"help. I can delay at least the bridal—the dowry shall be two peoples' 'blood-a second Hecuba has borne another firebrand!']

286. Inachiis ab Argis. Argos in Peloponnese, one of the oldest cities in Greece where Here (identified with Latin Iuno) was specially worshipped. Its chief hero was Inachus, supposed first king of it; who also gave his name to the Argolic river Inachus. [Vergil here and VI. 838 uses form Argi for Argos.]

Iuno is supposed to be returning from Argos, one of her cities, to Carthage, which was another ('Carthago...quam Iuno fertur terris magis omnibus unam...coluisse', Aen. 1. 13).

287. saeva, 'in wrath', as seeing what was coming.

auras invecta tenebat, and holding her airy way' [lit. 'and was holding the air, riding upon it '], the participle completing the idea of the verb; a Greek usage.

289. ab usque, even from' ('all the way from', as ad usque= even to').

Siculo Pachyno, the southern prom. of Sicily, exactly in the line from Argos to Carthage; she looks north, and being a goddess sees what the Trojans are doing in Latium, 400 miles away.

290. moliri, 127.

293. fatis contraria nostris fata Phrygum, a curious notion, as though each side had their own fates which struggled for mastery. Iuno as the protectress of Argos struggled against the Trojans (Phryges) in the Trojan war; as the protectress of Carthage she resented the desertion and death of Dido (Aen. IV.). It was the fortunes of these cities she calls her fates'.

294. Sigeis, 'Trojan', from Sigeum, prom. of Troad at mouth of Hellespont.

num...potuere, 'Can it be they fell..., the prisoners were taken? Did the fires of Troy consume her sons?' This effective rhetorical turn-the past dangers seeming incredible, if they have escaped all--is borrowed from Ennius:

quae neque Dardaniis campis potuere perire

nec cum capta capi, nec cum combusta cremari'.

297, At, credo,... but methinks my power is worn out', &c., ironical; then, dropping the irony, quin etiam, &c., 'nay, I dared to follow with my wrath the outcasts', &c.

299. quin etiam is often used to add a further point, or strengthen an incomplete phrase or description. 'incredibile est quantum scribam die: quin etiam noctibus', Cic. Att. 13. 15. [So quin, 321.]

[It is better to take it so, ausa being a verb, than to make it a partic. constr. with quievi, as Con., which does not suit quin etiam.]

302. Syrtes were two great gulfs [σúp-w,' draw '] in north coast of Africa; supposed dangerous from currents and quicksands [brevia et Syrtes, A. I. 111].

Scylla and Charybdis, two dangerous rocks mentioned in Odyssey, and supposed to lie between Italy and Sicily; in one dwelt the monster Scylla who barked like a dog and had six heads, and devoured sailors in the other a mysterious force that sucked down and threw up the

waters. In III. 420 Helenus the seer foretells that Aeneas will pass there, and describes the two.

303. alveo, 33.

304. securi pelagi, at peace from ocean and from me': gen. of reference, which Vergil uses widely, partly no doubt in imitation of Greek (so securus amorum, X. 326).

305. Iuno recalls cases where other gods were allowed to wreak their anger to the full.

The Lapithae were a Thessalian tribe, ruled by Peirithous; to his marriage-feast came the Centaurs, monsters, half-men, half-horse, who, fired by wine and urged on by Ares (Mars), had a bloody battle with the Lapithae, who (according to this version) were defeated.

Calydon, Aetolian town, whose king Oeneus neglected once to sacrifice to Diana (Artemis); she thereupon sent a boar to ravage the palace.

307. quod scelus...merentem, the partic. continues the construction of the accusatives in the previous sentence, and merentem is singular, to agree with the last. The phrase is strained, after Vergil's manner, meaning: 'what guilt incurring', but scelus is properly the act, and mereor properly would be used with paena.

309. potui, 'have deigned'.

311. usquam, because of the neg. 'There is no power anywhere I would spurn to beseech'. Observe the conditional subjunct. dubitem after sunt; the change is due to a substitution of the milder subj. ('I should') for the natural future ('I will '). In the next line the natural and strict form of condit. reappears.

312. Acheronta, 91. The whole passage, and especially this famous line, is full of rhetorical force and power.

313. esto, be it so'. A vivid way of saying 'if'.

314. Lavinia coniunx, 'And Lavinia remains fixed by fate his bride', coniunx predic.

315. trahere, 'to drag (it) out', 'drag on', delay.

317. hac mercede suorum, at this price of their own folk'; the suorum really explains the mercede, gen. of equivalence, like 'the Book of Job', 'the play of Antigone'.

318. Rutuli were a neighbouring tribe in Latium, whose king Turnus was a suitor of Lavinia, and who ultimately joins Latinus in war against Aeneas.

319. Bellona, goddess of war, one of the abstract deities which the Roman native worship was full of, see 180.

'Bellona awaits thee to aid thy bridal'; pronuba was the woman who made arrangements for the bride; and as a divine office it belonged to Iuno herself who aided the love of Aeneas and Dido (pronuba Iuno, A. IV. 166.).

320. Cisseis. Hecuba, wife of Priam, king of Troy, dreamt that she was to be delivered of a firebrand, just before she gave birth to Paris. Paris fulfilled the dream by stealing Helen from Sparta, and so lighting up the Trojan war. Cisseis because Hecuba was (by one account) daughter of Cisseus. The sense is: 'not Hecuba alone (pregnant with a brand) brought forth a nuptial flame'. The 'nuptial

flame' is the union of Paris and Helen, which brought about the woe. There is a very Vergilian mixture here of the figure and the thing figured.

321. 'Nay Venus has like offspring of her own, a second Paris, again the torch bringing death upon the new-risen Troy'.

Aeneas (son of Venus) is of course the new Paris; and taedae is best taken as an apposition to partus; Aeneas was the torch, just as Paris was Hecuba's firebrand. funestae in Pergama, a variation for the dative.

taeda and fax, both naturally suggesting marriage-torch, and the hand of the princess in each case being the prize contended for, whence come the fighting and woe, there is an effective double sense running through the passage: the firebrand which burns, and the fatal marriage-torch.

Pergama, the citadel of Troy; Greek name.

[323-340. She descends to earth, and calls the Fury Allecto to help her to retrieve her honour, and stir up strife, and prevent the Trojans from settling peacefully in Italy.]

324. Allecto [Greek accus. of Greek_name άŋкт, 'unceasing '] one of the Furies or Dread Goddesses. In the Greek tragedians their number is uncertain and unspecified; later they are three, Allecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera. Vergil (A. XII. 845) describes their office and appearance.

326. cordi, are pleasing'. This is an old locative, and originally was used thus: hoc mihi est cordi, 'I have this at heart,' i.e. this is pleasing to me'.

327. Pluton [Greek form, Пourwv], god of the nether world.

328. Tartareae. Tartarus [reduplic. from TAR- 'to bore', and means the Great Pit], Greek name for the black and dread chasm of the lower world, where all evil things are.

329. pullulat atra colubris, so thick the black snakes sprout'. A common representation of the Furies was with snakes for hair. 331. proprium, after thine heart' (M).

332. cedat loco, 'give place'.

333 conubiis ambire, lit. beset with marriage'. Vergilian pregnant phrase for 'win over by request for marriage'.

335. unanimos, predic. ' with one consent'.

336. versare, vex': the verbera (‘stripes', by a variation for 'whips'), and the faces are the regular imaginative accompaniments of

the Furies.

337. mille, obvious poetic exaggeration, as when the shrine of Apollo (VI. 43) has a hundred broad passages'; or a man throws a stone (x. 128) 'no small part of a mountain'; or the ship Tigris (x. 167) carries a thousand youths'.

339. crimina belli. Vergilian strained and forcible phrase for complaints the seed of strife'.

340. velit, poscat, rapiat, three stages of the rapid growth (simul) of the mischief (jussive subj.).

[341-372. Allecto seeks out Amata the queen and hurls a snake into her bosom; she appeals at first gently to Latinus not to sacrifice

his daughter to the Phrygian robber. Turnus is of foreign blood, if a foreign suitor is required for his daughter.]

341. Gorgons were winged she-monsters with teeth and claws and snaky hair. Even their aspect was fatal, changing the beholder to

stone.

343. Amata, wife of Latinus.

344. Observe Greek rhythm, as so often with the Greek word hymenaeis. So 358.

345. coquebant, were fretting', 'vexing'. By similar metaphors we talk of boiling with rage', being in a ferment', and (vulgarly) 'being in a stew'.

346. huic, dative after conicit by a variation of construction. caeruleis, 'steely', the cold blue of a snake.

347. subdit ad, pregnant, 'sets it...to steal into her heart'.

subdo is one of the words which contain not the element DA- 'to give' (dídwμ), but DHA- 'to put' (Ti0ŋμ). So abdo, condo, indo. Some of the compounds contain both, by converging lines.

348. quo furibunda...monstro, 'that she maddened by this bane', the snake. (The subj. due to final sense of qui.)

350. fallitque furentem, terse phrase maddened her unfelt', lit. 'escaped notice of her raving'. This use of fallo is like Greek λαθεῖν, and so the Augustans are fond of it.

351. collo, abl. of place, like membris, 353.

354. 'And while first the plague sinks in with dark venom and steeps her sense and wraps her bones with fire'; a very elaborate but effective description.

358. [nata. Others read (with good MSS.) natae, gen. after hymenaeis; but the construction would be harsh. His daughter and the Phrygian marriage' is much more like Vergil.]

359. datur, vivid present for fut. 'dost thou give Lavinia for a bride?'

361. with the first north wind', i.e. to go back whence he came. 363. at non sic penetrat, 'why, did not thus... reach'. Scornful use of at. penetrat, historic present.

The Phrygian shepherd' is of course Paris ('Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms were wound about thee', &c. Oenone). Lacedaemona, where Menelaus was king, and whence Paris stole Helen.

364. Ledaea, Helen being daughter of Leda. The story is well known how Zeus appeared to Leda as a swan, and how she laid two eggs, from one of which came Helen, from the other Castor and Pollux. 366. consanguineo, Turnus is said to be son of Venilia (x. 76), sister of Amata.

368. sedet, 'is fixed' (611). premunt, 'urge', 'force'.

372. Inachus Acrisiusque, two kings of Argos (for In. see 286); the latter father of Danae, who afterwards according to the story came to Italy and founded Ardea, Turnus' city, and wedded Pilumnus, grandfather of Turnus. See line 410.

Mycenae, 222.

[373-405. The poison working further, she goes frantic through the city, like a top lashed by boys. Then like a Bacchanal she carries

off her daughter to the woods with cries; the matrons follow her and the contagious fury spreads.]

374. contra stare, firm withstands her'.

375. malum, 'the plague', i.e. the venom; unusual word for effect, after his manner.

376. monstris, a vague impressive word, 'horrors', 'dreadful things'; he means strange fury and wild thoughts.

377. sine more, 'unrestrained'. Vergilian phrase, slightly stretching mos. lymphata, maddened'. The origin of this meaning is ob scure; but probably a connection was felt between lympha and the Greek vuun, a 'nymph' or spirit; and the Greek 'spirit-possessed' (vνμþóληπтos), meaning 'distracted', 'frenzied', was reproduced in lymphatus, lympho, lymphaticus. The real origin of lympha, 'water', is however most likely quite different: from LAMP-, 'to shine': and the false derivation has perhaps influenced the spelling. Cf. limpidus. 378. For the simile see Preface.

381. spatiis, 'course'; a suggestion of the races in the word, no doubt.

inscia inpubesque manus, silly throng of boys'.

382. mirata, wondering'. Vergil uses the past part. of the deponent verbs so (as though in imitation of Greek aor.) with no notion of pastness in them: so per aequora vectis (G. 1. 206), cantu solata laborem (ib. 293), laetis operatus in herbis (ib. 339).

383. dant animos, give life' to the top, of course.

385. simulato numine Bacchi, 'feigning the power of Bacchus', a somewhat obscure phrase, meaning that she imitates the mad frenzy of the Bacchanals, being really maddened by Allecto.

388. thalamum, 'chamber', often by a slight stretch for 'bridal', here practically for the bride herself.

389. euhoe, the Greek evoî, the Bacchic exclamation.

solum te virgine, &c. By the use of te, tibi, he half identifies himself with Amata, as though he were addressing Bacchus too, and so subtly heightens the effect.

390. sumere, orat. obliq. 'that to thee (in thy honour) she takes the......' The obliq. orat. is led up to by vociferans, 255. The subject of sumere is 'the maiden'.

thyrsus (Greek word), a rod wound round at the top with ivy or vine leaves; the regular wand of the Bacchanals.

391. lustro, prop. 'to purify' with offerings, &c. : then more generally, 'to do homage', 'worship', 'honour'.

crinem, the worshippers often cherished a sacred lock' to Bacchus. 393. nova quaerere tecta, the fury driving them distracted about the place (the infin. after notion of desire, as often in Vergil).

394. dant colla, they bare their necks' as well as loose their hair.

396. pellibus: the fawn-skin was another mark of the Bacchanals. pampineis, vine-bound', see 390.

397. pinum, a pine torch'.

398. canit, i long, prob. an antiquarianism, Vergil often recurring to the older quantities. So IX. 9, sedemque petit Euandri.