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AENEIDOS

LIBRI I-VI.

WITH ENGLISH NOTES

BY

T. CLAYTON, M.A.

AND

C. S. JERRAM, M.A.

FORMERLY SCHOLARS OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD.

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PREFACE.

THE notes in this edition have been chiefly taken from Wagner, and are intended for the use of schoolboys and passmen. The Editors have not excluded matter simply because it might be found in a Classical Dictionary, but they have endeavoured to avoid the faults of such editions as those of Anthon. They have diligently consulted the valuable work of Professor Conington, and for further information about metrical points would refer the student to Professor Ramsay's Manual of Latin Prosody.

February, 1865.

P. VIRGILII MARONIS

ENEIDOS

LIBER PRIMUS.

ARMA virumque cano, Trojæ qui primus ab oris
Italiam fato profugus Laviniaque venit

1-7.] General argument of the poem. Eneas, exiled from his home, is destined by fate and the behest of the gods to found a new settlement in Italy. Juno, the enemy of the Trojans, being unable to overthrow the decrees of fate, uses every effort to delay their accomplishment. For a long time she prevents Eneas from reaching his destination, and on his arrival thither after many wanderings involves him in a disastrous war. At length, however, having vanquished and slain Turnus, king of Ardea, he gains the long-sought object of his desires.

1. Arma virumque] must not be taken as two separate objects (arma cano et virum cano), but as forming the single idea of a hero renowned in war.' Cf. Ovid, Trist. ii. 533, "ille tuæ felix Eneidos auctor Contulit in Tyrios arma virumque toros."

primus] Antenor had founded Patavium before the coming of Eneas, but this was in the coun

try of the Veneti, and Virgil's Italy did not extend beyond the Rubicon.

2.] The appropriateness of the term fato profugus, as well as the current belief among the Romans that the fortunes of Eneas were under the influence of destiny, is confirmed by Homer, Il. xx. 302-308, and Livy i. 1, "Eneam ad majora initia ducentibus fatis, primo in Macedoniam venisse." The ascription of the main issues of the events related in the Eneid to the control of destiny necessarily enhances the dignity of the events themselves, and fills the mind of the reader with awe of a superior power, and with a sense of the majesty of the Roman state, as having been first established in accordance with the will of Fate, and raised by the same influence to that high elevation which it had attained in the time of Virgil. - Lavinia] is here a trisyllable, -a harsher synizesis occurs in 6. 33, and 7. 237.

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