The Aeneid of Virgil
- -
- 100%
- +
NOTES
Book Firstl. 123—Accipiunt inimicum imbrem. Inimica non tantum hostilia sed perniciosa.—Serv. on ix. 315. The word often has this latter sense in Virgil.
l. 396—Aut capere aut captas iam despectare videntur. Henry seems unquestionably right in explaining captas despectare of the swans rising and hovering over the place where they had settled, this action being more fully expressed in the next two lines. The parallelism between ll. 396 and 400 exists, but it is inverted, capere corresponding to subit, captas despectare to tenet.
l. 427—lata theatris with the balance of MS. authority.
l. 550—Arvaque after Med. and Pal.; armaque Con.
l. 636—Munera laetitiamque die ('ut multi legunt,' says Serv.), though it has little MS. authority, has been adopted because it is strongly probable on internal grounds, as giving a basis for the other two readings, dei and dii.
l. 722—The long-since-unstirred spirit.
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe.Shakespeare, Sonnet XXX.l. 726—dependent lychni laquearibus aureis. Serv. on viii. 25, summique ferit laquearia tecti, says 'multi lacuaria legunt. nam lacus dicuntur: unde est . . . lacunar. non enim a laqueis dicitur.' As Prof. Nettleship has pointed out, this seems to indicate that there are two words, laquear from laqueus, meaning chain or network, and lacuar or lacunar from lacus, meaning sunk work.
Book Secondl. 30—Classibus hic locus. Ad equites referre debemus.—Serv. Cf. also vii. 716.
l. 76—Omitted with the best MSS.
l. 234—moenia pandimus urbis. Moenia cetera urbis tecta vel aedes accipiendum.—Serv. This is the sense which the word generally has in Virgil: it is often used in contrast with muri, or as a synonym of urbs; and in most cases city is its nearest English equivalent.
l. 381—caerula colla tumentem. Caerulum est viride cum nigro.—Serv. on vii. 198. Cf. iii. 208, where it is used of the colour of the sea after a storm.
l. 616—nimbo effulgens. est fulgidum lumen quo deorum capita cinguntur. sic etiam pingi solet.—Serv. Cf. xii. 416.
Book Thirdl. 127—freta concita terris with all the best MSS.; consita Con.
l. 152—qua se Plena per insertas fundebat Luna fenestras. The usual explanation, which makes insertas an epithet transferred by a sort of hypallage from Luna to fenestras, is extremely violent, and makes the word little more than a repetition of se fundebat. Servius mentions two other interpretations; non seratas, quasi inseratas, and clatratas; the last has been adopted in the translation.
In the passage of Lucretius (ii. 114) which Virgil has imitated here,
Contemplator enim cum solis lumina . . .Inserti fundunt radii per opaca domorum,it is possible that clatris may be the lost word.
l. 684—
Contra iussa monent Heleni, Scyllam atque CharybdimInter, utramque viam leti discrimine parvoNi teneant cursus.In this difficult passage it is probably best to take cursus as the subject to teneant (cursus teneant, id est agantur.—Serv. Cf. also l. 454 above, quamvis vi cursus in altum Vela vocet), viam being either the direct object of teneant, or in loose apposition to Scyllam atque Charybdim.
l. 708—tempestatibus actis with Rom. and Pal.; actus Con. after Med.
Book FourthTotus hic liber . . . in consiliis et subtilitatibus est. nam paene comicus stilus est. nec mirum, ubi de amore tractatur.—Serv.
l. 273—Omitted with the best MSS.
l. 528—Omitted with the best MSS.
Book Fifthl. 595—iuduntque per undas, omitted with the preponderance of MS. authority.
Book Sixthl. 242—Omitted with the balance of MS. authority.
l. 806—virtutem extendere factis with Med.; virtute extendere vires Con.
Book Eighthl. 46—Omitted with the majority of the best MSS.
l. 383—Arma rogo. Genetrix nato te filia Nerei.
Arma rogo. hic distinguendum, ut cui petat non dicat, sed relinquat intellegi . . . Genetrix nato te filia Nerei. hoc est, soles hoc praestare matribus.—Serv.
Book Ninthl. 29—Omitted with all the best MSS.
l. 122—Omitted with all the best MSS.
l. 281—
Me nulla dies tam fortibus ausisDissimilem arguerit tantum, Fortuna secundaAut adversa cadat.With some hesitation I have adopted this reading as the one open to least objection, though the balance of authority is decidedly in favour of haud adversa. For the position of tantum cf. Ecl. x. 46, according to the 'subtilior explicatio' now generally adopted.
l. 412—
Et venit adversi in tergum Sulmonis ibiqueFrangitur, et fisso transit praecordia ligno.The phrase in tergum occurs twice elsewhere: ix. 764—meaning 'on the back'; and xi. 653—meaning 'backward'; and in x. 718 the uncertainty about the order of the lines makes it possible that tergo decutit hastas was meant to refer to the boar, not to Mezentius. But the passages quoted by the editors there shew that the word might be used in the sense of 'shield'; and this being so we are scarcely justified in reading aversi against all the good MSS.
l. 529—Omitted with most MSS.
Book Tenthl. 278—Omitted with the best MSS.
l. 754—Insidiis, iaculo et longe fallente sagitta. The MS. authority is decidedly in favour of this, the more difficult reading; and the hendiadys is not more violent than those in Georg. ii. 192, Aen. iii. 223.
Book Twelfthl. 218—Tum magis, ut propius cernunt non viribus aequis.
With Ribbeck I believe that there is a gap in the sense here, and have marked one in the translation.
l. 520—Limina with Med. Munera Con.
ll. 612, 613—Omitted with the best MSS.
l. 751—Venator cursu canis et latratibus instat. I take cursu canis as equivalent to currente cane, as in i. 324, spumantis apri cursum clamore prementem.