Some Passages in Virgil's Eclogues*

A. Hudson-Williams

doi:10.1017/S0009838800041240

Some Passages in Virgil's Eclogues*

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

A. Hudson-Williams

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The expression transuersa tuentibus hircis has been liable to misunderstanding. Conington, Sidgwick, and Page offer no comment; Perret is puzzled; Coleman explains ‘either literally “peeping out of the corner of their eyes” or figuratively “looking askance”; cf. Greek This was too much even for the lusty goats …’; others, e.g. Holtorf, detect humour in the words. A more realistic view was taken by some earlier editors (cf. Forbiger), who saw in the sidelong looks of the goats a sign of envy and desire;

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , May 1980 , pp. 124 - 132

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800041240 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1980

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References

¹ Cf. Saint-Denis, p. 12.

² Gow, A. S. F. (ed.), Theocritus (Cambridge, 1952 ²).Google Scholar

³ Cf. Barigazzi, A., AC 44 (1975), 71.Google Scholar

⁴ In his translation (Loeb, 1921) of Quintilian, who quotes Ecl. 3.8 f. in 9.3.59.

⁵ Gow, A. S. F. and Page, D. L., The Greek Anthology, Hellenistic Epigrams (Cambridge, 1965), i. 212, ii. 586.Google Scholar

⁶ Contrast Claud. Carm. min. 53 (37). 109 ‘oculis auersa tuentibus’ (‘averting his gaze’).

⁷ Mooney, G. W. (ed.), Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica (London and Dublin, 1912), compares Goldsmith, Deserted Village 29, ‘The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love’.Google Scholar

⁸ Cf. TLL s. obliquus 101.46 ff., 102. 25 ff.;s. limus 1427.34 ff.

⁹ ‘te … canet’ cannot mean ‘sing of you’, as generally translated, for the myricae and nemus do nothing of the kind. Varus is the essence of their song through its being dedicated to him (12). (He subsequently appears only in 9.26 f.)

¹⁰ Cf. ‘Love is prominent throughout the Eclogue’, Coleman, p. 204. This idea, rejected by Cartault, A., Etude sur les Bucoliques de V. (Paris, 1897), p. 269,Google Scholar has been developed more recently: cf. Otis, Brooks, Virgil, A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford, 1964), pp. 125 ff.,Google ScholarSegal, C., TAPA 100 (1969), 407 ff.;Google Scholar for a different approach, see Williams, R. D., Virgil, G. & R. New Surveys in the Classics, No. 1 (Oxford, 1967), pp. 12 f., Saint-Denis, p. 70, K.Google ScholarBüchner, , RE viiiA (1955), 1219, ‘Sicher ist die 6. Ekloge ein Lied auf die Macht und die Kurzweiligkeit des Gesanges’.Google Scholar

¹¹ V. uses submoueo three times elsewhere: Aen. 6.316 ‘alios longe summotos arcet harena’, 7.225 f. ‘si quern tellus extrema refuso/summouet Oceano’ (‘separates from us’), 8.193 ‘spelunca … uasto summota recessu’.

¹² Cf. Klingner, F., Virgil, Bucolica, Georg., Aeneis (Zürich and Stuttgart, 1967), who translates 38: ‘und die Wolken sich aufwärts entfernen u. daraus Regen niederfallt’.Google Scholar

¹³ Editors in general seem agreed that atque P, not utque R, is the true reading; Ribbeck, however, reads solem/altius utque.

¹⁴ See TLL s. atque 1049.69 ff. (some dubious instances included), OLD s. atque (init.), Hofm.-Szant. 506.

¹⁵ See Norden, E. (ed.), Virgil, Aeneid 6 (Leipzig, 1927 ³), pp. 402–4, on the inversion of particlesGoogle Scholar (atque p. 402 n. 3Google Scholar). Cf. Plat-nauer, M., Latin Elegiac Verse (Cambridge, 1951), pp. 93–6.Google Scholar

¹⁶ For this reason Lachmann conjectured and read ab in its place.

¹⁷ Viz. serica nam taceo. Norden, , op. cit., p. 403, regards this apparent instance of postponed nam, owing to its being conjectural, as uncertain. Cf., however, the manuscript evidence: V has Sirica nam tacto, the other mss. Si riganam tacto or the like.Google Scholar

¹⁸ For treatment of the legend, see Bomer's, F. commentary on Ovid, , Metamorphoses (Heidelberg, 1969 –), on 6. 412–674 and 669;Google ScholarTarrant, R. J. (ed.), Seneca, Agamemnon (Cambridge, 1976), on 670 ff.;Google Scholar also Owen, S. G. (ed.), Ovid, Tristia 2 (Oxford, 1924), on 2.389. A tragedy Tereus is known to have been written by Sophocles and Philocles, also by Livius Andronicus and Accius.Google Scholar

¹⁹ So Conington; Page; Brandt, P. (ed.), Ovid, Amores (Leipzig, 1911), on 2.6.7;Google ScholarOwen, S. G. on Trist. 2.389;Google ScholarEvenhuis, J. B., De Vergilii ecloga sexta commentatio (Diss. Groningen, 1955), pp. 16–27; cf. Holtorf and Perret. The chief passages invoked in support of their view, in addition to Ecl. 6.78–81, are Georg. 4.511–15, Ov. Am. 2.6.7–10, neither of which convinces, and lines of the late versifier Pentadius, who in Anth. Lat. 234.3 f. makes Procne the mother of Itys, but in 235.7 f. Philomela. The evidence of Eustathius, Horn. Od. 1875, who makes Philomela the wife of Tereus, appears confused and self-contradictory.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cf. Ov. Met. 6.666 ‘nunc sequitur nudo genitas Pandione ferro’, 671–3 ‘ille dolore suo poenaeque cupidine uelox/uertitur in uolucrem, cui stant in uertice cristae, /prominet inmodicum pro longa cuspide rostrum’.

²¹ For the epithet infelix, which Coleman states ‘suits the victim Tereus more than either of the avengers’, cf. Hor. Od. 4. 12. 5 ff. ‘nidum ponit Ityn flebiliter gemens /infelix auis et Cecropiae domus/aeternum opprobrium …’.

²² Cf. Servius on 79: ‘Philomela dapes atqui hoc Procne fecit; sed aut abutitur nomine aut illi inputat, propter quam factum est’; and Philargyrius ‘id est quod fecit Progne, hoc dicit Philomelam fecisse’. The late poet Nemesianus, in Cyneg. 33 f. ‘miratumque rudes se tollere Terea pinnas/ post epulas, Philomela, tuas’, may well have been influenced by our Virgil passage.

²³ The use of the fable by Ennius, Lucilius, and Horace presupposes a close familiarity with these tales on the part of their readers: cf. Hor. Sat. 2.3.299, 2.6.79 ff., Epist. 1.1.73 ff., 1. 3. 18 ff., 1. 10. 34 ff., all of which have counterparts in Phaed-rus, Babrius, or Aesop.

²⁴ (a) of nightingale, woods, trees, etc.: Horn. Od. 19.520, Eur. Hel. 1107, Soph. O.C. 671 ff., [Mel.] Anth. Pal. 9.363.18, Catull. 65.13, Georg. 4.511, Prop. 2.20.6, Ov. Pont. 1.3.39 f., Sen. H.F. 146, [Sen.] H.O. 193, etc. (b) of swallow, roofs, houses, etc.: Mnasalc. A.P. 9.70, Antip. Sid. A.P. 10.2.3 f., [Mel.] A.P. 9.363.17, Georg. 4.14 f., 307, Aen. 12.473 ff., Ov. Fast. 1.158, Trist. 3.12.9 f., Stat. Theb. 8.618 f., 12.479, etc. For details of the birds see D'Arcy Thompson, W., A Glossary of Greek Birds (Oxford, 1936 ²), pp. 16–22, 314–25,Google ScholarTarrant, R. I., op. cit., p. 298.Google Scholar

²⁵ The meaning of ‘quo cursu’ is, perhaps purposely, ambiguous: it could be qua celeritate.

²⁶ For uolitare applied to the flight of the hirundo, cf. Georg. 1.377 ‘arguta lacus circumuolitauit hirundo’ (Arat. Phaen. 944 ), Plin. N.H. 18.363 ‘hirundo … iuxta aquam uolitans’.

²⁷ Significant is Conington's comment (on 80): ‘The description of the bird flying round the house might seem to point to the swallow [V. following the Greek version] … but this would not suit deserta petiuerit. … Here the ambiguity is certainly awkward, and looks like a confusion of the habits of the nightingale and swallow’.

²⁸ Catullus, A Commentary (Oxford, 1961), p. 274.Google Scholar

²⁹ There is no comfort to be found in Theocr. Epigr. 20, where is credited with the erection of a tomb for his deceased nurse (in the comparable epigram, Callim. Ep. 51, is a proper name). Nor do I find relevance in [Theocr.] Id. 8.64, sometimes cited here by critics, where the boy shepherd appeals to the wolf's better nature,