measure (numeris) which the others are marking with their hands and feet.'

647. digitis; pectine] According as he played quietly or loudly. The pecten or plectrum was held in the right hand. 650. The list is: Zeus, Dardanus, Erichthonius,

Assaracus, Capys, Anchises.
Tros {flus, Laomedon, Priam.

651. inanes] not 'empty,' for that is expressed by procul, but 'unreal,' 'ghostly.' procul: cf. 10 and 3. 13 n.

653. quae gratia currum] A very rare form of the gen. Cf. Martial 2. 5. 3 duo milia passum. Some MSS. give curruum, the final syllable being elided with armorum.

'What delight in chariots was theirs in life, what care to feed their glossy steeds, the same attends them..........'

654. cura pascere] For the inf. cf. 2. 10 n.

657. laetumque...] Il. 1. 473 καλὸν ἀείδοντες παιήονα. 658. unde superne...] 'from whence (as its source) in the upper world rolls the full flood of Eridanus.' The Po at one point near its source flows under ground for some distance, and therefore, when it emerges, is fabled to flow from a source in the under world: see Heyne and Conington.

662. pii vates] 'holy bards,' such as Musaeus, cf. 669.

663. And those who have ennobled life by the discovery of arts and who by merit have won a memorial among their fellows.'

Excoluere suggests cultus, which is the Latin word for 'civilisation,' all that tends to make life less savage and barbarous.

For alios the MSS. support aliquos, 'those whose worth has earned them the grateful recollection of some on earth': but Virgil is describing not those whose memory is cherished in some small home circle, but those who by conspicuous merit have earned the gratitude of their fellows and whose names are held in everlasting remembrance.

Aliquos is out of harmony with the context, and adapted to the thought of Wordsworth rather than of Virgil.

For this list cf. the list of 'famous men,' whose 'praises are reported,' given in Ecclesiasticus xliv. 1-15.

665. vitta] The vitta marks priests, and so sanctity.

668. umeris exstantem] Cf. 413 n. So Saul 'from his shoulders and upward was higher than any of the people.' 1 Sam. ix. 2.

674. riparumque toros] The banks form couches; they

seem designed for resting on, cf. 5. 388 viridante toro...herbae: 'soft-cushioned banks and meadows fresh with brooks we haunt.' 675. si fert] 'if so the purpose in thy heart tends': fert is used absolutely.

679-702. The meeting of Aeneas and Anchises.

680. superum...] 'destined to pass to the light above.' Virgil explains how later on.

681. lustrabat...] 'was regarding in eager meditation.' 683. Observe the balance and alliteration of this line:

Fataque Fortunasque ) virum ( Moresque Manusque. manus: 'things wrought by the hand,' 'exploits,' cf. 2. 306 n.

=

686. vox excidit ore] Merely the Homeric éπos púɣev ἕρκος ὀδόντων.

691. 'Nor has my anxiety deceived me.'

694. ne quid...] i.e. lest Dido might induce you to stay in Africa.

696. tendere adegit] The inf. is due to the sense of compelling contained in adegit, cf. 567 subigit fateri, and 2. 64 n.

700-702. Repeated from 2. 792, where see notes.

703-723. Aeneas notices the souls crowding along the banks of Lethe and inquires what they are; he is told that they are souls destined again to become incorporate, many of them as his own descendants.

704. virgulta sonantia silvae] 'the rustling thickets of a wood.' Silvae has very strong MSS. authority, but Conington and others accept silvis, which is probably an error due to a recollection of sonantia silvis in 3. 442 and virgulta sonantia lauro 12. 522. Conington says 'the brakes rustle with the woods of which they form a part,' but brakes, though they can make a sound with their leaves, twigs, or the laurel-bushes of which they are composed (as in 12. 522), certainly cannot do so with the woods of which they form a part.' Silvis could only mean 'in the woods,' or perhaps 'for the woods,' as though the brakes made music for the woods.

707. ac velut...] 'even as when amid the meadows the bees in sunny summer settle on the many-coloured flowers.' For ac velut...ubi cf. 2. 626 n.

711. quae sint...] Oblique question after the sense of causas requirit, and in ignorance asks the reason, (asks) what is yonder river stretching onward, and what men....'

ea flumina porro: 'longo inde cursu praetexentia ripas,' Heyne.

713. quibus] dat. fato ablative.

715. longa] As often = 'everlasting'; 1. 749 n.; Luc. 1. 457 longae...vitae | mors media est, an everlasting life.' For the sense cf. Wordsworth's Ode to Immortality,

'Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.'

716, 717. The two clauses are connected by the emphatic repetition of has and hane: These truly long I have yearned to tell thee of and show thee face to face, yea to count over to thee this the race of my children.'

719. O father, must we indeed deem that any souls pass aloft from hence to upper air and a second time return to dull bodies?' The change of speaker is marked by the prominent position of o pater.

721. lucis] 'light,' as the type of 'life' in its brighter aspect. Hence to call 'desire for the light' dira is almost a paradox. But these lines are tinged with a deep sadness, and the feeling of the Roman poet is that of the Hebrew 'preacher,' cf. Ecl. xi. 7 'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun; but all that cometh is

vanity.'

723. suscipit] So in Gk. Tоλaßwν epη, and cf. Addison 'Soon as the evening shades prevail

The moon takes up the wondrous tale.'

724-751. Anchises explains what life is, and how it comes to pass that certain souls are restored to their original purity and then, after drinking of Lethe, allowed to again animate living men.

The tastes of Virgil were philosophic. In the 52nd year of his age he proposed, says Donatus, to spend three years on polishing and revising the Aeneid ut reliqua vita tantum philosophiae vacaret'; cf. his famous reference to philosophy, G. 2. 490 felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.

The theory which he puts forward here seems to regard 'life' as something possessing substance, cf. 292 n.; this vital substance permeates the universe and is the source of life throughout it (anima mundi); it is conceived of as analogous to air or fire (Cic. de Nat. D. 2. 15 ignis ille corporeus, vitalis et salutaris omnia conservat, alit, auget, sustinet sensusque afficit, or in Stoic language πνεῦμα ἔνθερμον : πῦρ τεχνικὸν ὁδῷ βάδιζον εἰς γένεσιν, ὅπερ ἐστὶ πνεῦμα πυροειδὲς καὶ τεχνοειδές : πνεῦμα νοερὸν καὶ

TUρŵÔes); hence it is often identified with that fine and fiery element aether, which, as being lighter than

'the cumbrous elements earth, flood, air, fire,'

rises above them all to the highest place, and so becomes the source of life to the celestial bodies. Cf. Milton, Par. Lost 3. 715-723.

United with this physical conception is an ethical one (derived from Plato) that in man the soul becomes infected by the body:

'The soul grows clotted by contagion,

Imbodies and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.'

Milton, Comus 467.

Hence after death must come purgatory and purification until all this taint is removed. Then after drinking of the waters of Lethe the soul may again become incorporate.

724. principio] In the first place': a formal commencement, didactic in tone, and borrowed from Lucretius.

725. Titaniaque astra] The Sun and Moon were said to be children of the Titan Hyperion, and the Sun is frequently called Titan. Hence most editors explain this phrase as a periphrasis for 'the sun,' but the plural scarcely allows this: Wagner joins closely with what precedes the moon, yes (both) the Titanian stars,' but this is unnatural. Surely 'Titanian stars' may mean 'the sun and stars,' the sun being included among the stars as the greatest of the heavenly bodies, and the epithet 'Titanian' being applied to them all to suggest size, vastness, and splendour, though perhaps strictly applicable to the sun only.

726. spiritus...] a spirit (veûua) from within sustains; and mind, permeating the members, moves the whole mass, and mingles with its mighty frame.' Cf. Pope, Essay on Man, 3. 22 'One all-extending, all-preserving Soul.'

728. inde] 'thence (i.c. from the spiritus, mens infusa) comes the race....'

729. et quae] 'and (of those) monsters which....'

730. igneus...] fiery is the force and heavenly the origin of those sparks, in as far as baneful bodies do not clog (them) and earthly limbs make (them) dull and dying members.'

6

The semina are small portions of the elemental fire which is the source of life, and from each such spark' or 'seed' grows a separate human life.

731. quantum non='save in so far as the seeds are in

their nature and essence 'fiery,' but this fiery nature can only exhibit itself to a certain extent because clogged and dulled by the body.

For the sense cf. Pope

'Vital spark of heavenly flame,

Quit, oh quit this mortal frame!'

733. hinc...] 'hence (i.e. from the union with material substance) come fear and desire, pleasure and pain, and they (the souls of men) have no vision through the sky, imprisoned in darkness and a blind dungeon.'

The best MSS. give despiciunt, which must be an error. Many have respiciunt = 'look back to the sky,' which is their true home.

metuunt.... Virgil describes the four passions (πán, perturbationes) which disturb the calmness and clearness of the pure soul. The classification is popular but also Stoical: cf. Cic. Tusc. 4. 6, who thus divides them:

of things Future of things Present

734. clausae...] An obvious reference to Plato's explanation of owμa as=σnua, cf. Phaedo 62. 8.

735. supremo...lumine] 'on the day of death.'

736. non tamen...] 'nevertheless not wholly, alas! does evil quit them, nor do all bodily plagues utterly depart, and it must needs be that much long growing with their growth should in wondrous wise become deeply engrained.' For concreta quae concreverunt cf. 4. 38 n.

=

739. exercentur poenis] 'they are plied with penance.' 740. The purification is by air, water, and fire.

panduntur...suspensae. Some explain of crucifixion, and compare for suspensae the well-known use of кpéμaσaι in the New Testament; but the notion of crucifixion—a slavish punishment is entirely alien from the context here. which is washed surely needs to be 'hung up' and 'spread wide' to the winds.

That

742. infectum eluitur scelus] 'the guilty stain is washed out.'