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ωσι, χρησαμένους, μονονουχι των χειλεων εξαρτήσαι του λέγοντος τους ακούοντας, προσθεις οτι και ενητενιζον τουτεστιν ατενως προς αυτόν ταις οψεσιν ειχον, Eugen. de Bulgaris. “IxTENTI ORA TENEBANT ut, 8. 520, defixi ora tenebant,' explica: 'sie richteten aufmerksam den blick,'" Gossrau. "INTENTI ORA TENEBANT: ergo ut solent intenti, in ipso ore apparebat intentio," Wagner (1861). "Ora tenere is not, as in Georg. 4. 483, equivalent to linguam continere, but means to hold the countenance in attention, as in 7. 250 (where observe the epithet 'defixa,' and compare 6. 156), 8. 520," Conington. "INTENTI ORA TENEBANT: habebant vultus et oculos intentos, et conversos in Aeneam," Forbiger (1873).

"they whusted all, and fixt with eies ententive did behold."

"rings war alles verstummt und gespannt hielt jeder das antlitz."

"each eye was fixed, each lip compressed,

J. H. Voss.

when thus began the heroic guest."

Conington.

The interpretation is false, and there is not one of all this brilliant field of philologist truth-hunters whose horse has not shied and thrown him on the kerb of the deep dark well in which his vixen game so loves to lurk, and down into which, audax-not in iuventa but in senecta-and cheerily harking-in with Hermes' and Athena's*" whoop, whoop, halloo!" I propose now at all risks to pursue her. Let him who has a taste for such adventure draw on his spatterdashes and accom

This Rem. was written for, and first published in, the Hermathena of Trinity College, Dublin.

pany me. I promise him sport, if nothing more. Vive la chasse de la vérité !"

"Allons!

ORA is here neither the face, nor the mouth literally, but the mouth figuratively, i. e., the speech, voice, or utterance (exactly as (verse 423) "ora sono discordia," sound of voice or speech, disagreeing with assumed appearance. Compare also Ovid, Met. 6. 583 (of Procne):

"dolor ora repressit,

verbaque quaerenti satis indignantia linguae

defuerunt"

[grief repressed her utterance]); and ORA TENEBANT is neither were holding their mouths closed, literally, nor were holding their faces fixed, but were holding their mouths closed, figuratively, i. e., were holding-in (withholding) their voice, speech, or utterance; in other words, were remaining silent; exactly as (a), "dolor ora repressit" (just quoted), grief repressed her mouth, i. e., her utterance; and as, still more exactly (b), Ovid, Met. 9. 513: "poterisne loqui? poterisne fateri?

coget amor, potero; vel si pudor ora tenebit,

littera celatos arcana fatebitur ignes"

[shame will hold my mouth (voice); i. e., will keep me silent]; and more exactly still, and even word for word (e), Lucan, 4. 172:

"tenuere parumper

ora metu; tantum nutu motoque salutant

ense suos. mox ut stimulis maioribus ardens
rupit amor leges, audet transcendere vallum

miles, in amplexus effusas tendere palmas.

hospitis ille ciet nomen, vocat ille propinquum"

[they held their mouths, i. e., their voice, speeck, utterance also (d), Senec. Troad. 521:

"cohibe parumper ora, questusque opprime;"

and, however differently expressed (being prose), still precisely the same thought (e), Seneca, de Vita Beata, 27: “Ut quotiens aliquid ex illo proferetur oraculo, intenti et compressa roce audiatis," where we have the very INTENTI of our text, and where " compressa voce" is our text's ORA TENEBANT.

How truly this is the meaning of the ORA TENEBANT of our text is further shown, and scarcely less strikingly, on the

one hand by Servius's own quotation, Georg. 4. 483: "“tenuitque inhians tria Cerberus ora" [neither, surely, with Servius,

kept his three faces fixed," "immobilia habuit" (a picture bordering on the ridiculous), nor "kept his three mouths closed" (literally), for he has them partially open ("inhians"), as it is right he should have them, the mouth being always partially open whether in the passions of wonder and admiration or in the expectation inseparable from attentive listening, as Val. Flacc. 5. 469:

"postquam primis inhiantia dictis agmina, suppressumque videt iam murmur Iason, talia miranti propius tulit orsa tyranno;"

Shakespeare, King John, 4. 4:

"I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
the whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
with open mouth swallowing a tailor's new's,
who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
standing on slippers, which his nimble haste
had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,
told of a many thousand warlike French
that were embatteled and rank'd in Kent;"

Milton, Par. Lost, 5. 353:

"in himself was all his state,
more solemn than the tedious pomp that waits
on princes, when their rich retinue long
of horses led and grooms besmeared with gold
dazzles the crowd and sets them all agape;"

Sir W. Scott, Lady of the Lake, 1. 17 :
"the maiden paused, as if again

she thought to catch the distant strain;
with head upraised and look intent,

and eye and ear attentive bent,

and locks flung back and lips apart,

like monument of Grecian art,

in listening mood she seemed to stand
the guardian naiad of the strand;"

and Mr. Conington's "lip compressed" being a mistake not merely with respect to Virgil's meaning, but with respect to the natural phenomenon, and descriptive of the habitus, not of a

pleased and attentive listener, but of a pugilist, or the Coryphaeus of a party-some Cromwell or some Gladstone-who throws down his bill on the table and defies you to reject it], and on the other hand by the general use of solvere ora, resolvere ora, movere ora, aperire ora―all plainly opposites of tenere ora—to express the breaking of silence, the beginning to speak. Nor is direct testimony to the same effect altogether wanting, the passage having been thus paraphrased by Sulpicius, Anthol. Lat. Burm. (ed. Meyer), 223. 7:

❝conticuere omnes, intentique ore loquentis

ora tenent,"

where "intenti ore loquentis" expressing fully and unmistakably the intentness with which the hearers look the speaker in the face-the remaining words, viz., "ora tenent," can hardly by possibility be anything else than keep their mouths quiet, i. e., say nothing.

Ora tenere is thus the Latin representative of the Greek Oтoμa Exε, equally figurative, and equally signifying to keep silence, as the two following examples sufficiently testify, Eurip. Suppl. 513:

σιγ', Αδραστ', έχε στομα,

και μη 'πιπροσθε των εμών τους σους λόγους
θης.

Soph. Trachin. 976 (Senex to Hyllus):

And the ORA TENEBANT of our text is our author's usual modified repetition in the latter part of his verse-whether for the sake of the greater impressiveness, or the greater ease and fluency of versification, or the less difficult introduction of an additional thought (on this occasion, INTENTI), or whether for all three purposes at once-of the thought just expressed in the former part (on this occasion, CONTICUERE). Compare (a), Soph. Trachin. 976 (just quoted), where the thought ay is repeated in the same figurative form in which the thought cox

TICUERE is repeated in our text (oiya, ioxe oroμa: CONTICUERE, ora tenebant), the thought dakwv being added to the repetition in the Greek, in the same manner as the thought INTENTI is added to the repetition in the Latin. (b), Eurip. Suppl. 513 (just quoted), where the thought oya is not only repeated in the same figurative form in which the thought coNTICUERE is repeated in our text (ory', exe oroμa: CONTICUERE, ORA TENEBANT), but re-repeated and enlarged upon throughout the whole of the next verse. (c), Eurip. Androm. 250:

ίδου, σιωπω, κἀπιλαζυμαι στομα,

where the thought ow is repeated in the same figurative form in which the thought CONTICUERE is repeated in our text: σιωπω, επιλαζυμαι στομα: CONTICUERE, ORA TENEBANT. And (d), Plochiri Poematium dramaticum:

σιγα, σιωπά, σφιγγε το δε λαυρον στομα,

where the thought oya, already repeated in owna, is re-repeated in the same figurative form in which the thought CONTICUERE is repeated in our text (σιγα, σιωπα, σφιγγε τοδε λαυρον στομα : CONTICUERE, ORA TENEBANT), the thought Xavpov being added to the re-repetition in the Greek, as the thought INTENTI is added to the repetition in the Latin. That the repetition, so manifest and unmistakable in these examples, has so long escaped detection in our text is owing to two causes: first, to the ambiguity of ORA, a word equally significant of face and of mouth; and, secondly, to the modification of the repetition by the change of time: CONTICUERE, TENEBANT-they have become silent and were holding-a change of time necessary to the full expression of the thought: they ceased to speak and were continuing silent.

Nor is a right interpretation of our text the sole fruit of a right understanding of the expression tenere ora. The interpretation of other passages, not only of Virgil, but of other authors also, is rectified at the same moment, ex. gr. (1), Aen. 11. 120: "illi obstupucre silentes

conversique oculos inter se, atque ora tenebant ;”

not they stood in silent astonishment looking at each other, and