them. As soon as summer comes pasture both flocks in the morning, let them rest in the shade and be watered during the midday heat, then let them graze again in the evening.

294. nunc...] 'Now, O reverend Pales, now must a lofty strain be sung. Virgil here humorously exaggerates; he is aware that while endeavouring 'to lend dignity to a humble theme' it is only too easy to slip from the sublime into the ridiculous, and he therefore here marks his consciousness of the fact that there is something half comic in dealing with his present subject in the heroic vein. Cf. the same humorous exaggeration 1. 181 saepe exiguus mus | sub terris posuitque domos atque horrea fecit.

295. edico] A magisterial word in accordance with the dignified tone here adopted; so constantly consul, praetor, tribunus plebis edicit, and cf. edictum. mollibus, 'soft,' i. e. well-littered, cf. 297.

296. dum mox...] 'until presently leafy summer returns'; for dum 'until' with present ind. cf. Ecl. 9. 23 n.

298. sternere] The subject is no longer oves but 'the shepherd,' which is easily supplied: there is a similar change in 330, 331.

300. post...]'afterwards, passing hence (i. e. from this duty), I bid you....' Virgil'passes' (digreditur) from what the sheep need to what the goats need, but he speaks of himself as actually passing from the sheepcotes to where the goats are kept.

302. et stabula...] 'and place their stalls (looking) away from the winds towards the winter sun turning to the south.' The stalls would thus get as much warmth as possible and be protected from the north winds (ventos nivales 318).

303. ad medium...diem] would be in prose ad meridiem 'to the south,' and is indeed exactly equal to it, meridies being= medidies medius dies. cum...olim, 'when at any time,' 'whenever,' i.e. when in any year; cf. 4. 421 n.

304. extremoque...] and Aquarius descends in rain upon the closing year.' Aquarius sets in February, and March was the first month of the old Roman year; inrorat (1) with reference to the meaning of Aquarius and (2) because February is a wet month ('February fill-dyke').

305. hae quoque] 'these also,' i.e. the goats (mentioned in 300) as well as the sheep. Some MSS. read haec, which is an old form of hae.

306. Milesia] 'Milesian wool' is also mentioned 4. 334 to

describe wool of the finest quality. magno mutentur, ‘are sold (lit. 'exchanged,' 'bartered') at a great price.'

308. hinc] Picks up hae of 305 with great emphasis: 'they ...from them...from them.'

310. laeta magis...] Supply tam: 'the more the milkpail has foamed... (so much) the more will the rich streams flow The more you take at one milking the more there will be at the next.

311. nec minus interea] 'nor less meanwhile'; while the goatherds are milking them, and so receiving profit from them, they are not thereby prevented from clipping them and so making a further profit.

313. usum in...] 'for the use of camps and as coverings for wretched sailors.' From the hair of goats, especially Cilician goats, was made 'hair-cloth,' cilicium, which was used for tents and rough coverings, and which has a special interest, as it was probably in making this hair-cloth that St. Paul 'laboured with his own hands' when staying at Corinth with Aquila and Priscilla, who were 'tent-makers,' Acts xvii. 3.

314. pascuntur] pasco is to 'feed' or 'pasture' animals, and pascor is generally used intransitively of the animal which 'feeds' (cf. 162 pascuntur...armenta per herbas, 219, 341), and abl. of that on which it is fed' or 'feeds' (cf. 321 carice pastus, 528): here, however, it is treated as a purely transitive verb and allowed to govern an accusative, cf. 458 artus depascitur arida febris. Moreover it is used in a somewhat different sense with silvas and summa (= 'browse among' or 'over') from that in which it is used with rubos and dumos ( 'browse on,' 'eat').

316. ipsae] of their own accord'; cf. Ecl. 4. 21.

317. ducunt, et...] The spondee followed by a pause (cf. 375; 4. 196; Ecl. 5. 21) expresses the slow movement of the goat laden with milk.

319. quo minor] follows the sense of omni studio; you are to help them with all zeal (i.e. all the more zealously) the less they need the care of man.' The less they need the more ungrudgingly it should be given.

320. laetus] 'gladly' and so='abundantly': the cheerful giver gives liberally.

322. at vero...] 'But when gladly at the Zephyrs' call summer shall send...': aestas, as in 296, seems here to describe the first warm weather.

324. Luciferi...] 'at the daystar's earliest rising let us traverse the cool fields'; for carpamus rura cf. 142 n.

327. sitim collegerit]lit. 'has gathered thirst, 'i. e. has brought thirst; cf. Hor. Od. 4. 12. 13 adduxere sitim tempora. sitim colligere is used Ov. Met. 5. 446; 6. 341 of persons becoming thirsty, cf. Aen. 9. 63 collecta fatigat edendi | ex longo rabies, and many so explain here, but the hour' can hardly be said to 'become thirsty.'

328. et cantu...]' and the plaintive cicalas split the groves with their song.' At midday in summer the only things which seem alive in Italy are the cicalas, ef. Ecl. 2. 13. Martyn says that the insect 'is of a dark green colour, sits upon trees, and makes a noise five times louder than the grasshopper. They begin their song as the sun grows hot, and continue singing till it sets.' querulae expresses the monotonous and wearisome character of the song; so querella 1. 378 of the incessant croaking of frogs. rumpent describes the force or violence of the sound (as we say 'ear-splitting'), cf. Juv. 1. 13 assiduo ruptae lectore columnae; 7. 86 fregit subsellia versu.

330. currentem...] Apparently the water is to be brought in long wooden pipes such as are commonly used in Switzerland for conveying it. Conington says that the phrase means poured into troughs,' but this seems to force the sense of both currentem and canalibus.

331. aestibus mediis...] 'midday heat'; exactly=meridianos aestus of Varro 2. 2. 10, whom Virgil closely follows here-cum prima luce exeunt pastum, propterea quod tunc herba roscida...: sole exorto potum propellunt... circiter meridianos aestus, dum defervescant, sub umbriferas rupes et arbores patulas subiciunt.

333. aut sicubi...] 'or if anywhere a grove dark with many an ilex rests with its sacred shadow on the ground.' The grove is said accubare because its shadow 'lies' upon the ground, cf. 145.

334. sacra] because groves were regularly regarded as the haunts of deities. accubet, like tendat, subjunctive because there is really oblique question after exquirere.

335. tenues aquas] The epithet is perplexing; perhaps, as Sidgwick says, it refers to the thin stream' flowing through the pipes mentioned 330.

337. temperat]' cools'; lit. 'makes moderate,' in contrast with the fierce heat of noon, cf. 1. 110 n.

338. resonant alcyonem] 're-echo the kingfisher's cry': alcyonem is a cognate acc., being put for alcyonis cantum or sonum, cf. Aen. 1. 328 nec vox hominem sonat=sonat sonum hominis. For the mythical alcyon see 1. 398. The acalanthis

=

is said to be the ȧkavís, a bird so called from aκava a thorn or thistle' (cf. dumi), the Latin carduelis 'thistle-finch.'

338-383. In Libya the sheep roam for months uninterruptedly over endless pastures, while the shepherds, like Roman soldiers on the march, carry their tents and belongings with them. In Scythia and the north, on the other hand, cattle are kept always shut up while the vast steppes are buried deep in snow; there the sun never struggles through the mist; rivers and everything liquid are solid ice; animals perish, and stags are not hunted but butchered as they stand floundering in the snow; while the inhabitants bury themselves underground, and spend the long night around huge fires drinking.

339. quid...prosequar] 'why should I go on to tell of?' but also with the sense why should I accompany' or 'follow'; if he were to follow the 'shepherds of Libya' in their wanderings it would take him too far. pastores Libyae: the nomad Numidian tribes.

340. raris...] 'encampments where they dwell in scattered huts'; in Aen. 1. 421 these are called magalia, and Servius, quoting Cato, defines them as quasi cohortes rotundae, i.e. a sort of circular farmyard with sheds in it; perhaps something like gipsy encampments. Sallust explains mapalia of the tents rather than the whole encampment (Jug. 18 aedificia Numidarum agrestium...oblonga, incurvis lateribus tecta, quasi navium carinae); if so we must render 'the tents with their scattered roofs in which they dwell.'

341. A beautiful line, emphasising by its rhythm and repeated accusatives the idea of unbroken sequence; cf. 4. 507.

343. hospitiis] 'shelters'; the sheep are never under roof, in exact contrast to what happens in the north: 352 illic clausa tenent stabulis armenta. tantum campi iacet, so vast is the extent of plain,' explaining why they can move forward as they graze almost without limit. Ladewig's rendering (the flock) reposes only on the plain' would be an admirable explanation of sine ullis hospitiis, but poets, even if they add notes to explain their meaning, rarely incorporate them in the text.

it

345. Amyclaeum] i.e. from Amyclae near Sparta, and Spartan dogs (44 n.), like Cretan archers, were famous. For the purely ornamental epithets cf. 1. 8 n.

347. iniusto] 'cruel'; the Roman soldier in addition to his arms and food had to carry valli for the palisade. carpit viam: cf. 142 n. The phrase here suggests rapidity (cf. acer), and so to his amazement (hosti is ethic dat.) the foeman finds

the camp pitched and the army arrayed in front of him long before he looked for it. For exspectatum used an abstract subst. cf. 2. 398 n.

=

349. at non, qua...] 'but not so (is it) where...'; cf. 4. 530. 350. turbidus et torquens] Cf. 1. 163 n.

351. redit] 'retires,' because it stretches back right 'up to the central pole.'

354. informis] Cf. Hor. Od. 2. 15. 5 informes hiemes; the adj. here describes the dreary absence of outline exhibited by a country buried in snow.

355. adsurgit] 'is piled up (with snow) seven cubits high.' 357. tum sol...] From Hom. Od. 11. 15, where the Cimmerians are described as

ἠέρι καὶ νεφέλῃ κεκαλυμμένοι· οὐδέ ποτ ̓ αὐτοὺς
ἠέλιος φαέθων ποτιδέρκεται ἀκτίνεσσιν,

οὔθ ̓ ὁπότ ̓ ἂν στείχῃσι πρὸς οὐρανὸν ἀστερόεντα,

οὔθ ̓ ὅταν ἂψ ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἀπ ̓ οὐρανόθεν προτράπηται. pallentes umbras, 'the pale mist,' through which the sun never struggles.

359. rubro] 'red,' with the setting sun.

361. ferratos orbes] 'the iron-bound wheels' of the plaustra mentioned in the next line.

362. illa] Added to emphasise the marvel of the sight; see 216 n.

363. aera] Strabo (2 c. 74) quotes an inscription er rũ ῥαγείσῃ χαλκῇ ὑδρίᾳ διὰ τὸν πάγον in the temple of Aesculapius in the Tauric Chersonese, where it was dedicated (see Martyn), and probably Virgil is thinking rather of such vessels containing liquid bursting than of metal actually snapping from intense cold.

364. caedunt...vina] Pure spirits of wine will not freeze except at a temperature which can only be created artificially, but the water in ordinary wine will freeze fairly easily.

365. vertere, induruit] Gnomic perfects; 'have been known to change,' 'change'; cf. 378 advolvere, dedere. Conington oddly makes lacunae refer to 'the pools from which they drank or drew water,' and says that stiria is an 'icicle caused by drops of the water drunk'; but the emphasis is on totae and solidam: the whole pool becomes a mass of ice so that no one could drink from it, while it is by no means necessary to spill water over it to have a beard all icicles on some winter days.

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