good sense; but MSS. agree in 'serenas,' which may conceivably have arisen from a scribe denoting the n by a line over—SERENAS.

466-468. miseratus, sc. 'est.' An eclipse of the sun took place in Nov. 44 B.C., the year of Julius Caesar's murder; an account of this and other portents being given by Ov. Met. xv. 789 sqq.; Luc. i. 522 sqq.: cp. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act ii. Sc. 2. ferrugine, 'lurid hue.' Originally the colour of iron rust, so of lurid or murky colour, Aen. vi. 603 (Charon's boat): but also of more pleasing objects G. iv. 183 (hyacinths), Aen. ix. 582 and xi. 772 (purple robes), in which cases a dark blue colour is probably intended.

469. quamquam, etc. Though as regards influence on the world, it was not the sun only that gave omens.' This makes a transition to the concluding lines upon the politics of Rome.

470. obscenae, 'ill-omened,' apparently the original meaning, but whence derived is uncertain: ‘coenum,'‘filth;' ́scaeva,’ ́an omen;' and σкŋνη (i. e. what requires a cloak or cover), being various suggestions: cp. Aen. iii. 262, xii. 876; Hor. Epod. v. 98. importunae, 'unlucky,' 'evilboding:' originally the opposite of 'op-portunus,' and so 'inconvenient,' 'unseasonable,' and then (like akaιpos) in the stronger sense of 'oppressive' applied to 'tyrannus,' 'dominatio,' etc. Here it repeats the idea of obscenae.'

471. dabant, 'kept giving.' The eclipse of Nov. 44 B. c. seems to have coincided with a period of volcanic disturbance in Italy and Sicily (see Con. on 11. 467, 471), the phenomena of which were connected in men's minds with the disturbances of the time, and particularly the death of Caesar. Virgil, like Horace (Od. i. 2), seems to treat them as signs of retribution for the civil wars and Caesar's murder.

472. undantem refers to the streams of lava. Servius quotes from Livy the statement of a great eruption of Aetna at this time. For a fuller description see Aen. iii. 571 sqq.: cp. Lucr. vi. 680 sqq.

476, 477. A voice too was heard far and wide through the silent groves, a mighty voice.' The pause after a spondaic first foot in 1. 477 gives the effect of solemnity, see note to Ecl. v. 21. simulacra modis pallentia

miris is from Lucr. i. 123.

479, 480. terrae, 'lands,' not (as Con.) the whole expanse of earth. ebur, ivory statues:' cp. G. ii. 193.

482. fluviorum; the i has its consonantal sound of y, making the word a trisyllable and the first syllable long; cp. ' tenuia' l. 397.

484, 485. tristibus, 'gloomy,' and so ill-omened. fibrae, 'filaments :' it is not certain what the peculiar appearances were from which omens were drawn. exta ('exista ') were the larger intestines, heart, liver, etc. altae, a natural epithet of cities in a mountainous country: cp. G. ii. 156.

487. alias, temporal adv., ' at no other time;' probably an accus. form like foras.' Horace (Od. i. 34. 5-8) speaks of thunder in a clear sky as a striking portent.

489-492. ergo, etc. Not only was all nature moved at Caesar's death, but Heaven exacted vengeance in the continuance of civil strife and foreign war, the only hope for relief from which is in the young Caesar (Octavianus).

And so Philippi saw Roman hosts once more with kindred arms meet in battle: nor did Heaven think it shame that Roman blood should twice fatten Emathia and the broad plains of Haemus.' paribus, because both Roman; cp. Lucan. i. 7 'pares aquilas et pila minantia pilis.' iterum with concurrere; not with videre, for then Virgil would make Philippi the scene of both the battles referred to; viz. Pharsalia (B.c. 48) in Thessaly, and Philippi (B.C. 42) in Macedonia. He probably knew better than this; though, like Lucan (i. 680 sqq., vii. 854 sqq.), Ovid (Met. xv. 824), and Juvenal (viii. 242), he seems to treat Emathia, Haemus, and Thessaly as poetically convertible terms. Dean Merivale ('Roman Empire,' iii. p. 214) thinks that succeeding writers, misunderstanding Virgil, did represent Pharsalia and Philippi as on the same spot. superis, dat. ethicus, ‘in the sight of heaven;' cp. Lucan. x. 102 'Sat fuit indignum, Caesar, mundoque tibique.' Others take it as abl., unworthy of the gods' (with whom rested the decision).

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493-497. Cp. Lucan's invocation to Thessaly as the scene of so much Roman slaughter (Phars. vii. 847 sqq.). pila, the characteristic Roman weapon: 'Thine, Roman, is the pilum,' Macaulay, 'Proph. of Capys.' grandia, i. e. of an older time, referring to the notion of continual degeneration; cp. Lucr. ii. 1148 sqq.; Hor. Od. iii. 6. 45; Juv. xv. 69, 70 (exhaustively and curiously illustrated by Mayor, 2nd edition).

498-514. Caesar (Octavianus) is invoked as the only hope of his falling country. The passage seems to refer to, and to have been written about, 33-32 B.C., the beginning of the civil war which ended at Actium; see 11. 510, 511. It is full of melancholy forebodings, like the parallel passage in Horace, Od. i. 2, which expresses much the same hopes and fears.

498-500. Vesta is one of the Di patrii, Romulus one of the Indigetes ('deified heroes:' cp. Aen. xii. 794). iuvenem, Octavianus Caesar (afterwards Augustus), now about twenty-eight years old: cp. Ecl. i. 43; Hor. Od. i. 2. 41-43.

502-504. luimus, pres. with iampridem, of what has been for some time and is still going on; cp. Gk. máλaι. For the antiquarian allusion cp. Aen. v. 811; Hor. Od. iii. 3. 21. Virgil is assuming the Trojan origin of Rome, which was to be the subject of the Aeneid. satis may apply both to luimus and invidet, whether a semicolon or comma (as Kenn.) stands after Troiae. 'Long enough have we been paying with our blood for Troy's perjured Laomedon; long enough has heaven's high hall been grudging thee to us, O Caesar, and complaining that thou shouldst care for earthly triumphs,'—i.e. long enough have the present times of trouble lasted. By 11. 503, 504 Virgil means, says Prof. Nettleship ('Essay on the Poems of Vergil,' p. 55), 'that the world has grown too wicked for a god to dwell in; the gods have turned their eyes away from Rome, and are jealous that one of themselves can trouble himself about any honours of victory which men can offer him.' hominum triumphos contrasts with caeli regia, and need not be supposed to allude to the actual 'triumphi' of B. C. 29 (Aen. viii. 714).

505-508. quippe explains the previous line, 'seeing that on earth (ubi =

'apud quos') right gives place to wrong'-lit. 'right and wrong are inverted.' aratro, abl., 'no honour worthy of the plough.' squalent, 'lie foul' (with weeds), cp. G. ii. 348, note. abductis, i. e. to the wars. For conflantur, Nonius and Servius agree in reading 'formantur;' cp. Aen. i. 62.

509, 510. Euphrates, perhaps alluding to Phraates, who about 32 B. C., on Antonius withdrawing his forces, overran Media and Armenia. The allusion in Germania is uncertain: but it may be to a war of C. Carrinas against the Morini and Suevi, for which he was afterwards allowed a triumph (Dion 51. 21; Aen. viii. 727). movet bellum, of an offensive war (Liv. xliii. 1. 11), applies well to Phraates, and probably also to a rising of the Suevi. vicinae urbes must be the neighbour cities of Italy, and Mars impius = 'civil war.' Dion (50. 6), in speaking of the events of 32 B. C., implies that there were cities in Italy which favoured Antonius and gave Octavianus some trouble to crush them.

=

513. addunt in spatia, either (1) 'throw themselves on to the course the reflexive 'se' being omitted, as often in poetry, and 'addere' used for 'dare' in the sense of 'place,' 'assign,' etc. (cp. above ll. 129, 150, iv. 150); or (2) 'go quicker every turn,' 'addunt' being an imitation of the Greek mididóaσi, and 'in spatia' from 'spatium' to 'spatium' (cp. 'in dies,' 'from day to day'). This latter is ingenious, but the meaning given to 'addunt' is purely conjectural. The plural 'spatia' in either case implies the different circuits or 'laps' which made the course. The true reading, however, is very uncertain. Rom. has 'addunt spatia;' Med. 'addunt spatio,' with 'in spatia' as a correction; others 'addunt in spatia,' 'in spatio,' or 'se in spatio:' while conjectures have been made of 'ardent, in spatia et . . .' and 'addunt se spatio.' Sil. Ital. xvi. 372 imitates the passage (‘In spatia addebant'), but as there is a v. 1. 'spatio' we cannot be certain what reading he saw. Vat. is wanting here, and also Pal. (though Con, cites it for ‘addunt se in spatia').

GEORGICA.

LIBER II.

2, 3. silvestria virgulta, 'the forest undergrowth,' used loosely for ' arbores,' introduced into this book as supporters of the vine.

5. tibi, cp. G. i. 12, 14. For thee the land is bright with teeming harvest of the vine.' pampineo auctumno, either ablative of time, 'when autumn bears the vine,' or, like ỏnάpa in Greek (Soph. Tr. 703; Pind. I. ii. 8), used as 'fruit' or 'bloom of autumn.'

8. dereptis, 'plucked off,' is better than 'direptis,' retained by Ribbeck. Both verbs imply violent snatching: but 'diripio' usually = either 'tear in pieces,' or 'plunder,' cp. Aen. iii. 227. E and I are constantly confused, e. g. in nom. acc. plur. of -i stems: and in Hor. Od. iii. 5. 21 there is the same variation between 'derepta' and 'direpta.'

9. 'Nature has different methods for producing trees.' arboribus creandis, dat., cf. G. i. 3 and below 1. 178. The methods specified are (1) Natural (without help of man), (a) spontaneous generation (11. 20-13), (6) by seed (11. 14-16), (c) by suckers (ll. 17-19). (2) Artificial; of six kinds (11. 20-34).

14-16. posito 'dropped,' i. e. from the tree or by birds. Virgil can hardly mean to include sowing by the hand of man in this context, though it is not mentioned afterwards among the artificial modes. But his classification is loose; for spontaneous generation must be from seed. nemorum maxima, 'queen of the forest,' lit. 'greatest tree of or belonging to the woods.' 'dulcissime rerum' Hor. Sat. i. 9. 4 is not quite analogous. Iovi, 'for (in honour of) Jupiter.' aesculus and quercus are said to denote two varieties of the edible (or Italian) oak (Quercus robur); but the terms are used indifferently, and here the words 'nemorumque... quercus' seem to be merely a poetical amplification for the oak-groves of Dodona sacred to Jupiter.

17–19. pullulat, ‘sprouts,' i. e. by 'pulli' or shoots; silva, cp. G. i. 76: se subiicit, cp. Ecl. x. 74.

21. silvarum, 'forest trees;' fruticum, 'shrubs.'

22. via, 'in its course:' not exactly 'by regular method' (Con.); the idea being that of practical experience (usus, cp. Ecl. i. 71, note) gradually devising new processes as it goes on. Such new processes may have been hit on by chance and not by regular method. The six processes mentioned in ll. 23-34 were technically named 'avulsio,' 'infossio,' 'propagatio,' 'surculatio,' 'concisio,' 'insitio.'

23, 24. plantas, ‘suckers,' called technically ‘stolones.' tenero probably gives the idea of young, fresh, healthy trees: cp. below ll. 272, 343. stirpes, 'sets,' which 1. 25 says may be planted in two forms, 'both as shafts fourcleft (at the bottom, to form a root) and pointed stakes.' The word must be used loosely for 'shoots' or 'sets;' for Virgil cannot mean the principal 'stirps' or 'stock.' Cp. Lucr. v. 1100 (of trees rubbing against each other in a wind) Mutuaque inter se rami stirpesque feruntur.' In Cato, R. R. 40 'stirps' is interchanged with 'ramus;' in Columella, iii. 4, 5 with 'surculus ' and 'malleolus,' applied with reference to its use as a 'set' or 'plant.'

26, 27. Some trees await the arches of the bent-down layer, and nurseries quickset in their native ground' ('propagatio'). propago (root'pag' of 'pango,' why-vvμ), 'fixing down,' a method of propagating trees by bending down a shoot till it took root in the earth (hence viva, as still sharing the life of the parent tree); and then, in general, offspring.'

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28, 29. The process of 'surculatio,' by cuttings. putator, the pruner,' i. e. the gardener who has taken the cutting. referens, 'restoring' to earth, from which the tree originally rose.

30. quin, cp. Ecl. ii. 71, note. caudicibus sectis, 'when the trunks have been lopped,' i. e. roots and branches cut off, leaving the bare stem ('concisio'); or does it mean 'when the trunk itself has been cut up' (into planks)? Pliny (xvi. 43) says that olive wood has been known to sprout after being wrought into hinges for doors: and sicco ligno would suit this latter interpretation.

32. impune, 'without harm.' vertere, intrans., cp. G. iii. 365.

34. pirum, subject of ferre. lapidosa corna according to Con. 'the cornel fruit,' and prunis (abl. loci)='on plum trees.' But why should the cornel, a 'victus infelix' (Aen. iii. 649), be grafted on a fruit-bearing tree? Virgil must intend the converse of this, that plums are grafted on cornelstocks: corna being poetically used for cornos' (as 'poma' 1. 426), retaining its epithet lapidosa, while prunis is abl. of material, ‘with plums.'

35-37. generatim, 'after their kind,' a Lucretian word (i. 20, etc.). iuvat, etc. 'What joy to plant Ismarus with the vine, and clothe huge Taburnus with olives!' Virgil points to two great triumphs of human industry. Ismarus was famous for wine in Homer's day, Od. ix. 196.

39-41. Come thou too and complete with me our course begun,' i. e. the writing of the Georgics, undertaken by request of Maecenas, who is addressed in each book. laborem, cogn. acc. with decurre, lit. 'to run over a course from one end to the other,' and so 'perform,' 'complete,' cp. Aen. v. 212; Catull. lxiv. 7 'Ausi sunt vada salsa cita decurrere puppi.' For its use as a technical military term see Aen. xi. 189. volans, at full speed,' better than the v. 1. 'volens;' cp. Aen. i. 156. patenti, i. e. 'open,' 'unobstructed,' cp. ' pelago aperto' Aen. v. 212.

42-45. opto, choose,' and so 'venture,' Greek Tλîμ: cp. Aen. vi. 501. With the second non supply 'optem' as apodosis to si sint. primi, etc. 'coast the very edge of the shore,' i. e. ' primam litoris oram;' cp. Ecl. viii. 7. in manibus terrae, 'land is in our grasp,' cp. Aen. x. 280. hic, 'at this point:' carmine ficto, 'feigned,' i. e. mythical strains. Virgil seems to