Wagner, 'Henceforth Corydon, Corydon is my man' (as we commonly say, 'the man for my money'): we rather prefer this last interpretation. OBSERVATIONS. Date. This eclogue offering no internal evidence, its date can be only conjectural. The spring of the year 714-16 is the date assigned to it by the critics. Subject. As Theocritus had made the poetic contests of swains the subject of more than one Idyll, Virgil would vie with him in this also. He seems to have had that poet's eighth Idyll chiefly in view, but the circumstance of making the person who witnessed the contest be the narrator of it appears to have been suggested by the ninth Idyll. The eclogue is, taken altogether, a very pleasing composition, and the parts of the contending swains are well sustained. Characters. The actors in this little piece being all represented as shepherds or goatherds, they must, as we have shown in our Observations on the first eclogue, have been slaves. Scenery.-The mention of the river Mincius, in v. 13 would seem to place the scene in Virgil's native country; while on the opposite side Castelvetro, a critic of the 16th century (Opere Critiche, p. 151), asserts that neither the ilex (v. 1.), the chestnut (53), nor the pine (24), is to be seen in the territory of Mantua, and he adds that the same is the case with respect to flocks of goats, which are not kept in that country. This testimony is of the more weight as this writer was a native of Modena. We ourselves saw, when there, no goats and none of those trees. Martyn however replies, that Virgil could not be ignorant of the trees that grew in his own neighbourhood. He then quotes Ray, whose authority in this case, he says, is worth that of a hundred grammarians, to prove that the ilex is common in most of the provinces of Italy. Ray's words are: "In Hetruria aliisque Italiae provinciis praesertim ad mare inferum, inque Gallia Narbonensi et Hispania in silvis collibus et campestribus maritimis, passim et copiose provenit (ilex)." From the words which we have put in italics, he would seem to have intended to exclude the plain of the Po. Martyn further quotes Ray to prove that the pine and the chestnut abound in Italy, and no one doubts it; but Ray does not say that they grow in Lombardy. He also quotes Mattioli, an Italian botanist, to prove that the juniper is common in Italy, but the place that writer mentions is Tuscany, especially Siena. The simple fact seems to be, that the scenery here as elsewhere is ideal, though the poet, for some reason of which we are ignorant, chose to introduce the Mincius by name, just as he chooses to call his swains Arcadians. As for the trees named in their amœbæic strains, see the Observations on the third eclogue. ECLOGUE VIII.-PHARMACEUTRIA. ARGUMENT. THE poet relates the songs of two contending shepherds, Damon and Alphesiboeus. The former sings the last complaint and the voluntary death of a jilted shepherd; the latter the magic arts to which a deserted fair one has recourse in order to win back her fickle lover. NOTES. 1-5. Musam, the song: see i. 2.-2. juvenca, the heifer, sing. for plur., in the usual manner of the poets, owing generally to the constraint of the verse.-3. stupefactae, the Greek Daμẞovoai-carmine. Some MSS. have carmina, whence, as stupefactus always takes the ablative, Wagner conjectures the original reading to have been ad carmina. But as there is no trace of ad in any MS., and the sense is very good as it is, we cannot adopt this reading.-lynces. The lynx was unknown in Italy, but Xenophon (De Ven. xi.) says it was to be found in Mount Pindus, and there is some reason for thinking that the scene of this eclogue is in Thessaly. The poets however, as we have already observed, did not attend to these minutiæ: see on ii. 63. The lynxes here stand for wild beasts in general. · Et mutata suos, etc. The meaning of this verse seems to be: 'and the streams changing (their nature) checked their currents (to listen). The Venetian edition reads mirata, and Wagner proposes morata for mutata; but there is no necessity for any change. It is also disputed whether requierunt is transitive or intransitive. The former we believe, for both Calpurnius and the author of the Ciris seem to have so understood it. The latter says, v. 232, Rapidos...requierunt flumina cursus: the former thus imitates it (ii. 15), Et tenuere suos properantia flumina cursus. Jacobs (on Propert. iii. 15) understands by flumina the river-gods, who brought their streams nearer to the place where the singers were, and there rested on their urns enraptured with the song. This is altogether fanciful, and we doubt if the neuter noun flumen ever stands for the river-god. With respect to the whole of the effects here ascribed to song, we think the poet has been rather bold in assigning them to the lays of simple swains; though to gods, such as Apollo and Silenus, or the sons of gods as Orpheus and Amphion, they are suitable enough.-5. Damonis Musam, The repetition here of the first verse is very happy. 6-13. Tu, sc. Asinius Pollio. It is somewhat remarkable that the poet does not mention the name of the person to whom the eclogue is dedicated; for it was the usual practice of the poets, instead of putting the name of the person to whom they addressed their works at the head of them, to introduce them somewhere in the body of the piece. We may instance the odes of Horace, each of which contains the name of the person to whom it is addressed. The inscriptions, as they are called, are not the work of the poet, but belong to ancient critics and editors. Virgil probably considered that the following verses so plainly indicated Pollio, that it was needless to insert his name.-mihi. This is what is termed the ethic dative, which denotes the interest the person who uses it has or takes in the matter of which he is speaking. Heyne, Voss and others would connect it with accipe in v. 11; but Wagner thinks this too remote, and therefore would join it with etc. superas. Heyne, in his earlier editions, followed the usual practice of placing a comma after mihi, and we know not if this is not the better principle, supposing the poet to have meant to employ some other verb, and then to have been carried away by his enthusiasm and to have neglected it.— seu magni, etc. Whether you are now passing the mouth of the Timavus (i. e. sailing by it) or have not come so far yet, but are still going along the coast of Illyria.' See the Life of Pollio.-superas. This may be understood of passing the river by land; but as there is no reason to suppose that Pollio would land his troops at such a distance from Rome and send his ships away empty, it is better to understand superare, as in Aen. i. 244, and Liv. xxx. 39, of sailing past it.—saxa Timavi: see Aen. i. 244. Heyne thus describes the Timavo at the present day: "In Carnorum finibus (Carniola) inter Aquileiam et Tergeste (Trieste), qui tractus totus saxeus et scopulosus est, apud vicum S. Joannis, non longe a castello Duino (Tywein), complures (modo septem modo novem numerantur) ingentesque inter rupium antra aquarum fontes prosiliunt, qui post brevem cursum in unum flumen coëunt, quod vix mille passuum viam emensum latum altumque uno ostio in mare exit.”—7. en erit unquam: see on i. 68.-8. facta, your military exploits.-10. carmina, the tragedies which Pollio had composed, which he here compares with those of Sophocles. The poet is merely expressing a wish or hope that at some future period he might be able to devote his powers to the celebration of the deeds and the literary productions of Pollio. It is perhaps only a compliment, for he does not appear to have formed any serious design of doing so.-cothurno, the tragic buskin, put for tragedy.-11. A te principium, sc. sumit Musa mea. This omission is a poetic artifice, expressing eagerness and commotion of mind.-12. Carmina coepta. This either means that Pollio had required him to write bucolic poetry in general, or had given him the subject of this particular eclogue. The latter is the more probable, as poems were usually sent separately to the persons to whom they were addressed.--jussis. The verb jubeo is used to express all degrees of causing a thing to be done, from simply asking up to commanding: in this place tua jussa mean only 'your desire.'-13. Inter victrices, etc. Let this branch of poetic ivy creep through the laurels with which victory has wreathed your brows.-hedera: see on vii. 25.— serpere. This verb is frequently used, even in prose, of plants like the ivy, that advance gradually along the ground or up the stems of other plants. 14-16. A description of the time of the day and of the attitude of the shepherd when he begins his song.-Frigida, etc., the early morn, the twilight, just before the rising of the sun (see v. 17), not after sunrise, as Heyne says.-umbra. Virgil frequently uses this word to express the gloom of night. Perhaps the adjective frigida (like gelida, Aen. xi. 210), is here added to indicate the great coldness of the air just before sunrise.-15. Cum ros, etc. This beautiful verse was probably a favourite with our poet, for he repeats it, Geor. iii. 326. As it was the custom to drive the cattle out to pasture before sunrise (see Geor. iii. 322 seq.), we are to suppose the shepherd Damon, after driving his flock afield, to have stood by them resting on his crook and meditating on the subject of his song.-16. tereti olivae, his smooth or polished crook of olive-wood. J. Warton, in his translation of this eclogue, says, "Against an olive's trunk reclined;" and Martyn, “leaning against a round olive tree." The words may no doubt thus be rendered, but surely no one who had ever looked on an olive with its rugged gnarled stem, would dream of applying the epithet teres to it. It would also, we apprehend, not be easy to find an olive against which one could recline commodiously. On the other hand, the shepherd's crook was frequently made of the wild olive. Apollonius Rhodius (ii. 34), describing one, says it was made opiтpopéos Kurivolo, and Theocritus (vii. 18) says of a shepherd ῥοικὰν δ' ἔχεν ἀγριελαίω AežiTeрa коpúvav. In Ovid's description of the pastoral attire of Apollo (Met. ii. 680), the reading of the best MSS. is onusque fuit dextrae silvestris oliva. We need hardly mention that oliva, like pinus, abies, ferrum, and other names of substances, is used for the thing made from it. The custom of shepherds resting on their crook is thus alluded to by Ovid |