The Aeneid of Virgil Part 14

BOOK NINTH

l. 29--Omitted with all the best MSS.

l. 122--Omitted with all the best MSS.

l. 281--

_Me nulla dies tam fortibus ausis Dissimilem arguerit tantum, Fortuna secunda Aut adversa cadat._

 

With some hesitation I have adopted this reading as the one open to least objection, though the balance of authority is decidedly in favour of _haud adversa_. For the position of _tantum_ cf. Ecl. x. 46, according to the 'subtilior explicatio' now generally adopted.

l. 412--

_Et venit adversi in tergum Sulmonis ibique Frangitur, et fisso transit praecordia ligno._

The phrase _in tergum_ occurs twice elsewhere: ix. 764--meaning 'on the back'; and xi. 653--meaning 'backward'; and in x. 718 the uncertainty about the order of the lines makes it possible that _tergo decut.i.t hastas_ was meant to refer to the boar, not to Mezentius. But the pa.s.sages quoted by the editors there shew that the word might be used in the sense of 's.h.i.+eld'; and this being so we are scarcely justified in reading _aversi_ against all the good MSS.

l. 529--Omitted with most MSS.

BOOK TENTH

l. 278--Omitted with the best MSS.

l. 754--_Insidiis, iaculo et longe fallente sagitta._ The MS. authority is decidedly in favour of this, the more difficult reading; and the hendiadys is not more violent than those in Georg. ii. 192, Aen. iii.

223.

BOOK TWELFTH

l. 218--_Tum magis, ut propius cernunt non viribus aequis._

With Ribbeck I believe that there is a gap in the sense here, and have marked one in the translation.

l. 520--_Limina_ with Med. _Munera_ Con.

ll. 612, 613--Omitted with the best MSS.

l. 751--_Venator cursu canis et latratibus instat._ I take _cursu canis_ as equivalent to _currente cane_, as in i. 324, _spumantis apri cursum clamore prementem_.