At si triticeam in messem, robustaque farra gil means the sun's entering Averso cedens Canis occidit astro.] I rather believe that Virgil meant the bull by the aversum astrum: for that constellation is known to rise backwards. Triticeam in messem.] The triticum of the ancients was not our common or lammas wheat, but a bearded sort. Hence arista, which signifies the beard, is often used by the poets for wheat but it would be too violent a figure to put the beard for corn, which has no beard at all. Eo Atlantides abscondantur.] Atlas had seven daughters by Pleione. Their names, according to Aratus, are, Alcyone, Merope, Celano, Electra, Sterope, Taygete, and Maia. See the note on ver. 138.-By the epithet eo, Virgil does not mean setting in the east, as some have imagined, but in the morning, at sun rising; that is, when the Pleiades go down be-low our western horizon, at the same time that the sun rises above our eastern horizon. Gnosiaque ardentis decedat stella corona.] Gnosus is a city of Crete, where Minos reigned, the father of Ariadne, who was 220 carried away by Theseus, and afterwards deserted by him in the island of Naxos, where Bacchus fell in love with her, and married her. At the celebration of their nuptials, all the gods made presents to the bride; and Venus gave her a crown, which Bacchus translated into the heavens, and made a constellation. One of the stars of this constellation is brighter than the rest, and rises before the whole constellation appears. Thus Columella reckons the bright star to rise on the eighth of October, and the whole constellation on the thirteenth or fourteenth. I have translated decedat, emerge; because the commentators agree that Virgil means by that word the heliacal rising of the crown; that is, when the constellation, which before had been obscured by the superior light of the sun, begins to depart from it, and to appear in the eastern horizon before sun-rising. I must own, I have some doubt about this interpretation; because Virgil never uses decedere, when applied to the sun, but for the setting of it. Therefore as decedere does signify to set, the poet should rather seem to mean the heliacal setting of the constellation, than the heliacal rising of it. Pliny would have the heliacal rising to be called emersion, and the heliacal setting to be called occultation. quam Debita sulcis committas semina, quamque Si vero viciamque seres, vilemque faselum, Per duodena regit mundi Sol aureus astra. Ante occasum Maia.] Maia is one of the Pleiades: the poet puts a part for the whole. He speaks here against sowing too early; and we are informed by Columella, that it was an old proverb amongst the farmers, that an early sowing often deceives our expectation, but seldom a late one. Aristis.] ver. 219. and 220. Vilem faselum.] The kidneybeans are said to have been very common among the Romans ; and therefore the poet is thought to have given them the epithet of vile, mean, or common. might use this epithet, perhaps, because they might be sown in any sort of soil, as Pliny tells us. This author tells us also, that the Romans eat the seeds in the shells, as we do now. See the notes on He Pelusiaca lentis.] Pelusium is a town of Egypt, which gives name to one of the seven mouths of the Nile. He calls the lentil Pelusian or Egyptian, because the best are said to grow in that country. 225 230 Bootes.] This is a northern constellation, near the tail of the Great Bear. Arcturus, as has been already observed, is a part of this constellation. Idcirco, &c.] In these lines the poet, having, in honour of agriculture, supposed the sun to make his annual journey for the sake of that art, takes occasion to describe the five zones, the zodiac, the northern pole, and the antipodes, in a most beautiful and poetical manner. Mundi.] The commentators are much divided about the interpretation of this passage.The most general opinion is, that mundi follows astra; which makes the sense to be this: the sun governs the earth through twelve constellations of the world. I believe we must read orbem mundi, and understand it of the turning round of the heavens. Quinque tenent cælum zone.] This description of the five zones is thought to be taken from Eratosthenes. Under the torrid or burning zone lies that part of the earth which is contained Semper sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni: between the two tropics. This 235 240 Munere concessa divum; via secta per ambas, obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.] Here the poet describes the zodiac, which is a broad belt spreading about five or six degrees on each side of the ecliptic line, and contains the twelve constellations or signs. They are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces. The ecliptic line cuts the equinoctial obliquely in two opposite points, whence the poet calls the zodiac obliquus signorum ordo. It traverses the whole torrid zone, but neither of the temperate zones; so that per ambas must mean between, not through them. Thus presently after, speaking of the Dragon, he says it twines per duas arctos: now that constellation cannot be said to twine through the two Bears, but between them. The zodiac is the annual path of the sun, through each sign of which he passes in about the space of a month. He is said to be in one of those signs when he appears in that part of the heavens where those stars are of which the sign is composed. Mundus ut ad Scythiam, &c.] He speaks here of the two poles of the world. He says the north |