form. Since, therefore, there is nothing in this passage to show that non licuit must be construed as a question, the practice of Vergil and of Latin writers generally makes it unlikely, to say the least, that the phrase can be so construed. Surely, too, if non licuit is a question, then the following line, beginning non servata, is a question, for the anaphora and word order would seem to show that the two sentences have the same construction. No one, however, as far as I have noticed, has ever suggested that non servata is equivalent to nonne servata.

Of those editors, too, who regard non licuit as exclamatory in character, some read non servata as a declarative statement. And not only do they not attempt to justify this abrupt shift of tone in these contiguous sentences where parallellism of structure would seem to render such a shift impossible, but they offer no examples to illustrate their construction of non licuit as an exclamation equivalent to cur non licuit or utinam licuisset. There may be such examples but there are certainly none in Vergil. He, on the other hand, is always careful to mark a sentence as exclamatory by the use of heu, 0, or ut, utinam, or of an accusative and infinitive, with or without -ne; cf. Aen. I, 37, 94, 97, 198, 229, 575; II, 42, 110, 283, 402; iv, 47, 267, 597; VIII, 537.

This practice of Vergil, therefore, of marking unmistakably as interrogatory or exclamatory a sentence beginning with non, forces us to construe both non licuit and non servata as declarative statements and, unless the meaning which results is entirely out of keeping with the context, we are justified in concluding that this is the meaning which Vergil desired to convey. If we could be sure that Quintilian, in the passage quoted above, so construed these sentences, our case would be proved, for, although we might question Quintilian's taste, we can hardly question his feeling for his own language. How dark his words are, however, is shown by the fact that they are quoted by proponents of all three of the interpreta5 Cf. Plaut. Asin. 465, age; ib. 326, rogita.

tions I have outlined, either in support of their arguments, or else to show that he was wrong. Those who think that more ferae refers to a withdrawal from the pleasant delights of human society say, sic explicit Quintilianus, although Heyne notes that this is not Quintilian's explanation; Quintilianus de matrimonio iusto acceperat, he remarks, a quo alienae sunt ferae, and this is also Forbiger's understanding of Quintilian's words. Conington says of them, "Quintilian quotes this passage as an instance of concealed feelings breaking out; Dido in the very words in which she inveighs against marriage acknowledges that it is the state for men as men. DeWitt is inclined to think that Conington misinterprets Quintilian's interpretation and agrees with Schaper that this means, "Dido rebels against marriage as a human institution and longs for the regardless promiscuousness of beasts." Very naturally, therefore, he refuses to bow to Quintilian in this matter of "taste and judgment." Others, however, among them Scaliger, Benoit, Ladewig, find in Quintilian's words support for their idea that Dido's statement is at the same time a reproof and a defence.

One cannot help feeling that these scholars have allowed their interpretation of Vergil's words to color their understanding of Quintilian's. Taking his Latin as it stands, the meaning must be, "although Dido is complaining about marriage, still her feeling breaks through to this extent that she considers life without lawful wedlock characteristic not of human beings but of wild beasts." It is evident, it seems to me, that the first clause of Quintilian's statement, Dido de matrimonio queritur, will apply to any one of the three interpretations which have been suggested, since it was Dido's marriage with Sychaeus which prevented the union with Aeneas which Anna had urged and Dido had deceived herself into thinking possible. The concluding clause, however, ut sine thalamis vitam non hominum putet sed ferarum, the meaning of which can only be that which I have given and which Heyne, Henry, Conington, found in it, surely does not

apply, as Henry saw, to Dido's words if these are construed as a question or as an exclamation suggesting a wish that she might have been permitted to live the life of wild beasts, whether that life be characterized by its innocence or by its free love. Quintilian's statement can only apply, in my opinion, if we assume that he understood these words of Dido as a declarative statement with the meaning, “I was not free, unjoined in lawful wedlock, to live a life after the fashion of a wild beast and at the same time be without a stain," or, taking expertem with vitam, a possible, although, I feel, hardly probable construction, “I was not free to live a life out of lawful wedlock without a stain, after the fashion of a wild beast."

Manifestly, however, my understanding of Quintilian's words may be affected by my understanding of Vergil's, and my reasons for my interpretation of the latter must be based on the words themselves, not on Quintilian's remarks regarding them. These reasons are, as I have already suggested, first, the grammatical structure of the sentence beginning with non licuit, which, if the evidence of Vergil's practice has any weight, cannot be a question or an exclamation but only a declaration, and, secondly, the trend of Dido's thought. Her soliloquy begins with a series of passionate questions regarding the means of escape from the sad state into which her acts have brought her (534-546). Then comes the realization of the futility of such means and of the necessity of paying for her folly by her death; quin morere ut merita es. But ́ Anna, too, had had a part in her tragedy and her mind now dwells on Anna's advice given her in answer to her tears (31 f.). What now was this advice?

It comes, it will be remembered, after Dido has asserted in the strongest sort of language her loyalty to her dead husband, her resolution to keep inviolate the bond which had joined them in lawful wedlock. Anna, in her reply, tries to shake this resolution by urging a union with Aeneas, in spite of the fact that, in view of what Dido had just said, union with

another was impossible for Dido without violation of her woman's honor. In the light of this conversation between the sisters, to which Dido is now referring, the interpretation of non licuit... more ferae is clear enough. Non licuit cannot mean, as Henry argues, per te, Anna, mihi non licuit, for Dido, by the use of the participle evicta (tu lacrimis evicta meis) and by her concluding words, non servata fides, admits the responsibility for her sin to be largely her own. Nor is there any force in understanding, as some do, for example, Kappes, Bennett, Plessis and Lejay, fatum as the agency to which is due the limitation expressed by non licuit. That which restricted Dido's freedom to love Aeneas was, as her words to Anna show, her union with Sychaeus, and her last words, therefore, non servata fides cineri promissa Sychaeo, which are a reply, be it noted, to Anna's question in 34, id cinerem aut manis credis curare sepultos?, are a confession of her failure in her wifely loyalty to him. Hence, thalami expertem cannot have the meaning which most editors give it, "unmarried" simply, or "virgin," since thalamus is regularly used of lawful wedlock only, but must mean, "unjoined in lawful wedlock," a phrase applicable to Dido's union with Aeneas. And in her bitter self-reproach she describes this union as it really was, vitam degere more ferae, a living after the fashion of a wild beast, for more ferae by its position must modify degere. This meaning of the phrase is fixed by the common use of more (ritu) ferarum to describe unlawful intercourse in such passages as Hor. S. 1, 3, 109; Ovid, Met. VII, 386; Livy, III, 47, 7; Lucan, VIII, 397; Sen. Herc. Fur. 478, and no editor cites any evidence from a passage which deals, as this one does, with the relationship between the sexes to show that the phrase ever has any other meaning. Vergil uses the

Henry compares Ovid, F. II, 291, where the poet says of the Arcades: vita feris similis, but, as the next words show, nullos agitata per usus, he is thinking of the freedom from toil which was characteristic of man ante Iovem, and Lucr. v, 932: vulgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum, where the subject under discussion is the evolution of man from the rude life of the earliest times. Professor DeWitt's interpretation of Ciris 86: animo meretrix iactata ferarum,

singular ferae and not the usual plural form because the singular heightens the bitterness of Dido's self-reproach. Finally, the difficult talis, in the phrase, talis nec tangere curas, must imply a qualis and this qualis can only be the words of Anna which are now in Dido's mind, and curas has the same reference. They are "the thoughts," perhaps "the lovethoughts," which Anna had suggested and which Dido now confesses she was not free to indulge.7

The key, therefore, to the meaning of these verses in book Iv, I find in Anna's words to Dido (31 f.), to which Dido makes clear reference in 548-9 and 552, a reference which justifies, it seems to me, the following paraphrase of 548-552: you were the first, my sister, though forced by my own tears, to drive me on to madness, to overwhelm me with these woes I now suffer, and to offer me up to my enemy. I was not free (as you conceived), unjoined in lawful wedlock, without a stain to live my life after the fashion of a wild beast, nor to indulge such thoughts of love (as you suggested): I have failed to keep the vow I made to the ashes of Sychaeus.

This interpretation does no violence to the rules of grammar nor does it demand any unusual meanings for common words, and it is, moreover, in harmony with the apostrophe to Anna in 548-9 and with the climax reached in Dido's last words, non servata fides.

according to which he sees in ferarum, "devotees of Diana," is, I feel, open to grave objections. I see no reason to go beyond the literal meaning, a harlot, racked with the passion of she-beasts."

7 Few editors make any remark on talis, but surely the word cannot be equivalent, as Peerlkamp says, to a simple has; if it is, then curas must be either dolores animi, as Heyne and Henry understood it, or amorem, as Peerlkamp and others interpret it, and with neither sense is tangere suitable. The use, however, of cura in connection with love is, of course, a commonplace, and our word "thought," 'anxious thought," is often a suitable translation; cf. Verg. Aen. XII, 932: miseri te si qua parentis/tangere cura potest, VII, 365: quid cura antiqua tuorum/et consanguineo totiens data dextera Turno?