[700] “Casu concussus iniquo” 6. 475.
[701] “Ingentis curas” 1. 208.
[702] For ‘mutabat’ two MSS. give ‘motabat,’ which would be more consistent with ‘nunc huc, nunc illuc.’ But Virg. has chosen to combine the two notions of changing cares, i.e. entertaining one anxious thought after another, and moving cares, anxious thoughts, to one quarter or the other, so as to give ‘mutare’ the sense of changing the place of a thing, or as we say, shifting it, much as he talks 3. 581 of “mutet latus,” where some copies have “motet.” For a somewhat similar confusion see on 4. 285, 286. Thus ‘motabat,’ like ‘nutabat,’ Peerlkamp's conj., would only make the passage less Virgilian. ‘Versans’ 4. 286, 630, here taken closely with ‘mutabat,’ the clauses that follow depending on both words.
[703] “‘Fatorum,’ oraculorum,” Serv. This is perhaps the neater explanation; but the ordinary sense of ‘fatorum’ would stand very well. We must remember that Latin poets did not distinguish the meanings of words in their own minds as sharply as modern critics are obliged to do in their lexicons. “Italiam capessere” 4. 346.
[704] This Nautes was said to have been the priest of Pallas, and to have carried the Palladium away from Troy into Italy, whence it passed to his descendants, the family of the Nautii at Rome. See Dionys. H. 6. 69. Serv. refers to Varro's treatise ‘De Familiis Troianis’ (see on v. 117). ‘Unus’ in the sense of ‘singled out from the rest’ is generally found in Virg. combined with some other words which denote the relative character of the pre-eminence. Comp. 1. 15., 2. 426., 12. 143.
[706, 707] Ruhkopf is, I think, right in regarding, as Gossrau and Henry have done, these lines as parenthetical, to explain the nature of the power given by Pallas to Nautes. The tense of ‘dabat’ and the clauses ‘vel quae,’ &c. are so plainly general that it would be far less tolerable to force them into any other sense than to submit to the harshness of an anacoluthon in ‘Isque’ v. 708, taking up the sentence unfinished in vv. 704, 705. Henry well expands the meaning: “Pallas was in the habit of answering him as to both of the great classes into which all future events were divisible, not only as to those fixed and immutable events which were decreed by the fates, that class of events to which for instance Aeneas' arrival in Italy and establishment of a great empire there belonged, but as to those, if I may so say, uncertain and precarious events which were produced by the special intervention of offended deities, that class of events of which the storm in the First Book and all Aeneas' subsequent misfortunes afford examples.” For this division of events he (after Gossrau) comp. Claudian, De Bello Getico v. 171 (speaking of the irruption of the barbarians into Thrace), “seu fata vocabant, Seu gravis ira deum, seriem meditata ruinis.” There is still however an unexplained difficulty about the expression. The sense would seem to require that we should supply some antecedent for ‘quae’ from the sentence itself, ‘responsa dabat (de iis), vel quae,’ &c., or regard ‘quae’ as acc. pl. of ‘quis.’ But I believe Virg. meant ‘quae’ to be connected with ‘responsa,’ speaking of the responses as portended by the wrath of heaven or demanded by the order of fate, to show how completely the responses represented and were identified with the events. The events or responses are said to be portended by the wrath of the gods, whereas we should rather expect to hear that the wrath of the gods was itself portended by supernatural appearances: but though ‘portendere’ seems generally to bear the latter meaning, the substantive ‘portentum’ is quite in accordance with the former. ‘Responsum dare’ occurs elsewhere, as in E. 1. 44, of a god giving forth a response to those who consulted him, but there can be no reason why it should not be used also of suggesting a response to another which he is to give forth. Ribbeck reads ‘hac’ after Dietsch, from one of his cursives. ‘Ordo’ of the fates 3. 376. ‘Poscere’ of the fates 4. 614., 7. 272., 8. 12, 477.
[708] Solatus: see on G. 1. 293. ‘Infit’ probably with ‘his vocibus,’ like “talibus infit” 10. 860. Döderlein (Syn. 3. 160) remarks that Livy is the only prose writer who uses the word, and that only in the early and, so to say, poetical part of his history.
[709] This and the next line have been cited on v. 22 above as parallel. If there is any special significance in ‘trahunt retrahuntque,’ it would seem to be ‘Whether the fates draw us towards Italy, as they have hitherto done, or apparently repel us from it, as by this late visitation, let us follow them in either case—in the one by prosecuting our voyage, in the other by leaving behind us those who have shown themselves unfit for the enterprise, or whose means of transport have been destroyed.’
[710] The sentiment is general, not, as Wagn. thinks, confined to the special occasion of the burning of the ships. ‘Every contingency, whether it help us to a fixed point or turn us back from it, is to be surmounted not by resistance but by submission.’ ‘Quidquid erit’ then will mean not ‘whatever be the issue of this portent,’ but simply ‘whatever may happen,’ nearly the same thing which is expressed by ‘omnis.’ Serv. comp. 2. 77, “fuerit quodcumque,” where however the sense is probably different.
[711] ‘Acestes, like you, is a Trojan, and, like you, of divine lineage.’ Comp. v. 38 above, where both sides of his descent are given.
[712] For ‘consiliis’ some MSS. have ‘consilii,’ but the dat. is more poetical, without raising the question about this form of the genitive. With ‘coniunge’ Forb. comp. “socium summis adiungere rebus” 9. 199. ‘Volentem:’ Nautes guarantees Acestes' readiness to act.
[713] Superant = “supersunt.” The meaning is, those whom the loss of the ships has rendered superfluous, i. e. the crews of the four burnt vessels.
[714] ‘Those who have begun to tire of the vastness of the enterprise and of following your fortunes.’
[715] “‘Longaevosque senes:’ ita dixit Tibull. 1. 8. 50 ‘veteres senes.’ Neque tamen ea est abundantia verborum.” Gossrau, rightly, if he means that in both passages the idea of old age is intended to be specially dwelt on and enforced. ‘Fessas aequore matres’ v. 615 above.
[716] The neuter is used, perhaps rather slightingly, as in 1. 601.
[718] Permisso, not, as Serv. thinks, by Acestes, but, as explained by Cerda (who however himself reads ‘promisso’ from Rom. (?) and others), by Aeneas as a compliment to Acestes. Thus the line will be equivalent to “Permitte ut appellent urbem Acestam.” The city is the same as Segesta or Egesta, the name of Acestes being otherwise given as Egestus: see on v. 38 above.
[719-745] ‘This advice perplexes Aeneas all the more, when that night Anchises appears to him in a dream, bids him follow Nautes' counsel, and tells him that before landing in Latium he is to visit him in the shades and learn the future.’
