The Helen passage conforms in this particular feature to the technique of the 400 lines of which it is the center. If it was written by an interpolator, he was familiar with details of technique, which have for the most part escaped the notice of modern scholars. Now it would be natural for an interpolator to study the immediate context, and in general to endeavor to imitate the language and versification, in so far as possible. But, strangely enough, there is not a single example of the peculiarity we have been discussing to be found in the immediate context. It is necessary to go back two pages to line 508, and forward two pages to line 643, to find the nearest examples, both of which are sporadic, and do not occur in groups, as in the case of the passages I have already mentioned. The interpolator was therefore not influenced in this respect by immediate context. If we search extant literature we find no one who uses this form of metrical composition to the extent to which Virgil used it. And if we assume, with the supporters of the interpolation theory, that the passage was written after the time of Suetonius, the chance of finding a writer who used it becomes more and more remote as we approach the time of Servius.

Three other points made by Norden are of lesser importance: 1. feminea in poenast (584). He points out that the enclisis of est with a word ending in ā in this position is found elsewhere in Virgil only in G. 1. 83: nec nulla intereast, whereas it is found after short a 16 times. But this is not conclusive evidence that Vergil consciously avoided the combination. In the nature of things, one would normally expect est to occur after a feminine noun or feminine adjective in the nominative case eight times as frequently as after a feminine ablative, or an adverb.

2. praemetuens (573) is used only here in Virgil. If one looks through the list of verbs compounded with prepositions in a Virgilian index, he is surprised to find how many of those which strike one as common appear but once. He discovers

20 such verbs without proceeding further than ad.21 In the relatively small number of verbs compounded with prae (37 in the entire Virgilian corpus), 3 do not appear in Virgil's authentic works, 4 more do not appear in the Aeneid, and 13 appear but once in the Aeneid: praecido, praeeo, praefodio, praefor, praefulgeo, praemetuo, praenato, praerumpo, praesentio, praesumo, praeuro, praevehor, praevideo. If more than half of these compounds with prae either do not appear in the Aeneid at all, or only once, the single occurrence of praemetuens -a good Lucretian word-is not at all surprising, and there is no more reason for calling in question the authenticity of the passage because of this word than there is for calling in question Aen. IV, 297 because the word praesensit is found nowhere else in Virgil.

3. satiasse (587) is also unique, but the criticism against it seems to me captious. The use of satio with cineres is of course a metaphor, but if it is used of soil by so prosy a writer as Pliny, H. N. XIX, 42, 2: (terram) satiare stercore, and of fire. by Ovid, Met. IV, 758: largis satiantur odoribus ignes, its metaphorical employment with cineres is not too violent for Virgil. Its use with the genitive is attested by Ovid, Met. VII, 808: cum satiata ferinae dextera caedis erat, as well as by Silius, IV, 436; XVI, 603.

With Norden's linguistic difficulties accounted for, and the most weighty argument against the authenticity of the passage, namely the metrical peculiarities, thrown into the other scale of the balance, one may venture a conjecture as to how the passage came to be written. We may assume that the poet, fresh from the reading of the Orestes 22 of Euripides, partic

21 They are: abicio, abiuro, abolesco, accido, adcumulo, addico, adficio, adfluo, adhaereo, adiuro, adludo, adpono, adquiro, adsentio, adservo, adsideo, adstringo, aduro, advelo, adversor.

22 Heinze (op. cit. p. 48, n. 1), who supports the interpolation theory, believes that the interpolator filled in an existing lacuna with matter drawn from the Orestes, and, in addition to the general similarity of substance, specifically identifies Or. 1388 as the source of "Troiae et patriae communis Erinys," and Or. 581 as the possible source of "Phrygii ministri." But the Orestes was as available to Virgil himself as it was to Heinze's hypothetical interpolator.

ularly the passage beginning at line 1137, and with the beginning of Odyssey XX also in mind, drafted the passage in its present form; but dissatisfied with it for the reasons mentioned by Servius, namely the lack of chivalry on the part of his hero in his momentary impulse to slay Helen, and the inconsistency of the lines with the story of Deiphobus which he proposed to use in book VI, he decided to eliminate it and to substitute another passage in its place. He left it, however, as a temporary tibicen, without giving it the final polish of the summa manus, and made it do temporary service on the occasions when he recited the book to select groups. He died without having written the passage which was to take its place, and his literary executors, knowing and respecting his wishes, deleted it.

The workshop of the poet must have been littered with many similar chips, in the form of studies, sketches, and rough drafts of minor parts of the poem. Many of these must have been discarded by the poet before his death, some were removed by the editors, a few intended for the discard may be recognized in the poem itself, still performing what its author hoped would be but a temporary duty.

XIII.-Vergil and the "Under-Dog"

BY PROFESSOR E. ADELAIDE HAHN

HUNTER COLLEGE

Dido's famous line: non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco,1 might, with the necessary change of gender, be applied to Vergil himself. So, too, might at least the first part of his country's great mission, as he himself perceives it, "parcere subiectis et debellare superbos." 2 He is always ready to pity the unfortunate; and when once the arrogant have been humbled, even them he would spare if he could. This tendency of his to sympathize with the person who is getting the worst of things can be seen repeatedly throughout the Aeneid, and may throw light on his treatment of the two most interesting characters in the epic, Dido and Turnus.3

Vergil's habit of siding with the "under-dog" I believe developed as he matured and mellowed. I find little if any trace of it in the Eclogues; 4 in the singing contests, for instance, he is more interested in the victor than in the

11, 630. (All references in this article, unless specific statement is made to the contrary, are to the Aeneid.)

2 VI, 853.

3 Cf. W. Warde Fowler, The Death of Turnus, p. 43: "It takes us an effort to sympathize with Aeneas in this question; and I am not sure that Virgil himself found it natural to do so. In the parallel case of Dido we may be sure that his heart was with the queen, and there are signs in this book [xII] that it was with Turnus too. Yet his judgment was always with Aeneas, and the twelfth book sways between the two moods."

4 This does not mean, of course, that the element of pity is wholly lacking in these early poems. The rejected lovers, like Corydon (in 2) and Gallus, are mere stock figures; but in Ecl. 1 the sorry state of Meliboeus is clearly realized and brought out by one who, as the prototype of Tityrus, can easily visualize the fate that he himself so narrowly escaped. But here the emphasis is perhaps rather on what Tityrus, the protagonist, escapes, than on what Meliboeus suffers. The very last lines have to me always had rather a coldblooded ring. Tityrus can well afford to offer to share with the illfated Meliboeus for a single night the prosperity that has been secured to him forever: there is, I think, a certain smugness about his enumeration of his blessings, apples, chestnuts, and cheese and above all hearth and home.

6

vanquished—the vainly contending Thyrsis is casually dismissed, and "ex illo Corydon Corydon est tempore nobis." 5 In the far tenderer and truer Georgics it is certainly present, above all in the beautiful picture of the defeated bull that, like Tityrus, goes forth into exile looking back sadly at his “ancestral kingdom"-bewailing his ignominious defeat and his lost love. But it is in the Aeneid that it stands forth, particularly in the account of the contests in book v, and of the conflicts in the last books.

We note at once that Vergil feels alike for every participant in game and fight, regardless of his faction or nation. Another line of Dido's: Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine agetur,7 again holds true of him. Thus he is enabled to enter into the feelings of his unhappy characters even when they are wrong, and permit them to utter forceful justifications of their own conduct, and reproaches for the conduct of their adversaries, as Iarbas, Dido, even the horrible Harpy.10 On the other hand he is so sorry for the person who is getting the worst of it, that the person who has rightfully injured him does not always make out so good a case for himself, as Aeneas vs. Dido,11

5 Ecl. 7, 69-70.

8

8 Note especially Iv, 211-214: femina, quae nostris errans in finibus urbem/ exiguam pretio posuit, cui litus arandum/ cuique loci leges dedimus, conubia nostra/reppulit ac dominum Aenean in regna recepit. Iarbas makes out a fair case for himself—and it is to be noted that Jupiter at once heeds his appeal, even though, to be sure, the All-Father is acting rather in the interests of Aeneas and Rome than out of any desire to avenge Iarbas or punish Dido.

'Note especially iv, 320-321: te propter Libycae gentes, Nomadumque tyranni/ odere, infensi Tyrii; 373-375: eiectum litore, egentem/ excepi et regni demens in parte locavi./ amissam classem, socios a morte reduxi. It is interesting to observe that Dido's complaint of Aeneas's ingratitude is quite parallel with Iarbas's complaint of her own. (We may compare with Dido's mixture of self justification and abuse the two tirades of her patron goddess Juno-see n. 97.)

10 III, 248-249: bellumne inferre paratis / et patrio Harpyias insontis pellere regno? Celaeno is a perfect picture of injured innocence!

11 IV, 333-336: ego te, quae plurima fando/ enumerare vales, numquam, regina, negabo/ promeritam, nec me meminisse pigebit Elissae/ dum memor