335 Tandem pauca refert: Ego te, quæ plurima fando 340 345 Some explain prætendi by prætuli, "nor did I 333 Ego te, quæ plurima fan- | such as this." do, &c. "Never, O queen, will I deny that thou hast deserved well of me in the case of very many favours which thou canst enumerate in speaking;" i. e., that thou hast bestowed numerous favours upon me. The full form of expression would be as follows: Nunquam negabo te promeritam esse (de me, quod ad plurima beneficia), quæ plurima (beneficia) vales enumerare fando. 335 Elissa. He calls her by a more endearing and familiar name, but its employment on this occasion sounds almost like mockery. The appellation is said to mean "the exulting," or "joyous one." (Gesenius, Phan. Mon. p. 406.) Bochart makes it signify "the divine maiden," but erroneously. 337 Pro re. "In relation to the present matter." Wunderlich makes re here the same as discessu, but in this he is wrong. It is equivalent, rather, to pro re natâ;" i. e., ut res comparata est. 338 Nec conjugis unquam, &c. "Nor did I ever pretend a lawful union, or enter into a compact 340 Meis auspiciis. my own guidance." 341 Sponte med. "In my own way." Literally, "of my own accord." "Before every 342 Primum. thing else." Dulces meorum reliquias. The meaning is, that he would honour, according to custom, with yearly sacrifices, the remains of his departed friends and countrymen. 344 Et recidiva manu, &c. "And I would with this hand have established, for the vanquished, Pergamus rising from its fall." Observe the continued action in colerem, and the final or complete action in posuissem. 345 Gryneus Apollo. So called from the city of Gryneum, or Grynea, on the coast of Lydia, Italiam Lyciæ jussere capessere sortes. 350 near the northern confines, and which was celebrated for its worship and oracle of Apollo. 346 Lycia sortes. "The Lycian oracles." Referring to the temple and oracle of Apollo at Patara in Lycia. Servius regards both Gryneus Apollo and Lycia sortes as mere ornamental expressions, and makes the oracular responses, to which Eneas alludes, to have been given, in reality, at Delos. This, however, is too frigid. The allusion must be to actual oracles obtained from Gryneum and Patara, though not mentioned elsewhere in the poem. 347 Hic amor, hæc patria est. "This is the object of my love; this my country." A cold and unfeeling remark to make to one who had loved him as fondly as Dido. what she blames him for his deserting her now, after he had so deeply engaged himself; upon which, according to her doctrine, he ought to have altered his resolution. The supposition, that such flimsy sophistry as we have here, could justify Æneas in the eyes of Dido, may be regarded as one of the many proofs which Virgil has given of his low estimate of the female character; yet the whole is true to nature. Æneas, finding that he has no valid defence, seeks to deceive himself and others by a specious appeal to higher duties, which he ought to have thought of before he contracted so close an alliance with Dido and the Carthaginians." 349 Quæ tandem, Ausoniâ, &c. "Why grudge the Trojans their Italian settlements, when thou thyself, though a native of Phoe "The Si te Carthaginis arces, &c. This wretched sophistry is any-nicia, dost prefer to dwell in a thing but creditable to the cha- foreign city, the Carthage of thine racter of Æneas. "Dido does own raising?" not complain of him," observes an anonymous commentator, "(and it would have been very idle if she had) for settling in a foreign country, which he must have done had he staid with her, nor for his having had a design upon Italy in particular before his arrival at Carthage. But 353 Turbida imago. troubled image ;" i. e., the troubled ghost. Wunderlich refers the epithet turbida to the influence of anger, as we say turbidus irá. This, however, appears inferior to the common mode of rendering, as we have given it. Me puer Ascanius, capitisque injuria cari, Talia dicentem jamdudum aversa tuetur, some future day. 355 360 354 Capitisque injuria cari. | to complete and retouch it at "And the injury done to that beloved one." Caput is here taken, by a well-known poetic usage, for the whole person, or the individual himself. 357 Testor utrumque caput. "I call to witness both thee and myself;" i. e., I swear it by thy life and my own. Some refer utrumque caput to Æneas and Ascanius. It is much better, however, to apply it to Æneas and Dido. 358 Manifesto in lumine. "Amid clearest light." The light, namely, which encompassed the person of divinities. 359 Intrantem muros. Mercury, it will be remembered, alighted in the suburbs of Carthage. 360 Desine meque tuis, &c. "Cease exciting both me and thyself by thy complaints." Compare, as regards incendere, the explanation of Heyne: "Incendere, commovere; luctu, dolore et irâ exasperare." The harsh arrangement, and equally harsh cadence of this line, are very remarkable. From the circumstance of a hemistich following, we might be inclined to believe that the poet had left the speech of Æneas unfinished, intending | "The conduct of Eneas on this trying occasion," remarks Symmons, "and his reply to the pathetic address of the much-injured queen, discover too much hardness and insensibility to be quite forgiven, though he acts under the command of Jupiter. He assents with too little apparent reluctance to the mandate of the Olympian king; and we should have liked him more if his piety in this instance had been less. There is also in his speech, and especially at the close of it, a peculiar harshness, to which it is not easy for us to be reconciled. It would seem that Virgil, intent upon the main object of his poem, and resolved, in this part of it, to excite our passions to their most intense degree, was careless of minuter delicacies, and was not, perhaps, desirous of softening down any of the roughnesses of effect." 362 Talia dicentem, &c. "Him, all along, while uttering these things," &c. As regards the force of jamdudum here, compare the remark of La Cerda: "Ait jamdudum, quia ab orationis initio aversa fuit." Huc illuc volvens oculos, totumque pererrat 365 Num lacrimas victus dedit, aut miseratus amantem est? 370 Nusquam tuta fides. Ejectum litore, egentem, Compare line 331, mota tenebat lumina." 363 Totumque pererrat lumini- | me?" bus tacitis, &c. Surveys him in silence from head to foot, &c. 366 Sed duris genuit te, &c. "But Caucasus, horrid to the view with its flinty rocks, gave thee being." Some make duris cautibus equivalent here to e duris cautibus, "horrid Caucasus engendered thee out of the flinty rock." The other interpretation, however, is more natural. 368 Nam quid dissimulo? &c. "For why do I conceal my feelings? or to what greater outrages do I reserve myself?" i. e., why do I check the impulse of my feelings, as if I had reason to fear lest I might exasperate him by what I said? Can I suffer any greater outrage and contumely than he has already put upon me? 369 Num lumina flexit? "Did he (once) bend his eyes upon 375 "im 371 Quæ quibus anteferam? &c. "To what feelings shall I first give utterance ?" Literally, "what things shall I prefer to what?" 375 Amissam classem, &c. "I (restored) his lost fleet, I rescued his companions from death." Observe the zeugma in reduxi. With classem it has the force of renovavi. 379 Scilicet is Superis labor est! &c. "This, forsooth, is a (befitting) labour for the gods above; this care disquiets those tranquil beings!" Æneas, as a cloak for his abandonment of Dido, suggests orders from on high which he cannot disobey. The irritated queen seeks to refute him with doubt and incredulity, and the bitterest irony. Thou talkest or the prophetic Apollo, of the Lycian oracles, of the dreadful man Sollicitat! Neque te teneo, neque dicta refello. 380 385 Linquens multa metu cunctantem, et multa parantem 390 Solando cupit, et dictis avertere curas, Multa gemens, magnoque animum labefactus amore; 395 dates which the messenger of the skies has brought to thee; just as if the gods above would trouble themselves with thy concerns, or would allow their calm and tranquil existence to be disturbed by any cares for one so perfidious and ungrateful! 380 Neque te teneo, &c. "I neither detain thee, nor do I deign to confute thy words." The natural consequence of the view which Dido has taken of the excuses of Æneas is a feeling of contempt for him who has employed them. She bids him depart: he is too unworthy to be detained by her. But she expresses, at the same time, the earnest hope that he may be made bitterly to atone for his baseness. 382 Spero equidem, &c. "I do indeed hope, that if the just gods can accomplish anything, thou wilt drain the cup of punishment amid the rocks (of ocean).” More literally, "wilt exhaust punishments;" i. e., wilt suffer the fullest and most cruel punishments. 383 Dido. The Greek accusative, Διδόα, Διδῶ. 384 Sequar atris ignibus absens. She is thinking of the torches of the Furies and their pursuit of the guilty. As if one of these avenging deities, she will be ever present to his thoughts, and will ever haunt him with the terrors of a guilty conscience. 392 Marmoreo thalamo for ad marmoreum thalamum, which last would be the prose form of expression. 397 Incumbunt. "Bend themselves (to the work);" i. e., apply themselves vigorously. Supply operi. Et litore celsas, &c. "And |