"Vos, aeterni ignes, et non violabile * vestrum *Markland reads here, Vestae; see his notes on Statius, Sylv. I. ver. 35; and concludes his note with this just observation: "Vide autem quàm artificiosè Sinonem inducit Virgilius "ingredientem orationem ejus à mentione et invocatione Ves"tae; ut scilicet gratiam Trojanorum captaret: Vesta enim ab "iis maximè colebatur." VER. 201, 202. "Laocoon, ductus Neptuno sorte sacerdos, "Solemnes taurum ingentem mactabat ad aras. x. T.λ. *This story of Laocoon, so elegantly described by Virgil, alludes to a famous Grecian statue, which was esteemed one of the greatest master-pieces of the antient sculpture; and which was undoubtedly well known to the Romans in Virgil's time, if not already brought thither. I know it is disputed by the vir tuosi whether the statue was copied from Virgil, or Virgil's description taken from the statue. The latter is pretty manifest: For Pliny tells us expressly, lib. XXXVI. c. v. that this group was made by three eminent artists together, viz. Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus: And, lib. XXXIV. c. viii. though he does not tell the time when they all lived, yet he tells us that Athenodorus was one of the scholars of Polycletus, who flourished about the 87th Olympiad, or near the 320th year of Rome, between the times of Phidias and Praxiteles: therefore we must suppose that this group was made near 400 years before Virgil wrote this. Pliny likewise in the same chapter tells us, that after the 120th Olympiad, this art declined and though it revived again about the 155th, yet it never arrived to its former glory. And therefore, as this group was celebrated as one of the best pieces that ever was made, we may suppose reasonably that it was the work of the age when this art was in its greatest perfection. That this is the same statue, which is still preserved at the Belvidere in the Vatican, cannot be doubted; the whole group being of one piece of marble as Pliny describes it, and being found in or near the place where he says it stood in his time. Speaking of the works of the most famous statuaries, he says: "Multorum "obscurior fama est, quorundam claritati in operibus eximiis ob"stante numero artificum; quoniam nec unus occupat gloriam, "nec plures pariter nuncupari possunt. Sicut in Laocoonte, qui "est in Titi Împeratoris domo, opus omnibus et picturae et sta"turaiae artis praeferendum. Ex uno lapide eum et liberos draconumque mirabiles nexus de consilii sententiâ fecere "summi artifices, Agesaner et Polydorus et Athenodorus Rho"dii." Lib. XXXVI. c. v.-Donatus, speaking of the baths of Titus, says: "In vineis locis statuam Laocoontis laudatam "à Plinio, conservatamque in hortis Vaticani Pontificiis, in"ventam viderunt tempora vix inchoata prioris seculi." Lib. III. c. x.And Nardini confirms the same: "La statua bel"lissima del Laocoonte con duoi figli attorniati da serpi retro"vata nel tempo di Leone X. presso a S. Lucia in Selce, e le "Sette Sale, e trasportata in Belvedere, dove hoggi stà." Lib. III. c. x.-Though it cannot well be doubted but Virgil had the famous statue of Laocoon in view when he wrote this story, yet it is observed that he has varied from it in many particulars; and that, perhaps, for the following reason. In the statue the father and sons are represented entangled by the serpents in one group; which the statuaries were under a necessity of doing, because they could not represent succession of actions in the same stone: but the Poet not being under the same restriction, relates the story as it may more naturally be supposed to have happened. He first makes the serpents seize the children, each of them one; and when they had despatched them, then they seize the father coming to their assistance. A less judicious author would probably have endeavoured to have followed the statue as servilely as possible; but Virgil chose rather to copy the most masterly strokes of it; the serpents twisting themselves about and entangling their bodies; Laocoon "tendentem manibus divellere nodos, " and "clamores hor"rendos ad sidera tollentem:" and where it was proper, he varies from the original. As statuary is confined to one single point of time, in the famous group of the Laocoon, in the Vatican, you see the serpents killing him and his two sons together. Poetry has a larger scope; and can describe each step of any action distinctly. Virgil therefore, in his description of the same thing, gives the whole course of it, and every part of it successively. You first see the serpents on the sea; then on the shore; then killing the sons of Laocoon; and lastly killing Laocoon himself. This must make that figure and his description differ in most particulars; and indeed there is scarce any thing in which they agree, except the attitude of Laocoon himself, and the air of his head in which Virgil seems to have copied that statue very strongly. VER. 264. 66 Primusque Machaon, "Et Menelaus; et, ipse doli fabricator, * Epeus." * That there was a tradition in Italy, that Epeus was the builder of the Trojan horse, is manifest from Justin: "Meta "pontini in templo Minervae ferramenta quibus Epeus, à quo "conditi sunt, Equum Trojanum fabricavit, ostentant." Lib. XX. c. ii.—Pliny seems to speak of this horse, as if it was the same with the battering-ram: "Equum, qui nunc Aries "appellatur, in muralibus machinis Epeum ad Trojam inve"nisse dicunt." Nat. Hist. VII. 56. VER. 293-297. "Sacra, suosque tibi commendat Troja Penates: *Dryden, in his dedication to the Aeneis, remarks very judiciously, that a compliment is here paid to Augustus; and that Virgil plainly touches at the office of high-priesthood with which Augustus was invested; and which made his person more sacred and inviolable, than even the Tribunitial power: and that it was not for nothing that this most judicious Poet made that office vacant by the death of Pantheus, ver. 429, for his hero to succeed in it. VER. 351. "Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis "Dii, quibus imperium hoc steterat.”. *This was a general superstitious thought among the old Heathens.-See Curtius, lib. IV. of Apollo's preparing to quit the Tyrians. See also Macrob. Sat. lib. III. c. ix. Plin. lib. XXVIII. c. ii.-Liv. lib. V. VER. 396-401. "Vadimus immixti Danais, haud numine nostro : "Scandunt * rursus equum, et notâ conduntur in alvo." This is more outré than any thing I know of in all the Aeneid. It may be a pretty thought, but it would perhaps better become Lucan than the gravity of Virgil. After the discovery of the trick, the horse was a very improper place to hide in; but indeed Virgil represents them seized," formidine "turpi;" and in such a case people seldom know what they do. VER. 416-418. "Adversi rupto ceu quondam turbine venti "Confligunt, Zephyrusque Notusque, et laetus Eois + The author of Polymetis suspects, from this passage, that Eurus might be sometimes represented by the antient artists, either on horseback, or perhaps in a chariot whirling through the air: The Roman poets, says he, sometimes using the expression in equis, to signify a person's being in a chariot; and so may possibly use Equitare for the same. Flaccus uses an expression of another wind (the north), which seems to imply his being in a chariot: "Fundunt se carcere laeti "Thraces equi; Zephyrusque.' Arg. I. ver. 611. See Pol. XIII. 10.-Horace uses Equitavit of Eurus: "Dirus per urbes Afer ut Italas, "Ceu flamma per taedas, vel Eurus Lib. IV. Od. iv. ver. 44. VER. 431-436. "Iliaci cineres, et flamma extrema meorum, *These circumstances are added very properly. That Dido might not suspect that Aeneas deserted his friends, who were engaged in the same party with him, and ran away, he says: And to prove that it was purely Fate or Providence which protected him, he adds, that the two friends preserved with him were Iphitus and Pelias; the one very old, the other lame; persons very unlikely to escape by flight. We must farther observe, that Divellímur expresses violence, and by it Aeneas declares that, after the loss of so many friends, it was with difficulty and reluctance that he was obliged to retire. " Di"vellimur inde." VER. 567. "Jamque adeo super unus eram," etc. + All this passage (from " Jamque adeo super unus eram," to furiatâ mente ferebar," ver. 588.) is omitted in the Floren. tine manuscript; and no manner of notice taken of it in the margin. *There is a little treatise written by one Franciscus Campanus in the year 1536, and printed at Milan 1540, relating to the 22 disputed verses here," Jamque adeo super unus eram,' etc. where Aeneas tells Dido, that whilst Troy was in flames he discovered Helen at the altar of Vesta; and was so far enraged against her, that in his passion he had thoughts of killing her, had he not been prevented by Venus. These verses are left out of many manuscripts and editions of Virgil; and it is pretended they were struck out by Tucca and Varus, as being inconsistent with the account which Deïphobus gives of Helen in the VIth book. "Me fata mea et scelus exitiale Lacaenae "His mersere malis," etc. This author shews plainly, that by leaving out those 22 verses, the sense and connexion of that part of the poem must utterly be destroyed; and thinks it would be more pardonable to strike out the speech of Deïphobus in the VIth, than those verses in the IId, supposing it necessary to strike out either: but he apprehends no necessity of doing either; both passages, as he thinks, being reconcileable. The account Aeneas gives of Helen being real according to the situation in which he says he himself saw her; and the account Deïphobus gives of her only conjectural, and what he had good reason to suspect, but the truth of which he could not be sure of, being, as he himself declares, fast asleep when the enemy broke in upon him. VER. 681-693. "Manus inter moestorumque ora parentum, 66 laevum.". This is not a poetical ornament, any more than the account of the light seen on Lavinia's hair (Aen. VII. 71-101. posth.) |