[41] attenuat arboris umbram: that the sun may reach and ripen the grapes. Attempts have been made by various critics to rearrange vv. 38-42 so as to produce a more consistent picture by bringing together details that concern the same objects; but there seems to be no good reason for criticising the alternation of the description between the tasks which men performed alone and those in which cattle shared (after the general statement made in v. 38 that men and beasts ceased from toil).
Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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