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sheep. The construction is a poetic extension of the complementary infinitive (§ 271; G.424; H. 533) in imitation of the Greek.-ripae (§ 230; G. 208; H. 384, 5): "the bank is not very trustworthy."

96. reice (re-iice), drive back, made a dissyllable by synizesis (§ 347, c; G. 721; H. 608, iii.).

97. in fonte, in the upper waters, where it is safer. - ipse, i.e. I will not trust them to plunge in themselves. - erit (for scanning see § 359, f). 98. pracceperit, take away in advance; for construction see § 307,6; H.508, 2. ut nuper, as happened lately.

100. pingui, though rich. ervo, a sort of vetch, a nutritious fodder. 101. magistro: the shepherd is always an unsuccessful lover by profession; so here he is wasted by love.

102. his certe, etc. (§ 151, c), and yet with these of mine, at least, love is not the cause (§ 235). - ossibus (dat. § 227, e; G. 346, R.2; H. 384): they hardly hold together.

103. nescio quis, some ... or other (a weak aliquis). - oculus, the belief in the evil eye is still prevalent in Italy. Notice that here as in the other cases the second singer makes out a worse case than the first.

105. caeli spatium: a Mantuan joke, in which Virgil said (or it is so reported) that he meant to "set a trap for the critics." Cælius, it is said, was a spendthrift of Mantua, who, in selling his estates, reserved only land enough for his own grave. The riddle is still a difficult one, though it has been explained of a deep well, a cave or oven, the shield of Achillés, and of a pit in the comitium, called mundus, opened once a year. See Servius on the passage. - magnus Apollo: Apollo was the god of divination. - ulnas, see § 257, cf. § 247, c; G. 335; H. 379.

106. inscripti. flores: the hyacinth (see note to v. 63) is said to be veined in the form of the letters AI, which are the Greek for alas! and also the first syllable of the name AIAS, Ajax (see Ovid, Met. xiii. 397). – nomina, Greek acc. (of specification).

108. nostrum, in my power. (§ 214, d; G. 365, R.; H. 401, Ν.3) 109. quisquis, etc., every one who feels the alarms of happy or the pangs of unhappy love: every poet who sings of love. The reading of Ribbeck means, whoso fears not love when sweet, shall feel it not when bitter. - vitula, see § 245, a; G. 398, R.; H. 421, iii.

111. claudite: a touch of real life concludes the song. Palæmon is supposed to have come to have his slaves open the sluices to irrigate the fields while the contest was going on. There is perhaps also a hint at the figurative sense, to stay the stream of bucolic verse.

ECLOGUE IV.

THIS Eclogue was by a curious misapprehension long supposed to refer to the coming of Christ, and regarded as inspired. Compare Pope's "Messiah," a professed imitation.

1. Sicelides Musae, Sicilian muses, i.e. those of pastoral song, so called because Theocritus was a Sicilian. - maiora, greater than the loves and rivalries of shepherds. - canamus (§ 266; G.256, 1; H.484,ii.).

2. myricae, heather (see Index), a plant sacred to Apollo. - omnis, notice the quantity of the i. - arbusta, i.e. the simplest rural subjects. If the poem is to be rural at all, let it be on a higher key.

3. consule, Pollio.

4. Cumaei, i.e. the Sibylline books sold to king Tarquin by the Cumæan Sibyl. The Sibyls were prophetic nymphs, like the Camena (iii. 59), but were independent each of the others. Ten principal ones are mentioned, of whom two had their homes in Italy: the Cumæan (Amalthea), and the Tiburtine (Albunea). For the prophetic character of the Sibyl, see Æneid, Book vi. The supposed Sibylline books were destroyed when the Capitol was burned in Sulla's time; but about a thousand verses, which were reputed genuine, were gathered afterwards, and religiously preserved. They seem to have contained chiefly directions for religious ceremonies.

5. magnus ordo: this was the series of four saecula, each saeculum counting properly one hundred years, though it had come to be reckoned at one hundred and ten (see Mommsen, Röm. Chron. p. 184). These four saecula were of gold, silver, brass, and iron: the iron age was now closing (see v. 8), and the golden was to begin anew (ab integro). In sympathy with this tradition, Augustus instituted the Secular Games in the year B.C. 17. With this idea were also mingled notions of astronomical cycles, and of the successive worlds of the Stoics.

6. virgo: i.e. the goddess Astraa, known on earth as Justice, said to have been the last of the divinities to quit the earth amid the crimes of the Iron Age:

Ultima caelestum, terras Astraea reliquit. Ovid, Met. i. 150.

Saturnia: the early Golden Age was associated with the reign of the old Italian god of husbandry, Saturnus, - afterwards confounded with the Greek Kronos, father of Zeus, - under whom peace and justice were believed to have been undisturbed, in a time of great simplicity of life, including a diet of acorns and wild fruits before the cultivation of grain. - redit, redeunt: the repetition of the verb here takes the place of a conjunction, but gives emphasis to the idea.

7. nova progenies: a new race is to people the earth, of which the expected infant is the first fruit.

8. nascenti, at his birth. - puero, see § 227; G. 345; H. 385,i.quo, in whose time, a strained use of the locative ablative, compare te consule, v. II.

9. gens = saeculum, i.e. aetas. - mundo (§ 258, f; G. 386; Н. 425, 2).

10. Lucina: a name properly given to Juno as goddess of marriage and so of birth, - she who bestows light upon the child (lux). But often (as here) the same function is ascribed to Diana. - tuus, i.e. frater.

Apollo: the special god of Augustus, made by him to be the protecting deity of Rome. According to the Sibyls, Apollo was to reign in the new age: the four preceding saecula having been those of Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. In this new age was to be a palingenesis, each soul being "after forty times four hundred years" reunited with the body which it had inhabited while on earth (Varro, ap. Augustinum, Civ. Dei. xxii. 28). According to other obscure notices, there was to be a series of ten ages, the last of which was that of Apollo, or the Sun.

11. te, expressed again in the same construction further on for emphasis. - adeo, just: giving a "rhetorical prominence" to the preceding word. - decus hoc aevi = this glorious age. - te consule, means merely in the time of your consulship; te duce (below), under your guidance. inibit, will come in (intransitive, a rare use).

12. magni menses, the months of the great year, or saeculum. 13. sceleris: especially the guilt of the bloody civil wars.

14. irrita: the remains of civil war will be made harmless (in-rata). - solvent, will free, i.e. by becoming harmless. formidine (§ 243, a; G. 389; H. 414, 1.).

15. ille, he also. - deum (gen. plur., § 40, e; H. 52, 3), i.e. he shall become a god, and hold communion with gods and demigods. - divis, see 248, a, R.; G. 348; H. 385, 3.

16. herōas: in the golden age, gods and heroes dwelt familiarly with men upon the earth. For quantity see § 347, a, 5; G.703, 7; H. 577,5. illis, dat., § 232, b; G. 352, R.

17. pacatum = conquered. - patriis : i.e. it would seem, the virtues of Pollio, Virgil's noble friend.

18. tibi (§ 235). - prima, i.e. at first (as soon as you are born). The idea is that the age will grow with the babe and come to its highest development, as he does. - munuscula, its modest gifts (§ 164, a; Н. 321, 1). The gifts of the earth are, in succession: first, flowers (v. 19); then, fruits and grain (v. 28); lastly, the richer produce of various climates (v. 39). - cultu (§ 248; G. 401; H. 419, iii.).

20. ridenti, i.e. pleasing. - acantho (§ 248, a, R; G. 348; H. 385, 3). 21. ipsae, of themselves.

22. nec... leones: this and similar images have been thought to be imitated from the Hebrew prophets, particularly Isaiah xi. 6: "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb," etc. But if Virgil had known this passage, he would hardly have missed the words so exquisitely fit to his purpose, “a little child shall lead them." He appears to copy here the established imagery of the golden age (compare Hesiod, Works, &c., 118, 236; Theocr. xi. 12; Hor. Od. iii. 4, 17; Epod. xvi. 49). The idea agrees with such imported representations as the one given in Fig. 13.

Fig. 13.

23. blandos, charming.

24. fallax veneni, of treacherous poison. For genitive see § 218, c;

H. 399, iii. 1.

25. volgo, everywhere (instead of being a rare exotic).

26. simul... virtus, as soon as you can read the glories of heroes, and your father's deeds, and learn what valor means. - simul, as often, for simul atque (§ 324; G. 563; H. 471, 4).

27. iam = by and by. - sit (§ 334; G. 469; H. 529, i.). 28. molli arista, smooth grain (with no rough beard).

29. rubens, blushing. - sentibus: "to gather grapes from thorns " seems to have been a proverb of impossibility. (Ablative of separation without a preposition, § 258, a; G. 388, R.3; Η. 414, Ν.1)

30. roscida mella: it seems to have been believed that honey fell in the form of dew, and was gathered by bees. This makes clearer the notion that the cicada fed on dew. - sudabunt, distil (here followed by a cognate accusative, § 238; G. 331; H. 371, i. 1). Wild honey found in hollow trees might possibly be thought to be exuded from the tree itself.

31. pauca: notice the emphasis; a few though only a few. - priscae ... fraudis, the old taint of wickedness. - suberunt, shall lurk in men.

V

32. temptare: it was the depraved desire of wealth, the ancients thought, which first led men to brave the perils of the sea (see Hor. Od. i. 3, 9).- Thetim, a sea-nymph, mother of Achilles: here, the sea. Compare 1, 2 and note.

33. iubeant, vehat, subj. of purpose, § 317; G. 632; H. 497, i. Such clauses are, however, undistinguishable from clauses of characteristic except by the fact that their action is referred to the future, but there is so little difference between purpose and future intended result, that it seems best to call all such clauses purpose. - telluri (§ 228; G. 346; IH. 386).

34. Tiphys, the pilot of the Argo: there must still be some attempts at adventure and conquest, until the age reaches its perfection.

35. altera bella, a second series of wars like the first, with even the same succession of events.

36. ad, notice that this word here means against, not to, which would be expressed by the acc. alone.

37. hinc (like inde), then (after this); iam, at length. - firmata,

matured.

38. cedet, shall retire. — vector, traveller (merchant). - mari, ablative of separation, § 258, a; G. 411, R.1; H. 414, N.1 — nautica pinus, i.e. the ship of the trader. See § 190. Compare

"Never comes the European trader." - TENNYSON, Locksley Hall.

In ancient times the merchant sailed in his own ship (pinus), and is constantly called nauta.

Fig. 14.

40. rastros: the rastrum was a heavy

pronged hoe, with two or more teeth.

41. robustus, sturdy, still, though toiling

no more. - tauris, dative (§ 235).

42. mentiri colores, to put on falsely various hues.

43. suave rubenti, sweetly blushing.
44. murice (idiomatic ablative of price,

§ 252, 6; G. 404, R.; H. 422, N."). - mutabit
vellera, shall change his natural fleece for.
murex is purple; luto, yellow; sandyx,
scarlet, in each case the dye being used
for the color.

46. saecla (acc. after currite, § 238; G. 331; H. 371, i. 1)), spin such ages! so sang to their spindles the Destinies, accordant

with the firm decree of Fate. For the fusus, see Fig. 14.

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