ingens quod torva solum sub fronte latebat, Argolici clipei aut Phoebeae lampadis instar, et tandem laeti sociorum ulciscimur umbras. 640 Achaemenides urges the Trojans to flee, but before they have time to Thrice hath the moon now filled her horns with light, 645 They haunt, I drag my life on, from the rock Or trembling at their voices and their tread. 650 This fleet of yours stand shoreward, and to this, 'Scarce had he spoke, when on the mountain-top 655 Himself, in mighty bulk among his flocks The shepherd Polyphemus we descry Monster fell, shapeless, vast, of eyesight reft. Lopped by his hand a pine tree guides his steps And steadies; his woolly sheep beside him stray, 660 Soon as he touched the deep waves, reached the main, Groans, and through ocean now at midmost wades; 665 Nor wetted yet the flood his towering sides. Polyphemus, hearing the noise of the oars, with a loud cry summons the other Cyclopes. The Trojans in their terror are at first inclined to escape even to the north between Scylla and Charybdis, but remembering the warning of Helenus they turn back on their old course. Fortunately a north wind suddenly rises and carries them south past the east coast of Sicily. constiterunt, silva alta Iovis lucusve Dianae. sensit, et ad sonitum vocis vestigia torsit. 670 675 680 praecipitis metus acer agit quocumque rudentis excutere et ventis intendere vela secundis. contra iussa monent Heleni, Scyllam atque Charybdim inter, utramque viam leti discrimine parvo 685 ni teneant cursus; certum est dare lintea retro. ecce autem Boreas angusta ab sede Pelori missus adest: vivo praetervehor ostia saxo Pantagiae Megarosque sinus Thapsumque iacentem. 690 The voyage is continued past Ortygia, round Pachynum, the most southern promontory of Sicily, and thence west along the coast to Drepanum, where Anchises dies. 'An isle lies Stretched full in front of the Sicanian bay, Wave-washed Plemmyrium, called by men of old Ortygia. Hither, the tale runs, Alpheus, River of Elis, worked his hidden way Thence towering Acragas displays afar Her mighty walls, once breeder of brave steeds: Departing hence, heaven drave me to your shores.' 695 700 705 710 715 NOTES BOOK I ... 2-3. Italiam... Lavinaque . . litora. Verbs of motion may in poetry be followed by an acc. of destination without a preposition. The 'Lavinian strand' is the district of Latium (Campagna di Roma), in which Aeneas founded the town of Lavinium, so named after his Italian bride, Lavinia. fato explains how he came to be profugus. ille: emphasizes the subject without repeating it. 4. superum: the old-fashioned form of the gen. plur. in o-stems, very common in Virgil. So deum in 9 below, and Danaum in 30, 96. Iunonis: Juno (Hera, the goddess of the Argives) was always hostile to Troy. 5. et bello, 'in war as well'. dum conderet, 'till he should found', 'while striving to found': subj., because the event is expected and purposed. 6. deos: the national gods of Troy, rescued at its destruction, and brought by Aeneas to Italy. On this, and on the manner of his rescue of his father Anchises from the burning city, rests the claim of Aeneas to pietas (10), on which Virgil so often insists. pietas conveys no idea of priggishness, but merely faithful discharge of duty to the gods and one's fellow-men. genus unde Latinum, 'from whom (Aeneas) sprang the Latin race'. In the legend the Trojans amalgamate with the Italian population of Latium and adopt the local name Latini. 7. Albani patres, 'the sires of Alba', i.e. the old 'patrician' families of Alba Longa, a town of Latium said to have been founded by Aeneas' son, Ascanius. 8. Musa: Virgil frequently invokes the Muses in imitation of Homer, a fashion which passed into English poetry at a time when one of the chief qualifications of a poet was knowledge of the classics and ability to imitate them. quo numine laeso, 'for what affront to her godhead' lit. 'what divine power of hers having been affronted'. . 9. quidve dolens, 'or resenting what' (a very common sense of doleo). tot volvere casus: probably a metaphor from rolling a stone. We may translate: 'turn so long the wheel of disaster'; or from unwinding the scroll of a book, and so 'turn page after page of disaster'. II. animis: dat., the verb sunt being omitted. 12. antiqua, ‘of that olden time'. Carthage was by no means an 'ancient city' in the days of Aeneas, for in 421 ff. we find that he came to the city while it was still building. Virgil, however, always thinks of the part played by Carthage in the history of Rome: Hannibal was as terrible a figure to the Romans as Napoleon to the Englishmen of his time, and the memory of Cannae must have been deep-rooted in the national consciousness. 13, 14. Italiam contra, &c., 'fronting Italy and the mouths of Tiber afar off', as a map of the Mediterranean shows at a glance. dives opum, 'rich in all wealth', the gen. being usual after an adj. of abundance or scarcity. The expression is not tautological in Latin, as opes includes much that divitiae would not. 15. unam, 'which ... alone': we might translate 'made her own'. 16. coluisse combines the two senses of 'cherishing' and 'residing at'. Samo. Hera, the Greek goddess with whom the Romans identified Juno, had her birthplace and most famous seat of worship in the Aegean island Samos. Note the hiatus after the final vowel of Samo. See Introduction, p. 18. 17. hoc regnum... gentibus esse, 'that this should be an empire for the earth'. The clause is the object of tenditque fovetque. Strict logic would require hanc (i. e. urbem) regnum esse, but attraction' of this sort is regular in Latin and Greek: cf. 253. The Carthaginians nearly asserted their supremacy over the ancient world after the battle of Cannae. Notice how in some mysterious way fata ('destiny') are beyond the control even of the gods themselves. 18. tenditque fovetque: a curious expression which may be paraphrased: 'was her goal and cherished desire'; strictly tenditque governs hoc regnum. ... esse and fovet, hoc regnum alone. 19. sed enim, 'however'; enim merely strengthens sed here. 20. olim quae verteret, 'destined one day to overthrow'. The day came in 146 B. C., when Carthage was captured and destroyed by L. Scipio Aemilianus. 21. late regem: equivalent to late regnantem. 22. excidio Libyae, 'for a destruction to Libya', or 'for the destruction of Libya', Libyae being either gen. or dat. sic volvere Parcas, 'so did the Sisters ordain'. The Parcae were Italian goddesses of fate, identified by the Romans with Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the three sisters who in Greek mythology spin, measure, and cut short the destinies of men. volvere conveys the notion of a 'cycle' of fate as well as the unwinding of a ball of thread. 24. prima, 'of yore'. Argis. Argos, dear to Juno (Hera) because it rivalled Samos as the seat of her worship, is often used as a name for Greece in general. 26. alta mente, 'deep in her mind'. repostum: syncopated form of repositum. 27. spretaeque iniuria formae, 'and the insult to her beauty scorned': the emphasis being on spretae. 28. genus invisum. Ganymede, son of Laomedon, carried off by Jupiter to be cup-bearer to the gods. It can hardly have soothed Juno's temper to see the son of a Trojan king (invisum genus) daily performing his duties in the halls of Olympus. invisum, because Aeneas and the royal house of Troy were descended, through Dardanus, from Electra, who had rivalled Juno in the affections of Jupiter. |