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Æthiopum versemus oves sub sidere Cancri.
Omnia vincit Amor; et nos cedamus Amori."
Hæc sat erit, divæ, vestrum cecinisse poëtam,
Dum sedet et gracili fiscellam texit hibisco,
Pierides; vos hæc facietis maxima Gallo,
Gallo, cujus amor tantum mihi crescit in horas,
Quantum vere novo viridis se subjicit alnus.
Surgamus; solet esse gravis cantantibus umbra,
Juniperi gravis umbra; nocent et frugibus umbræ.
Ite domum saturæ, venit Hesperus, ite capellæ.

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SHORT NOTES TO VIRGIL..

NOTE A. ARSIS AND CÆSURA.

ARSIS is the stress laid by the voice at regular intervals in reading a verse, and tends to lengthen the syllable on which it falls. In hexameters this is the first syllable of every foot. A pause in the sense has the same tendency. A syllable not in arsis is said to be in thesis.

Cæsura is the name given to the break in a foot, caused by its consisting partly of one word and partly of another: when the syllable immediately before the break is in arsis, the cæsura is called strong; when in thesis, weak.

In Virgil, the strong cæsura in any of the first four feet is allowed to lengthen a syllable by nature short. e. g. E. i. 39, Tityrus hinc aberāt; ipsæ te, Tityre, pinus; but there must be a pause in the sense immediately after such a syllable, or short syllables immediately before it, since after them the voice naturally seeks repose. In lines which approximate to a Greek model, as those which end in a tetrasyllable, or with two spondees, more freedom of license is found, and that too in the fifth foot, e. g. E. vi. 53, molli fultus hyacintho (end); G. ii. 5, pampineo gravidūs auctumno (end).

B

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In G. ii. 5, we have an exceptional verse, where the strong cæsura alone is allowed to lengthen us in nullius There are a few more such in the Æneid.

In two substantives coupled by two que's, the first que, it it be in the second or fourth foot, is often lengthened by a strong cæsura, e. g. Æn. iii. 91, Liminaque laurusque. This form is a favourite beginning for a Virgilian line: in such an one as E. iv. 51, Terrasque tractusque, the tr of tractus helps the length of que preceding, and makes up for the absence of short syllables before it.

NOTE B. HIATUS.

A vowel or diphthong is said to be in hiatus when it might be elided, but is not. If a strong cæsura concur, a syllable in hiatus may, if long by nature, retain its quantity, otherwise hiatus shortens it. Thus in E. vi. 44, Hyla, Hylă, omne sonaret; G. i. 281, Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam. A syllable short by nature in hiatus is comparatively rare, and still rarer when concurring with a weak cæsura, as in E. ii. 53, Addam cerea prună; honos erit huic quoque myrto: observe, however, the strong pause in the sense. In Æn. xii. 648, we have probably an unfinished line.

Hiatus does not find place later than the fourth foot, except in lines formed on a Greek model; see note A.

NOTE C.

A word of more than three syllables at the end of a line in the Ecl. or Geor. is commonly a Greek one, as hyacinthi, hymenæos, elephanto; often a proper name, as Aracyntho; unless the fifth foot be a spondee, when a Latin tetrasyll. may end the line, as abscondantur, incrementum.

BUCOLICS.

ECLOGUE I.

INTRODUCTION.

IN the year U.C. 711, noted for the second Triumvirate, Cicero died. In 712, Brutus and Cassius were conquered at Philippi, Horace being a tribune in their army at the time (Sat. 1. vi. 48; Od. ii. 75), and the triumvirs, in performing their promise of lands in Italy to their veterans, had assigned Virgil's estate near Mantua to a soldier, Claudius. Through the influence of Pollio it was restored to the poet, who in 713, having visited Rome in the interval, wrote this Eclogue to express his gratitude to Octavius. The misfortune which only threatened Virgil, befel the poets, Horace, Tibullus, and Propertius, (Hor. Ep. ii. 2. 50; Tibull. I. i. 19; Propert. Iv. i. 129.) The fate of Horace's "Ofellus," a labourer on the estate he had once owned (Sat. II. ii. 112), moralizing on his transitory lot, was probably that of a large class.

NOTES.

1. Tityre, perhaps meant for Virgil himself, so vi. 4. -fagi, "beech," der. pñyos, but not the same tree; pny. a sort of oak, perhaps quercus asculus. fagus, Cul. 139, is plur., so perhaps G. ii. 71, elsewhere, fagi.—2. meditaris, &c., "art studying a rustic melody on a slender oatstraw" (material of pipe), meditor akin to μeλerάw, with d

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