Fabricium, vel te sulco, Serrane, serentem? credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vultus, 850 sic pater Anchises, atque haec mirantibus addit: 'aspice, ut insignis spoliis Marcellus opimis ingreditur, victorque viros supereminet omnes! hic rem Romanam, magno turbante tumultu, sistet, eques sternet Poenos Gallumque rebellem, tertiaque arma patri suspendet capta Quirino.' atque hic Aeneas, una namque ire videbat egregium forma iuvenem et fulgentibus armis, sed frons laeta parum, et deiecto lumina vultu : 'quis, pater, ille, virum qui sic comitatur euntem ? filius, anne aliquis magna de stirpe nepotum? qui strepitus circa comitum! quantum instar in ipso ! sed nox atra caput tristi circumvolat umbra.' tum pater Anchises lacrimis ingressus obortis : o nate, ingentem luctum ne quaere tuorum. 860 870 obvius armato, seu cum pedes iret in hostem, seu spumantis equi foderet calcaribus armos. heu, miserande puer, si qua fata aspera rumpas ! tu Marcellus eris. manibus date lilia plenis purpureos spargam flores, animamque nepotis his saltem adcumulem donis, et fungar inani munere.' sic tota passim regione vagantur aëris in campis latis, atque omnia lustrant. quae postquam Anchises natum per singula duxit, incenditque animum famae venientis amore, exin bella viro memorat, quae deinde gerenda, Laurentesque docet populos urbemque Latini, et quo quemque modo fugiatque feratque laborem. sunt geminae Somni portae, quarum altera fertur cornea, qua veris facilis, datur exitus umbris, altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto, sed falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia Manes. his ibi tum natum Anchises unaque Sibyllam prosequitur dictis, portaque emittit eburna: ille viam secat ad naves, sociosque revisit; tum se ad Caietae recto fert litore portum. ancora de prora iacitur; stant litore puppes. 880 890 900 NOTES In the notes, when reference is made to a line in the same book, the number of the line only is given (e.g. 'cf. 229'); when the reference is to another book of the Aeneid, the number of the book is added (e.g. 'see 6. 10'). The Georgics are indicated by 'G.' and the Eclogues by Ecl.' BOOK I The following lines are sometimes placed at the commencement of the Aeneid, Ille ego, qui quondam gracili modulatus avena ut quamvis avido parerent arva colono, gratum opus agricolis; at nunc horrentia Martis 'I am that (bard) who once tuned his lay (i.e. the Eclogues) on a slender straw, and then quitting the woods compelled the neighbouring ploughlands to answer the demands of the tiller however grasping, a work dear to husbandmen (i.e. and who subsequently wrote the Georgics); but now of war's bristling arms I sing....' The lines however are to be rejected for many reasons: (1) They are not in any good MSS., but are first mentioned by Suetonius. (2) Arma virumque are quoted as the first words of the Aeneid by Ovid (Tr. 2. 533), Martial (8. 56. 19 protinus Italiam concepit et arma virumque), and Persius (1. 96). (3) The commencement arma... is an imitation of the first line of the Iliad μnviv äeide, Oeá,... and that of the Odyssey, ἄνδρα μοι, ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα.... (4) That a summary of the poet's history should be introduced in the same opening sentence with a summary of the hero's history is extremely harsh. Moreover, the sentence becomes very long and ugly; the omis sion too of sum twice over in the first line is very objectionable. Milton thought the lines genuine and has imitated them at the commencement of Paradise Regained; so too Spenser, Faerie Queene 1. 1 Lo! I the man whose muse whylome did mask'; and Tasso, Geru. Lib. 1. 1. Dryden rejected them.. 1-7. My song is of arms and the hero who, after many wanderings and wars, conveyed the homeless gods of Troy to Italy and founded a city which was to be the mother of Rome. 1. primus] 'first': the previous settlement of Antenor at Patavium (242-248) is disregarded, (1) as comparatively unimportant, (2) as not being strictly in Italy but in Cisalpine Gaul. 2. fato] Some editors mark off fato profugus with commas, thus confining the force of fato strictly to profugus, but it clearly goes rather more with venit than with fato. Virgil does not wish so much to emphasise that it was 'his destiny to be an exile' as that it was his destiny to reach Italy'-'came by fate an exile to Italy.' The word fato strongly marks the fact that the fortunes of Aeneas and Rome were guided not by idle chance but by sure destiny; that Aeneas was 'fated' to escape the destruction of Troy and rule over the Trojans 'himself and his sons' sons,' is foretold Hom. II. 20. 302-308. Lavinaque: The MSS. vary between this and Laviniaque, which can be scanned by treating the second i asy (cf. 5. 589 n), but it is improbable that Virgil would have used such a license in these opening lines. There seems no objection to the form Lavinus as an adj. from Lavinium, for the poets continually coin adjectives from proper names in any shape which is most convenient, e.g. we have Dardanus king of Troy, Dardania Troy,' but Dardanus as well as Dardanius Trojan.' Conington compares the regular adjectives Campanus from Campania, Apulus from Apulia, and Lucanus from Lucania. 6 3. multum ille...] 'much buffeted truly both by land and sea...much too having suffered in war also....' Ille is pleonastic, but is inserted to draw marked attention to the person spoken of it rivets our gaze on the storm-tossed and war-worn hero: cf. 5. 186 n. The passage is imitated from Hom. Od. 1. 1 ὃς μάλα πολλὰ | πλάχθη...πολλὰ δ ̓ ὅ γ ̓ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα, where ye may be compared with ille here. By his careful double reference (1) to the wars and (2) to the wanderings of Aeneas Virgil emphatically marks the Aeneid as parallel (1) to the Iliad and (2) to the Odyssey. Some place a semi-colon after litora and make iactatus and passus verbs not participles, but this mars the sweep of the sentence. 4. superum] For contracted gen. cf. 3. 53 n. Iunonis ob iram: cf. 27 n. |