THE ENEIS.

BOOK I.

(a) I AM the same that whilom tuned my song
On slender oat, and, issuing from the woods,
The neighbouring fields beneath the farmer's yoke
Greedy, compelled; and won the tiller's thanks:

(b) But now I sing Mars' horrent arms, and him

Who, fugitive by fate, from Trojan clime
To Italy erst came and shore Lavinian.

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e.]

[The numerical reference at the commencement of each note is to the Latin verse.

(a) Ille ego, &c.-Imitated both by a proper adjunct to arma, and in the Spenser and Milton :

Lo! I, the man whose muse whylome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly shepheard's weeds,
Am now enforst a farre unfitter taske,
For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine oaten reeds,
And sing of knights' and ladies' gentle deeds.
Faerie Queene, st. i.

I who erewhile the happy garden sung.

Par. Reg. v. 1. (b) V. 1. Martis Arma. Martis joined with arma is not (as a hasty view has led some commentators to suppose,) supererogatory; because arma is not a specific term, corresponding to the English arms, and like it applicable only to martial weapons, but a general term, applicable to all kinds of implements, martial, agricultural, (Georg. i, 160), nautical (En. v, 15), culinary, (En. i, 177,) &c. Martis is therefore

present instance peculiarly proper, because it was incumbent on the poet, well to distinguish between the arma, the subject of his present poem, and the arma, of which he had treated in that former poem, to which, in the passage before us, he makes direct reference. Having formerly defined the arma, of which he was then treating, as those quae sint duris agrestibus-Queis sine nec potuere seri nec surgere messes, (Georg. i, 160), he now defines the arma, which form his present theme, to be arma Martis: hence, as from every observation which tends to show the correctness of their diction, an additional argument in favor of the authenticity of the four introductory lines of the Eneis. For a further argu

He much on land, by force of the supernals,
And on the deep was tossed, because of stern
Juno's remembering ire; in war too suffered
Much, whilst a city founding, and into

Latium Gods bringing; whence the Latin race,
And Alban fathers, and high, forted Rome.
The causes tell, O Muse; offended how
Her deity, or for what personal smart,

So from misfortune to misfortune drove,

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From toil to toil, the queen of heaven, that man

(c) of piety conspicuous. Possible

That heavenly bosoms know those burning ires?

Toward Italy and Tyber's disembogue
Looking from far, the ancient city once
Of Carthage stood, a Tyrian colony,

Of rich resources and war's roughest school;
Which, than all other lands, than Samos self,
Juno 'tis said more cherished: here her arms,

Her chariot here, and here, (might by some means
Fate's acquiesce be won,) already aimed,
Already wrought the fostering Goddess' care,
To found an empire that should rule the world.
Nor, that from Trojan stock a scion even then
Was springing, which should sometime overturn
Her Tyrian citadels, had she not heard;

Whence, monarch far and wide, and of proud war,
A nation should arise to the overthrow

ment, derived from the same source, see note En. ii, 247.

See addenda, for Tasso's imitation of Horrentia Martis Arma virumque cano, &c.

(c) V. 11.-Tantaene animis &c.

In heavenly spirits could such perverseness dwell?

Par. Lost, vi, 788.

Final of Libya; so the Parcae rolled.

Moved by this fear Saturnia, and remembering
(d) The long war which for Argos dear she chief
Waged against Troy-nor from her mind outfallen
The causes of that ire, those bitter smarts;
Deep in her soul storehoused the judgment lay
Of Paris, and her injured beauty's slight,
The races hatefulness, and Ganymede's
Rape-honors-kindled with these fires beside,
From Latium far she warded, and o'er all
The wide-sea plain hither and thither tost,
The Trojans, relict of the Danaï

And stern Achilles; and for many a year

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40

45

Round many a sea they wandered, fate-impelled:
The work so vast to found the Roman name.

Scarce out of sight of land Sicilian, toward
The deep sea were they spreading forth their sails,
Joyous, and cutting the salt foam with brass,

When Juno to herself, the eternal wound

Still nursing in her bosom :-"Me desist

Vanquished, from my emprise; and Teucria's king 55
Impuissant to avert from Italy?

Banned by the fates, forsooth! The Argive fleet

Could Pallas burn, and whelm the crews in the sea,

For sole Oïlean Ajax' insane trespass?

Herself Jove's rapid fire launched from the clouds, 60
Their ships storm-scattered, the sea-plain upturned,
And him, his transfixed breast expiring flame,

(d) V. 24.-Prima, sciz. princeps omnium ibi bella geruntium. See En. iv, 133, where primi is used in the same

sense; also, Ter. Eun. ii, 11, 7-" Est genus hominum, qui esse primos se omnium rerum volunt, nec sunt."

(e) Caught in a whirlwind and on sharp crag spiked;
But I, who walk heaven's queen, Jove's sister both
And consort, with one race so many years
Wage war; who Juno's nod henceforth adores
Or on her altar, suppliant, lays the honor ?”

In breast of flame these thoughts revolving, comes
The Goddess to Eolia, fatherland

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Of storm-cloud; womb, of Auster's rage prolific. 70
Here in vast cavern Eolus' tyranny

The winds reluctant and sonorous storms

Holds subjugate, and curbs with chains and dungeon;

About the shut indignantly they roar

(f) of the resounding mountain; Eolus,
Wielding his sceptre, sits enthroned aloft,

And soothes their spirit, and their passion tempers;
Else their swift flight, lands, seas, and sky profound
With them would bear along, and through air sweep;
But in black caves, the sire omnipotent

(e) V. 45.-Turbine corripuit, &c. Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled, Each on his rock transfixed.-Par. Lost, ii, 180.

(ƒ) V. 56.—Celsa sedet Eolus arce. Heyne, whose interpretation of this passage is silently acquiesced in by Wagner, understands Eolus to be represented as seated on an arx or eminence or peak of the mountain outside the cave in which the winds are confined, Celsa in arce, extra antrum, alto in montis cacumine, infra (v. 140), aula dicta, seu regia; but, 1st--the picture thus presented of sceptred Eolus seated outside on a peak of the mountain, within which the winds are confined, is not very far removed from the ridiculous; 2ndly-the words vasto antro are placed so much more immediately in contact with the words rex Eolus than with the words ventos tem

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pestatesque, that it is hardly possible to doubt that they are connected with the former and not with the latter, and that their meaning is, King Eolus in a vast cave, keeps down the winds with his empire, and not King Eolus keeps down with his empire, the winds in a vast cave. 3rdly-the aula in which (as admitted by all commentators), the arx was situated, is plainly declared by the epexegetic et in Neptune's message to Eolus, (v. 140), to be one and the same with the carcer ventorum. 4thly-it is not easy to conceive how Eolus could, from his seat on the arx exercise his office of mollifying the spirits and tempering the anger of the winds, (celsa sedet Eolus arce, mollitque animos et temperat iras), if the arx were outside the mountain, and the winds within.