Et multo in primis hilarans convivia Baccho,
Ante focum, si frigus erit, si messis, in umbra,
Vina novum fundam calathis Ariusia nectar.
Cantabunt mihi Damoetas et Lyctius Aegon;
Saltantis Satyros imitabitur Alphesiboeus.
Haec tibi semper erunt, et cum sollemnia vota
Reddemus Nymphis, et cum lustrabimus agros.
Dum iuga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit,
Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadae,
Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt.
Ut Baccho Cererique, tibi sic vota quot annis

Agricolae facient; damnabis tu quoque votis.

Mo. Quae tibi, quae tali reddam pro carmine dona?
Nam neque me tantum venientis sibilus austri,
Nec percussa iuvant fluctu tam litora, nec quae
Saxosas inter decurrunt flumina valles.

Me. Hac te nos fragili donabimus ante cicuta.
Haec nos, Formosum Corydon ardebat Alexim,
Haec eadem docuit, Cuium pecus ? an Meliboei ?
Mo. At tu sume pedum, quod, me cum saepe rogaret,
Non tulit Antigenes-et erat tum dignus amari-
Formosum paribus nodis atque aere, Menalca.

veni, dulcisque tuis e cornibus uva Pendeat, et spicis tempora cinge, Ceres" (of the 'Ambarvalia '), and see on G. 1. 344.

80.] You will grant prayers, and thereby bind the suppliant to keep his vow.' 'Damnatus voto occurs in a fragm. of Sisenna ap. Non. 277. 11; 'damnatus voti' Liv. 10. 37., 27. 45, like 'voti reus,' A. 5. 237, just as 'damnatus capitis' and 'capite' are used indifferently. Comp. the use of 'damno' in giving legacies and imposing penalties by will, e. g. Hor. 2 S. 3. 86.

82.] Sibilus austri' is the 10úpioμa of Theocr. 1. 1, the breeze getting up (venientis') and rustling through the branches. Lucr. 5. 1382 has Zephyri sibila' in a passage which Virgil may have thought of, as it attributes the origin of the pastoral pipe to the winds whistling through the reeds.

83, 84.] Theocr. 1. 7, 8, "Adtov, & Tμάν, τὸ τεὸν μέλος, ἢ τὸ καταχὲς Τῆν ἀπὸ τᾶς πέτρας καταλείβεται υψόθεν ὕδωρ.

85-87.] 'Me. I will give you this pipe, which has played several not unknown strains.'

85.]'Ante,' 'first'-before I receive anything from you, v. 81. Voss observes that Menalcas both depreciates and commends his gift, the one by the epithet 'fragilem,' the other by the mention of its performances. So docuit,' as if it were the pipe which had suggested the music and the

song.

86.] Virgil, by this allusion to his second and third Eclogue, seems to identify himself with Menalcas and his compliments to the memory of Caesar. There is something awkward in making one of the characters in this fifth Eclogue the author of the second and third; but it is in keeping with the fiction which identifies the shepherd with the pastoral poet.

88-90.] Mo. And I will give you this handsome sheep-hook, which I once refused to one whom I loved.'

88.] There is a similar exchange of presents in Theocr. 6. 43, and in 7. 43 one shepherd gives another a sheep-hook.

89.] Ferre' is used indifferently of giving and receiving presents. "Quod posces feres," Plaut. Merc. 2. 3. 106. In Greek pépɛolaι is generally employed in this latter sense. Et erat,' as we should say, 'aye, and he was very loveable,' or 'and he was very loveable too.' So G. 2. 125, "Et gens illa quidem sumtis non tarda pharetris.” Tum, in those days, whatever he may be now. Forb.

90.] It is not clear what 'nodis atque aere' means. Voss says the 'pedum' was of knotty wood, with an iron point at one end fastened on by a ring of brass; Keightley, that it was adorned with brass rings or studs. In the latter case 'nodis atque aere might stand for brazen studs.' 'Paribus nodis' however would be more of a recommendation if the knots were natural. Forb. comp. Theocr. 17. 31, tử đè σιδάρειον σκύταλον, κεχαραγμένον ὄξοις,

of Hercules' club.

ECLOGA VI.

VARUS.

THE subject of this Eclogue is a cosmogonical and mythological song by Silenus, extorted from him by stratagem by two young shepherds.

The poem is addressed to (Alfenus?) Varus, who, according to one of the statements given by Serv., was appointed to succeed Pollio in Cisalpine Gaul, after the defection of the latter in the Perusian war (a story harmonizing well with the language of this Eclogue, and also with Ecl. 9. 27), and perhaps the same who is said to have been a fellow-student with the poet under Syro the Epicurean, though this tradition itself may be merely an awkward attempt to give a historical basis to Silenus' song. Like the eighth Eclogue, it appears to be a sort of apology to his friend and patron for neglecting to celebrate his exploits, entreating him to accept a pastoral legend as a substitute. The confession in v. 3 of a youthful ambition to write on heroic subjects is apparently genuine. It would be supported by the story in Servius and Donatus' biography, that Virgil wished to commemorate the Alban kings, but was deterred by their unpoetical names, if that story itself did not want support. This aspiration may be said to have been afterwards fulfilled in the Aeneid: but the poet's judgment continued to shrink from the task of directly recording contemporary victories, though, like Horace, he amused his patrons, and perhaps himself, with the belief that he might be equal to it some day.

The legend which follows may be paralleled, if not traced to its source. As Keightley suggests, the first hint was perhaps given by the story in the fourth book of the Odyssey, of Menelaus binding Proteus, afterwards imitated more directly by Virgil himself in Georg. 4. Servius refers to a tale told by Theopompus (the historian, see Dict. Biog.), and partially cited from him by Aelian (Var. Hist. 3. 18), that Silenus was found drunk by some shepherds of Phrygia, bound, and carried to Midas, when his chains fell off, and he answered the king's questions "de rebus naturalibus et antiquis." Ovid (Met. 11. 90 foll.) briefly mentions the fact of the capture, but says nothing about any disclosures by Silenus, whom Midas restores to Bacchus, and receives in return the fatal gift of turning things to gold.

The subject of the song was perhaps traditionally connected with Silenus, who, like Proteus in G. 4 (v. 393 note), seems to have had a memory for the past as well as an eye for the future-a characteristic as old as the Homeric prophets and poets, and involved in the legend which makes the Muses daughters of Mnemosyne. The cosmogonical part of it is indicative of that yearning after philosophy as a poet's province, which is fixed on Virgil by the testimony, not only of his biographer, but of his own works, especially the close of G. 2; and was encouraged doubtless by the recent example of Lucretius, as well as by the more ancient precedents of the legendary philosopher-poets and historical poetphilosophers of Greece (see also note on vv. 31-40 of this Eclogue). The general strain of the song is parallel to Ovid's Metamorphoses, and suggests the conjecture that Virgil may have been directly indebted to some such work as the 'Erepolovμeva of Nicander, from which the poem of Ovid is supposed to have been imitated.

PRIMA Syracosio dignata est ludere versu
Nostra nec erubuit silvas habitare Thalia.

1-12.] 'I was venturing out of my pastoral strains into heroic song when Apollo warned me back. I will write you then a rural poem, Varus, and leave the celebra

tion of your deeds to others; yet even a rural theme, I trust, will suffice to preserve your memory.'

1.] Prima' has been explained either

Cum canerem reges et proelia, Cynthius aurem
Vellit, et admonuit: Pastorem, Tityre, pinguis
Pascere oportet ovis, deductum dicere carmen.
Nunc ego-namque super tibi erunt, qui dicere laudes,
Vare, tuas cupiant et tristia condere bella-
Agrestem tenui meditabor arundine Musam.
Non iniussa cano. Si quis tamen haec quoque, si quis
Captus amore leget, te nostrae, Vare, myricae,

of Virgil's claim to be the first pastoral
poet of Rome, as Horace says, 1 Ep. 19. 23,
"Parios ego primus iambos Ostendi Latio "
(comp. G. 2. 175), or of his first as distin-
guished from his subsequent attempts. Of
the two, the latter is doubtless recommended
by the context; but he may have meant to
combine both. See A. 7. 118, note. With
the whole passage comp. E. 4. 1-3.
Horace has imitated Virgil rather closely in
4 Od. 15. 1-4.

3.] Reges et proelia' is the conventional expression for epic or heroic poetry. "Res gestae regumque ducumque et tristia bella Quo scribi possent numero, monstravit Homerus," Hor. A. P. 73. Comp. A. 7. 41. It would include contemporary subjects (see Hor. 2 Ep. 1. 251 foll.), but not directly specify them, though vv. 6, 7 show that Varus wished Virgil to write of the civil or foreign wars of Rome. 'Aurem vellit:' touching a person's ear was a symbolical way of reminding him of a thing, the ear being regarded as the seat of memory, and so was the established mode of antestatio,' or summoning a witness (Hor. 1 S. 9. 77. Plin. 11. 45), when it was accompanied with the words "memento quod tu mihi in illa caussa testis eris." The action is represented on coins with the word μvnμόνευε. Here accordingly Apollo reminds the poet of the nature of his gift.

4.] Virgil is Tityrus again, as in E. 1. Pinguis' is a predicate, like 'deductum 'His sheep should be fat, but his verses slender,' at the same time that 'pinguis pascere' are to be taken together; 'pascere ut pinguescant,' as Serv. explains it. The antithesis, which is perhaps intentionally grotesque, may be compared with Hor. 2 S. 6. 14, 66 Pingue pecus domino facias, et

cetera praeter Ingenium."

5.] Deductum' = 'tenue,' an expression praised by Quinct. Inst. 8. 2 as "proprie

5

10

dictum, id est, quo nihil inveniri possit significantius." So 'vox deducta,' Lucil. Non. 289. 16, Afranius and Cornificius in Macr. Sat. 6. 4, Prop. 3. 25. 38, of a prolonged and so weak voice (comp. A. 4. 463, "longas in fletum ducere voces "). The metaphor seems to be from spinning, as in Hor. 2 Ep. 1. 225, "tenui deducta poemata filo." The notion of elaborate finish, expressed there and elsewhere, is less prominent here than that of thinness; but there may have been a connection between the two in Virgil's mind, as there would seem to have been in the mind of Propertius (4. 1. 5 foll.), who contrasts the 'carmen tenuatum of his Alexandrian masters, the 'exactus tenui pumice versus,' with the strains appropriate to heroic poetry. See Hertzberg, Quaestiones Propertianae, L. 2, c. 7. With 'deductum' as a predicate comp. Aesch. Ag. 620, Xέžaiμi rá þevdñ kaλá. Soph. Oed. R. 526, rovç λóyovs Yeudeis déyoi.

6.] 'Super tibi erunt,' 'You will have enough and to spare.' "Vereor ne mihi iam superesse verba putes," Cic. Fam. 13. 63. 'Cupiant' contains another compliment to Varus.

7.] 'Condere bella,' like condere carmen.' Forb. comp. Ov. Trist. 2. 336, "acta Caesaris condere." "Tristia' is a perpetual epithet; see on v. 3. For Varus, see the Introduction.

8.] Comp. 1. 2. Agrestem-Musam' is from Lucr. 5, 1398, "agrestis enim tum Musa vigebat."

9.] Tamen seems to show that 'non' belongs to 'cano,' as Voss takes it, not to 'iniussa,' as Heyne and others. Iniussa' then is a kind of litotes, like 'illaudatus,' G. 3. 5. 'I do not sing where I have no warrant.' 'Si quis' is repeated like si forte,' A. 2. 756, where hope and doubt are similarly expressed.

10.]Captus amore,' G. 3. 285. 'Legat,' the reading of two MSS. and Priscian, is preferred by Voss; but the confidence expressed by the future is not unsuited to Virg. or to the present passage. If I can find readers for my pastoral strains, and I

Te nemus omne canet; nec Phoebo gratior ulla est,
Quam sibi quae Vari praescripsit pagina nomen.
Pergite, Pierides. Chromis et Mnasylos in antro
Silenum pueri somno videre iacentem,
Inflatum hesterno venas, ut semper,
Iaccho:
Serta procul tantum capiti delapsa iacebant,
Et gravis attrita pendebat cantharus ansa.
Adgressi-nam saepe senex spe carminis ambo
Luserat―iniiciunt ipsis ex vincula sertis.
Addit se sociam timidisque supervenit Aegle,
Aegle, Naiadum pulcherrima, iamque videnti
Sanguineis frontem moris et tempora pingit.