Main Text
Editor’s NoteEditor’s NoteECLOGA I
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 1meliboevs Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 2siluestrem tenui Musam meditaris auena;
Editor’s Note Link 3nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arua.
Editor’s Note Link 4nos patriam fugimus; tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra
Editor’s Note Link 5formosam resonare doces Amaryllida siluas.
Editor’s Note Link 6tityrvs O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit.
Editor’s Note Link 7namque erit ille mihi semper deus, illius aram
Editor’s Note Link 8saepe tener nostris ab ouilibus imbuet agnus.
Editor’s Note9ille meas errare boues, ut cernis, et ipsum
Editor’s Note Link 10ludere quae uellem calamo permisit agresti.
Editor’s Note Link 11meliboevs Non equidem inuideo, miror magis: undique totis
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 12usque adeo turbatur agris. en ipse capellas
Editor’s Note Link 13protinus aeger ago; hanc etiam uix, Tityre, duco.
Editor’s Note Link 14hic inter densas corylos modo namque gemellos,
Editor’s Note Link 15spem gregis, a! silice in nuda conixa reliquit.
Editor’s Note Link 16saepe malum hoc nobis, si mens non laeua fuisset,
Editor’s Note Link 17de caelo tactas memini praedicere quercus.
Editor’s Note Link 18sed tamen iste deus qui sit, da, Tityre, nobis.
Editor’s Note Link 19tityrvs Vrbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putaui
Editor’s Note20stultus ego huic nostrae similem, quo saepe solemus
Editor’s Note Link 21pastores ouium teneros depellere fetus.
Editor’s Note22sic canibus catulos similis, sic matribus haedos
Editor’s Note Link 23noram, sic paruis componere magna solebam.
24uerum haec tantum alias inter caput extulit urbes
Editor’s Note Link 25quantum lenta solent inter uiburna cupressi.
Editor’s Note Link 27tityrvs Libertas, quae sera tamen respexit inertem,
Link 28candidior postquam tondenti barba cadebat,
Editor’s Note Link 29respexit tamen et longo post tempore uenit,
pg 4Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 30postquam nos Amaryllis habet, Galatea reliquit.
Editor’s Note31namque (fatebor enim) dum me Galatea tenebat,
Editor’s Note Link 32nec spes libertatis erat nec cura peculi.
Editor’s Note Link 33quamuis multa meis exiret uictima saeptis,
Editor’s Note Link 34pinguis et ingratae premeretur caseus urbi,
Editor’s Note Link 35non umquam grauis aere domum mihi dextra redibat.
Editor’s Note Link 36meliboevs Mirabar quid maesta deos, Amarylli, uocares,
Critical Apparatus Link 37cui pendere sua patereris in arbore poma;
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 38Tityrus hinc aberat. ipsae te, Tityre, pinus,
Editor’s Note39ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta uocabant.
Editor’s Note Link 40tityrvs Quid facerem? neque seruitio me exire licebat
Editor’s Note Link 41nec tam praesentis alibi cognoscere diuos.
Editor’s Note Link 42hic illum uidi iuuenem, Meliboee, quotannis
Editor’s Note Link 43bis senos cui nostra dies altaria fumant.
Editor’s Note Link 44hic mihi responsum primus dedit ille petenti:
Editor’s Note Link 45'pascite ut ante boues, pueri; summittite tauros.'
Editor’s Note Link 46meliboevs Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura manebunt
Editor’s Note Link 47et tibi magna satis, quamuis lapis omnia nudus
Link 48limosoque palus obducat pascua iunco:
Editor’s Note Link 49non insueta grauis temptabunt pabula fetas,
Editor’s Note Link 50nec mala uicini pecoris contagia laedent.
Editor’s Note51fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota
Editor’s Note Link 52et fontis sacros frigus captabis opacum;
Editor’s Note Link 53hinc tibi, quae semper, uicino ab limite saepes
Editor’s Note Link 54Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti
Editor’s Note Link 55saepe leui somnum suadebit inire susurro;
Editor’s Note Link 56hinc alta sub rupe canet frondator ad auras,
Editor’s Note Link 57nec tamen interea raucae, tua cura, palumbes
Editor’s Note Link 58nec gemere aëria cessabit turtur ab ulmo.
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 59tityrvs Ante leues ergo pascentur in aethere cerui
Link 60et freta destituent nudos in litore piscis,
Editor’s Note Link 61ante pererratis amborum finibus exsul
Editor’s Note Link 62aut Ararim Parthus bibet aut Germania Tigrim,
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 63quam nostro illius labatur pectore uultus.
Editor’s Note Link 64meliboevs At nos hinc alii sitientis ibimus Afros,
pg 5Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 65pars Scythiam et rapidum cretae ueniemus Oaxen
Editor’s Note Link 66et penitus toto diuisos orbe Britannos.
Editor’s Note Link 67en umquam patrios longo post tempore finis
Editor’s Note Link 68pauperis et tuguri congestum caespite culmen,
Editor’s Note Link 69post aliquot, mea regna, uidens mirabor aristas?
Editor’s Note Link 70impius haec tam culta noualia miles habebit,
Editor’s Note Link 71barbarus has segetes. en quo discordia ciuis
Critical Apparatus Link 72produxit miseros: his nos conseuimus agros!
Editor’s Note Link 73insere nunc, Meliboee, piros, pone ordine uitis.
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 74ite meae, felix quondam pecus, ite capellae.
Editor’s Note Link 75non ego uos posthac uiridi proiectus in antro
Editor’s Note Link 76dumosa pendere procul de rupe uidebo;
Link 77carmina nulla canam; non me pascente, capellae,
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 78florentem cytisum et salices carpetis amaras.
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus79tityrvs Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem
Editor’s Note Link 80fronde super uiridi: sunt nobis mitia poma,
Link 81castaneae molles et pressi copia lactis,
Editor’s Note Link 82et iam summa procul uillarum culmina fumant
Editor’s NoteCritical Apparatus Link 83maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbrae.
Editor’s Note
Introduction
Meliboeus notices Tityrus reclining beneath the cool, safe canopy of a beech tree and playing on his pipe.
- Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi
- siluestrem tenui Musam meditaris auena. (1–2)
So begins the First Eclogue—so begins Virgil's Book of Eclogues—with a Theocritean name and an echo of the First Idyll.1
- Ἁδύ τι τὸ ψιθύρισμα καὶ ἀ πίτυς, αἰπόλε, τήνα,
- ἁ ποτὶ ταῖς παγαῖσι, μελίσδεται, ἁδὺ δὲ καὶ τύ
- συρίσδες. (1–3)
- Sweet is the whispered music of the pine, goatherd,2
- The pine there by the springs, and sweet too
- Your piping.
Virgil's idyllic scene, or rather, the suggestion of such a scene, is immediately qualified by Meliboeus' eloquent distress3 as he speaks of suffering and loss—the harsh reality of the land-confiscations,4 from which Tityrus, piping and singing of Amaryllis in the shade, is curiously immune.
'O Meliboeus', says Tityrus, 'a god made this peace for me. For to me he will ever be a god' (6–7). Despite his own trouble, Meliboeus is not envious; he is surprised, rather, and curious: 'this god of yours, tell me who he is'. But Tityrus tells him instead of Rome, 19 'Vrbem quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee …'. Readers ancient and modern have been puzzled by the evasiveness of his answer;5 a calculated evasiveness, for Virgil intended to defer the moment of revelation and place it at the centre6 of his poem, 42 'hic illum uidi iuuenem,7 Meliboee …'. Yet Tityrus' answer is emotionally, as well as structurally, justified. Rome, the great city, his journey—these are the thoughts uppermost in his mind, and he attempts to convey, in pastoral terms, something of his wonderment (22–5). Meliboeus, it seems, is not much interested; he simply asks what reason Tityrus had for seeing Rome. 'Libertas', 'freedom', is the emphatic answer (27); and in this ambiguous, charged word lies the principal difficulty of the poem.
Tityrus describes himself as a former slave to whom freedom came late—came, that is, after Amaryllis took him in hand, because, he ruefully admits, there had been no hope of freedom while he was attached to the spendthrift Galatea, 32 'nec spes libertatis erat nec cura peculi'.8 The normal process of manumission is implied by which a slave saved up a certain sum of money, his peculium, from activities tolerated or encouraged by his master, and bought his freedom. Tityrus' master may be imagined as residing in the nearby town to which Tityrus brings his lambs for sale on market-days (19–21).
Amaryllis had been sad, calling on the gods, leaving the apples on her tree unpicked. And Meliboeus now understands why: Tityrus was away (36–8). He had gone to Rome, the old slave, to seek redress from the young master of Italy, since nowhere else could he be delivered from slavery, 40 'neque seruitio me exire licebat'.9 But loss of property did not entail loss of freedom. Why, then, does Tityrus speak of slavery?
'Freedom' (libertas) and 'slavery' (seruitium, seruitus) were established political metaphors,10 and libertas had acquired a current significance: it was the slogan of Octavian and his party.11 Virgil deliberately confuses the private with the public sense of libertas,12 and by so doing solves his literary problem, that of expressing gratitude to Octavian in the pastoral mode.13 Not gratitude for a personal favour—Tityrus has a purely poetic existence—but a disinterested, larger gratitude, expressed 'Tityri sub persona'14 as to a god, for the restoration of peace and order.15
Now Tityrus can pasture his animals as before. But what of Meliboeus? For him there remains only the dreary prospect of exile.
The second half of the poem consists almost entirely of two long speeches—long in proportion to the poem and to the conversational exchanges preceding—by Meliboeus. In the first of these, he felicitates Tityrus on his great good fortune, small and infertile though his farm may be, and then, repeating his felicitation, imagines the pleasures Tityrus will henceforth enjoy, the familiar streams, cool shade (Meliboeus has been driving his goats in the heat of the day), the susurrus of bees from a neighbour's hedgerow … Tityrus' response (so to call it) is an elaborate, thankful adynaton, in which he uses, somewhat unfeelingly it may seem, though not with reference to Meliboeus, the word 'exsul' (61).
Tityrus' 'impossibility' is a painful reality for Meliboeus; and thus prompted, he conjures up the most remote and barren regions of the earth (64–6). Mainly, however, his second speech is concerned with the pathos of leaving a native place. Will he ever, he wonders, and after how many long years, see his farm,16 his little kingdom, again? He fears, knows he will not; will never again, stretched at ease in a mossy cavern, watch his goats hang browsing on some tufted crag; will sing no songs.
Virgil's sympathies are usually engaged on the side of defeat and loss; and here, in a poem praising Octavian, it is rather the dispossessed Meliboeus than the complacent Tityrus who more nearly represents Virgil.
Yet Tityrus is not without compassion. What little he can he does. He offers Meliboeus a bed for the night and invites him to share his evening meal, apples and chestnuts, fresh cheese—while the landscape gradually darkens around them.17
Bibliography
F. Leo, 'Vergils erste und neunte Ekloge', Hermes, 38 (1903), 1–18 = Ausgewählte kleine Schriften, (Rome, 1960), ii. 11–28.
P. L. Smith, 'Lentus In Umbra: A Symbolic Pattern in Vergil's Eclogues', Phoenix, 19 (1965), 298–304.
P. Fedeli, 'Sulla prima bucolica di Virgilio', GIF, ns 3 (1972), 273–300.
G. Jachmann, 'Die dichterische Technik in Vergils Bukolika', N. Jahrb. 49 (1922), 110–19 = Ausgewählte Schriften (Königstein im Taurus, 1981), 312–22.
I. M. Le M. Du Quesnay, 'Vergil's First Eclogue', Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar, Third Volume (ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 7; 1981), 29–182.
J. R. G. Wright, 'Virgil's Pastoral Programme: Theocritus, Callimachus and Eclogue 1', PCPS, ns 29 (1983), 107–60.
A. Traina, 'La chiusa della prima egloga virgiliana (vv. 82–3)', Lingua e stile 3 (1986), 45–53 = Poeti latini (e neolatini): Note e saggi filologici2 (Bologna, 1986), i. 175–88.
C. Perkell, 'On Eclogue 1.79–83', TAPA 120 (1990), 171–81.
Editor’s Note
1 See O. Skutsch, RhM 99 (1956), 199–200, V. Pöschl, Die Hirtendichtung Virgils (Heidelberg, 1964), 9–11, E. A. Schmidt, Bukolische Leidenschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1987), 29–36. The First Idyll stands first in all three families of MSS, as well as in the Antinoe papyrus (c ad 500), and in all probability, therefore, stood first in the edition of Theocritus that Virgil used. See Gow, vol. i, pp. lxvi–lxix.
Editor’s Note
2 Tityrus appears to be both a shepherd and a cowherd—cf. 8, 9, 45, 49–50—unlike the herdsmen of Theocritus, who are carefully distinguished in a sort of pastoral hierarchy: cowherd, shepherd, goatherd. See Gow on 1.86, L. E. Rossi, SIFC 43 (1971), 6–7.
Editor’s Note
3 Note the chiastic arrangement: 'tu (1) … nos (3)', 'nos (4) … tu (4)', with the repetition of the name: 'Tityre, tu (1) … tu, Tityre (4)'. Lines 1–5 are composed of two tricola, the first of three lines, the second of two lines; punctuated rhetorically, the passage would appear thus: 'Tityre tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi, siluestrem tenui Musam meditaris auena, nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arua. nos patriam fugimus, tu Tityre lentus in umbra, formosam resonare doces Amaryllida siluas'. See Norden 376–7.
Editor’s Note
4 After the Battle of Philippi in 42 bc, large tracts of land were confiscated throughout Italy and granted as a reward for service to the soldiers of the victorious Triumvirs. Among the cities so punished were Cremona and, when the territory of Cremona proved insufficient, Mantua (9.28 'Mantua uae miserae nimium uicina Cremonae'). The most vivid account of the confiscations is to be found in Appian, BC 5. 12 ἀλλὰ συνιόντες ἀνὰ μέρος ἐς τὴν Ῥώμην οἵ τε νέοι καὶ γέροντες ἤ αἱ γυναῖκες ἅμα τοῖς παιδίοις, ἐς τὴν ἀγορὰν ἢ τὰ ἱερά, ἐθρήνουν, οὐδὲν μὲν ἀδικῆσαι λέγοντες, Ἰταλιῶται δὲ ὄντες ἀνίστασθαι γῆς τε καὶ ἑστίας οἷα δορίληπτοι, 'They came to Rome in crowds, young and old, women and children, to the forum and the temples, uttering lamentations, saying that they had done no wrong for which they, Italians, should be driven from their fields and their hearthstones, like people conquered in war' (H. White in the Loeb Classical Library). Cf. Prop. 4. 1. 129–30 'nam tua cum multi uersarent rura iuuenci, / abstulit excultas pertica tristis opes'. It is clear from Appian that Octavian was personally involved in the distribution of the land. L. Keppie, 'Vergil, the Confiscations, and Caesar's Tenth Legion', CQ, ns 31 (1981), 367–70, describes the bureaucratic procedure.
Editor’s Note
5 Servius ad loc.: 'quaeritur cur de Caesare interrogatus Roman describat. et aut simplicitate utitur rustica, ut ordinem narrationis plenum non teneat, sed per longas ambages ad interrogata descendat …'. Servius offers a similar explanation of 3.40. See R. A. Kaster, Guardians of Language (Berkeley, 1988), 21 n.27.
Editor’s Note
6 The very centre: E. A. Fredricksmeyer, Hermes, 94 (1966), 214, R. F. Thomas, HSCP 87 (1983), 180 n. 16.
Editor’s Note
7 See ad loc.
Editor’s Note
8 See ad loc.
Editor’s Note
9 See ad loc.
Editor’s Note
10 E.g. Cic. Pro Sest. 118 'sed quid ego populi Romani animum uirtutemque commemoro, libertatem iam ex diuturna seruitute dispicientis?', Phil. 5.21 'quid erat aliud nisi denuntiare populo Romano seruitutem?', Phil. 6.19 'aliae nationes seruitutem pati possunt, populi Romani est propria libertas', Ad Brut. 1. 16. 9 (Brutus) 'neque desistam abstrahere a seruitio ciuitatem nostram', Sall. Iug. 31. 11 'uos, Quirites, in imperio nati aequo animo seruitutem toleratis?', 17 'uos pro libertate … nonne summa ope nitemini?'
Editor’s Note
11 See R. Syme, The Roman Revolution (Oxford, 1939), 154–5.
Editor’s Note
12 To the confusion of his readers—his later readers, that is. Virgil was writing for his contemporaries.
Editor’s Note
13 A problem (if it could have occurred to him) evaded by Theocritus, who praises Hiero and Ptolemy in non-pastoral encomia (Idylls 16, 17).
Editor’s Note
14 Servius on l. 1: 'et hoc loco Tityri sub persona Vergilium debemus accipere; non tamen ubique, sed tantum ubi exigit ratio'. Virgil's family farm may have been confiscated. It does not follow, however, that E. 1 is autobiographical, and any attempt to read it as such will fail. Tityrus and Meliboeus are no less imaginary than the landscape in which they are placed.
Editor’s Note
15 The First Eclogue was probably written after the defeat of Sextus Pompey at Naulochus on 3 Sept. 36 bc; see 1. 43 n. Among the honours voted to Octavian by the Senate was a golden image with the inscription 'peace, long disturbed, he reestablished on land and sea', Appian, BC 5. 130 ὅτι τήν εἰρήνην ἐστασιασμένην ἐκπολλοῦ συνέστησε κατά τε γῆν καὶ θάλασσαν.
Editor’s Note
16 67 'patrios … finis'. Cf. 3 'patriae finis', 4 'patriam'. Love of a native place, profound sorrow for its loss, the pleasure of undisturbed possession—these Roman sentiments are unknown to Theocritus (Jachmann 115).
Editor’s Note
17 In his essay 'On Wordsworth's Poetry', De Quincey maintains that Wordsworth was the first to appreciate the 'abstracting power' of twilight: 'In the dim interspace between day and night all disappears from our earthly scenery … which is either mean or inharmonious, or unquiet, or expressive of temporary things' (The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, ed. D. Masson, xi (Edinburgh, 1890), 316).
Critical Apparatus
i 1–29 PR
Editor’s Note
1. Tityre: 1.4, 13, 18, 38, 3.20, 96, 5.12, 6.4, 8.55, 9.23, 24. Tityrus appears only twice in Theocritus, in 3.2–4, where he is asked to look after a friend's goats (cf. E. 5.12), and in 7.72–82, where he is imagined singing of the woes of Daphnis and the bliss of Comatas. V. tends to exploit Theocritean pastoral names: thus Amaryllis appears in E. 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, but only in Theocr. 3 and 4; Damoetas in E. 2, 3, 5, but only in Theocr. 6; Menalcas in E. 2, 3, 5, 9, 10, but only in [Theocr.] 8 and 9.
The first line of each E. contains, as J. Hubaux, RBPh 6 (1927), 603–16, nicely observes, either a Greek name—Theocritean names in E. 1, 2, 3, 7, 8—or a name connected with Greek pastoral (4, 6, 10). Cf. Serv. Prooem. 'sane sciendum vii eclogas esse meras rusticas, quas Theocritus x habet. hic in tribus a bucolico carmine sed cum excusatione discessit, ut in genethliaco Salonini et in Sileni theologia …'. There are additionally the four 'fragments' in E. 9, each with a name in the first line: 23 Tityre, 27 Vare (the Roman name for deliberate contrast; see ad loc.), 39 Galatea, 46 Daphni. This feature is an imitation of Theocritus: 1.1 αἰπόλε (the goatherd remains anonymous throughout the poem), 3.1 Ἀμαρυλλίδα, 4.1 Κορύδων … φιλώνδα, 5.1–2 Συβαρίταν … Λάκωνα, 6.1 Δαμοίτας καὶ Δάφνις, 7.1 Εὔκριτος, [8.1 Δάφνιδι, 9.1 Δάφνι], 10.1 Βουκαῖε, 11.19 Γαλάτεια (the Idyll proper begins here). Calpurnius Siculus, the author of the Einsiedeln Eclogues, and Nemesianus follow V.'s example. Calp. Sic. I appears to be an exception, but Hubaux argues that the poem must originally have begun with what is now 1. 4 'cernis ut ecce pater quas tradidit, Ornyte, uaccae'.
Editor’s Note
tu … recubans: cf. Theocr. 7.88–9 τὺ δ ̓ὑπὸ δρυσὶν ἣ ὑπὸ πεύκαις | ἁδὺ μελισδόμενος κατεκέκλισο, θεῖε Κομᾶτα, 'while you lay sweetly singing under the oaks or pines, divine Comatas'. The herdsman is customarily seated while singing or piping; see 3. 55 n. Recubo is a rather unusual verb, here perhaps with a connotation of luxurious ease; cf. Cic. De or. 3.63 (Cyrenaic philosophy personified) 'in hortulis quiescet suis, ubi uult, ubi etiam recubans molliter et delicate nos auocat a rostris', Prop. 3.3.1 'molli recubans Heliconis in umbra'.
Editor’s Note
sub tegmine fagi: apparently modelled on the phrase sub tegmine caeli, which first occurs in Cic. Arat. 47 'Ales auis, lato sub tegmine caeli / quae uolat', 233, 239 'caeli sub tegmine', 346 'caeli de tegmine'; then in Lucr. 1.988 'sub caeli tegmine', 2.663 'sub tegmine caeli', 5.1016 'caeli sub tegmine'. The grandeur of the metaphor, which owes nothing to Aratus, and its use by Lucretius may indicate that its author was not the youthful Cicero but Ennius (so M. Guendel, De Ciceronis poetae arte capita tria (diss. inaug., Leipzig, 1907), 54–5, against Munro on Lucr. 5.619); it will be noticed that Lucretius incorporates it in a passage reminiscent of the high archaic style, 2.661–3 'saepe itaque ex uno tondentes gramina campo / lanigerae pecudes et equorum duellica proles / buceriaeque greges eodem sub tegmine caeli'. Tegmen properly refers to any sort of bodily covering or protection: the skin of a wild beast (A. 1.275, 11.576), a cap or helmet (A. 7.689, 742), armour (A. 9.518), a shield (A. 10.887); cf. also Cic. Arat. 114–15 'foliorum tegmine … arbusta ornata', which again owes nothing to Aratus. Like other nouns so formed, tegmen is mostly poetic; see J. Perrot, Les Dérivés latins en –men et –mentum (Paris, 1961), 109–12. V.'s metaphor was parodied by a certain Numitorius, Vita Donati 43 'Tityre, si toga calda tibi est, quo tegmine fagi?'—that is 'what point (quo) has the phrase tegmine fagi?' (Housman, CR 49 (1935), 167 = Class. Papers, iii. 1245). See 3. 1 n. (cuium pecus).
Editor’s Note
fagi: the beech, Fagus sylvatica L., a useful tree with its heavy shade (2.3), wood that can be turned into cups (3.36–7), and grey smooth bark in which the notation and words of a song can be carved (5.13–14). It is native to North Italy: 'Charakteristische Bilder wie patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi … passen noch heute auf die Höhen von Norditalien' (M. C. P. Schmidt, RE iii (1897), 972). Placed so prominently at the beginning of the book, the beech seems symbolic or representative; 'beyond all others perhaps, the tree of the Eclogues' (Ross (1975), 72). Not being native to Greece south of Thessaly (see R. Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 1982), 112), the beech was not, like the laurel, the plane, the poplar, the cypress, or the pine of Theocritus 1.1, an old and established poetic tree: it is found before V. only in Catull. 64.288–91 'namque ille tulit radicitus altas / fagos ac recto proceras stipite laurus, / non sine nutanti platano lentaque sorore / flammati Phaethontis et aerea cupressu'. Nor is it evenly distributed in the book, being confined to the earlier Eclogues: 2.3 (where see note), 3.12, 5.13, 9.9
Critical Apparatus
2 siluestrem] agrestem (E. vi 8) Quint. ix 4. 85
Editor’s Note
2. siluestrem … Musam: from Lucr. 4.586–9 'cum Pan / pinea semiferi capitis uelamina quassans / unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hiantis, / fistula siluestrem ne cesset fundere Musam'. Muse and music had long since been confused, e.g. Homeric Hymn to Pan 15–16 δονάκων ὕπο μοῦσαν ἀθύρων | νήδυμον, 'singing a sweet tune to the pipe', Theocr. 1.20 καὶ τᾶς βουκολικᾶς ἐπὶ τὸ πλέον ἵκεο μοίσς, 'and you have attained mastery in pastoral song', Meleager 13.2 G.–P. (= AP 7.196, to a cicada) ἀγρονόμαν μέλπεις μοῦσαν ἑρημολάλον, 'Tu joues une musique champêtre dans la solitude' (Pierre Lou%%s). Cf. 6.8.
Editor’s Note
tenui … auena: see above, p. xxv.
Editor’s Note
meditaris: 'compose'; cf. 6.8, 82–3, Hor. Epist. 2.2.76 'i nunc et uersus tecum meditare canoros'. 'Milton endeavours to make the phrase English, cf. Lycidas 66 "and strictly meditate the thankless Muse" ' (T. E. Page). See A. Traina, Enc. Virg. s.v.
Editor’s Note
auena: the wild oat, here imagined as a musical instrument; cf. 10.51 'carmina pastoris Siculi modulabor auena'. But what sort of musical instrument? The question is a difficult one: 'not a straw (which would be absurd), but a reed, or perhaps a pipe of reeds, hollow like a straw' (Conington); 'as an oat-straw could not be made into a musical instrument, avena must be used for "a reed" or something of the sort' (T. E. Page). This musical absurdity was apparently inspired by the insulting gibe of Comatas in Theocr. 5.7 καλάμας αὐλόν, 'an oat-straw pipe', which V. imitates in 3.27. The principal, indeed symbolic, instrument of pastoral music is the vertical flute or pan-pipe (σῦριγξ, 'syrinx', δόνακες, 'reeds', fistula, calami), though the simple pipe (αὐλός, tibia) is occasionally mentioned (Theocr. 5.7, 6.43, 10.34; E. 8.21, 25, etc.) Whatever the practical objections—for practical objections may be disregarded in the pastoral world—it seems best to take auena, like 'calamo … agresti' in l. 10, as a collective singular denoting the pan-pipe. So Ovid took it, Met. 1.677 'structis cantat auenis', Trist. 5.10.25 'pastor iunctis pice cantat auenis'. And V. alludes to 'tenui … auena' with another collective singular in 6.8 'tenui … harundine', that is, the pan-pipe. For the structure of the pan-pipe see below, 10 n. V.'s auena, then, will be a metrically useful synonym analogous to Lucretius' cicuta, which V. twice employs, in 2.36 (where see n.) and 5.85. See P. L. Smith, 'Vergil's Avena and the Pipes of Pastoral Poetry', TAPA 101 (1970), 497–5101. V.'s auena became a convention of pastoral poetry: Calp. Sic. 4.63, Sannazaro, Ecl. pisc. 2.28, Spenser's 'oaten reed', Shakespeare's 'oaten straws', Milton's 'oaten flute', Marvell's 'slender oat'. See 2. 37 n.
Editor’s Note
3. dulcia … arua: cf. G. 2.511 'exsilioque domos et dulcia limina mutant', Hom. Od. 9. 34–5 ὡς οὐδὲν γλύκιον ἧς πατρίδος οὐδὲ τοκήων | γίγνεται, 'for nothing is sweeter than one's own country and parents', Ov. Ex Pont. 1.3.35–6 'nescioqua natale solum dulcedine cunctos / ducit'.
Editor’s Note
4. patriam fugimus: Servius quotes Hor. Carm. 1.7.21–2 'Teucer Salamina patremque/cum fugeret'. Mostly poetic in this sense; see TLL s.v. 1477. 20. Cf. φεύγω; see LSJ s.v. III.3.
Editor’s Note
lentus: easy in the shade, at one with nature. Elsewhere in the E., lentus is applied to plants: 1.25, 3.38, 83, 5.31 (the thyrsus simulated a plant or growing thing), 7.48, 9.42, 10.40; an early usage apparently (Plaut. Asin. 575 'ulmeis … lentis uirgis') which survived in poetry; see TLL s.v. 1162.43, Tränkle 79.
Editor’s Note
in umbra: where he had sought shelter from the burning heat; cf. Varro, RR 2.2.11 (sheep) 'circiter meridianos aestus, dum deferuescant, sub umbriferas rupes et arbores patulas subigunt quaad refrigeratur'.
Editor’s Note
5. There may be, as F. Cairns argues (see 2.3 n.), an allusion to Callimachus' story of Acontius and Cydippe here. Much more obvious, however, is a connection with Longus 2.7.6 ἐπῄνουν τὴν Ἠχὼ τὸ Ἀμαρυλλίδος ὄνομα μετ̓ ἐμὲ καλοῦσαν, 'I used to praise Echo for calling "Amaryllis" after me'; first noticed by Leo 13n. 1, who supposed that Longus was imitating V.—a supposition in the last degree improbable, for Longus nowhere shows the slightest awareness of Latin literature. It is far more probable that V. and Longus drew on a common source in post-Theocritean pastoral. Cf. also Longus 2.5.3 παρήμην σοι συρίττοντι πρὸς ταῖς φηγοῖς ἐκείναις ἡνίκα ἤρας Ἀμαρυλλίδος, 'I sat beside you as you played on your pan-pipe under those oaks when you were in love with Amaryllis'.
Editor’s Note
formosam: V.'s predilection for this adjective in the E. is remarkable: sixteen instances; and equally remarkable his avoidance of it thereafter: once in the G. (3.219 'formosa iuuenca'; see E. 5. 44 n.), never in the A. This distribution is not, however, typical of V.'s practice (Axelson 60–1); of the forty adjectives in -osus used by V., only three are peculiar to the E. (all in E. 7, 29 saetosus, 30 ramosus, 45 muscosus) while no fewer than seventeen are peculiar to the A. Here follows a complete list—Ernout's is lacunose—with asterisks indicating those first attested in V.: animosus (G.A.), annosus (A.), aquosus (E.G.A.), *cliuosus (G.), dumosus (E.G.), formosus (E.G.), fragosus (A.), frondosus (E.G.A.), fumosus (G.), generosus (G.A.), harenosus (A.), herbosus (G.), lacrimosus (A.), lapidosus (G.A.), latebrosus (A.), limosus (E.A.), maculosus (G.A.), montosus (A. Varro, montuosus Cic. Caes.), muscosus (E.), nemorosus (A.), nimbosus (A.), *onerosus (A.), *palmosus (A. 3.705, unique), piscosus (A.), ramosus (E.), religiosus (A.), rimosus (G.A.), *saetosus (E.), *saxosus (E.G.), *sinuosus (G.A.), spumosus (A.), squamosus (G.), *tenebrosus (A.,) tenebricosus Cic. Catull. Varro), uadosus (A.), uentosus (E.A.), *uillosus (A.), uirosus (G.), uitiosus (G.), umbrosus (E.G.A.), *undosus (A.). See A. Ernout, Les Adjectifs latins en -osus et en -ulentus (Paris, 1948), Tränkle 59–60, Ross (1969), 53–60, and especially P. E. Knox, 'Adjectives in -osus and Latin Poetic Diction', Glotta, 64 (1986), 90–101. Adjectives in -osus are, as R. Syme observes, Sallust (Berkeley, 1964), 264n. 149, 'a large and instructive theme'.
Editor’s Note
resonare: transitive, here for the first time (but cf. Hor. Serm. 1.8.41 'resonarint triste et acutum'), as it is in G. 3.338 and A. 7.12; elsewhere in the E. and G. and A. intransitive.
Editor’s Note
doces: Tityrus sometimes sings of Amaryllis and sometimes plays on his pan-pipe.
Editor’s Note
Amaryllida: 1.30, 36, 2.14, 52, 3.81, 8.77, 78, 101, 9.22. Ordinarily, as here, the name is accommodated to the syntax of the sentence; see Fedeli on Prop. 1.18.31 'resonent mihi "Cynthia" siluae', Austin on A. 2.769. Cf. 6.44.
Editor’s Note
Amaryllida siluas: the rhythm of the line (weak caesura in the third foot, strong in the fourth) sets off these two words with their echo-effect: 'Amaryllida siluas'. Cf. 2.13 'ardenti resonant arbusta', G. 1.486 'per noctem resonare lupis ululantibus urbes' (rhythmically identical with 'formosam resonare doces Amaryllida siluas'), 2.328 'auia tum resonant auibus uirgulta canoris' (for the assonance āui- ăui- and the like see Norden on A. 6.204 ff.), 3.338 'litoraque alcyonen resonant, acalanthida dumi' (a rare bird the acalanthis, chosen for the sound of its name?). For this figure of sound V. is indebted to Catullus, 11.3–4 'litus ut longe resonante Eoa / tunditur unda—a passage that worked powerfully upon his auditory imagination; cf. G. 1.358–9 'aut resonantia longe / litora misceri et nemorum increbrescere murmur'. See 6.84 n.
Editor’s Note
siluas: not dense woods, where grazing would be impossible, but partly open hillside with grazing among the trees, 'nemorum … saltus' (6.56, where see note). Below the woods in the ploughed fields there could be no echoing song; 'The woods shall to me answer, and my Eccho ring' (Spenser, Epithalamion).
Editor’s Note
6. Meliboee: 1.19, 42, 73, 3.1, 5.87, 7.9; a non-Theocritean name modelled, like Alphesiboeus (5.73 n.), on the feminine name, which occurs in several Greek legends (RE xv. 510). See F. Michelazzo, Enc. Virg. s.v. 459–60.
Editor’s Note
deus … / … deus: emphatically repeated so as to suggest a ritual cry; cf. 5.64 'deus, deus ille' and see Norden on A. 6.46 'deus ecce deus'.
Editor’s Note
otia fecit: the expression seems to be V.'s own. Otia is a poetic plural, no doubt recalling the pastoral ease of Lucr. 5.1387 'per loca pastorum deserta atque otia dia'. Cf. 5.61.
Editor’s Note
7. The boldness of Tityrus' declaration, as Wilamowitz, Der Glaube der Hellenen (Berlin, 1956), ii. 422, notices, is at once qualified: 'namque erit ille mihi semper deus'. Cf. A. D. Nock, JHS 48 (1928), 31 = Essays on Religion and the Ancient World, ed. Z. Stewart (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), i. 145: 'Such an individual might be called a god, either unreservedly or with reference to yourself, a god to you' (with examples, including this one).
Editor’s Note
7–9. ille … illius … / … / ille: not simply 'emphatic' (T. E. Page); the repetition implies a style of sacral utterance, Norden's 'Er-Stil', e.g. Lygdamus 6.13–16 (Liber) 'ille facit mites animos deus, ille ferocem / contudit et dominae misit in arbitrium; / Armenias tigres et fuluas ille leaenas / uicit'; see Norden, Agnostos Theos (Berlin, 1913), 163–6. Fedeli 276–7 compares Catull. 51.1–2 'Ille mi par esse deo uidetur, / ille, si fas est, superare diuos', thus rendering Catullus' addition to Sappho intelligible. Suetonius reports that, while sailing past the harbour of Puteoli, Augustus was saluted as a deity by the passengers and crew of an Alexandrian merchantman, Aug. 98.2 'candidati coronatique et tura libantes fausta omina et eximias laudes congesserant: per illum se uiuere, per illum nauigare, libertate atque fortunis per illum frui'.
Editor’s Note
8. ab ouilibus … agnus: a phrase like 'a fontibus undae' (G. 2.243) or 'pastor ab Amphryso' (G. 3.2, where see Mynors); see also Munro on Lucr. 2.51 'fulgorem … ab auro'. Ouilibus is a poetic plural (TLL s.v. 1190.22).
Editor’s Note
9. meas … boues: one of the earliest instances of the feminine (the text of Plaut. Truc. 277 is uncertain); see TLL s.v. bos 2141.44. Masculine in 5.25.
Editor’s Note
errare: of animals grazing ('pasci', Serv.) as in 2.21, G. 3.139, Hor. Epod. 2.11–12 'in reducta ualle mugientium / prospectat errantis greges'.
Editor’s Note
10. ludere: often of composing light or playful verse, as in Catull. 50.1–2 'Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi / multum lusimus in meis tabellis'; here, explicitly in 6.1 and G. 4.565, of pastoral poetry. See Nisbet–Hubbard on Hor. Carm. 1.32.2, Lyne on Ciris 19–20.
Editor’s Note
calamo … agresti: a collective singular; see above, 2 n. (auena). The pan-pipe consisted of a number of reeds—usually seven—graduated in length and joined together with wax; see 2. 36–7 n. The player produced a tune by blowing across the upper ends of the reeds, as described by Lucretius (above, 2n.).
Editor’s Note
11. non equidem: equidem occurs only once again in the E., in 9.7, where it is similarly placed in the line and in the poem; that is, following on Moeris' answer, a speech of five lines beginning 'O Lycida', to Lycidas' initial query. To this extent, V. modelled the opening of E. 1 on that of E. 9, though to a reader of V.'s book, if he noticed the similarity, the opposite would appear to be the case.
Editor’s Note
magis: 'rather', potius, after a negation, as in Catull. 68.30 'non est turpe, magis miserum est', Sall. Iug. 96.2 'ab nullo repetere, magis id laborare'; see O. Hey, ALL 13 (1902–4), 204–5; TLL s.v. 58.63.
Critical Apparatus
12 turbatur Quint. i 4. 28, Cons. 372.35, 'uera lectio' iudice Seru.: turbamur PRω, agnoscit Seru.
Editor’s Note
12. usque adeo: a Lucretian phrase (37 instances).
Editor’s Note
turbatur: cf. Lucr. 6.377 'turbatur utrimque'. Wackernagel i. 145–6, remarks that Augustan writers, and V. especially, favour these impersonal forms and that here the very indefiniteness heightens the effect. He compares A. 4.416 and Livy 2.45.11 'totis castris undique ad consules curritur'. See Austin on A. 1.272.
Editor’s Note
13. protinus: going straight on without rest; only here in the E.
Editor’s Note
ago: cf. 9.37, A. 10.675, 12.637, where ago is also elided (but not in A. 4.534, where see Pease), presumably because the quantity of -ο was uncertain; see Maas 513n. = 556n.22.
Editor’s Note
hanc etiam uix … duco: he drives the other goats ('ago autem proprie, nam agi dicuntur pecora', Serv.), the unhappy mother is almost too weak for him even to lead; Isa. 40:11 (the shepherd) 'shall gently lead those that are with young'.
Editor’s Note
14. corylos: hazel-trees, Corylus avellana L., the standard undergrowth of V's poetic landscape.
Editor’s Note
namque: an extreme postposition; cf. Catull. 66.65 'Virginis et saeui contingens namque Leonis' and see Clausen, HSCP 74 (1970), 85–6.
Editor’s Note
gemellos: neoteric in tone (the immediate context being intensely so); cf. Catull. 4.27 'gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris'; not found elsewhere in V. and generally avoided by later poets except Ovid (TLL s.v.). 'Notice the pathos of each word: gemellos "twins" heightening the sense of loss; spem gregis marking that they were fine ones which, could they have been reared, the flock would have regarded with pride and hope; silice in nuda in contrast with the soft bed of litter that would have been provided at home (cf. G. 3.297); conixa instead of the usual enixa emphasising more strongly the pain and effort of the labour; reliquit closing the description with the thought of their abandonment' (T. E. Page). The breeding season is almost over (cf. below, 80–1 n.) and the kids Meliboeus has waited so long for he has now lost (Mynors).
Editor’s Note
15. spem gregis: spes is concrete, as in G. 3.473 'spemque gregemque simul', 4.162 'spem gentis'.
Editor’s Note
silice in nuda: feminine here as elsewhere in V. where its gender can be determined (A. 6.471, 602, 8.233, where see Eden), but masculine in Lucretius, and both masculine and feminine in Ovid; see Hofmann–Szantyr 11.
Editor’s Note
conixa: 'pro eo quod est enixa, nam hiatus causa mutauit praepositionem' (Serv.); see Norden 409n. 2. Unique in this sense (TLL s.v. 319.66). Cf. Ov. Met. 11.316 '(namque est enixa gemellos).'
Editor’s Note
reliquit: cf. Tib. 1.1.31–2 'non agnamue sinu pigeat fetumue capellae / desertum oblita matre referre domum'; 'this is familiar to every shepherd' (K. F. Smith).
Editor’s Note
16. si mens non laeua fuisset: 'if we had been right-minded' (Lee); reused in A. 2. 54. In Roman divination the favourable side was the left, in Greek the right; here, however, laeuus has its ordinary, non-technical sense of mistaken or stupid. See 9. 15 n., Mynors on G. 4.7.
Editor’s Note
17. de caelo tactas: the traditional formula for objects struck by lightning; cf. Cic. De diu. 1.92 'Etruria autem de caelo tacta scientissume animaduertit, eademque interpretatur quid quibusque ostendatur monstris atque portentis' and see OLD s.v. tango 4 c.
Editor’s Note
memini praedicere: the present infinitive, as in old Latin, where the perfect might have been expected (G. 4.125–7). Cf. 7.69, 9.52, A. 1.619, 7.205–6, 8.157–9, and see Kühner–Stegmann i.703, Hofmann–Szantyr 357.
Editor’s Note
18. qui: instead of quis before sit for euphony and with no distinction of meaning; cf. 2.19, A. 3.608, 9.146, and see Löfstedt ii. 86–7.
Editor’s Note
da: instead of dic, introducing an appropriate note of gravity; cf. Hor. Serm. 2.8.4–5 (mock-solemn) 'da, si graue non est, / quae prima iratum uentrem placauerit esca' (where some MSS have dic), Val. Flacc. 5.217–18 'Incipe nunc cantus alios, dea, uisaque uobis / Thessalici da bella ducis'.
Editor’s Note
19. Vrbem quam dicunt Romam: note the solemn spondaic rhythm: Rome is not mentioned elsewhere in the E.
Editor’s Note
20. stultus: a 'low' word, found also in 2.39 but nowhere else in V.; frequent in comedy, found in Hor. Serm. and Epist. (but not in the Carm.) and in elegy. See Axelson 100.
Editor’s Note
similem: with esse understood as in 3.35, 4.59; 3.109 (es), 8.15, 24 (est), 5.21 (estis), 8.3, 9.53 (sunt). For the omission of these words in poetry see F. Leo, L. Annaei Senecae tragoediae (Berlin, 1878), i. 184–93.
Editor’s Note
saepe solemus: on market-days, nundinae, every ninth day by Roman reckoning, when they would take their animals and cheese to sell in town (G. 3.402 'adit oppida pastor')—in contrast with Tityrus' one great trip. For saepe with soleo cf. G. 2.186, Tib. 1.9.18.
Editor’s Note
21. depellere: the ancient opinion that depellere means separare a lacte (Philargyrius) is briefly discussed by most commentators and now accepted by Coleman (with Burman's conjecture quoi). But in this sense the verb is always a perfect passive participle; cf. 3.82 'depulsis … haedis', 7.15 'depulsos a lacte … agnos', G. 3.187 'depulsus ab ubere matris', TLL s.v. 564.81. Besides, in the vicinity of a town lambs could be delivered to the butcher before being weaned; Columella 7.3.13 (upilio uilicus) 'teneros agnos, dum adhuc herbae sunt expertes, lanio tradit, quoniam et paruo sumptu deuehuntur et his submotis fructus lactis ex matribus non minor percipitur'. The flesh of milk-fed or spring lamb is still considered a delicacy in Italy (abbacchio).
Editor’s Note
22. canibus catulos similis: L. P. Wilkinson, Golden Latin Artistry (Cambridge, 1963), 82 on G. 1.361: 'This rhythm, a succession of three anapaestic words unblurred by synaloepha, is extremely rare'. He cites, in addition to this line, 8.28 (but cum canibus is rhythmically a choriamb), G. 2.213, 3.165, 410, A. 3.259, 606, 4.403, 5.605, 822, 7.479, 9.156, 554, 10.390, 568. See also Norden on A. 6.290.
Editor’s Note
23. paruis componere magna: small things are usually compared to great, as in G. 4.176 'si parua licet componere magnis', but cf. Ov. Trist. 1.6.28 'grandia si paruis adsimilare licet'. See Otto, no. 1008.
Editor’s Note
25. uiburna: a species of guelder-rose, the wayfaring-tree, Viburnum lantana L.; V. Bertoldi, Archivum Romanicum, 15 (1931), 70 n.3, reports a belief current in the Mantuan countryside that the wayfaring-tree (called antána) had once been tall but was cursed by the Virgin for providing wood for the Cross and reduced to a shrub (Mynors).
Editor’s Note
cupressi: the familiar Italian cypress, Cupressus sempervirens L., which may attain a height of 150 feet.
Editor’s Note
26. tanta … causa: Meliboeus naturally assumes that Tityrus had some compelling reason for such a journey.
Editor’s Note
27. Libertas: freedom from slavery, purchased with a slave's hard-earned savings, his peculium. Leo 4 n.3 compares Plaut. Stich. 751 (Stichus) 'Vapulat peculium, actum est'. (Sangarinus) 'Fugit hoc libertas caput'; like Tityrus before Amaryllis took him in hand, Stichus and Sangarinus will squander their peculium on a woman. But Libertas had also a larger, political reference of which no contemporary reader could be unaware: it was the slogan of Octavian and his party; see Introduction, p. 31.
Editor’s Note
sera tamen: 'though late, yet', (quamuis) sera, tamen; a fairly common ellipse, e.g. Tib. 1.9.4 'sera tamen tacitis Poena uenit pedibus', Hor. Carm 1.15.19–20 'tamen heu serus adulteros / cultus puluere collines'; Cic. De inuent. 1.39 'quare iam diu gesta et a memoria nostra remota tamen faciant fidem', Arat. 139–41 'exin semotam procul in tutoque locatam / Andromedam tamen explorans fera quaerere Pistrix / pergit', Lucr. 4.952–3 'poplitesque cubanti / saepe tamen summittuntur', G. 1.197–8 'uidi lecta diu et multo spectata labore / degenerare tamen'. See Munro on Lucr. 4.952, Housman on Manil. 4.413 and Luc. 1.333, Nisbet–Hubbard on Hor. Carm. 1.15.19, Hill on Stat. Theb. 1.480.
Editor’s Note
respexit: though by his own admission Tityrus was shiftless and lazy, Liberty at last looked upon him—as might a deity, and Libertas was a deity in Rome; see Wissowa 138–9, S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford, 1971), 136–7. Cf. Plaut. Bacch. 639 'deus respiciet nos aliquis', Cic. Ad Att. 7.1.2 'nisi idem deus … respexerit rem publicam'; Exod. 2:25 'And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them'.
Editor’s Note
29. respexit tamen: such repetition, artfully varied, is characteristic of pastoral; somewhat similar are 2.37–9, 5.51–2.
Critical Apparatus
30–64 PR
Editor’s Note
30. habet: normally used of the male, e.g. A. 9.593–4 (Numanus) 'Turnique minorem /germanam … habebat'; see TLL s.v. 2408.53. So also in Greek, e.g. Od. 4.569 οὕνεκʼ ἔχεις 'Ελένην, 'for you have Helen to wife'; see LSJ s.v. ἔχω A.I.4. Tityrus seems to have been remarkably passive.
Editor’s Note
Galatea: a beautiful Nereid (Hes. Theog. 250 εὐειδὴς Γαλάτεια), later localized in Sicily, where she was wooed by Polyphemus; cf. 7.37 'Nerine Galatea', 9.39. The mistress of Dionysius I of Syracuse was named Galatea; see Gow's Preface to Theocr. 6. Galatea and Amaryllis must be, as Tityrus had been, slaves, conseruae (cf. 3.64, 72), a brutal reality disguised by the elegance and poetic resonance of their names. Cf. Varro, RR 2.10.6–7 'Quod ad feturam humanam pertinet pastorum, qui in fundo perpetuo manent, facile est quod habent conseruam in uilla, nec hac uenus pastoralis longius quid quaerit'. Although a ubiquitous feature of the Italian countryside, slaves hardly appear as such in the E.—or in the pastoral Idylls of Theocritus (only in 5.5 δῶλε Σιβύρτα, 'slave of Sibyrtas', a term of abuse). For the most part, V. leaves the question of status, slave or free, vague so as not to disrupt the harmony of his pastoral landscape, and therefore he does not use the words seruus or serua; see Axelson 58.
Editor’s Note
31. namque fatebor: for this rhythm, a trochee followed by an amphibrach, the rhythm of arma uirumque, which usually occurs at the end of the line, see C. Weber, HSCP 91 (1987), 263 n. 14.
Editor’s Note
(fatebor enim): again in A. 4.20 'Anna (fatebor enim) miseri post fata Sychaei'; cf. A. 12.813 'Iuturnam misero (fateor) succurrere fratri'. The parenthesis is colloquial in tone and qualifies a slightly embarrassed or rueful admission, as by Cicero, Ad Att. 12.36.1 'hae meae tibi ineptiae (fateor enim) ferendae sunt', or Ovid, Trist. 5.6.5 'sarcina sum (fateor)'; see Tränkle 8.
The use of parenthesis to create an effect of liveliness or spontaneity is a feature of Callimachus' style which V. imitates especially in the E.; 2.32–3, 53, 3.9, 29–30, 36, 54, 93, 104, 4.48, 61, 5.70, 89, 6.6–7, 69, 7.22–3, 8.38 (cf. Theocr. 11.25–7), 9.3, 6, 23, 25, 64, 10.38–9, 46. Parenthesis is not found in the pastoral poetry of Theocritus (but cf. [Theocr.] 8.50) and very rarely in his other poetry: 12.13, 15.15–16, 22.64. For parenthesis in Callimachus see F. Lapp, De Callimachi Cyrenaei tropis et figuris (diss. inaug., Bonn, 1965), 52–3; for Callimachus and V., G. Williams, Tradition and Originality in Roman Poetry (Oxford, 1968), 711, 730–1.
Editor’s Note
Galatea tenebat: cf. Catull. 64.28 'tene Thetis tenuit pulcerrima Nereine?'
Editor’s Note
32. cura peculi: the peculium, as described by M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (Cambridge, 1973), 64, was 'property (in whatever form) assigned for use, management, and, within limits, disposal to someone who in law lacked the right of property, either a slave or someone in patria potestas … the possessor normally had a free hand in the management, and, if a slave, he could expect to buy his freedom with the profits'. Cf. Varro, RR 1.17.5 'praefectos alacriores faciendum praemiis dandaque opera ut habeant peculium et coniunctas conseruas e quibus habeant filios'. But slaves in the country were rarely if ever emancipated; see K. D. White, Roman Farming (London, 1970), 352–3.
Editor’s Note
33. multa … uictima: a collective singular for the unmetrical plural, as in A. 1.334 'multa … hostia', Tib. 1.3.28 'multa tabella' ('a use characteristic of poetry and post-Augustan prose', K. F. Smith).
Editor’s Note
exiret: to be sold in town.
Editor’s Note
34. pinguis … caseus: Varro, RR 2.11.3 'et etiam est discrimen utrum casei molles ac recentes sint an aridi et ueteres'. In Diocletian's price edict of ad 301 (ed. S. Lauffer, Diokletians Preisedikt (Berlin, 1971)), new or soft cheese, caseus recens, is listed with fresh farm produce (6.96); hard cheese, caseus siccus, with salt fish (5.11). Hard cheese could be kept or exported, but soft cheese had to be consumed within a few days—Columella 7.8.6 'qui recens intra paucos dies absumi debet'—or, as in Tityrus' case, sold in the nearby town. V. clearly distinguishes between the two types of cheese, G. 3.400–3 'quod surgente die mulsere horisque diurnis, / nocte premunt; quod iam tenebris et sole cadente, / sub lucem: exportant calathis (adit oppida pastor), / aut parco sale contingunt hiemique reponunt'.
Applied to cheese, pinguis is virtually unique (TLL s.v. caseus 514.35), the usual adjectives being mollis and recens (ibid. 514.20); and since pinguis is commonly applied to animals, especially sacrificial animals (e.g. Plaut. Capt. 862 'agnum … pinguem', A. 11.740 'hostia pinguis'), multa and pinguis should probably be understood with both nouns: many a fat victim and much fat cheese ('sane pinguis melius ad uictimam quam ad caseum refertur', Serv.) Cf. Tib. 2.5.37–8 'fecundi … munera ruris, / caseus et … agnus'.
Editor’s Note
et: postponed to the second place as elsewhere in the E.: 1.68, 2.10, 3.89 (in the clause), 4.54, 7.60, 8.55; see Norden 402–4.
Editor’s Note
ingratae … urbi: the countryman resents the town, which may refuse the products he brings or, in his opinion, pay him too little ('pretia iniqua', Serv.).
Editor’s Note
premeretur: cf. below, 81, 'pressi copia lactis'; hand-pressed cheese, the making of which is described by Columella, 7.8.7 'illa uero notissima est ratio faciundi casei, quem dicimus manu pressum … feruente aqua perfusus uel manu figuratur uel buxeis formis exprimitur'. Augustus was fond of it (Suet. Aug. 76).
Editor’s Note
35. non umquam grauis aere: unlike the thrifty Simulus, who always returned from town 'ceruice leuis, grauis aere' (Moretum 80).
Editor’s Note
36. maesta: only here in the E. and only once in the G. (4.515), but thirty-seven times in the A. Amaryllis is sad and fearful because Tityrus is away and calls on the gods to protect him.
Critical Apparatus
37 poma] mala R1
Critical Apparatus
38 pinus] nobis (E. i 18) P1
Editor’s Note
38. aberat: the final short syllable is lengthened before the caesura, as in 3.97 erit, 7.23 facit, 9.66 puer. See Nettleship's excursus in Conington, iii (London, 1871), 465–70; also Norden 450–2, Austin on A. 1.308, Fordyce on A. 7.174.
Editor’s Note
38–9. ipsae … / ipsi … ipsa: an emphatic but remarkably graceful anaphora with polyptoton and varied ictus; cf. 5.62–4.
Editor’s Note
39. arbusta: often the equivalent of the unmetrical arbores. So probably in 4.2, 5.64, A. 10.363. Elsewhere trees planted for some purpose, especially for a vineyard, where branches of the vine were trained in festoons between supporting trees, usually elms; see J. Bradford, Ancient Landscapes (London, 1957), 162. Here either meaning is possible, but as trees in general are represented by pinus (38) 'vineyards' seems more probable.
Editor’s Note
uocabant: echoing uocares (36). The sympathy of nature, the answering voice, is a fundamental assumption of pastoral; cf. 5.62–4, 10.8.
Editor’s Note
40. quid facerem?: colloquial, e.g. Ter. Ad. 214, Eun. 831. In V. only here and in 7.14.
Editor’s Note
me: understood with cognoscere in the next line as alibi is with exire in this (Leo). See below, 58n.
Editor’s Note
41. tam praesentis: 'so present to my Pray'r' (Dryden); Ps. 46: 1 'A very present help in trouble'. In this sense praesens is old and hallowed: Ter. Phorm. 345 'praesentem deum', Cic. Catil. 2.19 'deos … praesentis auxilium esse laturos', Tusc. disp. 1.28 'Hercules tantus et tam praesens habetur deus', G. 1.10 'agrestum praesentia numina', Hor. Carm. 3.5.2–3 'praesens diuus habebitur / Augustus'; see H. Haffter, Philologus, 93 (1938), 137–8. But there may be some Hellenistic colouring here, as in the poem by Hermocles of Cyzicus honouring Demetrius Poliorcetes, in which the presence of the human 'god' is contrasted with the remoteness and indifference of the traditional gods: Ἄλλοι μὲν ἢ μακρὰν γὰρ ἀπέχουσιν θεοί, | ἢ οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὦτα, | ἢ οὐκ εἰσίν, ἢ οὐ προσέχουσιν ἡμῖν οὐδὲ ἕν. | σὲ δὲ παρόνθʼ ὁρῶμεν, 'For the other gods are far away, or do not have ears, or do not exist, or do not pay attention to us at all, but you we see before us.' See Powell, Collectanea Alexandrina, p. 174, 11. 15–18. (I am indebted for this reference and suggestion to R. Renehan.) Cf. Ov. Trist. 2.53–4 (Augustus) 'per mare, per terram, per tertia numina iuro, / per te praesentem conspicuumque deum', with Luck's note.
Editor’s Note
42. uidi: of seeing a god, an epiphany; cf. 10. 26 n.
Editor’s Note
iuuenem: Octavian is so styled in G. 1.500, Hor. Serm. 2.5.62, Carm. 1.2.41, but in G. 1 and Carm. 1.2 he is subsequently addressed by name (Caesar) and in Serm. 2.5 his identity is immediately indicated.
Editor’s Note
quotannis: the young saviour's birthday will be regularly observed with a cult appropriate to a deity; cf. 5.67, 7.33.
Editor’s Note
43. bis senos … dies: twelve days each year (42 'quotannis'). But which twelve? Commentators think that a reference to the Lar familiaris is intended and cite Philargyrius (not, as they suppose, Servius, whose commentary on 1.38–2.10 has been lost; see Thilo on 1.37) 'id est principia mensium uel Idus omnium mensium' and Cato, De agr. 143.2 (uilica) 'Kalendis, Idibus, Nonis, festus dies cum erit, coronam in focum indat, per eosdemque dies Lari familiari pro copia supplicet'—that is, thirty-six days, not counting special occasions, such as births, marriages, departures, homecomings, and the like, when the Lar was honoured (Wissowa 169). Propertius is occasionally cited as indicating that worship of the Lar was restricted to the Kalends in the Augustan period, 4.3.53–4 'omnia surda tacent, rarisque adsueta Kalendis / uix aperit clausos una puella Lares'; but cited with insufficient regard to the character of his poem. It is an imaginary epistle from a Roman matron to her husband, too often away, as it seems to her, on military campaigns; she is desolate, and the reduced condition of the household reflects her mood; even the indwelling spirit is scanted of his due. Commentators also cite Hor. Carm. 4.5.33–5 'te multa prece, te prosequitur mero / defuso pateris, et Laribus tuum / miscet numen'; like Prop. 4.3, a poem written many years after E. 1 and unrelated to it. For an additional argument see below (altaria fumant).
It is understandable that this interpretation, or rather, this failed interpretation, should appear in commentaries before 1902, when it was refuted by Wissowa, Hermes, 37.157–9.; but that it should appear in every commentary since then, with no mention of Wissowa, is not. The reference, as Wissowa demonstrated, is to Hellenistic ruler-cult, to the custom, that is, of celebrating a ruler's birthday every month, κατὰ μῆνα, or twelve times a year. Ptolemy III, Ptolemy V, Attalus II, Antiochus Epiphanes (cf. 2 Macc. 6:7 'And in the day of the king's birth every month they were brought by bitter constraint to eat of the sacrifices'), Antiochus I of Commagene—all were so honoured, as was Augustus by the people of Mytilene and Pergamum; see W. Schmidt, Geburtstag im Altertum (Giessen, 1908), 12–16. On 3 September 36 bc, Octavian finally defeated Sextus Pompey at Naulochus and shortly thereafter returned to Rome in triumph. The future now seemed secure. In the grateful municipalities of Italy Octavian's statue was set up beside the statues of the traditional gods; he became an additional god, in Hellenistic style. Cf. Appian, BC 5.132 τοῦτο μὲν δὴ τῶν τότε στάσεων ἐδόκει τέλος εἶναι. καὶ ἦν ὁ Καῖσαρ ἐτῶν ἐς τότε ὀκτὼ καὶ εἴκοσι, καὶ αὐτὸν αἱ πόλεις τοῖς σφετέροις θεοῖς συνίδρυον, 'This seemed to be the end of the civil dissensions. Octavian was now twenty-eight years of age. Cities joined in placing him among the tutelary gods' (H. White in the Loeb Classical Library). It is unlikely, however, that the peculiar veneration of Tityrus corresponded to any political reality in Rome.
While agreeing with Wissowa, Jachmann 115 n.2 suggests that V. got the idea from Theocritus' encomium of Ptolemy II, 17.126–7 πολλὰ δὲ πιανθέντα βοῶν ὅγε μηρία καίει | μησὶ περιπλομένοισιν ἐρευθομένων ἐπὶ βωμῶν, 'And many fat thighs of oxen burns he on the reddening altars as the months come round' (Gow). Both Wissowa and Jachmann had in fact been anticipated by Buecheler, RhM 30 (1875), 59 = Kleine Schriften (Leipzig, 1927), ii. 19; see Wissowa, Hermes, 52 (1917), 101 n.4.
Editor’s Note
bis senos: a mode of reckoning associated with religion and magic, and often, as here, a metrical convenience; see TLL s.v. bis 2009.24, Hofmann–Szantyr 212.
Editor’s Note
altaria fumant: cf. G. 2.194 'fumantia … exta', A. 8.106 'tepidusque cruor fumabat ad aras'. The Lar was honoured with flowers and wine and incense, but seldom with a blood-offering unless a death had occurred in the family (Wissowa, Religion und Kultus, 169).
Editor’s Note
44–5. R. Hanslik, WS 68 (1955), 16–17, detects an allusion to Hesiod in these lines, Theog. 24–6 τόνδε δέ με πρώτιστα θεαὶ πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπον, | Μοῦσαι Ὀλυμπιάδες, κοῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο | ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι …", 'And this was the word the goddesses first spoke to me, the Olympian Muses, daughters of Zeus who holds the aegis, "Shepherds of the field …" '. Cf. West ad loc. (p. 160): 'it is particularly noteworthy that the Muses deliver this typical address to Hesiod in the plural although he is (presumably) alone … The plural emphasizes that the addressee belongs to a particular class'.
Editor’s Note
44. responsum: usually plural in V., but cf. A. 6.344 'hoc uno responso animum delusit Apollo'; a formal response to a petitioner from someone in authority or from an oracle (cf. A. 7.92 'petens responsa Latinus').
Editor’s Note
primus: with no suggestion that Tityrus had applied elsewhere; the godlike youth was the first to help him, or who could help him, and is gratefully remembered. Cf. A. 7.117–18 'ea uox audita laborum / prima tulit finem' (Conington).
Editor’s Note
45. Leo 18 n. 1 would put a comma after pueri instead of a semicolon to indicate that ut ante is understood with both imperatives.
Editor’s Note
summittite: 'raise', 'bring up', as in G. 3.73, 159; cf. Varro, RR 2.2.18 'quos arietes summittere uolunt, potissimum eligunt ex matribus quae geminos parere solent'.
Editor’s Note
tauros: used improperly, as elsewhere in V., of plough-oxen, iuuenci; see Mynors on G. 1.45 ('to plough with bulls is a test of heroic rashness').
Editor’s Note
46. tua: predicative, 'the land will remain yours'.
Editor’s Note
47–8. quamuis lapis omnia nudus / limosoque palus obducat pascua iunco: cf. G. 1.115–17 'amnis abundans / exit et obducto late tenet omnia limo, / unde cauae tepido sudant umore lacunae', Lucr. 5.206–7 'quod superest arui, tamen id natura sua ui / sentibus obducat', G. 2.411 'bis segetem densis obducunt sentibus herbae'.
Editor’s Note
47. lapis … nudus: 'the piles of shingle with which a river in flood leaves some of its late course covered, while it is alluvial marsh in other places, depending on the speed of the water' (Mynors).
Editor’s Note
omnia: separated from pascua and therefore emphatic; cf. G. 2.277–8, A. 7.573–4, 8.4–5, 604–5, 9.38–9. Jachmann 115 n.3: 'hyperbolisch ausgedrückt. Aber gerade daraus spricht am stärksten die unbedingte Liebe zur heimatlichen Scholle'.
Editor’s Note
49. grauis … fetas: grauis in the sense of grauidus is first attested here (TLL s.v. 2276.73) and seems to be V.'s innovation; cf. A. 1.273–4 'regina sacerdos / Marte grauis geminam partu dabit Ilia prolem', 6.515–16 'cum fatalis equus saltu super ardua uenit / Pergama et armatum peditem grauis attulit aluo' (Enn. Sc. 76–7 V.2 = 72–3 J. 'nam maximo saltu superabit grauidus armatis equus, / qui suo partu ardua perdat Pergama'). The tautology 'grauis … fetas' may be owing to V.'s wish to support and define grauis in this new sense.
Editor’s Note
50. contagia: poetic plural for the unmetrical contagio, like obliuia for obliuio, both of which are found in Lucretius; see Norden on A. 6.715. Used once again by V. in G. 3.469; cf. Hor. Epod. 16.61 'nulla nocent pecori contagia'.
Editor’s Note
51. flumina nota: cf. G. 4.266 'pabula nota', A. 2.256, 3.657 'litora nota', 6.221 'uelamina nota', 7.491 'limina nota', 11.195 'munera nota'. See 2. 44 n.
Editor’s Note
52. frigus captabis opacum: reads like a refinement of 2.8 'umbras et frigora captant'; the verb does not occur elsewhere in the E. See 3. 18 n.
Editor’s Note
opacum: 'opaca uocantur umbrosa' (Festus, p. 200 L.). For the relative frequency of these two adjectives in poetry see TLL s.v. 657.25. Generally speaking, opacus belongs to the higher, umbrosus to the lower style of poetry, with the notable exception of Catull. 37.19 'Egnati, opaca quem bonum facit barba', where G. Lee suspects parody; cf. Pacuvius 362 R.3 'nunc primum opacat flora lanugo genas'. Thus opacus occurs only here in the E. and only once in the G. (1.156), but seventeen times in the A. (also G. 2.55 opacant, A. 6.195 opacat, where see Norden); umbrosus once in the E. (2.3), twice in the G. (2.66, 3.331), and twice in A. (8.34, 242).
Editor’s Note
53. hinc: corresponds to hinc in 56, 'on this side', 'on that'; each adverb being further defined by a prepositional phrase, 'uicino ab limite', 'alta sub rupe'. Cf. 3.12, G. 4.423, A. 3.616–17, 6.305, where see Norden, 385, 7.209, 10.656–7, and see Wagner here. The construction is as old as Homer, Od. 10.511 αὐτοῦ … ἐπʼ ʼΩκεανῷ βαθυδίνῃ, 'there … by the deep-eddying Ocean', 11.69 ἐνθέδε … δόμου ἐξ ʼΑΐδαο, 'hence … from the house of Hades'.
Editor’s Note
quae semper: suasit or suadebat is to be supplied from suadebit in l. 55.
Editor’s Note
uicino ab limite: the limes was a strip of land left unploughed to mark the boundary and used as a highway.
Editor’s Note
ab: for V.'s use of ab before consonants see Wagner, Quaest. Virg. 1.1; also TLL s.v. a, ab, abs 2.57.
Editor’s Note
saepes: the boundary hedge of willows where the bees feed. The willow was a variously useful tree; it provided leafage for the flock, shade for shepherds, hedges for the crops, and food for bees (G. 2.434–6).
Editor’s Note
54. Hyblaeis: not an established ornamental epithet, like Chaonius (9.13) or Cydonius (10.59), but as such V.'s own invention; this, or rather 7.37, being the first reference in poetry to the honey of Hybla. The city Megara Hyblaea, situated a few miles north of Syracuse, had long since ceased to exist, but the older name of the place remained, Strabo says, because of the excellence of its honey, 6.2.2 τὸ δὲ τῆς 'ʹΥβλης ὄνομα συμμένει διὰ τὴν ἀρετὴν τοῦ ̔Υβλαίου μέλιτος. In the opinion of Varro, RR 3.16.14, Sicilian honey is the best 'quod ibi thymum bonum frequens est', and Columella 9.14.19 remarks that thyme blooms longer at Hybla than anywhere else in Sicily (cf. E. 7.37 'thymo mihi dulcior Hyblae'). V. may already have had personal knowledge of this region, which he evidently knew later: Vita Donati 13 'quamquam secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur'; the description of the coast near Syracuse in A. 3.688–98 suggests autopsy.
The honey of Hybla was to enjoy a long success in poetry: Ovid, Ars 2.517, 3.150, Trist. 5.6.38, 13.22, Ex Pont. 2.7.26, 4.15.10, Columella 10.170, Lucan 9.291, Seneca, Oed. 601, Calp. Sic. 4.63, Statius, Silu. 2.1.48, 3.118, Ach. 1.557, Martial 2.46.1–2, 5.39.3, 7.88.8, 9.26.4, 13.105.1, Silius 14.200, Peruigilium Veneris 51, 52, Claudian, De rapt. Pros. 2.125, Shakespeare, I Henry IV, 1.ii.42 'the honey of Hybla', Julius Caesar v.i.34 'but for your words, they rob the Hybla bees', Drummond of Hawthornden, Madrigals, 5 'Hybla's hills', Collins, Ode to Simplicity, 14 'Hybla's thymy shore', Bridges, Testament of Beauty, 2.334 'Hybla's renown'.
Editor’s Note
florem depasta salicti: to be distinguished from the accusative of respect, e.g. G. 4.181 'crura thymo plenae' or A. 1.320 'nuda genu', a Graecism and not found in the E. The past participle had originally a medial force and was therefore capable of assuming a direct object; for this construction and its development, under Greek influence, in Latin poetry see G. Landgraf, ALL 10 (1896–8), 215–24, Löfstedt ii.421–2, Kühner–Stegmann i.288–92, Hofmann–Szantyr 36–8. Of the seven examples in the E., four occur in E. 6: 1.54, 3.106, 6.15, 53, 68, 75, 7.32, 8.4. For the verb cf. 5.77, Lucr. 3.11–12 'floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant, / omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta'.
Editor’s Note
55. leui: 'soft', cf. Catull. 64.273 'leuiterque sonant plangore cachinni' and see Fedeli on Prop. 1.3.43 'interdum leuiter mecum deserta querebar'.
Editor’s Note
suadebit inire: strong caesura in the third foot and weak in the fourth; for lines so constructed see Norden 427–9.
Editor’s Note
susurro: here only in V., and here only of bees (but cf. G. 4.260 susurrant); the hedge is drowsy with their soft murmuring.
Editor’s Note
56. alta sub rupe canet: so Gallus sings, 10.14 'sola sub rupe', and Orpheus, G. 4.508 'rupe sub aëria'; perhaps suggested by [Theocr.] 8.55 ἀλλʼ ὑπὸ τᾷ πέτρᾳ τᾷδʼ ᾄσομαι, 'Rather beneath this rock will I sit and sing' (Gow).
Editor’s Note
frondator: it was his task to prune the vine and the elm on which the vine depended so as to let in sufficient light; cf. 2.70, G. 1.156–7, 2.362–70, Catull. 64.41 'non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram'. The leaves might be used for fodder; see 9. 61 n. He sings to pass the time, as solitary workers will, 'sweetning his labour with a cheareful song' (Francis Quarles, On the Ploughman). Cf. G. 1.293–4 'interea longum cantu solata laborem / arguto coniunx percurrit pectine telas', Tib. 2.1.65–6 'atque aliqua adsiduae textrix operata Mineruae / cantat', where see K. F. Smith, Moretum 29–30 (Simulus grinding grain) 'modo rustica carmina cantat / agrestique suum solatur uoce laborem'. See also Pease on Cic. De nat. deor. 2.89, to whose note Kenney on Moretum 29–30 adds Quintil. 1.10.16.
Editor’s Note
57. raucae, tua cura, palumbes: for the word-order, parenthetic apposition, see J. B. Solodow, HSCP 90 (1986), 129–53. V. uses this construction five times in the E.: here, 2.3, 3.3, 7.21, 9.9; three times in the G.: 2.146–7, 4.168, 246 'dirum tiniae genus', all three of this simple type; and only once (but cf. A. 3.305, 537, 7.717) in the A., 6.842–3 'geminos, duo fulmina belli, / Scipiadas', where the pattern is disguised by extension into the next line (cf. Stat. Theb. 3.237–8 'turpis, primordia belli, / insidias') and the reader's attention distracted by Ennian sonorities (see Norden ad loc.). Evidently V. felt that parenthetic apposition was appropriate to the E., marginally so to the G., but hardly to the A. Strictly speaking, the only precedent in Hellenistic poetry is Hedylus 2.5 G.–P. ( = AP 5.199). Cf., however, Meleager 31.3–4 G.–P. ( = AP 5.144) ἡ φιλέραστος, ἐν ἄνθεσιν ὥριμον ἄνθος, | Ζηνοφίλα, 'the lovely, the spring flower of flowers, Zenophila', the structure of which bears a strange resemblance to that of A. 6.842–3.
O. Skutsch, RhM 99 (1956), 198–9, citing Prop. 3.3.31 'et Veneris dominae uolucres, mea turba, columbae', detects the presence of Gallus here; see 10. 22 n.
Editor’s Note
palumbes: wood-pigeons, whose song consists of a triple phrase with a sigh at the close, Pliny, NH 10.106 'cantus … trino conficitur uersu praeterque in clausula gemitu'. The Romans kept pigeons and turtle-doves on their farms (Varro, RR 3.7–8).
Editor’s Note
58. gemere: here first of bird-sound (TLL s.v. 1762.35); cf. Theocr. 7.141 ἔστενε τρυγών, 'the turtle-dove moaned'. Gemere and cessabunt are understood with palumbes; for this, the ἀπὸ κοινοῦ construction, see Norden on A. 6.471, E. J. Kenney, CQ, ns 8 (1958), 55.
Editor’s Note
aeria … ulmo: cf. Catull. 64.291 'aeria cupressu', A. 3.680 'aeriae quercus', E. 3.69 'aeriae … palumbes', Hor. Carm. 1.2.9–10 'summa … ulmo, / nota quae sedes fuerat columbis'. Pigeons seek high places, Varro says (RR 3.7.1), because of their natural shyness.
Critical Apparatus
59 pascuntur P
Critical Apparatus
aethere] aequore Ribbeck e recc.
Editor’s Note
59–62: highly stylized 'impossibilities', ἀδύνατα, found in both Greek and Latin poetry, but more often in Latin; nearly 200 examples were collected and classified by H. V. Canter, AJP 51 (1930), 32–41. See also K. F. Smith on Tib. 1.4.65–6, E. Dutoit, Le Thème de l'Adynaton dans la poésie antique (Paris, 1936), with the review by H. Herter, Gnomon, 15 (1939), 205–11, and G. O. Rowe, AJP 86 (1965), 387–96. This is the most elaborate passage of its kind in the E. (59 ante, 61 ante, 63 quam); cf. 3.90–1, 8.26–8, 52–6.
Editor’s Note
59. leues: 'on the wing', as in G. 4.55, A. 5.838; 'auium ante cerui uolabunt more' (Philargyrius 1).
Editor’s Note
in aethere: Hellenistic poets use ἀήρ and αἰθήρ indifferently (Mineur on Callim. Hymn 4.176), but in aere is usual in Latin: Plaut. Asin. 99–100 'iubeas una opera me piscari in aere, / uenari autem rete iaculo in medio mari' (where see Leo), Cic. De nat. deor. 2.42 'in aqua, in aere', Varro, LL 5.75 'animalia in tribus locis quod sunt, in aere, in aqua, in terra', G. 1.404 'apparet liquido sublimis in aere (M: aethere R) Nisus'. But V. was thinking here of Lucr. 3.784–5 'denique in aethere non arbor, non aequore in alto / nubes esse queunt nec pisces uiuere in aruis' (cf. Lucr. 5. 128–9).
Editor’s Note
61. exsul: only here in V., with melancholy emphasis; grammar notwithstanding, V.'s reader will sooner think of Meliboeus and his fellow-exiles than of the warlike Parthians and Germans. Tityrus' impossibly distant places (here first in an adynaton; see A. Manzo, Enc. Virg. s.v. Arar) are only too real for Meliboeus—as his answer demonstrates (64–6).
Editor’s Note
62. Ararim: strict reciprocity would have the Parthians drinking from the Rhine, the German river; cf. Luc. 7.433 'libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit'. But the Arar, now the Saône, in its upper reaches is not far removed from the Rhine, and while V. was still a boy the Germans crossed the Rhine and occupied much of the territory between it and the Arar, which their king, Ariovistus, arrogantly claimed as 'his Gaul' (Caes. BG 1.34.4 'in sua Gallia'). Read aut Rhenum Parthus (K. Wellesley, CP 63 (1968), 139–41) and fled is the music. V.'s ear seems to have been engaged by the sound or rhyming effect of Ararim … Tigrim, which is set off by the repetition aut … aut and chiastic word-order. So J. Aymard, Latomus, 14 (1955), 120–2, who also suggests another reason for opposing these two rivers: the Arar was known to be sluggish, Caes. BG 1.12.1 'flumen est Arar … incredibili lenitate, ita ut oculis in utram partem fluat iudicari non possit', but the Tigris terribly swift, Varro, LL 5.100 'uehementissimum flumen' (see E. 5. 29 n.). Poets from Homer onward sometimes identify a people by naming the river from which they drink; cf. G. 1.509 'hinc mouet Euphrates, illinc Germania bellum', 4.211–12 'nec populi Parthorum aut Medus Hydaspes / obseruant', and see Nisbet–Hubbard on Hor. Carm. 2.20.20, Tarrant on Sen. Ag. 318ff.
Editor’s Note
Parthus: for the use of the collective singular to designate an enemy ('the Hun') see Löfstedt i.22–3.
Critical Apparatus
63 labantur P2
Editor’s Note
63. The adynata end with an oath or asseveration of fidelity, as in Prop. 2.15.31–6.
Editor’s Note
64. ibimus Afros: the name of a people instead of the place where they live, a construction as old as Homer, Od. 4.84 Αἰθίοπάς θʼ ἱκόμην καὶ Σιδονίους καὶ ʼΕρεμβούς, 'and I came to the Ethiopians and the Sidonians and the Erembi'; see Denniston on Eur. El. 917, Hofmann–Szantyr 50. Cf. A. 3.254 'ibitis Italiam'.
Editor’s Note
64–5. nos … / pars: for the distributive apposition cf. A. 1.423–5 'Tyrii: pars … / … / pars', 12.277–8 'fratres … / pars … pars', Sall. Iug. 38.5 'milites Romani … alii, alii …, pars', and see TLL s.v. pars 454.48, Kühner–Stegmann ii.72–3.
Critical Apparatus
i 65–ii 9 PR
Critical Apparatus
65 Cretae nomen proprium agnoscit Seru. ad E. ii 24 (ad loc. deest)
Editor’s Note
65. rapidum cretae: idiosyncratic but not unintelligible Latin ('which has yet to be supported by examples', Conington). Rapidus is a standing epithet of rivers, with rapax as a metrical variant: Lucr. 1.15 'rapidos … amnis', 17 'fluuiosque rapaces' (cf. G. 3.142 'fluuiosque … rapacis'); and rapax, like other such adjectives (Kühner–Stegmann i.451), may assume an objective genitive; see 4. 24 n. 'The verbal force, dominant in rapax, was not far below the surface in rapidus; and this perhaps made it easier for V. to write rapidum cretae in E. 1.65' (Mynors on G. 4.425). Cf. Plaut. Men. 64–5 'ingressus fluuium rapidum ab urbe haud longule, / rapidus raptori pueri subduxit pedes'.
Editor’s Note
Oaxen: context and proportion alike require that this be the name of a great river in the East, apparently the Oxus, now the Amu-darya, which flows into the Aral Sea; a remote and fabulous river of which V. can have had only the vaguest notion, and which he calls, for reasons not entirely clear, the Oaxes. Pliny states that the Oxus rises in Lake Oaxus, NH 6.48 'Oxus amnis, ortus in lacu Oaxo'; and H. Myśliwiec, RE Suppl. xi. 1022–30, concludes, after a dense argument, that Oaxos/-es is a by-form of Oxos. Arrian describes the Oxus as the greatest of the rivers crossed by Alexander except those in India, with a sandy bottom and a current so swift that piles sunk by the royal engineers were instantly swept away, 3.29.3 ὡς τὰ καταπηγνύμενα πρὸς αὐτοῦ τοῦ ῥοῦ ἐκστρέφεσθαι ἐκ τῆς γῆς οὐ χαλεπῶς; cf. Curtius Rufus 7.10.13 'quia limum uehit, turbidus semper'.
The old opinion that V. is here referring to Crete should be mentioned only to be rejected. There was no such river in Crete, nor would a beautiful and fertile island washed round by the soft Mediterranean (Od. 19.173 καλὴ καὶ πίειρα, περίρρυτος) be compatible as a place of exile with the African desert, distant Britain, or the frozen North. See Clausen, AJP 76 (1955), 60–1, adding Gratt. Cyn. 132 'Eois … Sabaeis'; see also G. Funaioli, Esegesi virgiliana antica (Milan, 1930), 309–10.
Editor’s Note
66. penitus toto diuisos orbe Britannos: penitus is to be taken with diuisos, as it is with diuersa in A. 9.1 'Atque ea diuersa penitus dum parte geruntur' (Conington). Cf. Catull. 11.11–12 'ultimosque Britannos', 29.4 'ultima Britannia', and see Pease on Cic. De nat. deor. 2.88 'in Scythiam aut in Britanniam'.
Editor’s Note
67–9. Cf. G. 3.474–7, noting 'post tanto' and 'desertaque regna / pastorum'.
Editor’s Note
67. en umquam: asking a passionate rhetorical question, as in Plaut. Trin. 589–90 'o pater, / en umquam aspiciam te?' Cf. 8.7 and see A. Köhler, ALL 6 (1889), 26–7.
Editor’s Note
68. tuguri: only here in V. Cf. Varro, RR 3.1.3 'quod tempus si referas ad illud principium, quo agri coli sunt coepti atque in casis et tuguriis habitabant nec murus et porta quid esset sciebant, immani numero annorum urbanos agricolae praestant'.
Editor’s Note
69. post: preposition or adverb? The former, a temporal preposition, according to the ancient grammarians: 'quasi rusticus per aristas numerat annos' (Philargyrius 1; see V. Schindel, Hermes, 97 (1969), 472–89); so also Klingmer 21: 'mein Reich nach vielen (?) Ernten sehend'. This interpretation is defended on the analogy of πόα, which occasionally means 'year' in Hellenistic poetry (references in Schindel 481 n.4); but 'post aliquot aristas' in this sense would contradict 'longo post tempore' in 67 (Leo 11 n. 1). And what would there be for Meliboeus to see and marvel at? Leo (ibid.) takes post as a local preposition and compares 3.20 'tu post carecta latebas'; an interpretation hesitantly accepted by V. Pöschl, Die Hirtendichtung Virgils (Heidelberg, 1964), 59: 'hinter ein paar Ähren mein Reich schauend'. Is Meliboeus to be imagined creeping up to his old homestead (so as not to be seen by the brutal soldier?) and peering at it from behind a few ears of grain? And again, what would there be for him to marvel at? Post must be an adverb repeating, pathetically repeating, 'longo post tempore'; so Germanus (Antwerp, 1575), La Cerda, Heyne, and others, but Conington finds the repetition 'very awkward', as does Pöschl. Germanus compares G. 2.259–62 'his animaduersis terram multo ante memento / excoquere et magnos scrobibus concidere montis, / ante supinatas Aquiloni ostendere glaebas / quam laetum infodias uitis genus'. It will be noticed that ante, like post (cf. A. 1.612, 2.216, 12.185), is followed by an accusative which it does not govern.
Editor’s Note
aliquot: a prosaic word found only here in V. (TLL s.v.).
Editor’s Note
mea regna: so Scaevola refers to Crassus' Tusculan estate, Cic. De or. 1.41 'nisi hic in tuo regno essemus'. Meliboeus dreams of returning one day, of viewing his 'kingdom' and marvelling at its sadly impoverished state.
Editor’s Note
70. Note the coincidence of ictus and accent; such lines are rare: 5.52, 7.33, 8.80.
Editor’s Note
impius: as having taken part in a civil war; cf. Hor. Epod. 16.9 'impia … aetas', Carm. 2.1.30 'impia proelia', and see H. Fugier, Recherches sur l'expression du sacré dans la langue latine (Paris, 1963), 382–3.
Editor’s Note
noualia: fallow land left unseeded in alternate years; cf. G. 1.71–2, Pliny, NH 18.176 'nouale est quod alternis annis seritur'.
Editor’s Note
71. barbarus: not a foreign mercenary, who could hardly be termed impius; the contrast is between soldier—the brutal, bloodstained soldier—and civilian.
Editor’s Note
discordia: domestic strife, civil war; cf. G. 2.496 'infidos agitans discordia fratres', Cic. Phil. 7.25 'omnia … plena odiorum, plena discordiarum, ex quibus oriuntur bella ciuilia'. The collocation 'discordia ciuis' is striking; repeated in A. 12.583 'trepidos inter discordia ciuis' and imitated by Propertius 1.22.5 'cum Romana suos egit discordia ciuis'.
Critical Apparatus
72 perduxit bdv
Critical Apparatus
his nos PRb?γ?: en quis ω (en quos d) consueuimus agris R
Editor’s Note
73. insere … piros: 'graft your pear-shoots'; cf. Varro, RR 1.40.5 'si in pirum siluaticam inserueris pirum quamuis bonam, non fore tam iucundam quam si in eam quae siluestris non sit'. Pear can also be grafted upon apple; see A. S. Pease, TAPA 64 (1933), 66–76.
Editor’s Note
nunc: sarcastic, usually i nunc; see TLL s.v. eo 632.37, E. B. Lease, AJP 19 (1898), 59–69. In 9.50 the advice is seriously intended.
Critical Apparatus
74 felix quondam Rω: quondam felix Pf
Editor’s Note
74. ite meae, felix quondam pecus, ite capellae: cf. 7.44, 10.77.
Editor’s Note
75. posthac: cf. 3.51; not found elsewhere in V.
Editor’s Note
antro: ἄντρῳ, cf. Theocr. 3.6, 13, 6.28, 7.137, 149, [8.72], [9.15], 11.44; first attested in the E., 5.6, 19, 6.13, 9.41. See Norden on A. 6.10, Mynors on G. 2.469. Spelunca, the ordinary Latin word, is not found in the E. but occurs in the G. and A. Theocritus' Amaryllis lives in a cave (3.6 ἄντρον) as do post-Theocritean herdsmen, [9.15–16] κἠγὼ καλὸν ἄντρον ἐνοικέω | κοίλαις ὲν πέτραισιν, 'I too dwell in a fine cave among the hollow rocks'. In the E., however, caves or grottoes provide only a temporary shelter—for Meliboeus as he watches his flock, for Mopsus and Menalcas while they are singing (5.6–7). V.'s herdsmen live in cabins or huts, to which they return in the evening with their animals (2.29, 3.33, 7.44, 49–50, 10.77).
Editor’s Note
76. dumosa: cf. G. 3.314–15 (goats) 'pascuntur uero siluas et summa Lycaei / horrentisque rubos et amantis ardua dumos'. For the adjective see above, 5n.
Editor’s Note
pendere: an image admired by Wordsworth, who in the preface to the 1815 edition of his poems compares Shakespeare's 'half way down / Hangs one who gathers samphire' and observes that 'the apparently perilous situation of the goat, hanging upon the shaggy precipice, is contrasted with that of the shepherd contemplating it from the seclusion of the cavern in which he lies stretched at ease and in security'. Ovid would recall this passage in exile, Ex Pont. 1.8.51–2 'ipse ego pendentis, liceat modo, rupe capellas, / ipse uelim baculo pascere nixus ouis'.
Critical Apparatus
78 calices P1
Editor’s Note
78. cytisum: citiso virgiliano, moon-trefoil, Medicago arborea L., mentioned twice by Theocritus, 5.128 and 10.30, as goat-food; 'an inhabitant of Greece and southern Italy' (Abbe 118). Cf. 2.64, 9.31 (cows), 10.30 (bees).
Critical Apparatus
79 hanc … noctem P1Rbdr: hac … nocte P2ω
Editor’s Note
79. poteras: in effect a polite invitation; cf. Ov. Met. 1.678–9 'at tu, / quisquis es, hoc poteras mecum considere saxo'. Possibly V. was thinking of Polyphemus' invitation to Galatea, Theocr. 11.44 ἅδιον ἐν τὤντρῳ παρʼ ἐμὶν τὰν νύκτα διαξεῖς, 'you will pass the night more pleasantly in the cave with me'.
Editor’s Note
80–1. Apples, chestnuts, and cheese—simple rustic fare set out in an elegant tricolon.
Editor’s Note
mitia: 'matura, quae non remordent cum mordentur' (Philargyrius 1), an unexpected touch of verbal wit. Cf. Hor. Epod. 2.17 'mitibus pomis', Mart. 10.48.18 'mitia poma'.
Editor’s Note
castaneae: the sweet chestnut, Castanea sativa Mill.; see Abbe 89–90 and cf. 2.52, 7.53.
Editor’s Note
molles: soft and mealy, perhaps roasted over a slow fire like those of Martial 5.78.15 'lento castaneae uapore tostae'. The sweet chestnut ripens in late autumn (Calp. Sic. 2.82–3).
Editor’s Note
82–3. Cf. 2.66–7, Ap. Rhod. 1.451–2 αἱ δὲ νέον σκοπέλοισιν ὑποσκιόωνται ἄρουραι, | δειελινὸν κλίνοντος ὑπὸ ζόφον ἠελίοιο, 'and now the fields are overshadowed by the rocks as the sun descends towards evening and darkness', Hor. Carm. 3.6.41–3 'sol ubi montium / mutaret umbras et iuga demeret / bobus fatigatis', and see J. Nováková, Umbra: Ein Beitrag zur dichterischen Semantik (Berlin, 1964), 35.
Critical Apparatus
83 de] a P1
Editor’s Note
83. altis de montibus: a Lucretian phrase slightly modified, 4.1020 'de montibus altis', 5.492, 663, 6.735. Cf. 7.66.
