. pl. as sb. Phrygian (i.e. Trojan) women. piaculum, -I, n. purifyingsacrifice 153; atonement and guilty deed (of which the atonement is the price and equi valent) 569 n. picea, -ae, f. pitch-pine. pietas, -atis, f. righteousness, goodness, (dutiful)iovegn.,8j8-8on.

pinguis, -e,fat, resinous; (soil, oil) rich. pio (1) honour with propitiation 379 wPirithous, -I, m., 580-607 n. (119-23 n.). pius, good, righteous, 9 n. placidus calm, stili, peaceful. plaudo, -si, -sum (3) slrike; (choreas) beat out. plenus full. plurimus superi, adj. most, very many, very much; (turba) most numerous 667; in rich abundance 299, 659. plus n. sg. adj., pl. plures, -ra more; -ra more words 408. poena, -ae, f. punishment, penalty (gen. deum appointed by the gods). Poenus Carthaginian; -us, I, m. as sb. Pollux, -ucis, m. 119-23 n. Polyboetes, m., acc. -en 484. pondus, -eris, n. weight. pono, posui, positum (3) tr. place, lay; build; establish; w. acc. & dat. assign 611. pontus, -I, m. sea. popularis, -e, adj. of the citizens; (aurae) of popular favour 816. populo (1) lay waste, ravage. populus, -I, m. people, state. porrigo, -rexi, -rectum (3) tr. stretch out. porro adv. in the distance 711 n. porta, -ae, f. gate. portitor, -oris, m. controlling officer, centroller 298 n. porto (1) carry. portus, -us, m. harbour. posco, poposci (3) tr. demand, ask for, claim. possum, posse, potui to be able, (I can); potes omnia thou hast ali power 117. post adv. after, afterward; longo p. tempore [afterwards by a long while] after long lapse of time. postquam conj. after, when. postumus last-born. potens, -entis mighty, powerful.

VOCABULARY potior, -Iri, -Itus w. abi. become master of, gain. poto, -avi, potum (potatum) (i) drink. praeceps, -cipitis, adj. headlong; in -ps headlong down. praeceptum, -I, n. injunction. praecipio, -cepi, -ceptum (3) forestall; command, appoint. praecipito (1) fall headlong. praecipue adv. above ali. praeda, -ae, f. prey; booty, prize. praeficio, -feci, -fectum (3) w. acc. & dat. set over. praemitto, -misi, -missum (3) send before or in front. praenato (1) w. acc. take (its) ■uuatery way past. praepes, -etis, adj. fleet, swift. praescius w. gen. foreknowing. praesideo, -sedi (2) w. dat. guard, protecl. praestans, -antis, adj. excellent; w. inf. 165 n. praesto, -stiti, -stitum & -statum (1) stand before, excel; praestat it is better (w. inf.) 39 n. praetendo, -di, -tum (3) stretch before; praetentus w. dat. fronting, extending in front of. praeterea adv. besides, moreover. praeterlabor, -lapsus (3) w. acc. flow past. praetexo, -ul, -xtum (3) fringe, line. pratum, -I, n. meadow. preces, -um, f. pl. entreaties. precor (1) entreat. prehendo or prendo, -endl, -ensum (3) grasp. premo, -essi, -essum (3) press, weigh down, cover, hold fast; close; (vestigia) check, curb) 80 n. prenso (1) grasp at, clutch at. pretium, -I, price, bribe. Priamides, -ae, m., acc. -en, son of Priam. primum, adv. first) ut p., see ut. primus, adj. first, foremost, earliest; -i solis new-born sun 255 n. -am urbem infant city 810 n.;

-is faucibus, -o mense (at) the beginning of the approach, of the month 273, 453-4 n.; limine -o [threshold which is the first part] entering in of the threshold 427. principium, -I, n. beginning; -6 first of ali 214, 724 n. prior, -us, compar, adj. first (of two). priscus ancient, old-world. pristinus former, of earlier days. prius, adv. before, first. prius . . . quam conj. before. pro w. abi. for, on behalf of) for the sake of 821. procer, -eris, m. leading man, chief. Procris, f., acc. -im 442 lf. n. procul adv. far (off), at a distance; apart 9-11 n., 651 n. procumbo, -cubui, -cubitum (3) sink down. prodeo, -Ire, -ii (or -Ivi) -itum, go or come ( forth or) forward. prodigium, -I, n. portent. profanus, unholy, not holy. profero, -ferre, -tuli, -latum, tr. push forward, extend. profundus deep. progenies, -ei, f. stock, descendants. prohibeo, -ui, -itum, w. inf. prevent. proicio (Rem. 5), -iecl, -iectum (3) w. abi. cast or fling away (from). proles, -is, f. offspring, progeny, descendant(s). promitto, -misi, -missum (3) promise. propago (Virgil has also prop-), -inis, f. race. propere, adv. quickly. propinquo (1) w. dat. draw near to. propior, -us, compar, adj. near er. proprius adj. lastingly ours (theirs, etc.). prora, -ae, f. prow. prosequor, -secutus (3) w. acc. & abi. attend, escort (with), speed (with).

VOCABULARY Proserpina, -ae, f. Proserpine, Queen of the lower world. prospicio, -spexi, -spectum (3) tr. see (at some distance), descry; w. acc. & inf. 385. protinus adv. right on, continuously. proximus superi, adj. next, nearest. pubes, -is, f. youth (collective), warriors. puella, -ae, f. girl. puer, -eri, m. boy, child (N.B. ‘child’ not as offspring, but as young human being). pugna, -ae, f. fight, battle. pugno (1) fight; -nando in fighting 660. pulcher, -chra, -chrum beauteous, fair; superi, -errimus. pulso (1) strike; eadem -at strikes out the same music 647. pulsus, -us, m. beat; cornipedum p. equorum [beat of hornyhoofed horses], beat of horses’ horny hoofs 591. puppis, -is, f. poop, stem; boat. purpureus adj. purple; radiant, 640-1 n., 883-6 n. purus pure; (hasta) unsteeled. puto (r) think; w. acc. of predicate 361; 719-21 n. pyra, -ae, f. pyre. qua indef. adv. in some way, by some means (qua in 95-6 n. is rei. adv. by the way by which). quadrigae, -arum, f. pl. team of four, four-horsed chariot. quaero, -sivi or -sil, -situm (3) look for, seek; w. inf. 614; seek to know, inquire into 868. quaesitor, -oris, m. president (of a law-court). qualis, -e, rei. & interrog. adj. of such a kind as, (such) as 453— 4 n.; what nianner of? quam rei. & interrog. (exciam.) adv. as; how (grcaily); than (see also antequam, prius¬ quam) ; quam multa cadunt folia as nwnerous as leaves

which fall 309 f.; in 96 if Virgil wrote quam, it is for quam viam, but the possibility of this is doubtful (95-6 n.). quamquam conj. although; w. subj. 394 (in Virgil only here), quando conj. when ; seeing that. quantum adv. [to the extent to which], so far as 731; see tantum. quantus rei. & interrog. (exclamatory) adj. (as gr e at, etc.) as (see suspectus); how great; (instar) what. quartus fourth. quasso (1) brandish. quatio (no perf.) quassum (3) shake; fiog forward. quattuor four. -que and; -que . . . -que (both) . . . and; where we say either . . . or 892 (both shunning and enduring are to be used, but one or the other in each case); -que three times 483 (the first must be left untranslated); alii . . . -q. 616-17 nqueo, quire, quivi, defect. vb. to be able (I can). quercus, -us, f. oak, oak-garland. qui, quae, quod, rei. pron. who, which, what; and or but he, etc. (often English uses simply ‘he’ etc.); w. subjunct. seeing that he 590; quae turba the crowd of these 611; ad quae to these words 509; quod minime reris [a thing that thou in no way expectest] ‘—most unlooked-for chance' 97. qui interrog. & indef., see quis, quid, adv. why? quies, -etis, f. rest, slumber. quiesco, -evi, -etum (3), find peace, rest. quin, adv. nay (more); q. et nay even, nay also. quinquaginta fifty. Quirinus, -I, m. 855 n. quis (qui), (quae), quid (quod), interrog. & exciam, pron. who, what; quem fugis? from whom

VOCABULARY fleest thou? (i.e. surely not from me?) 466; quae . . . cupido {what is it? i.e. how strange it is!) 719-21 n. quis (qui), (quae or qua), quid (quod), indef. pron. someone, some, any; quis a man 141, 568; ne quid . . . nocerent lest . . . should do some harm 694. quisquam, quicquam, anyone, anything; (puer) any. quisque, quaeque, quidque (quodque) each (man, etc.). quisquis, quidquid, whoever, whatever. quo adv. whither, to which. quo abi. n. sg. of qui; q. magis in order that . . . the more (i.e. by that more). quod [with regard to which] wherefore 363 n.) q. ... si but if. quondam once, formerly; one day 876 n. quoque adv. also, too; nunc q. iam already now as later 816. quotannis adv. every year. rabidus adj. raging. rabies (gen. very rare) f. madness. radius, -i, m. spoke; rod 849-50 n. (for drawing figures in sand). ramus, -i, m. bough. rapidus adj. sweeping, rushing, snatching. rapio, -pui, -ptum (3) snatch, sweep (away); raid (a place) 8 n.; -ptis auribus with the ears reft away 495 n. ratis, -is, f. boat, ship. raucus hoarse-sounding. rebellis, -e, war-renewing 857-8 m. recens, -entis, fresh, new; newly built or piled 874; w. a 450; w. abi. 674 n. recenseo, -sui, -sum, (2) count over, survey. recipio, -cepi, -ceptum (3) tr. take or get back 818 n.; withdraw, get away. recolo, -colui, -cultum (3) go over or consider anew. rectus straight.

recubo, -are, lie. reddo, -didi, -ditum (3) give back ; bring back, reproduce 768; utter in return, (responsum) return; pass. to begiven back or restored, restor e oneself 18, 545. redeo, -ire, -ivi or -ii, -itum, come or go back; itque reditque viam goes to and pro 122. redimo, -emi, -emptum (3) buy off, redeem. reductus part. adj. withdrawn. refero, -ferre, -rettuli, relatum, bring back ; bring duly 152. refigo, -xi, -xum (3) unfix, unnail. refringo, -fregi, -fractum (3) break off. refugio, -fugi (3) flee away. refulgeo, -Isi (2) shine out. refundo, -udi, -usum (3) pour or thrust back; refusus overflowing, m overflow 107 n. regificus regal. regina, -ae, f. queen; princess 28. regio, -onis, f. region, quarter. regno (1) (usu. intr.) tr. reign over; -andam acceperit Albam receives [shall have received] royal power over Alba 770. regnum, -i, realm, kingdom; haec durissima -a most stem sway here 566. rego, rexi, rectum (3) guide, control, rule. relinqud, -liqui, -lictum (3) leave; forsake; leave undone 509; leave disregarded 841. reliquiae (also re-), -arum, f. pl. remains. remigium, -i, n. outfit of oars, oarage. remugio, -ire, wake booming echoes 99remus, -i, m. oar. renascor, -natus (3) grow again, be born in place of what is gone; (fibris) -natis the new growth of 600. reor, reri, ratus, think, expect. reperio, repperi, repertum (4) find; get, gain, 610 n., 718.

VOCABULARY repono, -posui, positum (3) (perf. part. also -postus) duly place; put away, hide. reposco, -ere ask as due, claitn. requies, -etis, f. rest, respite. requiro, -sivi or -sii, -situm (3) tr. seek out, seek to know; tum back to 366. res, rei, f. thing; state; plight; r. egenae 91 n.; dubiae r. the hour of crisis 196. rescindo, -scidi, -scissum (3) tear down. reses, -idis adj. grown slothful. resido, -sedi (3) sink to rest. resolvo, -Ivi, -lutum (3) unravel; relax. respicio, -spexi, -spectum (3) look back. respondeo, -spondi, -sponsum (2) reply; answer, correspond 23; illi -et curis meets her love with his. responsum, -i, n. answer, oracle. restituo, -ui, -utum (3) restore; -is rem art the restorer of the state 846. revello, -velli, -vulsum (3), tear off. revertor, -versus (3) return, go back. reviso, -ere, tr. see again, come back to. revoco (1) bring back. revolvo, -vi, -utum (3), roll back, restore. rex, regis, m. king. Rhoeteus, adj. of Rhoeteum 505 n. rigo (1) mater, bedew. rimor (x) explore, search thoroughly. rimosus leaky 414 m. ripa, -ae, f. bank, shore. rite adv. duly. rivus, -I, m. stream. robur, -oris, n. oak (timber). rogus, -i, m. pyre. Roma, -ae, f. Rome. Romanus Roman; m. as subst. (a) Roman. Romulus, I, m. the founder of Rome.

Romulus adj. of Romulus 876. ros, roris, m. dew, sprinkled mater. roseus, rosy. rostrum, -I, n. beak. rota, -ae, f. wheel. rumpo, rupi, ruptum (3) break (through), shatter. ruo, rui, rutum (3) intr. (also tr.) rush, rush on, pour. rupes, -is, f. cliff, rock. rursus adv. (going, bringing, etc.) back, again. sacer, -cra, -erum sacred, dedicated 484 n.; perii, accursed 573 n.; n. pl. -cra rites, sacri¬ fices, sacred emblems. sacerdos, -otis, com. priest, priestess. sacro (1) w. acc. & dat. dedicate, consecrate. saeculum, -i, n. generation, age. saepe adv. often; saepius full often. saeta, -ae, f. hair (of oxen). saevio, -ii, -itum (4) to be wroth. saevus savage, grim, ruthless; w. abi. instr. 824. sal, salis, m. salt, sea. Salmoneus, acc. -ea 580-607 n. saltem adv. at least. saltus, -us, m. leap; -u venit came leaping 515. salus, -utis, f. deliverance. sanctus, holy. sanguis, -inis, m. blood, race; offspring 835; Assaraci sanguinis adjectival phrase as (a scion) of Assaracus’ race 778. satis adv. (often used adjectivally) enough. Saturnus, -i, m. Saturn, king of Latium in the Golden Age. satus see sero, saxum, -i, n. rock, stone. sceleratus guilty. scelus, -eris n. crime, guilt. scilicet adv. clearly, doubtless. scindo, scidi, scissum (3) split. Scipiades, -ae, m., acc. pl. -as son of the Scipios 836 ff. n. scrupeus rugged.

VOCABULARY Scylla, -ae, f. a monster (woman above, a group of dogs below) 286 n. se or sese (acc.) himself, herself, itself, themselves; him, etc. referring to the grammatical subject or the speaker; secum with himself, inwardly 158. seclusus participial adj. withdrawn, secluded. seco, -care, -cui, -ctum cut, cleave; viam s. make one’s way. secretus participial adj. set apart (as their place apart 478); withdrawn, secret; -a n. pl. deep retreat 10. securis, -is, f. axe. securus care-free 715 n. sed but; however; sed enim howbeit. sedeo, sedi, sessum (2) sit; pevch. sedes, -is, f. seat, resting-place, dwelling. semel adv. once. semen, -inis, n. seed, 730-1 n. semino (1) sow, engender. semper adv. always, ever. senecta, -ae, f. old age. senectus, -utis, f. old age. senior, -oris compar, adj. elderly, advanced in years. sensus, -us, m. sense 745-7 n. sentus rough, rugged. sepelio, -elivi or -elii, -ultum (4) tr. bury; pay funeral rites to ; -ultus sunk in sleep 424; m. pl. those who have received due rites 326. septem seven. septemgeminus adj. sevenfold. septeni, -ae, -a seven together, (a group of) seven. sepulcrum, -i, n. tomb\ ara -i funeral altar 177 n. sequor, secutus (3) tr. follow, seek, pursue; go or come with, attend, 62, 146, cf. 756; attach oneself to 612. serenus fine, fair (of weather); aestate s. in fine summer weather. sermo, -onis, m. speech, talk.

sero, -ui, -tum (3) join together 160-2 n. sero, sevi, satum (3) sow, satus w. abi. sprung (from), son (of). serus adj. late, too late, late in time-, seram mortem that late hour the time of death 569. servo (1) keep, keep in view, watch, guard; abide by or within 400-2 n. sese see se. seu .. . seu whether . . . or. severus stem, grim. si if; introduces wish 187; if haply (in case, i.e. in the hope that, to see whether) 78; si quis any (that). Sibylla -ae, f. the (Cumaean) Sibyl 13 n., 56 ff. n. sic thus, so; this done (154). siccus dry. sido, sidi (3) settle. sidus, -eris, n. star, heavenly body; extra sidera i.e. outside the part of the earth which lies under the zodiac (or perhaps under the constellations we know) 795 n. signo (1) mark (out). signum, -i, n. sign; Standard. silens, -entis, participial adj. silent-, -ntes (-um 432) m. pl. the silent (i.e. the dead). silex, -icis f. (sometimes m.) flint, hard stone; crag. silva, -ae, f. forest, the wild, wild growth. similis, -e like\ superi, simillimus. Simois, -entis, m. 88 n. simplex, -icis single, unmixed. simul adv. at the same time, to¬ gether with him. simulo (1) tr. pretend-, make a likeness of, mimic; chorum -ans under pretext of a chorie dance (though a real dance, it was a feint). sine w. abi. without-, s. corpore bodiless; s. sole sunless; s. nomine nameless. singuli, -ae, -a, one by one; -a n. pl. as sb. point after point.

VOCABULARY sinister, -tra, -trum on the left, left-hand; -tra, ae, f. left hand. sino, sivi, situm (3) allow. sinus, -us, m. curve, winding. sisto, stiti, statum (3) set; uphold; stay. situs, -us, m. neglect 462. socer, -eri, m. father-in-law. socius, -I, m. comrade. sol, solis, m. sun. solacium, -i comfort, alleviation. soleo, -ere, solitus sum to be wont. solidus solid, massive; whole. solium, -i, n. throne. sollemnia, -ium, n. pl. customary offerings. solum, -I, n. ground. solus adj. alone, only; lonely; soli (incubuere) where we say for themselves only. solvo, -Ivi, -lutum (3) loose, untether; pay, render. somnium, -i, n. dream. somnus, -i, m. sleep; Vision of sleep 698 n. sonans, -antis, part. adj. buzzing, murmurous; nec mortale -ns and of voice not mortal 50. sonitus,-us, m.sound; thunder 586. sono, -ui, -itum (1) sound, ring, rustle, murmur, crash. sons, sontis, guilty. sopor, -oris, m. slumber. soporo (1) make soporific. soporus slumberous. sordidus foul. soror, -oris, f. sister. sors, -rtis, f. lot, portion 114«.; oracle; drawing of lots; sorte by lot 761 n. spargo, -rsi, -rsum (3) sprinkle, scatter. spatium, -I, n. space. species, -ei, f. appearance, look. spectaculum, -I, n. sight, gazing (at a sight). spelunca, -ae, f. cave. spero (1) hope (w. pres. inf. hope that something is so). spes, -ei, f. hope; promise (of a young person who inspires hope) 364, 875-6 n.

spiritus, -us, m. breath, spirit. spiro (1) breathe. spolio (1) w. acc. & abi. rob, bereave [of). spolium, -I, n. spoil. sponte (adverbial abi.) f.; s. sua of one's own accord. spumo (1) foam. spumosus foaming. squalor, -oris, m. unkempt, uncared-for, state; terribili -e of aspect appallingly unkempt 299. stabulo (1) have ove's stall. stabulum, -I, lair, dwelling. stagnum, -I, n. pool [see lacus], statuo, -ui, -utum (3) set up. stella, -ae, f. star. sterilis, -e, barren. sterno, stravi, stratum (3) overthrow. stimulus, -I, m. goad. stirps, -pis, f. stock, race. sto, stare, steti, statum stand; (ships) ride; to be (with the idea of staring added) 300 n.; dura silex stet were hard flint standing there 469-71 n. strages, -is, f. overthrow, carnage. strepitus, -us, m. clamour, noise, buzz. strepo, -ere, -ui resound. strideo, -ere, -di & strido, -ere, -di, creak, grind, hiss. stridor, -oris, m. clank. stringo, -inxi, -ictum (3) draw (sword). struo, -uxi, -uctum (3) build. studium, -I, n. eagerness; -6 eagerly 681. Stygius adj. Stygian; of the land of Styx 252 (132 n.). Styx, -ygis, f. 132 n., 154. sub w. acc. [to) beneath; down to or into 57S; just before 255; vv. abi. beneath, down in; s. imagine wearing a seniblance 293-

subduco, -xi, -ctum (3) tr. w. acc. & dat. withdraw[from [under]), subeo, -ire, -ii, -itum go beneath or near; w. acc. approach or

VOCABULARY enter; w. dat. take on one's shoulders 222; come next (after) 812. subicio (Rem. 5), -ieci, -iectum (3) tr. put or apply beneath; conquer. subigo, -egi, -actum (3) drive up, push off\ w. inf. constrain. subito suddenly, quickly. subitus sudden. sublimis, -e lofty 357, 719-21 n. subtraho, -traxi, -tractum, w. acc. & dat. withdraw (tr.) from. subvecto (1) convey fromthe shore. succingo, -cinxi, -cinctum (3) gird up. sulcus, -i, m. furrow. sum, esse, fui to be, exist, live; est mihi I have; est impers. w. inf. it is possible, one can 596 (but w. sit in 266 supply fas), summoveo, -movi, -motum (2) tr. remove, cause to give place. summus sup. adj. highest, most high, topmost; s. unda the crest of a wave; s. arx the summit of the citadel. sumo, sumpsi, sumptum (3) take, exact. super (-per 254 w) w. acc. above, over, upon; beyond 794; (to) high on 515 ; w. abi. above 602; high in or on. super adv. above, on or at the top 217, 221. [For 254 see super¬ fundo.] superbus 817 n. superemineo, -ere, tr. tower above. superfundo, -fudi, -fusum (3) (written as two \v0rd3 254) w. acc. & dat. pour over. superne (possibly -i) adv. from above. supero (1) surmount, cross. superus adj. (that is) above, upper; of the sky 241, 584, 750; of the upper world 128, 680; -i, m. pl. the gods above 459, 779 n.; the folh of the upper world 481, 568; -a n. pl. realms above 787. supplex, -icis, m. suppilant.

143

supplicium, -i, n. dire penalty 740; pl. horrors inflided 499. suppono, -posui, -positum (3), tr., perf. part. also suppostus 24 put under\ put (a knife) to a victim’s throat; mate (a female with a male) 24. supremus highest, last; -a nocte on Troy’s last night 502, cf. 513; -a n. pl. last rites. surgo, surrexi, surrectum (3) rise; present itself, come out 453-4 n.; spring up, grow up\ spes -entis Iuli the promise of Iulus' budding life 364. suscipio, -c€pi, -ceptum (3) undertake; catch; take up (the discourse). suspectus, -us, m. upward gaze\ tantum . . . quantus (est) -us as far as we gaze up 579. suspendo, -pendi, -pensum (3) tr. hang up, make doubtful (see teneo). suspicio, -pexi, -pectum (3) tr. look up at. sutilis, -e stitched 414 n. suus his, her, its (own), their (own); (emphatic) one’sproper, due 142 cf. 152; -i m. pl. their own people, (their) hin and friends 611; his descendants 681. Syrtis, -is, f.: pl. the Syrtes 60 n. tabes, -is, f. wasting. taced, -ui, -itum (2) intr. to be silent, dumb, soundless; tr. to pass over in silence; tacitus unmentioned, unnoted 841 n. tacitus part. adj. see taceo; adj. silent 386 n. taeda, -ae, f. pine-brand. talis, -e such, such as this; -ia n. pl. (abi. 40) such words (dealings, horrors, etc.) as these. tam so (of degree); haec t. dira cupido this ill-boding desire 373, cf. 721 & 719-21 n. tamen nevertheless, ali the sarne. tandem at length. tantum adv. only; so greatly, so

V OCABULARY much; -um ... quantum just so far as 199 f.; bis -um twice as far. tantus sogreat, so strong, this great (188); -um n. so much (and no more) 262; (w. gen.) so great a space (of) 801; in tantum: see in w. acc.; -o by so much, -o magis so much the more. tard5 (1) make slow, clog. tardus adj. hampering, clogging. Tarquinius, -i, m. (an adjectival form) Tarquin; -os reges the ['Tarquin kings] royal Tarquins 808-25 nTartareus Tartarean, of Tartarus. Tartarus, -i, m.; pl. -a n. Tar¬ tarus, realms of Tartarus, (the lower world, and especially the place of punishment there). taurus, -I, m. bull. tectum, -I, n. roof, roofed place, building; abode, covert. tego, texi, tectum (3) cover, conceal. tellus, -uris, f. land, earth. telum, -I, n. missile, dart; -a manusque the dart sped by the hands 57. temero (1) violate, desecrate. temno, -ere, tr. think lightly of, defy. templum, -i, n. tempie; pl. temple, temple-buildings; also temples of the head. tempus, -oris, n. time, situation; t. (est) w. inf. it is time (to); pl. (periods of time; we may say) days. tenax, -acis (abi. -I) adj. gripping. tendo, tetendi, tentum or tensum (3) slretch (out); t. iter direct one’s course 240; without iter 198, 388, 684; w. acc. of goal 696. tenebrae, -arum, f. pl. darkness. tenebrosus dark. teneo, -ui, -tum (2) tr. hold, clasp; possess; occupy, stand in, dwell or sojourn in; te suspensum t. keep thee in doubt or uncertainty 722.

tenuis, -e thin, slight. tenus see hactenus, tepidus warm. ter thrice. teres, -etis adj. well rounded, smooth {and) round. tergum, -i, n. back. terra, -ae, f. land, earth; region, countryside; spot of earth, place 383, 776; pl. the earth {[ali] lands) 782, 869. terrenus, earthy, earthly. terreo, -ui, -itum (2) terrify, scare. terribilis, -e, dreadful. tertius, third. testor (1) bear witness. Teucer, -eri, m. a mythical king of Troy. Teucri, -um, m. pl. Teucrians [i.e. Trojans]. thalamus, -i, m. marriage-chamber, woman’s chamber. Theseus, -ei or -ei, m., acc. -ea 119-23«. Threicius Thracian. Thybris, (-idis) m., acc. -im the Tiber 88 n. Tiberinus, -i, m. the Tiber. tigris, -is or -idis, m. & f. tiger. timeo, -ui (2) fear-, w. inf. (i.e. shrink with fear from doing) 324-

timidus timid, fearful. timor, -oris, m. fear. Titanius, adj. Titanian, of Titans 725 «.; -a pubes the warrior Titans 580-607 n. Tityos, -yl, m., acc. -on 580607 «. tollo, sustuli, sublatum (3) lift, raise; exalt; take on board 370. tondeo, totondi, tonsum (2) tr. graze or feed upon. torqueo, -rsi, -rtum (2) tr. tum [about), roll, twist. torrens, -entis adj. scorching, boiling (of heat and of agitated water). torus, -i, m. cushion, couch; ripa¬ rum -os 674 n. torvus fierce; -a n. pl. 467 n. tot indecl. adj. so many.

VOCABULARY totidem indecl. adj. to the same number, the same number of. totiens adv. so many times. totus whole, entire\ t. antro, etc. over the whole den, etc. 423, 495 n., 886; -a novem iugera the whole of nine jugers, full nine jugers 596. trabs, -abis, f. beam. traho, -axi, -actum (3) tr. draw, drag\ take with one; (time) draw out, spend (in long action). traicio (Rem. 5) -iecl, -iectum (3) tr. cross. trames, -itis, m. path. trano (1) tr. cross (water by boat). trans w. acc. across. transmitto, -misi, -missum (3) intr. & tr. pass over; (cursum) 313 «• _ transporto (1) carry across 327-8«. tremefacio, -feci, -factum (3) make to tremble. tremo, -ere, -ui, tremble, quake. tremor, -oris, m. shiver. trepido (1) be agitated. trepidus agitated. tres (acc. tris), tria, three. tricorpor, -oris, adj. three-bodied. trifaux, -cis, adj. triple-throated. triplex, -icis, adj. threefold. tristis, -e, sad; stem. Triton, -onis, m. Triton (a seagod). triumpho (1) celebrate a triumph; -ata Corintho celebrating a triumph over Corinth (contemporary action) 836 n. triumphus, -i, m. triumph. Trivia, -ae, f. 13 n. Troia -ae f. Troy. Troianus Trojan, of Troy. Troius Trojan. Tros, -ois, adj. Trojan. truncus, -i, m. trunk, stem. truncus adj. lopped, cut short. tu (te before vowel 307 n.) thou (emphasizes an entreaty or remonstrance 365, 367 n., 374); tibi . . . imponent shall set thee (i.e. for thee) on their heights 773; pl. vos you.

tuba, -ae, f. trumpet. tueor, -eri behold, gaze (at). tum then ; next; also; (at the time of which we speak) now 171, cf. 897. tumeo, -ere, -ui swell, heave. tumidus adj. swelling. tumultus, -us, m. confusion; a sudden attack, emergency, especially a Gallic raid 857-8 n. tumulus, -i, m. mound, hili; grave-mound, tomb. tunc then, at that time. turba, -ae, f. crowd. turbidus thick, turbid\ (loca) dim and confused 534. turbo (1) tr. trouble, throw into confusion', intr. to be troubled 800 n. turbo, -inis, m. whirling force, whirlwind. tureus, adj. of incense. turpis, -e ugly. turris, -is, f. tower. turritus adj. tower-crowned. tutus part. adj. safe, protected\ -a n. pl. safe place, safety 358 n. tuus thy, thine; -i m. pl. thypeople 868. Tyrrhenus Tyrrhene [i.e. Tuscan]. uber, -eris, n. (mother’s) breast. ubi where, when. ulciscor, -ci, ultus (3) tr. avenge. ullus any. ulmus, -I, f. elm. ulterior, -us, comp. adj. farther. ultimus, sup. adj. farthest. ultor, -oris, m. ultrix, -icis, f. avenger, (one) that punishes 274 n. ultra w. acc. beyond; adv. beyond that, farther. ultro adv. aggressively, unaddressed. ululo (1) howl. ulva, -ae, f. sedge. umbra, -ae, f. shade, shadow 510 n. umbrifer, -fera, -ferum, shady. umbro (1) shade, over shadow. umerus, -i, m. shoulder.

ia6

VOCABULARY

umquam ever. una adv. together (with him, etc.), withal. uncus adj. bent. unda, -ae, f. wave, water. unde, rei. & interrog. adv. whence, from which or whom (him), from what; unde (est) whence is . . ? (in protest that it ought not to be) 373. undo (1) rise in waves; u. flam¬ mis surge with the heat offlames. unguo, unxi, unctum (3) anoint. unus adj. one, alone; unchanging 47 n.; septem una sibi circum dabit arces will enclose her one city’s seven heights 783. urbs, -bis, f. city. urgeo, ursi (2) beset, assail. urna, -ae, f. urn (holding tablets for the drawing of lots 431-3 n. cf. 22). usquam anywhere. usque adv. right on(ward), on and on. ut rei. & interrog. (& exciam.) adv. w. indic, as; when, u. primum as soon as; how (cf. 513) 779. 855; w. subj. that, in order that, so that in clauses of purpose, indirect command, re¬ suit; in ind. quest. how 513. utcumque in whatever way. uterque, utraque, utrumque, adj. pl. both 685. utor, usus (3) w. abi. use, enjoy, have (imperat, in wish 546). vacca, -ae, f. cow. vacuus empty, 269 n. vada, -orum, n. pl. shallows; watery way. vado (3) defect. move, advance. vagina, -ae f. sheath. vagitus, -us, m. wailing (of infants). vagor (1) move about, roam. valeo, -ul, -itum (2) w. inf. to be strong, have strength (to). validus strong, mighty. valles or vallis, -is, f. valley. vanus empty, false.

varius many-coloured; varied, various. vastus desolate, wild; boundless, huge. vates, -is, com. prophet, prophetess. -ve or. vecto (1) tr. carry. veho, vexi, vectum (3) tr. carry, bear; pass. ride, sail; te quanta per aequora vectum accipio over what great spaces of sea hast thou passed to be welcomed by me 692. vel or. velamen, -inis, n. covering. Velinus, adj. of Velia 366 n. vellus, -eris, n. fleece. velum, -I, n. sail. velut adv. like as, as. vena, -ae, f. vein. vendo, -didi, -ditum (3) sell. venerabilis, -e, awe-inspiring. venio, veni, ventum (4) come; ventum erat ad limen the entrance had been reached; veni¬ entibus \to them approaching] to their approach. ventosus windy. venturum, -I, n. participle as sb. that which shall come 66. ventus, -I, m. wind. Venus, -eris, f. the goddess of love; love, passion, 26. verber, -eris, n. stroke, stripe, scourging. verbum, -I, n. word, saying. vere truly, with truth. vereor, -itus (2) fear; w. inf. fear to (do), shrink from (doing). vero, for nec vero see nec. verro, -rri, -rsum (3) sweep. verso (1) tr. toss about. vertex, -icis, m. top, head. verto, -rtl, -rsum (3) tr. tum, direct. verus true, genuine 894; -a n. pl. truth. vescor (3) defect. lake food, eat. vester, -tra, -trum your, yours. vestibulum, -i, n. fore-court, space before the door.

VOCABULARY vestigium, -I, n. footstep. vestigo (i) track, search. vestio, -Ivi or-il, -Itum (4) clothe. vestis, -is, f. robe, dress, drapery. vetitus participle forbidden. vetus, -eris old, old-established. via, -ae, f. road, way; w. gen. path to ... . vicis, -em, -e (no nom. sg.) inter_ change 535 n. vicissim adv. in tum. victor, -oris, m. victorious(ly), (as) victor. video, vidi, visum (2) w. acc. and inf. or part. see; pass. usually seem; viden ut as an interjection which does not aiiect the construction, ‘seest thou (how)' 779 n. vigor, -oris, m. force, forcefulness. vimen, -inis, n. twig. vinclum, -I, n. shortened form of vinculum, tie, bond, fetter; in -a peto come to take into bondage. vinco, vici, victum (3) overcome, prevail. vinum, -I, n. vuine. violentus boisterous, stormy. vipereus, adj. (formed) of vipers, viper-. vir, -rl m., gen. pl. virum, man, warrior. virecta, -orum, n. pl. green places, lawns. vireo, -ul (2) to be green. virga, -ae, f. rod, wand. virgo, -inis, f. maiden, virgin. virgulta, -orum, n. pl. bushes, thickets. viridis, -e green. virtus, -utis, f. valour, goodness. vis (gen. sg. not used), f. force, violence, pl. vires, -ium strength, might. vis 2nd sg. pres. indic, of volo 817. viscera, -um n. pl. flesh 253 n.;

inward parts 599; metaph. ‘heart’ 833 n. viscum, -I, n. mistletoe. visu abi. supine of video, visus, -us, m. seeing, sight. vita, -ae f. life; human life 663; principle of life 728; ghost, spirit 292 (contrast corpora 306). vitta, -ae, f. fillet. vivus alive, living. vix scarcely. voco (1) invite, summon 506 n.; bring 821. volantes, -um, f. pl. flying creatures 239, 728. volens, -ntis, part. adj. having goodwill, glad(ly). volito (1) flit. volo (1) fly, flit. volo, velle, volui, wish; mean; vellent perferre, they wish they were bearing (implies they are not bearing). volucer, -eris, -ere fleeting. voluntas, -atis, f. will, wish. voluto (1) tr. tum over, ponder. volvo, -vi, -utum (3) tr. roll 748 n.; pass. roll (intr.), writhe 581. vorago, -ginis, f. Whirlpool. vos see tu. votum, -I, n. vow, prayer. vox, vocis, f. voice; utterance, cry; tollo -em raise a cry; -e voco 247 n., (cf. 506); notis -ibus familiar tones, tones known so well 499 cf. 689. vulgo adv. commonly, everywhere 283 n. vulnus, -eris, n. wound, wounding; -era nati wounds dealt by her son. vultur, -uris, m. vulture. vultus, -us, m. face, look of the face; look.

Xanthus, -I, m. 88 n.