506. illa quidem...] ‘she indeed already rode shivering in the Stygian bark.' The line answers the preceding question; he could do nothing, for she was already gone past recall. Stygia cumba: the bark in which Charon ferries souls across the Styx, cf. Aen. 6. 303, 413.

507. septem illum totos]

Note the heavy slowness of

movement. ex ordine, month after month.'

509. haec evolvisse] 'unfolded this tale (of woe).'

510. mulcentem...] cf. Hor. Od. 3. 11. 13 tu potes tigres comitesque silvas | ducere of Orpheus' music.

511. qualis...] The notes of the nightingale were supposed to be the lament of Philomela for her son Itys or Itylus, and Homer Od. 19. 518-523 compares Penelope's mourning to hers in a simile which Virgil copies here, though he alters it by introducing an actual nightingale that has lost its young, borrowing this idea from another simile of Homer (Od. 16. 216) in which Telemachus and his father wept ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ ̓ οἰωνοὶ... οἷσί τε τέκνα | ἀγρόται ἐξείλοντο πάρος πετεηνὰ γενέσθαι.

514. flet noctem] 'weeps all night long.' The phrase seems to have been in Milton's mind when he wrote of the 'wakeful nightingale' that 'She all night long her amorous descant sung,' P. L. 4. 603. ramoque: cf. devdpéwv év tETÁNOLOL KADEζομένη πυκινοῖσι Hom. Od. 19. 520.

516. Venus] 'passion.'

517. Hyperboreas, Tanaim, Rhipaeis] The words all describe the unknown and wintry wilds to the north of Thrace. 518. numquam viduata] 'never widowed from,' 'never unwedded to.'

519. raptam...inrita] The emphasis is on the adjectives and not on the nouns Eurydicen and dona: he laments 'the loss of Eurydice' and 'the vanity of Pluto's boon,' cf. 512 amissos queritur fetus 'laments the loss of her young.'

520. spretae] 'scorned (i.e. feeling themselves scorned) by such devotion the Thracian dames....' munus is any 'gift' but especially any 'tribute' to the dead; cf. Aen. 4. 623 cinerique haec mittite nostro | munera, where the tribute to her memory which Dido asks for from her people is undying hate of Rome; 6. 886.

521. inter sacra...] The worship of Dionysus (or Bacchus) specially prevailed in Thrace, and during the orgies' (opyia celebration of sacred rites'), which took place at night, the female worshippers (Βάκχαι, Θυιάδες, Μαινάδες) worked themselves up into a state of frenzy. It was in this condition that

they chanced upon Orpheus and rent him limb from limb as a despiser of themselves and their deity. Apparently this 'rending' to pieces of the victim had a ritual significance, see the case of Pentheus Eur. Bacch. 1125 seq.

523. revulsum] 'rent,' 'torn.'

524. Oeagrius] 'Oeagrius was father of Orpheus, so that Oeagrius here=‘paternus.'-Conington.

525. vox ipsa] The 'mere voice,' i. e. though the soul had fled. The voice is regarded as something corporeal which, like 'the death-cold tongue,' still for a while continues to repeat the same sounds 'with the last parting breath.'

527. toto flumine] 'o'er all the stream.'

528-547. Then Proteus flung himself into the deep, but Cyrene bade her son take heart. The Nymphs,' she said, 'have sent this plague in anger for their comrade's loss. Therefore sacrifice to the Nymphs four bulls and four heifers and leave the carcases in a leafy grove, but revisit it on the ninth day after, bringing funeral offerings to Orpheus and Eurydice.'

528. se iactu dedit...] 'with a leap flung himself...and where he flung himself made the water whirl in foam beneath the eddy,' i.e. apparently as he shot down below the eddy which his plunge created, he made the water whirl and foam. The phrase emphasises the vigour of his plunge. For torsit spumantem cf. Cat. 64. 13 tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda; Sil. It. 7. 412 ac tortus multo spumabat remige pontus, where, however, tota and totus are also read. The old explana

tion of sub vertice was 'beneath his head.'

530. at non Cyrene] 'but not so Cyrene (i.e. she did not desert Aristaeus), for (on the contrary) unasked she addressed the terrified youth.' haec, 'this,' i. e. which Proteus has told you.

535. tende] 'offer' with outstretched hands. faciles, ' easily appeased,''yielding'; so difficilis is often obstinate,' 'unyielding.' Napaeas: from váη 'a dell.'

537. ordine dicam] 'énynσouai, ordine expressing virtual exactness of detail.'—Conington.

539. Lycaei] A mountain in Arcadia, and so suiting the description of Aristaeus as Arcadius magister line 283, but Virgil ignores the fact that he is now near Pallene.

540. intacta]i.e. that has never borne the yoke.

542. demitte] 'let flow.'

543. corpora ipsa] ipsa does not so much draw a contrast

between the carcases and the blood as call emphatic attention to the carcases, which are to be left untouched, although this was most unusual, it being customary after offering certain portions to use the rest for food.

544. nona] There was something sacred about the ninth day; a final sacrifice, novendiale sacrum, was offered to the dead on the ninth day after the funeral; the funeral games to Anchises are on the ninth day' (Aen. 5. 104), and the Roman week was of nine days, cf. nundinae.

545. inferias] In apposition to papavera: the poppies are to be sent as an offering to the ghost of Orpheus.' The selection of the offering and the epithet Lethaea mark that it is to bring him forgetfulness of sorrow. mittes, mactabis, revises, venerabere: futures of command. Cf. the Thou shalt' of the Commandments.

547. placatam...] The line contains a promise and a command: the command is to honour Eurydice with a funeral offering; the promise, that this will 'appease' her wrath.

548-558. Aristaeus does as he is commanded, and on revisiting the grove finds the carcases alive with bees, which gradually develop and finally swarm in a tree.

556. stridĕre] For the form cf. 1. 456 n. Notice the order of development. The bees first buzz amid the putrefying carcase,' then 'swarm forth,' then 'trail in vast clouds,' and 'finally (iamque) collect on a tree-top, their clustering swarm (uvam) hanging from its bending boughs.'

559-566. A conclusion or epilogue to the whole four books of the Georgics.

559. super arvorum cultu] In Book I.; pecorumque, in Book II.; super arboribus, in Book III.

560. dum... fulminat bello] 'while Caesar thundered in war beside deep Euphrates,' like a second Alexander. dum, according to regular Latin idiom, takes present ind. even when referring to past time. The allusion is to the triumphal progress of Augustus (or, as he then was, Octavian) through the East after the battle of Actium, 31 B.C.

562. dat iura] 'appoints laws,' a stately phrase, marking absolute sway, cf. Hor. Od. 3. 3. 43 triumphatisque possit | Roma ferox dare iura Medis. Note, however, the difference between Horace's triumphatis and volentes here. viamque adfectat Olympo, 'and essays the path to heaven'; adfectat, like adfectare regnum. Olympo, dat. for in Olympum 'heavenwards,' cf. Aen. 5. 451 it clamor caelo; Ecl. 8. 102 n.

564. ignobilis oti] 'inglorious ease, as opposed to the glorious exploits of Augustus. For the contracted gen. cf. Ecl. 1. 32 n.

565. carmina qui lusi] 'who sang in sportive verse the lays....' For ludere cf. Ecl. 1. 10 n. audaxque iuventa, 'and with the boldness of youth'; the boldness consisted in being the first to attempt bucolic poetry (carmina pastorum) in Latin after the model of Theocritus.

566. Tityre...] With reference to the first line of the First Eclogue-Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi.

INDEX TO THE NOTES