295. Acherontis: Acheron, "the joyless," is the stream that embraces the whole of the lower world. It is apparently the same, in this description, with Cocytus, "Lamentation," and Styx, "Grief” (v. 323).

299. squalore, all this belongs to the ancient notions of mourning.

300. stant lumina flamma, his eyes stand in flame, i. e. are like fixed balls of fire.

301. nodo, another indication of neglect.

302. ipse, with his own hand, old as he is.—subigit, pushes, setting the pole against the bottom. -velis (abl.) ministrat, serves the sails (probably lit. "tends the boat with sails ").

304. senior, the word applied to a man between 45 and 60. — jam gives the idea of getting old.

310. gurgite ab alto, from the deep sea, as they come to land in their migrations.

313. cursum, see § 52, 1, e.

316. arcet arena, keeps from the strand.

318. quid volt, what means?

321. longæva: the Sibyl, said the legend, had received the gift of as many years as the grains of sand which she held in her hand, but without the boon of youth (Ovid, xiv. 132–153).

324. numen, Virgil vaguely assigns a divinity to the river, just as all earthly rivers had a god. The construction is a short-hand one for per cujus numen jurati timent fallere fidem. Perhaps in imitation of the Greek, cf. v. 351.

327. ripas, following trans-: nor is it granted to convey them across the dread banks and hoarse flood, until, &c.

333. mortis honore, i. e. burial.

334. Oronten, i. 113; Leucaspis is not elsewhere mentioned by Virgil. He seems to have perished along with Orontes.

335. vectos, in the sense of a present participle, § 72, 1, b; G. 278, R.

337. sese agebat =came walking.

338. dum servat, while watching. For present, see § 58, 2, e; G. 230, R.

340. vix.. in umbra, he scarce recognized him in the deep gloom. 344. hoc uno responso: some such oracle may have been in one of the legends, but is not mentioned elsewhere by Virgil. Neptune had announced to Venus (iv. 814) that the fleet would come safe, with the loss of one man.

345. ponto incolumem, safe at sea.

348. nec deus mersit: Palinurus does not know that it was the god of Sleep that threw him over (v. 859); neither did he perish by the sea (v. 358). It was by an accident (forte), as he thinks, that he fell overboard.

351. præcipitans, as I fell headlong.— maria, obj. of juro, by a Greek construction: the Latin would take per (cf. v. 324).

352. timorem, subj. of cepisse, that no such fear overtook me for myself.

353. quam tua ... navis, as lest your ship, stripped of her equipment, and having cast off her pilot (lit. wrenched from her pilot), might swamp in those surging waves. (Ribbeck's reading ni is only a variation of spelling for ne.)

355. tris noctes: so Ulysses floats two days and two nights (Od. v. 388). The woodwork of the stern serves Palinurus as a sort of raft.

356. aqua, i. e. afloat.

357. sublimis ab unda, i. e. from the "offing," which appears elevated from shore. There is a curious Latin treatise of Dante (Quæstio de Aquâ et Terrâ) which discusses the question whether the water is naturally higher than the land, as seems to have been the common opinion of his day.

358. tuta tenebam, ni, I was just reaching safety [and should have been safe] unless, &c. (§ 59, 3, d; G. 599, R2).

360. capita montis: he had crawled to the top of the cliff, and was clinging to it with hands bent and stiff (uncis manibus).

361. prædam, a prize, i. e. a shipwrecked man with some of his property about him.

362. fluctus habet, see v. 871.

363. quod te oro (see ii. 141), but I implore you (cf. quod si). 365. aut tu... aut tu, observe the emphasis and urgency in the repetition of the pronoun. terram inice, cf. Hor. Od. i. 28, 35. 366. Velinos, of Velia, a coast-town about sixty miles south-east of Naples.

368. neque enim credo, for, I suppose, no doubt.

371. ut saltem quiescam, that at least I may have rest in the grave; since I had it not in life, and failed to reach the promised land with you.

372. talia fatus erat: the reading quoted by Priscian is certainly an improvement: Vix ea fatus erat.

373. tam dira cupido, so wild a wish.

377. cape, take to your heart for consolation.

379. prodigiis acti, forced by portents. It is said that the people of Lucania, suffering from pestilence, were commanded by an oracle to propitiate by sacrifice the shade of Palinurus.

381. Palinuri: a headland on the coast still bears the name Punta di Palinuro.

382. parumper: his grief is checked for a while.

383. cognomine terræ: an old reading has terrā (abl.) in appos. with cognomine.

384. ergo: i. e. since they have quieted him.

385. jam inde prospexit, at once when he espied.

389. jam istinc, right from where you are: come no nearer. 394. invicti viribus, resistless in might: my opposition to them would be vain.

395. Tartareum custodem, the watch-dog of Hell, Cerberus, whom Hercules was sent by Eurystheus to drag away (Il. viii. 366-369; Od. xi. 622–625).

396. a solio regis, from the monarch's very throne, to which Cerberus is supposed to have fled, breaking from his chain.

397. dominam, the queen: the title déorowa, lady or mistress, belonged especially to Persephone. It is to be taken here absolutely, Ditis limiting thalamo.

398. Amphrysia: Apollo, by whose gift the Sibyl was inspired, is called "the shepherd of Amphrysus" (G. iii. 2), a river in the dominions of Admetus.

400. licet. . . umbras, let the huge watch-dog, for ever howling in his den, scare the bloodless ghosts.

402. casta (pred.), let Proserpine keep, unstained, her uncle's threshold. She was the daughter of Jupiter, and Pluto was his brother.

=

to the shades below.

404. imas ad umbras
408. nec plura his, to them he says no more. -

v. 632.

411. juga, thwarts, or cross-planks used as seats. 412. laxat foros, clears the gangways.

donum, see

414. sutilis, platted (of rushes). The traditional notion of Charon's boat was got from Egypt, where light boats are made of bulrushes, like Moses' "ark."

416. glauca, gray (cf. x. 205): naturally no green thing could be found in the place of shades.

420. mella . . . offam (see iv. 486), a cake soporific with honey

and medicinal plants: offa is properly broken meat, such as is given to dogs.

421. fame, notice that the e is long, § 11, i. 3, 63.

424. custode sepulto, while the guard is buried [in sleep].

425. inremeabilis, not to be recrossed, a usual epithet of the Styx, "from whose bourne no traveller returns.”

427. in limine primo, possibly alluding to a Roman custom of carrying new-born infants under the house-eaves (in suggrundis). Ribbeck puts the comma after flentes, connecting limine with vitæ. Following Virgil, Dante (Inf. iv. 35) places just beyond Styx the souls of Pagans and unbaptized infants.

431. nec sine sorte, sine judice, a kind of hendiadys, “a judge selected by lot."

cus.

432. quæsitor: the trial is represented as according to the usage of the Roman courts, not of the Greek myth, which gave a bench consisting of three judges, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and ÆaHere, Minos is the quæsitor, or President of the Court; the lots are drawn (urnam movet) to select the jurors, who are to pass judgment on the person on trial; while the concilium silentum is the panel of jurors (judices) when selected from the shades themselves as citizens, a jury of peers.

435. insontes, having done nothing worthy of death.

436. projecere, cast away. — quam vellent (subj. of hopeless wish, § 68, 1; G. 254): in Od. xi. 489-491 Achilles is made to say, "Would I might rather be a bondman of the soil under a poor man without lot or substance, than lord of all the perished dead."

437. nunc (emph.), as opposed to their view before. — pauperiem, labores, the hardships from which men have sought escape in death. Suicide was a sort of epidemic among the later Romans; and it was a part of Virgil's purpose to impress a wholesome horror of it.

440. fusi, spread out: the mourning fields are wide-spread, to give more room for solitude.

442. quos, those whom its antecedent is the implied object of celant.

443. myrtea, as sacred to Venus.

445. Phædram, etc., the celebrated mythological heroine, Phædra, who loved guiltily her stepson Hippolytus; Procris, who was shot with an arrow by her husband Cephalus; Eriphyle, who was bribed to betray the hiding place of her husband Amphiarāus, and

was slain by her son; Evadne, wife of Capaneus, who perished on his funeral pile; Pasiphaë, see note, E. vi. 46; Laodamīa, wife of Protesilaus, who killed herself on hearing of his death at Troy; Caneus, who in the feminine form Cænis had been loved by Neptune, and became a man with the gift of invulnerability (Ovid, Met. xii. 172–207).

453. obscuram, darkling among the shadows.

455. demisit, let fall upon the earth (Od. xvi. 191).

456. verus nuntius, probably the flame of her funeral pile (v. 3-7), from which they might infer the fact.

457. extrema, compare i. 219.

458. funeris (emph.), was it death I brought on you?

459. si qua fides, whatever faith (§ 59, 1, a, N; G. 628), i. e. object which would sanction an oath.

462. senta situ, clogged with dirt (lit. neglect).

463. nec credere quivi, nor could I have believed.

466. extremum, the last time, since after death his place will be apart from her.

467. ardentem

gloomily gazing shade.

animum, tried to soothe the angry and

468. ciebat, tried to move her to tears.

This was a moun

471. Marpesia cautes, a crag of Marpessa. tain of Paros; so that the pale unmoving figure of Dido is compared to a statue of Parian marble.

473. conjunx pristinus, he who was her husband aforetime.

474. respondet, etc., “answers all her cares, and equals all her love" (Dryden).

477. datum iter, the appointed way (not granted).

478. ultima, the last before coming to the regions of blessedness or torment.secreta, apart (secerno).

479. Tydeus, etc.: these were heroes of the Theban war ("Seven against Thebes "), the chief event of the time immediately before the Trojan war.

481. fleti ad superos, i. e. mourned in the world above. caduci (passive verbal), fallen.

485. Idæum, Priam's herald and charioteer in the Iliad.

488. conferre gradum, to walk by his side.

492. tollere vocem exiguam, raise their piping voice as in the battle-fields of old. So Homer speaks of the thin voice of the shades; and in Shakespeare

"The sheeted dead

Did squeal and gibber in the Roman streets." - Hamlet.