VIRGIL

BUCOLICS

EDITED

WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

BY

C. S. JERRAM, M.A.

Late Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford

Editor of 'Luciani Vera Historia, Cebetis Tabula,''Euripidis Alcestis,' 'Helena,' 'Iphigenia in Tauris,' &c.

NOTES.

FIRST ECLOGUE.

THE date of this Eclogue is assigned to the year 40 B.C. After the battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, large tracts of land throughout Italy were taken from their owners, and assigned to the veterans in the army of the victorious triumvirs. Among the rest Virgil was deprived of his estate near Mantua, notwithstanding his intimacy with Asinius Pollio, at that time legatus of Cisalpine Gaul. During the year 41 B. C. Pollio was superseded by Alfenus Varus (see Introduction to Ecl. 9), and by his influence, in combination with Pollio and Cornelius Gallus, the poet obtained from Octavian an order for reinstatement in his property, and wrote this Eclogue to testify his gratitude for the favour.

The dialogue is between two shepherds, one of whom, Meliboeus, ejected from his farm and driven into exile, finds Tityrus reposing under a beech-tree with his flocks around him. He learns how Tityrus had been to Rome and obtained leave to keep possession of his property. Congratulating his neighbour upon his good fortune Meliboeus contrasts his own hard lot, and is moving off, when Tityrus bids him remain for the night with him at his cottage.

The poem is partly real, but mainly allegorical. Tityrus of course represents Virgil himself reinstated in his farm after his successful visit to Rome; nearly all the rest is fiction. Tityrus is introduced as a farm-slave or hind (vilicus) going to Rome to buy his liberty (1. 27), presumably from his master, and while there he gets an audience from Octavianus and an order for restitution. But the master is mentioned only by implication, and Tityrus is personally interested as the owner, or at least joint-owner, of the farm. Hence the inevitable confusion, noticed by Prof. Conington on p. II of

his Introduction to the Eclogues, between 'the enfranchised slave and the poet secured in his farm': hardly, we think, cleared by the hypothesis that the one incident' symbolises' the other, since the language of 1. 42 plainly describes this interview with Octavian as an incident merely of the visit of Tityrus to Rome, its avowed object being to purchase his freedom. This difficulty might have been avoided, had Virgil chosen, in the assumed character of Tityrus, to reproduce the actual circumstances of his own visit to the capital, and the consequent restoration of his estate. As it is, he has pushed the allegory too far, and the confusion cannot well be got over.

The scenery is chiefly borrowed from the Sicily of Theocritus. Neither hills nor rocks, beeches, chestnuts, or pines are found in the level plain that surrounds Mantua. The marshy lake (1.48), formed by the overflow of the Mincius, is perhaps the only real feature in the description.

Line 1. The names Tityrus and Amaryllis (1. 5) are taken from the third Idyll of Theocritus. Tírupos is said to be a Doric form οἱ Σάτυρος. Cp. Aelian, Var. Hist. 3. 40 Σάτυροι, οἱ ὑπ ̓ ἐνίων Τίτυροι ὀνομαζόμενοι. Amaryllis, from ἀμαρύσσειν. ‘to sparkle, probably means 'bright-eyed.'

2. Cp. 6. 8 Agrestem tenui meditabor harundine musam,' also 'silvestrem ... fundere musam' Lucr. 4. 589. meditaris, 'study,' 'practise.' Not (probably) by change of 1 to d from μederâv, but from the root med- in med-eri, etc., cognate with μal-eîv, μýd-eolai. Milton, Lycidas 66, has imitated this line by an over-literal rendering, 'meditate the thankless Muse.' Cp. Hor. Epist. 2. 2. 76 versus meditare canoros.' avena, 'pipe,' lit. of oats, but whether so trivial an instrument was ever seriously employed may well be doubted. The word may mean any hollow stem or reed (e. g. of the flax-plant. Plin. N. H. 19. 1), and is equivalent to the calamus, harundo, etc., elsewhere mentioned. Hence the 'oaten pipe' came to be the representative instrument of pastoral music. Cp. Spenser, Shep. Cal. 1. 72; Milton, Lyc. 33, 88.

4, 5. fugimus, ' are exiled from.' So peúyew, with or without maτρídos expressed. lentus, 'stretched at ease,' a shortened participial form from stem of len-is. It means (1) 'supple,' 'pliant,' 1. 26; (2) of limbs 'relaxed,' hence at ease;' (3) 'slow,' of rivers, etc., as lento marmore' A. 7. 28. formosam with resonare, 'to ring with (the praises of) Amaryllis' beauty.'

6. deus, i. e. Octavianus, for whom Virgil anticipates divine honours. These were not actually paid to the emperor till 29 B. C.,

after his victory at Actium, nor formally decreed before his death in A. D. 14. See 1. 43.

8. ab ovilibus, 'a lamb of our folds.' Cp. Tibull. 2. 1. 57 'a pleno memorabile munus ovili.' imbuet, sc. sanguine. Cp. Theoc. Εpig. 1. 5 βωμὸν δ' αἱμάξει κεραὺς τράγος.

9. errare, 'feed at large,' secure from marauders. errare boves and ipsum ludere are the direct objects of 'permisit,' = 7ò πλavâσθαι and τὸ παίζειν.

10. ludere, 'to amuse myself' (by song). Cp. 6. 1; G. 4. 565 'carmina qui lusi pastorum.' quae vellem, 'at my pleasure.' If permisit is a perfect proper 'has allowed,' vellem for velim is noticeable. But permisit may be an aorist, 'gave me leave,' on the occasion alluded to in l. 43.

11. magis potius, 'rather do I marvel.' Cp. Catull. 68. 30 'non est turpe, magis miserum est.'

6

12. usque adeo turbatur, such constant rioting is there,' from the lawlessness of the soldiers (1. 70).

13. protinus, 'onward,' as in A. 10. 340, and elsewhere, but more often in its derived temporal sense of 'forthwith.' The distinction of spelling, protinus or protenus, is imaginary; the latter is merely the older form = porro tenus. aeger, sick at heart,' as well as 'tired' with the journey. He was leading by a cord a she-goat, which had just dropt twins.

14, 15. For the position of namque cp. 3. 33, A. 5. 733 non me impia namque Tartara habent.' conixa, 'after yeaning,' a stronger term than the usual enixa. silice (usually masc.) refers not to the road, but to the stony soil. Cp. 1. 47. It was among the hazels' by the roadside that the disaster occurred (C.).

16. malum hoc. The blasting of oak trees was said to portend exile. laeva (σkaιós), 'stupid.' This phrase is repeated in A.

2. 54.

17. de caelo tactas, the regular term for struck by lightning,' cp. Livy, 25. 7 'tacta de caelo multa.'

[The line commonly inserted here, 'saepe sinistra cava praedixit ab ilice cornix,' is wanting in the best MSS. and obviously made up from 9. 5.]

18. iste deus, 'that god of yours,' l. 6. da, ' tell me.' Cp. Cic. Acad. 1. 3. 10 ‘da mihi nunc.' So ‘accipe,' ‘hear,' A. 2. 65. qui sit, perhaps what sort,' not simply 'who'; cp. 2. 19, where the sense almost decides the question. But the distinction between quis asking the name, and qui the nature of a person does not always hold good, and here the answer of Tityrus gives no clue.

19, etc. Tityrus, in rustic fashion, begins with an account of