P. VERGILI MARONIS AENEIDOS LIBER NONUS. THE subject of this Book is the attack made by Turnus and the Latian army on the Trojan camp while Aeneas is away. Various incidents are interwoven with it with more or less of ingenuity. At the opening of the attack a portent occurs, the transformation of the Trojan ships into sea-nymphs, just at the moment when they are threatened with conflagration. This, as Sir G. C. Lewis remarks, is evidently an echo of the story in the Fifth Book, the burning of the ships by the Trojan women. Virgil was doubtless glad to put the legend to a double use, whether the form which it takes on this second occasion was invented by him or borrowed from tradition. In any case he was likely to regard the metamorphosis as part of the supernatural machinery which is an epic poet's property. Even in Servius' time however the incident provoked question as being without precedent: and modern criticism will be more disposed to account for it than to justify it. No defence is needed for the next incident, which is indeed one of the crowning instances of Virgil's power of appealing to human sensibility. The hint of the episode of Nisus and Euryalus is from Homer's Doloneia: but the effect produced is due entirely to the art of the younger poet. In the Homeric story we sympathize neither with Dolon nor with his captors: the former fails where he did not deserve to succeed: the success of the latter is too complete and too bloody to call forth much enthusiasm. Nisus and Euryalus succeed like Ulysses and Diomede, and fail like Dolon: and our feelings are stirred alike by their success and their failure. The remaining events are less memorable, but serve to diversify the narrative. The killing of Numanus by Ascanius is Virgil's own, and is well contrived to keep up our interest in the beleaguered army. In the account of the daring of Pandarus and Bitias and the havoc made in the Trojan camp by Turnus Virgil has borrowed something from Homer, and is said to have borrowed something also from Ennius. The rashness of the Trojan champions excites little sympathy: but the single-handed bravery of Turnus justifies the place he is made to occupy in the poem, as the prominent figure in the absence of Aeneas. Heyne is so convinced of the propriety of the conduct of this part of the poem that he thinks no objection can be made to the attack on the camp in Aeneas' absence without the utmost injustice. Yet, if we consider for a moment, we shall perhaps see that such an objection would not be as unwarrantable as he supposes. If Aeneas had undertaken the journey to Evander of his own motion, we might not have wondered that the step should have entailed a certain amount of disaster; but when we know that it was prompted by a deity, we naturally expect a less equivocal result. No doubt the balance of advantage was still on Aeneas' side: but in the case of an action suggested by supernatural advice we are scarcely prepared to find that a balance has to be struck. As it is, the consequences are sufficiently unfortunate to form the subject of debate among the gods in the following Book: Venus complains, Juno retorts that Aeneas brought the evil on himself, and Jupiter cautiously declines to pronounce whether fate or human error is in fault. No doubt the employment of supernatural machinery involves a poet in considerable difficulty. If it is used at all, it would seem natural that it should be used in all the important crises of the story. Nor is there anything abstractedly repellent in the notion that an action prompted by a god should result in something short of absolute success, especially when we consider that each party has an array of gods ranged on its side. We can even conceive that Nisus may have been prompted, as Virgil himself intimates, to the enterprisc which ended so gloriously and so fatally. Such however is not the way in which the ancient poets generally make use of supernatural agency. The gods are employed to procure good for their favourites and avert evil from them: where they can do neither, they are commonly passive. The resolution which Hector takes, to encounter Achilles and meet his death, is a heroic one: but it is prompted not by his protector Apollo but by his enemy Pallas. Virgil has entangled himself in a complication which the greater simplicity of Homer's conceptions enables him to avoid; and the readers of the Ninth Book only anticipate the dissatisfaction which the poet himself is compelled to express in the Tenth. ATQUE ea diversa penitus dum parte geruntur, Audacem ad Turnum. Luco tum forte parentis Ad quem sic roseo Thaumantias ore locuta est: 1-24] Iris tells Turnus of Aeneas' absence, and moves him to attack the Trojan camp.❜ 1.] Comp. 7. 540, which generally resembles this line. In commencing the book with a particle which refers back to the preceding narrative Virg. imitates Hom., e. g. Il. 9. 1. Val. F. begins his 4th book with atque.' 'Penitus' with 'diversa,' as with "divisos" E. 1. 67. The mention of utter separation is in point, as it is the entire removal of Aeneas from the scene which makes his camp in danger. The transactions referred to are all those at Pallanteum. 2.] Repeated from 5. 606, where as here 'dum' with the present is followed by a past. See Madv. § 336. obs. 2. 3.] Turnus is called "audax" v. 126 below, 7. 409., 10. 276. Parentis' is used loosely as in 3. 180, like "avus" 10. 76, 5 Pilumnus being Turnus' great-grandfather, 10. 619. 4.] Sacrata,' for which one MS. gives secreta,' is explained by 'luco.' 'Sedebat: Turnus is represented as at ease when Iris comes to rouse him. 5.] Roseo ore' of a goddess 2. 593. 'Thaumantias:' Thaumas, son of Ocean and Earth, was father of Iris and the Harpies, Hes. Theog. 265 foll. 6.] Cerda comp. 5. 17, "Non si mihi Iuppiter auctor Spondeat, hoc sperem Italiam contingere caelo," for a similar hyperbole. 7.] Volvenda dies:' see on 1. 269. 8.] Urbe,' the camp-settlement, as in v. 48. 9.] Sceptra,' the sign of authority, for the place over which authority is exercised. 'Palatini' is, as Serv. observes, a prolepsis; but it is also intended to remind Nec satis extremas Corythi penetravit ad urbes, 10 15 Quid dubitas? nunc tempus equos, nunc poscere currus. us of Pallanteum, as if Palatium' were a cognate form of Pallanteum. It is doubtful whether petit' is present, the last syll. being lengthened by caesura, or perf. contracted. The latter is the view of Lachm. on Lucr. 3. 1042, where several passages are collected from Ov. and Lucan, in which the syll. is similarly lengthened in one of them however, Lucan 5. 522, it would perhaps be more natural to regard 'petit' as a present. The nearest parallel to the lengthening of a short syllable in this part of the verse is " gravidus auctumno G. 2. 5, as in 7. 398 the initial letter of "hymenaeos" may probably account for the quantity of the last syll. of "canit." 'Petivit' was early introduced as metrical alteration by ignorant transcribers, being found in two or three of Ribbeck's cursives and in Rom. from a correction. a 10.] Nec (id) satis (est),' a noticeable ellipse, as there is nothing in the structure of the sentence to suggest the pronoun, which has to be inferred from the context. We might resolve it into nec satis (fecit hoc faciendo),' but the difficulty would be the same. The meaning is that Aeneas has not only got the alliance of Evander and the Arcadians, but of the Etruscans; and this is expressed rhetorically, as if Aeneas went far to seek for the Etruscan alliance instead of having it offered him. Corythi' 3. 170., 7. 209. "Penetravit ad urbes" 7. 207, where, as here, there is the notion of difficulty and distance. 11.] Lydorum' 8. 479. The reading before Heins., 'collectosque,' is found, according to Ribbeck, in Parrhas., a MS. known for its interpolations. Rom., Med., and Pal. omit the copula, the latter, with some other copies, reading manus.' One of Ribbeck's cursives has 'manum et,' a reading of which there are traces in Gud.; 20 20 and this would seem the best if, as Jahn, 213. Palantisque polo stellas. Quisquis in arma vocas. Sequor omina tanta, Et sic effatus ad undam Processit, summoque hausit de gurgite lymphas, 8. 568, οὐρανόθεν δ ̓ ἄρ ̓ ὑπερράγη ἄσπετος es : 6 22.] Quisquis in arma vocas:' for the doubt expressed see on 4. 577. It must be owned however that the present passage would rather suggest that Turnus' doubt refers not to the identity of Iris but to the god whose bidding she does (comp. v. 18) and so Serv. "vel Iuno vel Iuppiter.' Possibly in 4. 1. c. the doubt may be the same, referring not to Mercury but to the god who sent him, it being assumed that he would not have come of his own motion: but there the context favours the explanation given in the note. Et' has been questioned by Heyne and Ribbeck, " 25 but it is similarly used 6. 53., 10. 495 : 23.] Turnus takes up water in his hands to cleanse them before offering his prayer. Comp. 8. 70, where however more may be meant. It was a Roman custom to make vows before a battle and to wash the hands before making them, Turneb. V. L. 25. 30. Serv. says that if a person after seeing an omen came to running water, he took up some in his hands and made vows, that the stream might not break the omen. The notion is curiously like the belief that running water dissolved a magical spell, which the readers of the Lay of the Last Minstrel will remember: it is not however likely that Virg., with all his love of antiquarian allusion, can have referred to it, as Turnus is not met by the river, but goes to it deliberately. 24.] 'Oneravitque aethera votis' was thought superfluous by Heyne, but is defended by Weichert as a piece of epic redundance. If anything can be said against it, it is that it seems too artificial for a passage of ordinary description, though it would suit an impassioned passage like 11. 50. Some inferior copies omit 'que,' a reading which the early critics tried to render metrical either by lengthening the last syllable of oneravit' or by scanning aethera' as a quadrisyllable by diaeresis. 25-76.] The Rutulians advance to the attack: the Trojans refuse to come out: Turnus prepares to burn their fleet.' 25.] The second reading of Med. is Iamque adeo,' obviously from a recollection of 8. 585. 26.] Dives' denotes abundance, not "Dives pecoris" E. 2. 20. The uncial MSS. splendour. Pictai:' see on 3. 354. are not clear about the word, Med. originally and Rom. having picta,' while in Pal. the final 'i' is in an erasure; but it is attested by Probus, Diomedes, and other grammarians. Cerda is perhaps right in 66 Aut latum taking pictai vestis et auri' as ev dà dvoîv, comp. Juv. 6. 482, pictae vestis considerat aurum :" but auri' might refer equally well to golden ornaments. Messapus primas acies, postrema coercent Tyrrhidae iuvenes; medio dux agmine Turnus [Vertitur arma tenens, et toto vertice supra est]. Ceu septem surgens sedatis amnibus altus Per tacitum Ganges, aut pingui flumine Nilus Cum refluit campis et iam se condidit alveo. Hic subitam nigro glomerari pulvere nubem Prospiciunt Teucri, ac tenebras insurgere campis. Primus ab adversa conclamat mole Caicus: Quis globus, o cives, caligine volvitur atra? Ferte citi ferrum, date tela, ascendite muros. Hostis adest, heia! Ingenti clamore per omnis Condunt se Teucri portas, et moenia conplent. Namque ita discedens praeceperat optumus armis 27.] Messapus' 7. 691. 'Coercent,' rally and keep in line, like " agmina cogunt Castigantque moras 4. 406. 'Postrema' i. q. "postremas acies." 28.] "Tyrrhidae iuvenes" 7. 484. 29. This line is wanting in all Ribbeck's MSS., and was doubtless introduced from 7. 784. It is only for the sake of convenience that I bracket rather than exclude it. 30.] The comparison, as Jahn and Wagn. remark, belongs to vv. 25, 26, the intermediate lines being quasi-parentheti⚫cal. The steady silent march of the army is compared to the rising of the Ganges, or the subsidence of the Nile. 'Surgens' can hardly refer to anything but the rising of the river, which is supposed to be slow and gradual. Whether Virg. had any authority for this notion of the periodical overflow of the Ganges, we do not know. He may have confused it with the Nile, as is further made probable by the number seven, which belongs to the Nile (see 6. 800), though Serv. refers for the seven branches of the Ganges to a passage of Mela, which is either misunderstood or non-existent. To take 'surgens' with recent commentators of the rise or source of the river would not agree well with 'amnibus,' and would have no point as a comparison. The alliteration, as well as the spondaic movement of the line, gives a notion of slowness and quiet. 31.] Per tacitum' constructed with 'surgens,' i. q. "tacite," as in Sil. 10. 353., 12. 554., 17. 215, cited by Forb., who also quotes Lucan 10. 251, "trahitur Gangesque Padusque Per tacitum mundi," a further extension of the expression. Pin gui' like "fimo pingui" G. 1. 80, sero pingui" ib. 3. 406, rich and fertilizing. Virg. probably did not separate the two notions, and we need not do so. 32.]Refluit campis,' flows back from the fields, like "referebat pectore voces 5. 409. 33.] Nubem' eaused partly by the dust and partly by the body raising it. Pal. and originally Gud. have 'magno.' 35.] "Adversa,' castris opposita an venienti agmini?" Serv. Clearly the latter. 'Caicus' 1. 183. 36.] 'Globus' is explained by glomerari' v. 33. It matters little whether caligine' be taken as an attrib. abl. with globus' or an abl. of circumstance with volvitur.' It is really a variety of "globus caliginis." 37.] Ascendite' Pal., Med., Gud., 'et scandite' Rom. and virtually fragm. Vat. Gud. as a variant has 'et ascandite,' and Med. has scandite' (without 'et') in marg. This last was the reading of many of the old editions, and was retained by Heyne, who thought the others metrical corrections. But the lengthening of a short syllable before 'sc' is unknown to Virg. Ribbeck, following Heins., thinks 'et scandite' may point to 'ecscandite' or ་ escendite.' This is possible: but it seems on every ground safest to retain ascendite.' The line closely resembles 4. 594. 39.] Condere' implies motion, so that it is naturally constructed with per portas.' 40.] With optumus armis' Ġossrau comp. " melior armis " 10. 735. The epithet justifies the command given by Aeneas, clearing the Trojans, as Serv. remarks, from any imputation of cowardice.' |