Intonuit."

"Nutuque sereno

"Hæc ubi dicta dedit terras horrenda petivit."

VALER. FLAC. III. 251.

Sollicitus nubem, mesto Jove, cogitur aer."

CLAUD. Bell. Getic. 378.

See also for the application of the same term, not indeed to the aspect, but to the temper (Germ. Stimmung) of the Gods when engaged in a benevolent act, Virgil himself En. III. 265:

"Dî, talem avertite casum,

Et placidi servate pios."

COELI RUINA.

"Imbribus et conjuncta cum his reliqua tempestatis fœditate." - WAGNER. Virg. Br. En. "Imbre, fulguribus, fulminibus, quæ e cœlo ruunt." RUÆUS.

The falling, not, as these commentators seem to have understood the passage, of the contents or discharges of the sky, but, as understood by Voss, of the sky itself: "dem Sturze des Himmels." Compare Ruit arduus æther: (Georg. I. 324), and Forbiger on that passage. Also

"Inque fretum credas totum descendere cœlum."

"Tremendo

Jupiter ipse ruens tumultu.”

OVID. Met. XI. 518.

HOR. Carm. I. 16.

Caro, if we may judge from his translation, misunderstood the word wholly:

The

NEC LATUERE DOLI FRATREM JUNONIS ET IRÆ. meaning is not (with Ruæus and Dryden), that Neptune was previously acquainted with the anger and machinations of his sister against the Trojans, but (with

Caro and Heyne), that Neptune, seeing it was the Trojans that suffered, understood at once the cause of the storm, viz. that it had been produced by his sister in order to wreak her vengeance on her enemies. The connexion is, COMMOTUS, PROSPICIENS, VIDET, NEC LATUERE, FRATREM: uneasy at the disturbance and anxious to know its cause, takes a view all round, sees the Trojan ships in distress, and being, from his intimacy with Juno, previously aware of her animosity against the Trojans, understands at once the whole matter. NEC LATUERE DOLI ET IRÆ, i. e. nec latuit quod tempestas orta sit ex iris et dolis. Neptune's previous knowledge of the IRE and DOLI of his sister is, not expressed by NEC LATUERE, but, implied by FRATREM.

TANTANE VOS GENERIS TENUIT FIDUCIA VESTRI. "Magnum et gentile tumentes."

STAT. Theb. VIII. 429.

143.

TENET ILLE IMMANIA SAXA

VESTRAS EURE DOMOS ILLA SE JACTET IN AULA

EOLUS ET CLAUSO VENTORUM CARCERE REGNET

IMMANIA SAXA.

HEYNE.

"Vastum antrum” (v. 56). No; the reference is not special, but general; not to a particular part of Eolus's empire, but to the whole. First, because the description is in general terms, IMMANIA SAXA, VESTRAS DOMOS, corresponding exactly to the description of Eolia at verse 55:

"Nimborum in patriam, loca fœta furentibus Austris." Secondly, because it is the whole of the empire of Eolus, and not the cave of the winds alone, which should be contrasted with the whole of the empire of Neptune, described at verse 142 in the words:

"Non illi imperium pelagi sævumque tridentem,
Sed mihi sorte datum;"

close upon which follows the contrast: TENET ILLE IMMANIA SAXA VESTRAS EURE DOMOS; that wild, rocky Eolia, where the winds had their home; where the cave of the winds was. And thirdly, because the cave of the winds is specified in its proper place in the next verse. ILLA SE JACTET IN AULA. ILLA plainly referring AULA to IMMANIA SAXA and VESTRAS DOMOS, and those words being, as just shown, a periphrasis for the country of Eolia, the AULA (Hof or court) in which Eolus is here told to take state on him, is neither, with Heyne, Thiel, and Voss, the celsa arx mentioned at verse 60 (“Regia alto in montis cacumine." HEYNE. "Jene 'celsa arx.'

THIEL. "Dort üb' im Palaste den Hochmut."

Voss.)

nor, with Dryden (see below), the cavern of the winds, but simply the country of Eolia.

The received

CLAUSO VENTORUM CARCERE REGNET. interpretation, "regnet in clauso ventorum carcere," is erroneous: First, because regnare, in order to express reigning in, inside, or within a place, must be followed by the preposition in expressed, as in "Regnet in aula" (Georg. IV. 90); and

"Inque tua regnant, nullis prohibentibus, aula.”

(OVID. Heroid. I. 89.);

for I consider coelo, in Horace's "cœlo credidimus Jovem regnare" (Carm. III. v. 1), and mundo, in Seneca's "vacuo regnare mundo" (Herc. Fur. 67), to be as certainly the objects of the verb as oppidis in Cicero's "In Sicilia Timarchidem omnibus oppidis regnasse" (In Verr. III. 54). And secondly, because the command to Eolus to shut himself up in the prison, and reign there among his prisoners, had been a mere brutum fulmen, an unmeaning piece of abuse, which Virgil was quite too judicious. to put into the mouth of his dignified God of the sea.

The meaning is just the contrary: let him reign as absolute as he likes, but not with respect to the prison of the winds. Literally: the prison of the winds being closed, then let him reign absolute; or let him close the prison of the winds, and then reign absolute; a command, it will be observed, which is, first, compatible with the dignity of Neptune; secondly, imperatively required by the circumstances of the case; and thirdly, in perfect harmony with the delegated authority of Eolus, who might be as despotic as he pleased among the IMMANIA SAXA Of Eolia, provided only he did not open or shut the prison of the winds without orders.

"Regem. . . qui fœdere certo

Et premere et laxas sciret dare jussus habenas."

The whole force and gist of the passage lies in this word REGNET: which, first, means not merely to rule, but rule as an autocrat (compare the examples above quoted from Horace, Seneca, and Cicero; also Liv. III. 2, and Gronov. ad Liv. XXIV. 29 and particularly Ovid's "Quicquid amor jussit, non est contemnere tutum; Regnat, et in dominos jus habet ille Deos."

Heroid. IV. 11.)

And secondly, being separated from its conjunction by the sudden pauses preceding and following the ablative. absolute, and being, at the same time, the last word. in the line and the last word uttered by Neptune, receives the whole ictus of Neptune's voice as he turns and goes away: ET, CLAUSO VENTORUM CARCERE, REGNET. Compare the similar emphasis thrown by Neptune in this very same speech on venti, similarly placed at the end of a line, and similarly separated from the preceding context; and the not very dissimilar structure and emphasis at aras, verse 113; and the much less strong, (because the sense runs on to the next line) but still somewhat similar, emphasis at amicum, verse 614; also, closely corresponding to Virgil's REGNET both in isola

ted position and independent structure, the regnat of Ovid in the passage just quoted.

How good soever, therefore, may be their poetry, the meaning, which the translators have given us for this passage, is exactly the opposite of Virgil's:

"Dort üb im Palaste den Hochmut

Eolus, und in der Winde verschlossenem Kerker
gebiet' er."

CARO.

"His power to hollow caverns is confined;
There let him reign, the gaoler of the wind;

Voss.

With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call,
And boast and bluster in his empty hall."

Αιολος, ειρκτησιν δ' ανέμων κλειστης αγος εστω.

DE BULGARIS.

The translators and commentators may, however, plead in extenuation the authority of Servius: "Carcere regnet; licet carcer sit, tamen regnum est Æoli;" a misconception, of a piece with Servius's usual misconceptions of his author's meaning. In Neptune's message to Eolus, not only is there no scoffing allusion to the prison of the winds, or to Eolus's office as gaoler, but the clearest and most marked distinction is drawn between the prison of the winds and Eolus's rocky kingdom of Eolia, in which it was contained; also between Eolus's delegated authority over the winds, and his absolute authority over the rest of the kingdom.

Precisely similar to the absolute CLAUSO CARCERE in our text, is the absolute clauso Olympo, vers. 378.