[219] Nearly repeated 6. 124. The touching of the altar added solemnity, 12. 201.
[221] Bona fama occurs Cic. pro Sest. 66.
[222] Imitated from Od. 5. 28 foll., where Zeus sends Hermes to recall Ulysses from the island of Calypso. There is little or no resemblance between the two speeches: but in the subsequent description Virg. closely copies his master. For ‘tum’ some MSS. have ‘tunc,’ which was the old reading.
[223] Vade age, βάσκ᾽ ἴθι. ‘Voca Zephyros’ may seem to make Mercury too dependent on the breezes, as if he were a sailor; but it may be answered that as a god he has the power of nature at his command, and that it would be no proof of divine strength to refuse to employ them. The words indeed, even when used of human navigators, seem simply to mean that the breezes are at a call: comp. 3. 253., 5. 211., 8. 707. The line is of course modulated so as to express speed.
[225] No authentic instance is quoted of this use of ‘exspectare’ as simply = “morari,” though ‘exspectare’ with an object or object clause is sufficiently common. But this need not drive us to Jahn's harsh expedient of supplying ‘urbes’ from the next clause: ‘he looks for a city at Carthage and regards not that which the fates promise him.’ ‘Datas,’ not, as Heyne and Forb., foreshown, but assigned. See 3. 255.
[226] It is not casy to see the force of ‘celeris,’ which in a connexion like this can hardly be an unmeaning epithet, repeated as it is below v. 357; but the notion may be that the breezes accelerate Mercury's flight (see above v. 223), though ‘per’ regards them rather as the medium through which he flies.
[227] Wund. remarks on the skill with which Virg. has avoided the awkwardness of an oratio obliqua. With the form of expression ‘non illum talem promisit,’ comp. 11. 152. Pal (originally) and some other MSS. have ‘genetrix nobis;’ and so Ribbeck.
[228] Bis can only refer to the two deliverances of Aeneas with which Venus is associated, that from Diomede (Il. 5. 311 foll.), and that from the Greeks at the sack of Troy (A. 2. 589 &c.). The deliverance from Achilles would form a better parallel to the deliverance from Diomede, but it was accomplished by Neptune, not by Venus; the deliverance from the destruction of Troy under Laomedon would answer more completely to the deliverance from the second destruction of Troy (comp. 3. 476, with Wagn.), but there is no reason to suppose that Aeneas was born when it took place. If ‘vindicat’ is any thing more than a poetical past, we may explain it by saying that the effects of the preservation still continue.
[229] The construction is resumed from ‘promisit.’ ‘Gravidam inperiis’ has been variously explained; as ‘gravidam inperatoribus’ (Serv.), which Heyne justly rejects as weak, as ‘the parent of future empire,’ and as ‘teeming with masterful nations.’ Virg. probably meant to include both of the latter interpretations. That he was thinking of the future of Italy is shown by the word ‘gravidam’ and by the whole context, as the temper of the Italian nations at the time of Aeneas' arrival was a matter of infinitely small moment compared with the destiny in store for them: at the same time it was the imperious and unbridled character of those nations which marked them out as instruments in the conquest of the world after they should have been conquered themselves, first by Aeneas and eventually by Rome, so that Italy could be said to be not only the future mother of empire, but actually teeming with it at the moment when Jupiter was speaking. The plural may be used with reference to these various nations, but it need be nothing more than a poetical hyperbole, expressing the everincreasing sway which Virg. saw before him. So 8. 475, “Sed tibi ego ingentis populos opulentaque regnis Iungere castra paro,” where one thought in the poet's mind seems to be the material afforded by the Etruscans for a great empire. With the expression comp. “gravidam bellis urbem” 10. 87.
[230] ‘Should hand down a line which has Teucer for its first founder,’ ‘prodere’ having the sense of “porro dare, id est, tradere quasi per manus, propagare:” see Forc.
[231] Sub leges = ‘sub inperium.’ Forb. comp. the expression ‘sub iugum mittere.’ Aeneas is said to do what Rome ultimately did.
[232] See on 6. 405.
[233] Super sua laude is the same construction which we have had 1. 750: here however the sense of ‘de’ is extended into that of ‘pro,’ perhaps on the analogy of ὑπέρ. The introduction of ‘ipse’ between ‘super’ and ‘sua’ is also Greek, πρὸς αὐτὸς αὑτοῦ, but it occurs elsewhere in Latin, being especially used by Ovid, who, as Wagn. remarks, finds it convenient in making a pentameter, e. g. Ep. 12. 18, “Ut caderet cultu cultor ab ipse suo.” ‘Moliri laborem’ is merely to take trouble.
[234] Comp. vv. 354, 355 below. ‘Romanas arces:’ see on G. 2. 172.
[235] Inimica, as under Juno's patronage, and as the destined opponent of Rome's supremacy. The later editors rightly put a comma after ‘moratur,’ so as to connect it with ‘nec respicit.’ The expression thus becomes exactly parallel to that in v. 225.
[236] Prolem Ausoniam is the same as ‘genus alto a sanguine Teucri’ regarded from another side. There we were to think of Rome as derived from Troy: here we are to think of it as the representative of Italian greatness. So ‘Lavinia arva’ points out the new kingdom.
[237] Haec summa est, as we should say, this is the point; in this ‘naviget’ every thing is concentrated. So “summa belli” 12. 572 is the centre, the head and front of the war. ‘Hic nuntius’ is taken with Wagn., after the older commentators, “be thou our herald of this message.” ‘Hic’ = “de hac re,” as “ea signa” 2. 170 note = “signa eius rei.” Val. Fl. 2. 142 has “utinam non hic tibi nuntius essem,” though there ‘hic’ may be meant to be adverbial, as it is a goddess who is speaking. But Heyne, Forb., and Gossrau may be right in taking ‘nuntius’ of the tidings or message, as, though there is no certain instance of this use of the word in Virg., it might have that meaning in 6. 456., 7. 437., 8. 582., 9. 692., 11. 897. With ‘nostri nuntius’ Wagn. comp. “imago mei” below v. 654.
[238-258] ‘Mercury obeys, puts on his sandals, takes his magic wand, and flies forth. He halts on Atlas, the mountain of eternal storm and snow, and thence plunges down to the sea like a waterfowl.’
