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Praeterea tam sunt Arcturi sidera nobis Haedorumque dies servandi et lucidus Anguis, Quam quibus in patriam ventosa per aequora vectis Pontus et ostriferi fauces temptantur Abydi. Libra die somnique pares ubi fecerit horas,

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have had occasionally in an apodosis, as in the XII Tables, "Si in jus vocat, atque eat,' though the instances of a similar use in later Latin are not clearly made out. But the usage of Virgil in similes of this sort (as a friend has remarked to me) is in favour of connecting' atque' with 'remisit.' He does not expressly introduce an apodosis on such occasions, but makes his whole sentence depend on the quam' or 'si' which follows the 'non aliter' or 'haud secus' following the simile. Comp. A. 4. 669, "Non aliter quam si... ruat . Karthago . . . flammaeque volvantur ;" 8. 243, "Haud secus ac si ... terra... reseret. et... recludat. superque . pandatur, trepidentque." This is also Wunderlich's view. Retro sublapsus refertur' is of course understood after 'Non aliter, quam' to complete the sentence grammatically, the subject of it being the rower, 'qui... subigit.' 'Illum' is doubtless the 'lembus' which is distinguished from the rower. So in Catull. 63 (65). 23, the original of the present line (quoted by Keightley, who however mistakes atque,' which couples agitur' with excutitur,' or perhaps with 'procurrit'), Atque illud prono praeceps agitur decursu," 'illud' is contrasted with 'huic.' Wagn. accounts for atque' by supplying 'retro sublapsus refertur before it, and making the whole into an apodosis; but he quotes no similar instance. Several other views have been or might be suggested, with more or less plausibility: none of them, however, seems to have any real likelihood as against that adopted above. 'Alveus' the channel of the river, from which it is easy to infer the notion of the current. Otherwise it might be proposed to understand it of the vessel, illum' being referred to the rower, though the imitations in Sen. Ag. 497, Hipp. 182, Thy. 438 (quoted by Cerda), look the other way.

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204-230.] The husbandman has as much need to know the stars as the sailor. Sowing barley may begin when the sun is in the Balance, and go on till mid-winter: flax and poppies too. The rising of the Bull is the time for sowing beans, lucerne, and millet. Wheat must not be sown till the Pleiades and the Crown are set to attempt it earlier only leads to failure.

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Vetches, kidney-beans, and lentiles may be sown from the setting of Arcturus till midwinter.'

204.] Arcturi,' v. 68. vπò Lávy de oi (βοώτη) αὐτὸς Ἐξ ἄλλων ἀρκτοῦρος ἑλίσoera àμpaðòv àσrýρ, Arat. Ph. 94. Both the rising and setting of Arcturus are attended with storms, so that Arcturus says of himself (Plaut. Rud. Prol. 71, referred to by Forb.) "Vehemens sum exoriens, cum occido, vehementior."

205.] The Kids are two stars in the arm of the Charioteer (Eπтà paɛívovтai ëpipoi kаρπÒν катÀ Xεɩpós, Arat. Ph. 166), which rise April 25th and Sept. 27th-29th, and bring storms. "Pluvialibus Haedis " A. 9. 668. (Serv.) Anguis,' v. 244, near the North Pole.

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206.] As useful to the husbandman as to the sailor,' who first gave attention to the stars, v. 137. With the language comp. A. 6. 335. 'Vectis' raises a difficulty, as the sailors have not returned home: but the words may mean whose way home lies over stormy waters,' the stress being laid on 'ventosa per aequora,' and the participle perhaps implying that they have sailed home ere now, and so that sailing is their calling. Or it may be simpler to say that 'vectis' virtually euntibus,' which might be substituted for it in A. 6, l. c.

207.] Ostriferi . . . Abydi:' "Aspra ostrea plurima Abydi," Enn. Hedyph. 2. Ora Hellespontia, ceteris ostreosior oris," Catull. 18. 4.

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208.] Libra' see on v. 33. 'Die,' the reading of almost all the MSS., is acknowledged by Priscian, Donatus, and Probus as an old form of the genitive, found also in Sall. Jug. 21 (where see Kritz), 52, 97, die extremum erat,' 'die vesper erat,' parte die reliqua.' Charisius defends 'dii,' a form introduced by some editors in A. 1. 636 (note). Gellius (9. 14) says in a copy reputed to be Virgil's own the reading was dies,' a third form, which he parallels from Ennius (Ann. 401), "Postremae longinqua dies confecerat aetas." Wagn. inclines to this, regarding 'dies' however as the acc. pl.

Pares,' referring to the autumnal equinox. So Lucan 8. 467, "Tempus erat quo Libra pares examinat horas."

Et medium luci atque umbris iam dividit orbem,
Exercete, viri, tauros, serite hordea campis,
Usque sub extremum brumae intractabilis imbrem ;
Nec non et lini segetem et Cereale papaver
Tempus humo tegere, et iamdudum incumbere aratris,
Dum sicca tellure licet, dum nubila pendent.
Vere fabis satio; tum te quoque, Medica, putres

210.] Exercete,' plough for seed.

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211.] Extremum imbrem' can hardly be the end of the rainy season, as this precept is apparently meant to be parallel to v. 214; so that Keightley seems right in supposing it to refer to the winter, regarded as the end of the year, unless we could take it of the beginning of the rainy season, 'the very verge.' 'Intractabilis' like 'non tractabile caelum,' A. 4. 53, 'that cannot be dealt with,' or, as we should say, 'impracticable,' i. e. when no work can be done.

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212.] Lini... papaver.' See vv. 77, 78. 'Segetem,' proleptic. Cereale:' Ceres was represented with poppies in her hands. She was said to have introduced the poppy, consoling herself with its seeds in her grief for Proserpine, and to have fed Triptolemus upon it.

213.] Humo tegere,' of sowing, as in 3. 558 of burying. A question has been raised whether tempus tegere' is to be explained tempus est tegendi' or 'tegere (satio) tempus (tempestivum est).' The same difference of opinion exists with regard to other expressions of the same kind, some asserting, others denying, the gerundial construction. Thus modus inserere' (2. 73) is resolved by some into 'modus inserendi,' while others make it a construction 'ad sensum,' as if Virgil had said, nec solemus inserere uno tantum modo.' 'Mos est. . . gestare,' A. 1. 336, may be similarly explained 'mos est gestandi' or 'gestare (gestatio) mos est.' So in A. 2. 10 'amor cognoscere,' opinions waver between taking cognoscere' as = cognoscendi,'' amor est cognoscere' as

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amas cognoscere,' and 'cognoscere' as a nom., 'amor' meaning 'a thing loved.' Other instances containing some specific differences might be collected from Virgil, but perhaps these will suffice. The first thing to remark seems to be that there is nothing unaccountable in the supposition that the infinitive may be used gerundially, i. e., in these instances, stand for a noun in the genitive. The infinitive is really equivalent to a noun for almost every purpose; even where it follows a verb it

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can be at once resolved into a noun, and we know that it was formerly so regarded in Greck, from the custom of prefixing the article to it. Every solution that has been attempted of the expressions in question in fact involves this substantival use of the infinitive. It would seem to follow then that the construction of the infinitive-in other words, the case of the noun-must be determined in each instance by the structure of the particular passage. In the expression 'mos est gestare,' it seems simplest to regard 'gestare' as a nominative; in 'modus inserere,' 'inserere' seems as plainly to be a genitive. The present passage and A. 2. 10 are more doubtful. On the whole however the genitive seems the more probable construction in each. But it is difficult to say what is absolutely true where, as in all these passages, both alternatives are equally sanctioned by the usages of language, while it might be plausibly argued that the framers of the expression, so far as we can conceive them to have gone to work consciously, may have had both solutions in their mind, and taken advantage of the ambiguity. 'Iamdudum' is explained by the next line, which implies that the time is short, and ploughing should take place without delay. "Iamdudum sumite poenas," A. 2. 103. For aratris' the Rom. and the first reading of Med. give ' rastris ;' but the context shows that ploughing is 'Incumbere,' like curvus arator,' E. 3. 42. "The flax was sown all through October and November, the poppy in September and October. We sow flax only in the spring on account of the severity of our winter." Keightley.

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214.] Pendent,' because they do not yet come down, ‘ruunt.'

215.] 'Vere:' Virgil was thinking of the custom of the Mantuan district (Pliny 18. 12). In the warmer parts of Italy beans were sown in autumn, as Varro (1. 34) and others direct. 'Medica,' Mŋdiký (πóu), 'lucerne,' said to have been introduced into Greece in the invasion of Darius (Pliny 18. 16), sown in April or May. Putres' seems to be em

Accipiunt sulci, et milio venit annua cura :
Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum
Taurus, et adverso cedens Canis occidit astro.
At si triticeam in messem robustaque farra
Exercebis humum solisque instabis aristis,
Ante tibi Eoae Atlantides abscondantur
Gnosiaque ardentis decedat stella Coronae,
Debita quam sulcis committas semina, quamque
Invitae properes anni spem credere terrae.
Multi ante occasum Maiae coepere; sed illos
Exspectata seges vanis elusit aristis.

phatic, as Col. (2. 11) says that the land
where it is to be sown should be ploughed
up in October, and lie fallow ('putrescere')
through the winter.

216.] Milio,' millet. 'Annua cura,' to distinguish it from lucerne, which lasted ten years in the ground. Sen., Ep. 86, charges Virgil with inaccuracy, saying that he had himself seen beans reaped and millet sown on the same day towards the end of June, the fact being that the time of sowing varied according to the climate, and that Virgil here again is speaking of a colder latitude.

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217.] Candidus . . . astro,' a periphrasis for 'vere.' In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides.' The allusion, as Keightley points out, is to the milk white bulls with gilded horns which appeared in the triumphal processions at Rome, though they did not strictly speaking lead the way (see on 2. 148). Whether 'auratis cornibus' is meant to be taken descriptively with 'taurus,' or instrumentally with 'aperit' is not clear. The former is maintained by Serv., who observes that the bull rises with his back, not with his horns, and seems more reasonable, as there would be no natural propriety in the image of a bull using his horns to open a gate. Aperit' is illustrated by the etymology of Aprilis.' 218.] The MSS. are divided between 'adverso' and 'averso.' The latter was restored by Heins. : but the former is found in Rom. and Med., and has been preferred by Heyne and subsequent editors. If adverso is read, astro' is probably the dative, signifying the Bull, from whose menacing front the Dog is supposed to retire, though as the reference is to the heliacal setting of Sirius, i. e. his obscuration by the sun, 'astro has been taken of the sun. 'Averso' would be the abl., perhaps the abl. abs., expressing the flight of the Dog, whose tail and feet disappear before his head and shoulders. Voss however objects that

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the Dog does not really turn from the Bull, but continues to confront him even when retiring. On the whole 'adverso' seems preferable, as giving the more consistent image, at the same time that the weight of MSS. is in its favour.

219.] Robusta,' Theophr., Caus. Pl. 4. 6, mentions Tνρос ĥ кρion among rà ioxvpórara, and Pliny says (18. 8), " ex omni [frumentorum] genere durissimum far et contra hiemes firmissimum."

220.]Solis,' as opposed to the produce just mentioned, vv. 215 foll. 'Instabis aristis,' like "instans operi regnisque futuris," A. 1. 504. 'Press on with an ardour which only corn can satisfy.'

221.] 'Atlantides,' the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas. These set' Eoae,' in the morning, about November 11 according to Pliny 2. 47, about October 20 according to Col. 2. 8., 11. 2.

222.] Gnosia-stella Coronae :' oriφανος, τὸν ἀγαυὸς ἔθηκε Σῆμ ̓ ἔμεναι Διόνυσος, ἀποιχομένης ̓Αριάδνης, Arat. Phaen. 71. Virgil follows Democritus in Geop. 2. 14 and Ptolemy in placing the setting of the Crown between November 15 and December 19. Others (Col. 11. 2, &c.) placed its rising about the same time, though earlier (about October 8), and Serv. accordingly would understand decedat' of retiring from the Sun. Its sense however is fixed by such passages as v. 450, E. 2. 67. 'Stella,' perhaps because one star in the Crown is brighter, and rises earlier than the rest: but the distinction between 'stella' and 'sidus' was sometimes overlooked.

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223.] 'Ere you charge the furrows with the seed which they have begun to want, or force the care of a whole year's hopes on a reluctant soil.'

224.] Invitae,' like 'properes,' refers in thought, though not grammatically, to the earth before the proper sowing time.

225.] Maia' was one of the Pleiades. 226.] The old reading was 'avenis:'

Si vero viciamque seres vilemque phaselum
Nec Pelusiacae curam aspernabere lentis,
Haud obscura cadens mittet tibi signa Bootes:
Incipe, et ad medias sementem extende pruinas.
Idcirco certis dimensum partibus orbem
Per duodena regit mundi Sol aureus astra.
Quinque tenent caelum zonae; quarum una corusco
Semper sole rubens et torrida semper ab igni;

Heins. restored aristis' from Med., Rom.,
and others, and a quotation in Nonius. See
note on v. 195. 'Avenis' is supported by
the belief already alluded to on E. 5. 37,
that corn had a tendency to degenerate into
wild oats if it lay too long in the ground.
Col. (11. 2) mentions an old saying among
farmers, "Maturam sationem saepe deci-
pere solere: seram nunquam quin mala
sit."

227.] The spelling of 'phaselus' has been restored from Med. and others of the older MSS.

228.] "Accipe Niliacam, Pelusia munera, lentem: Vilior est alica, carior illa faba,"

Mart. 13. 9.

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229.] Bootes,' v. 204, otherwise called Arctophylax, sets acrony chally from October 29 to November 2. Kidney-beans ('phaseli') were sown a month earlier when they were intended for eating, not for seed. Col. 11. 2, § 72. Vetches from Col. 2. 10 appear to have been sown twice a year, in January and in the autumnal equinox.

231–251.] ‘It is to ensure this regular succession of the various seasons that the sun makes his yearly way along the zodiac. There are five zones, one torrid, two frigid, one at each extreme, and two temperate between them and the torrid. Through the temperate zones passes the zodiac. There are two poles, one rising over our heads, the other extending below us into the depths. In the former are placed the Serpent and the Bears: the latter is either in perpetual darkness, or visited by the sun while he is away from us.'

231.] Virgil's meaning is that these various seasons depend in fact on the sun's yearly course in the heavens. 'Certis parseem to be the twelve divisions of the zodiac. 'Orbem :' "Annuus exactis completur mensibus orbis," A. 5. 46.

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232.]Duodena may be intended, as Forb. thinks, to refer to the annual course of the sun, which as it were sees twelve signs in each circuit: but it seems simpler to make it = 'duodecim.' 'Regit,' of directing a way. Cursusque regebam,"

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A. 6. 350; "Nulla viam fortuna regit," 12. 405. 'Mundi' with 'astra,' like "sidera mundi," Lucr. 1. 788., 2. 328., 5. 514. 'Sol aureus:' "simul aureus exoritur Sol," Enn. A. 95.

233.] This passage down to v. 251 seems to be thrown in to give a notion of the magnitude and fixity of the mundane system. The description of the zones is taken from a passage in the Hermes of Eratosthenes, preserved by Achilles Tatius, and in part by Heraclides of Pontus. It may be worth while to quote it in extenso :

TEVTE de oi Sõvai tepieiλádes koreigηvto, αἱ δύο μὲν γλαυκοῖο κελαινότεραι κυάνοιο,de uia Yapapń te kai ik πvρòç olov ἐρυθρή.

μèv v μeσáty, ékékavto dè nãoɑ πeρiπρὸ

τυπτομένη φλογμοῖσιν, ἐπεί ῥα ἓ μοῖραν
ὑπ ̓ αὐτὴν

κεκλιμένην ἀκτῖνες ἀειθερέες πυρόωσιν.
αἱ δὲ δύω ἑκάτερθε πόλοις περιπεπτηυῖαι
αἰεὶ κρυμαλίαι, αἰεὶ δ ̓ ὕδασιν μογέουσαι·
οὐ μὲν ὕδωρ, ἀλλ ̓ αὐτὸς ἀπ ̓ οὐρανόθεν
κρύσταλλος

κειται αναμπέσχε περίψυκτος δὲ

τέ

τυκτο. (κεῖτ', αἶαν τ' ἀμπέσχε ?) ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν χερσαῖα, καὶ ἀμβατὰ ἀνθρώ

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Comp. also Ov. M. 1. 45 foll., Tibull. 4. 1. 151. An unimportant fragment on the zones from a poem by Varro Atacinus is preserved by Isidorus Hispalensis and Bede (Wernsdorf's Poet. Lat. Min. vol. 5, p. 1403). Caelum,' because the zones of heaven answer to the zones of earth, and determine their character. Macrobius discusses the subject Somn. S. 2. 7.

234.] Ab igni' is a translation of K Tupóg in Eratosth. Ordinarily we should have expected the abl. instr. Madvig, § 254,

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Quam circum extremae dextra laevaque trahuntur,
Caerulea glacie concretae atque imbribus atris ;
Has inter mediamque duae mortalibus aegris
Munere concessae divom, et via secta per ambas,
Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.
Mundus, ut ad Scythiam Rhipaeasque arduus arces
Consurgit, premitur Libyae devexus in austros.
Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum
Sub pedibus Styx atra videt Manesque profundi.
Maxumus hic flexu sinuoso elabitur Anguis

obs. 2, quotes "sidere siccata ab aestu,"
Ov. M. 6. 341.

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235.] Trahuntur' expresses extent, like 'tractus,' and is meant to translate pπεπτηυῖαι.

236.] 'Caeruleus' is used somewhat widely to express various colours of a dull blue or green sort, being to a certain extent, as Dr. Arnold remarked, the antipodes of purpureus' (E. 5. 38, note). So in A. 3. 194., 5. 10, it is used of a black stormcloud (answering to 'atris' here), in G. 4. 482., A. 7. 346, of a serpent. The mention of ice seems more appropriate to the earthly than to the heavenly zones, as Keightley observes: but Virgil was doubt less thinking of the sky as the parent of ice. 237.] Mortalibus aegris,' Lucr. 6. 1. Homer's deλoioi Booroioi. Comp. also A. 2. 268, where there is a similar juxtaposition of man's weakness and heaven's indulgence. The ancients supposed only the temperate zones to be habitable: consequently, as discovery advanced, the area occupied by those zones was extended, so that instead of five parts or thirty degrees (from 24° to 54°), the space originally allotted to them, they were made to contain seven parts, to 66°.

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238.] Et' is added by Wagn. before 'via secta' from Med. and other MSS. The position of the zodiac is thus referred to the divine clemency. Per' is rightly explained by Macr. Somn. S. 2. 8, as equivalent to 'inter,' as the sun never enters the temperate zones. That which goes between two connected objects goes through the pair. So v. 245, " per duas Arctos.' Comp. Ov. M. 2. 130, "Sectus in obliquum est lato curvamine limes, Zonarumque trium contentus fine, polumque Effugit australem, junctamque Aquilonibus Arcton."

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239.] Obliquus' with 'se verteret.' So "sese tulit obvia," A. 1. 314; "Infert se septus nebula,” Ib. 439. The use of the participle in such expressions as "sensit medios delapsus in hostes,” Α. 2. 377, is of the same kind. The ordinary gramma

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tical usage attaches an adjective or participle to a noun as its absolute property: here the adjective or participle belongs to the noun only contingently on the relation of the noun to the verb. Thus in the present line the order of the signs is oblique not in itself but in reference to its revolution. The principle is the same as in cases of prolepsis. The language here is not strictly accurate, as it was not the zodiac but the sun that was supposed to move.

240.] Virgil goes on to describe the Poles, North and South, speaking of the one as elevated and visible, the other as depressed and invisible. 'Scythia' is used for the North generally, as in 3. 349. The ' Rhipaeae (pin) arces' ('arces of mountains, Rhodopeiae arces,' 4. 461) were supposed to separate the land of the Hyperboreans from the rest of the world. Comp. 3. 381., 4. 517. Here these countries are made to stand for the northernmost point, not only of earth, but of the mundane system, as Libya for the southernmost.

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242.] Vertex' is a translation of 'polus.' Extremusque adeo duplici de cardine vertex Dicitur esse polus," Cic. N. D. 2. 41 (translating Aratus).

243.] The infernal regions were supposed to be in the centre of the earth (comp. 2. 292) so here they are said to be over the south pole. 'Sub pedibus' is to be connected with videt,' the first being those of Styx and the Manes: but 'videt' of course is not to be pressed, as if it were meant that the south pole were actually visible from the shades. Arat. Phaen. 25, says of the poles, ἀλλ ̓ ὁ μὲν οὐκ ἐπίοπτος, ὁ δ ̓ ἀντίος ἐκ βορέαο, Ὑψόθεν ὠκεανοῖο.

244-246.] Imitated again from Arat. Phaen. 45:

Τὰς δὲ δι ̓ ἀμφοτέρας, οἵη ποταμοῖο ἀποῤῥώξ,

Εἰλεῖται, μέγα θαῦμα, δράκων, περί τ ̓ ἀμφί τ' ἑαγώς,

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