"tua ossa: quod sanè mirum ducerem, nisi quod nihil mirum "habendum est in poëmate tam imperfecto." See Markland's Statius, lib. III. 127. This critic ought to have been sure that this was a blunder in Virgil, not in himself, before he brought so severe a charge against him as he does in this place, and likewise at the latter end of his preface. For my part I see no absurdity in the passage. Virgil makes the Sybil comfort Palinurus by assuring him that the people bordering on the shore, where he was murdered, should be persecuted by judgments from heaven, throughout all the cities of their territories; and be therefore compelled to expiate his death, and to perform his funeral rites, and erect a monument to his memory. Supposing Virgil to have said finitimi simply, without any other addition, this word, strictly speaking, might have meant only the nearest inhabitants; perhaps a few fishermen in their huts: but Virgil is to be understood in a larger sense. All Lucania suffered for the death of Palinurus, as appears by the passage quoted on this occasion by Mr. Markland from Servius. Therefore Finitimi must here mean, not barely the inhabitants next immediately adjoining, but the whole people of the adjoining province, who were punished throughout all their districts, far and near, which Virgil expresses by "Longè la"tèque per urbes." VER. 412-416. "Simul accipit alveo "Ingentem Aeneam. Gemuit sub pondere cymba * See Montfaucon, tom. IV. part. II. 1. ii. c. 2.-Leather boats are now used in several places in England and Wales, and called Coracles. But Lucan tells us, that the boats used by the Aegyptians, when the Nile overflowed, were made of Papyrus: "Sic cum tenet omnia Nilus, "Conseritur bibulâ Memphitis cymba papyro." Lib. IV. 135. And as it is generally allowed that the poets in their stories concerning the infernal regions alluded to customs in Aegypt, it is probable that Virgil chooses the same sort of boat as was used on the Nile. VER. 417-423. "Cerberus haec ingens latratu regna trifauci "Personat, adverso recubans immanis in antro. "Cui vates, horrere videns jam colla colubris, 66 Objicit: ille fame rabidâ † tria guttura pandens, "Corripit objectam; atque immania terga resolvit "Fusus humi, totoque ingens extenditur antro." † So Ovid; "Nec uti villosa colubris "Terna Medusaei vincirem gutturą monstri." Met. X. ver. 22. (of Orpheus). And Horace; "Cessit immanis tibi blandienti "Janitor aulae "Cerberus: quamvis furiale centum "Ore trilingui." Lib. III. Od. xi. ver. 2. (of Mercury's great descent into hell). He is also represented with snakes about his neck, in the Vatican Virgil. See Pol. pl. XXXVII. i, and XXXVIII. i. VER. 434-437. "Proxima deinde tenent moesti loca: qui sibi letum * Projicere signifies properly to cast off or throw away as vile and contemptible.See Lucan, VI. 626. "Corpora caesorum tumulis projecta negatis ;" and in many other places. VER. 459-462. "Per sidera juro, "Per superos, et si qua fides tellure sub imâ est, "Invitus, regina, tuo de litore cessi: "Sed me jussa Deûm, quae * nunc has ire per umbras, "Per loca senta situ cogunt noctemque profundam, 66 Imperiis egêre suis.”. * A fine thought is couched here, for this insinuates to Dido, that leaving her was hell to him; and that only those powers which sent him hither could have forced him to quit her. VER. 570-579. "Continuò sontes ultrix accincta flagello 66 Tisiphone quatit insultans: tortosque sinistrâ "Intentans angues, vocat agmina saeva sororum. 4 Bis patet in praeceps tantùm, tenditque sub umbras; "Quantus ad aethereum caeli suspectus Olympum." * This break is wrong. Virgil does not intend to open the gates of hell to give his hero a view of the horrid scene within, as some of the commentators understand it; but means, that after the criminals are tried and found guilty, they are conducted by the Furies to the gates, which open to receive them. The scene is described by Sibylla. Fiercer than the common Hydra, the Bellua Lernae; which he places without; "primis in faucibus Orci." Ver. 273 et 287, anteh. + Homer makes it as far from earth to hell downwards, as it is upwards from earth to heaven: it has been observed, that two of the best Poets since have enlarged it gradually, Virgil to twice, and Milton to thrice that depth: but, if I mistake not, Hesiod of old has carried the mind further than either of them: it would please you to see how exact he is in his mea"An anvil," says he, will be nine days complete in falling from heaven to earth; and as many in falling from 66 our earth to Tartarus." Oεoy. ver 722. -This is the distance from us to the gates of Tartarus only: he afterwards carries the mind much farther, in this description: sures: "There lie the treasures of the stormy deep وو EOY. 744 p. 253. From Essay on Mr. Pope's Odyssey; Evening V. VER. 601-607. "Quid memorem Lapithas, Ixiona, Pirithoümque? "Quos super atra silex jamjam lapsura, cadentique "Imminet assimilis. Lucent genialibus altis 66 66 Accubat, et manibus prohibet contingere mensas; It appears from Statius, that this Fury (whom Virgil does not name) was Megaera. "Ultrix tibi torva Megaera "Jejunum Phlegyam, subter cava saxa jacentem, Theb. I. ver. 715. Virgil on this occasion calls her Furiarum maxima; which may signify either a chief, or the chief, of the Furies; but, considering her sisters' characters (who are, at least, her equals), I think it should be taken in the former sense here. VER, 656-659. "Conspicit ecce alios dextrâ laevâque per herbam This is, I think, the most pleasing idea in all Virgil's Elysium: and, possibly, he had an eye in it to the famous valley of Tempe in Thessaly, reckoned the most delightful spot in the whole world; and beautified, in particular, by the fall of the river Peneus, from mount Pindus; with woods on each side of it. (See Ovid's Met. lib. I. ver. 568 to 572.) May I add another conjecture here, which would yet give farther beauty to this part in Virgil's Elysium? It is, that he may possibly mean, that the groves on each side of his cascade are groves of orange-trees; and consequently as pleasing in their smell as in their look. Orange-trees were first brought into Italy in Virgil's time. As they were so As they were so lately introduced among them, the Romans had as yet no name for them; and it is therefore that Virgil, where he is supposed by some very good judges to speak of this tree in his Georgics, is forced to point it out, by a good deal of circumlocution; and by describing it very particularly. It is a tree which, according to his account, was brought into Italy from Media, whose fruit had a sharp, sour taste; he says, that it was very good for the stomach and breath, and an excellent remedy against infections and poisons; that it was a large tree (as the orange-trees are much larger in Italy than with us, and much larger in Media than in Italy); that the leaf of it was very much like the leaf of the laurel; but that it was distinguished from the laurel, by its lasting flowers, and by the fine perfume that they cast all around it. (Georg. lib. II. ver. 126 to 135.) As they had then no distinct name for orange-trees, Virgil may here call them laurels, from their likeness to that tree; but, at the same time, he takes care to distinguish them from the common laurel, by mentioning the most striking character of them, their fine smell: "Odoratum "lauri nemus." VER. 660-665. "Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi; 66 Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo : "Omnibus his niveâ cinguntur tempora * vittâ.” * Canini, in his Iconografia, plate XXVII, on Homer's medals, observes thus: "Tiene il capello ligato da una fascia.-Era questa fascia di lana candida, come si comprende dalle parole "di Platone quando vuole che nella sua republica non si riceva "il Poeta; ma si bene, come cosa maravigliosa s'honori, spar"gendovi sopra il capo unguenti odoriferi e coronandoli di "Iana. Unguentum in caput ejus effundentes, lanâque coro"nantes.' And then adds, "Virgilio dice portarsi questa "candida banda in segno di celeste honore:" and quotes these verses; "Quique Sacerdotes," etc. ઈ VER. 719-721. "O pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandum est "Sublimes animas? iterumque ad tarda reverti 66 Corpora? quae + lucis miseris tam dira cupido?" This may shew that Virgil had nobler notions of life and death than Homer; as Lucan has nobler than either of them. 66 VER. 724-727. * Principio caelum, ac terras, camposque liquentes, "Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra "Spiritus intus alit; totamque infusa per artus "Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet." *See Dr. Trapp's excellent remarks on this place, ver. 933 of his translation. |