Nos patriam fugimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra 10 Tit. O Meliboee, deus nobis haec otia fecit. 15 Tit. Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Meliboee, putavi 20 Sic canibus catulos similis, sic matribus haedos Mel. Et quae tanta fuit Romam tibi causa videndi? 25 309 35 5. The echo of the woods is here alluded to. Amaryllis is a hepherdess beloved by Tityrus.-6. Octavianus Caesar, afterwards Augustus, is the god alluded to. He was (but not at this time) actually deified by the Roman people, while still living.-17. In narratives, memini is often joined with the present infinitive of a past event, as here and Ecl. ix. 52. See Zumpt, $589. In such cases, we may conceive the infinitive the same as the cognate noun; here praedictionem, with the force of its being at present before the mind. Before si mens, &c. some such clause is tacitly assumed, as quod nos monuisset.-21. Huic nostrae. Mantua, about three miles dis. tant from Andes, our poet's native village.-33. Peculi. On this form of the genitive of substantives in -ium, which alone Virgil employs, see Zumpt, $49. He is fond of such contractions as di, dis, isdem. The peculium was the property, acquired by a slave, which a master permitted him to consider as his own. Non umquam gravis aere domum mihi dextra redíbat. Tityrus hinc aberat. Ipsae te, Tityre, pinus, Tit. Quid facerem? neque servitio me exire licebat, Tit. Ante leves ergo pascentur in aethere cervi, 40 45 50 55 60 36. He spent, in buying presents for Galatea, his share of the market money allowed him as peculium.-39. Aberat. The final syllable long, as the caesural syllable.-43. Juvenem. The same person who is called Deus, ver. 6. He was at this time twentythree years of age, and is still styled juvenis when twenty-seven years old. Georg. i. 500.44. Bis senos dies. Probably once a-month; it being usual, on the calends, nones, or ides of each month, to worship the Lares domestici, among whom Tityrus reckons Octavianus Caesar.-47. Tua. Emphatic, in its contrast with the fields of his neighbours, which had been seized by the soldiers. 50. Fetas means either pregnant or newly delivered. Here, from ver. 15, probably the latter, in which case, graves will be equivalent lo aegras.-52-56. A beautiful picture, though the language of the latter part is too intricate. Sepes is the nom. to suadebit: quae to depasta est. The construction is: sepes, quae ab vicino limite (equivalent to vicinus limes) semper depasta florem salicti Hyblaeis, &c. Depasta florem is an example of what is called the Greek accusative, which may be called the accusative of limitation. See Zumpt, $458. Avoid saying that florem is governed by any word understood. Hybla, a mountain of Sicily, famous for its bees and honey, -60-64. Tityrus compares the possibility of his forgetting his benefactor to events that are impossible, such as stags feeding on Ante, pererratis amborum finibus, exsul Mel. At nos hinc alii sitientis ibimus Afros; 65 70 73 81 Tit. Hic tamen hanc mecum poteras requiescere noctem Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant, the air. See Ecl. viii. 52.-63. The Arar (or as hére, Araris) is a river of Gaul, a tributary of the Rhodanus, and the Tigris bounds Parthia on the west. But a shepherd may be supposed to imagine that the Arar (now the Saone) was a German river. -65. The dispossessed exiles are represented as scattered all over the world. Hence we have alii contrasted with pars, as in Georg. ii. 10, &c.; iv. 158, &c.; Aen. i. 212, &c.; ii. 399, &c.; xi. 193, &c. Et-et have both the force of alii. Afros. Without a preposition, as if the name of a town or country. This is rare, but is used by Tacitus. Zumpt, $398. Four different places of the world are selected in the south, Africa; north, Scythia; east, Crete; west, Britain. Of the Oaxes of Crete we know nothing. Britain did not belong to this world, for the latter was surrounded by the Oceanus, and beyond it lay Britain. Probably settlements in other lands were provided for the unhappy exiles.-70. Either post (an adverb) mirabor aliquot aristas, gaze with astonishment on a head of wheat here and there; aliquot in the sense of rara: or, post aliquot aristas; aristas in the sense of messes for annos.- 73. Quis quibus. -80. The indicative is in some verbs used where we employ the subjunctive. The infinitive, with such verbs in the imperfect, indicates what is not, but the time for which is not yet past. Meliboeus was going away without resting, but Tityrus says he might repose.' Zumpt, 518.82. Castaneae molles, chestnuts still fresh and sweet. Hence the dialogue took place in October, the month when chestnuts become ripe. Pressum lac, cheese. See ver. 35. · ECLOGA II. THIS is the first of all the Eclogues written by Virgil, and was composed в. c. 42. The poet had seen, in the house of Asinius Pollio (then governor of Gallia Transpadana), a youth named Alexander, who acted as cup-bearer, and he formed for him the same attachment as Socrates, Plato, and others manifested to handsome boys. In the poem, he bears the name of Alexis, Virgil that of the shepherd Corydon, and Asinius that of Iollas. Pollio, charmed with this poem, presented Alexander to Virgil. By him he was carefully educated, and became a grammarian. Virgil has transferred many things into this poem from Theocritus.' - Translated from Wagner. ALEXIS. FORMOSUM pastor Corydon ardebat Alexim, O crudelis Alexi, nihil mea carmina curas? 5 10 15 20 5. Jactabat. Applied to words spoken aloud. Ecl. v. 62; Aen. i. 102.-18. From the connection, before alba and nigra, quamvis is implied. Cadunt: non leguntur.-21. Virgil places the scene in Sicily.-24. Amphion is called Dircaeus from the Theban fountain Dirce, so named from Dirce, an enemy of his mother Antiope, Nec sun adeo informis: nuper me in litore vidi, Cum placidum ventis staret mare; non ego Daphnim 25 30 35 40 45 50 Ipse ego cana legam tenera lanugine mala, Castaneasque nuces, mea quas Amaryllis amabat; 55 whose body was thrown into it by him and his twin brother Zethus. Aracynthus is a mountain between Boeotia and Attica, on which Virgil represents Amphion as feeding his herds. Amphion was famed for his musical powers. Acte is a name for Attica; hence Aracynthus, partly in Attica, is called Actaeus. There was another mountain of this name in Acarnania. The o of Actaeo is not elided before the unusual quadrasyllabic Aracyntho, a Greek model being followed in both peculiarities. Indeed it seems the transcript of a Greek verse: ̓Αμφίων Διρκαῖος ἐν ̓Ακταίῳ Αρακύνθῳ. — 32. For Pan's invention of the syrinx, see Ovid, Met. i. 689.. -53. The last syllable of pruna is left before honos, forming what is called a hiatus. The pause that occurs here accounts for this violation of the ordinary rule. From the strong expression of feeling involved in Heu, heu, the former is not elided, ver. 58. And in ver. 65, while o is left, it is shortened, as in the Greek in similar circum stances. |