[450] Exterrita, maddened, as in G. 3. 149, 434, A. 12. 460.
[451] It has been asked why should Dido pray for death when it was in her own power: as if the resolution of selfdestruction were not likely to be preceded by an intense yearning for death, finding vent in prayer. ‘To look on the light’ is elsewhere a synonyme for living, but here it has its full force: the very sight of day is a weariness to her. ‘Caeli convexa’ like “supera convexa” 6. 241 &c.
[452] Lucem relinquere 10. 855, of dying. Enn. A. 3. fr. 3 has “Postquam lumina sis oculis bonus Ancu' reliquit,” and the expression occurs more than once in Lucr.
[453] The connexion of the tenses is not strictly accurate, as with ‘vidit’ following we should have expected ‘perageret,’ ‘relinqueret:’ but the same latitude which allows the present to be used historically for the past in the indicative is extended to the other moods. A similar confusion is found in prose: “Helvetii legatos ad Caesarem mittunt, qui dicerent, sibi esse in animo iter per provinciam facere, propterea quod aliud iter nullum haberent: rogare ut eius voluntate id sibi facere liceat,” Caes. B. G. 1. 7, quoted by Madv. § 382, obs. 3. Here the irregularity is further justified by the structure of the sentence, the reader thinking, as doubtless the writer thought of v. 451, and so being prepared to find the present continued. ‘Inponeret’ 1. 49 note. ‘Turicremis aris’ is from Lucr. 2.353, as Macrob. Sat. 6. 5 observes.
[455] ‘Obscenus’ seems here to combine the notion of evil omen (G. 1. 470） with that of foulness. This portent is said by Val. Max. 1. 6, ext. 1, to have happened to Xerxes.
[456] Heyne rightly remarks on Dido's silence as showing the intensity of her desperation. Sophocles noted the phenomenon long ago, Ant. 1251 ἥ τ᾽ ἄγαν σιγὴ βαρὺ Δοκεῖ προσεῖναι χἠ μάτην πολλὴ βοή, Oed. R. 1074 δέδοιχ᾽ ὅπως Μὴ ᾿κ τῆς σιωπῆς τῆσδ᾽ ἀναρρήξει κακά. In fragm. Vat. and some others ‘est’ is added after ‘sorori.’
[457] This erection of a chapel to the Di Manes of Sychaeus is doubtless one of the instances in which Virg. transfers the customs of his own time to the heroic ages. Ovid however follows and almost repeats him (Her. 7. 99 foll.).
[458] Antiqui = “prioris,” as in v. 633 below.
[459] It may be questioned whether ‘revinctum’ is nom. or acc. The latter is perhaps more probable, as the dressing of the altar would be part of the honour paid. ‘Vellera’ are woollen fillets. ‘Festa fronde’ 2. 249. The application of the word here may remind us of the difference between a holyday and a holiday.
[460] The alliteration is doubtless meant to produce the effect of solemnity. In Ov. l. c. Sychaeus is made to utter four times “Elissa, veni.”
[462] Comp. G. 1. 402, 403. Non. 194. 3 quotes this line with ‘sera’ for ‘sola.’
[463] Wagn. seems right in saying that the structure of the sentence requires us to connect ‘queri’ and ‘ducere’ with ‘visa,’ though the meaning of the words is not to be pressed, as if the hooting of the owl, or even the mournfulness of its note, like the call of the dead man, existed merely in Dido's imagination. Otherwise there would be nothing strange in an historic inf. following closely on an inf. governed in some other way, the use of the word in one case preparing us for its use in the other. Comp. 2. 775, G. 1. 200. ‘Longas’ seems to be proleptic, expressing the effect of ‘ducere.’ With ‘in fletum ducere’ comp. “in longum ducere” E. 9. 56, and see also on E. 6. 5.
[464] I agree with Henry in reading ‘priorum’ from fragm. Vat., Pal., and Gud., rather than ‘piorum’ (Med.). The latter would not be as inappropriate as he supposes, as the holiness of the seers would lend authority to their predictions: but the notion of antiquity is still more awful, and ‘priorum’ seems almost necessary to bring out the sense that Dido's mind is haunted with the remembrance of old predictions, which she supposes to be accomplishing themselves. Here again the alliteration appears intentional. Serv. recognizes both readings. Pomponius Sabinus attests that Apronianus read ‘piorum,’ which merely means that the adoption of that reading in Med. is deliberate. Silius, speaking of the disasters that followed the destruction of the serpent on the banks of the Bagrada, says “Nec tacuere pii vates” (6. 288); but the epithet may be from A. 6. 662, the general thought from A. 5. 524.
[465] The effect of the thought of Aeneas on her mind takes a material shape in her dreams, where he appears to drive her, as Argus drove Io, goading her to frenzy. Hence ‘ferus.’
[466]
At other times the thought that
is present in her dreams is that of her
loneliness. She seems to be undertaking
a long solitary journey, looking for her
Tyrian subjects, whom she cannot find:
they have forsaken her, and she has to be
queen of a desolate country, like Creon in
Soph. Ant. 739. This latter feeling throws
light on v. 320, “infensi Tyrii.” The notion
of loneliness is thus enforced in two
ways, which with great psychological
truth are made to blend together confusedly:
she loses Aeneas, and she loses
her own subjects too. Thus we see that
Schrader's plausible conjecture ‘Teucros’
for ‘Tyrios’ would be no gain but a loss.
In her waking moments Dido thinks of
following Aeneas alone in his flight, below,
v. 543. The same image of a long
fruitless wandering occurs in Ilia's dream
in Enn. A. 1. fr. 38:
“Nam me visus homo pulcher per amoena
salicta
Et ripas raptare locosque novos: ita
sola
Postilla, germana soror, errare videbar
Tardaque vestigare et quaerere te, neque
posse
Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem
stabilibat.
”
[469, 470] The double vision of Pentheus is in Eur. Bacch. 916, καὶ μὴν ὁρᾶν μοι δύο μὲν ἡλίους δοκῶ, Δισσὰς δὲ Θήβας καὶ πόλισμ᾽ ἑπτάστομον. Whether Virg. is more likely to have followed Eur. or Attius (Serv. talks of Pacuvius, but he is not known to have treated the subject of Pentheus) of course cannot be known: probably he followed no one poet, but simply thought of Pentheus as he appears in tragedy. No difficulty need be made about ‘agmina,’ which either may be the poetical plural for the singular, or may represent, as Wund. suggests, the multiplying power of Pentheus' vision, just as Orestes in Aesch. Cho. 1057 says αἵδε πληθύουσι δή. In 6. 572 however Tisiphone is represented as calling “agmina saeva sororum,” where this latter explanation would not apply. The number of Erinnyes in the old mythology was indefinite, the Fury being the personified curse (see on v. 384): it was not till the Alexandrian period that they were reduced to the three, Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, whom Virg. generally seems to recognize. Pomp. Sab. says that Urbanus read ‘anguina,’ a supposed collateral form of “anguis,” which possibly may have been suggested to the grammarian by the adjective “anguinus,” or by the apparent parallel of “sanguen” and “sanguis.” On the whole it seems better to make ‘agmina’ acc. after ‘videt,’ ‘se ostendere’ referring to ‘solem’ and ‘Thebas’ only. Comp. 8. 107, 108.
[471]
For ‘scaenis’ some MSS. give
‘Furiis,’ apparently from a recollection of
3. 331. The sense which it would yield
has found favour with several critics, Markland
conjecturing ‘Poenis’ (used as in
Greek for a title of the Furies), a suggestion
of great plausibility, supported by Val. Fl.
7. 147, which will be quoted below, accepted
by Wakef., and approved by Heyne,
while Lersch and Henry (the latter of
whom now withdraws the interpretation)
wish to give ‘scaenae’ the sense of φαντάς
ματα. Hildebrand, followed by Ladewig,
emends ‘saevis,’ which I suppose is
meant to be constructed with ‘facibus.’
The object of all these expedients is to
avoid the reference to the stage, it being
supposed that an ancient poet would more
naturally think of the real Pentheus and
Orestes as parallel to Dido, herself a personage
of similar antiquity, than of their
theatrical representatives. But it is quite
in keeping with Virg.'s literary tastes that
he should interest himself more in the
dramatic persons that he had seen or read
of than in their supposed prototypes.
Such a feeling, it is true, is not the simple
feeling of an old poet: to conceive of any
thing of the kind in Homer would involve
a grotesque impossibility. But the comparison
of one mythical person to another
is equally foreign to Homer. His similes
are limited in their range: heroes and their
actions are paralleled to the more ordinary
occupations of life, to inferior creatures or
natural phenomena. He does not tell us
that Achilles resented the abduction of
Briseis as Meleager did the slight offered
to Atalanta. Virg. must be judged by
his own standard; and there is nothing
inconsistent with that standard in supposing
that the Pentheus of his thoughts
was the Pentheus of Euripides, the Orestes
of Aeschylus. He doubtless felt that it
was to the stage that he owed the
glorious vision of their madness, and he
was glad to make the acknowledgment.
It is this feeling which dictates the presents,
‘videt,’ ‘fugit,’ ‘sedent.’ The frenzy
of the Theban and the Argive is not a
thing of the past, embalmed in legend;
it is constantly repeating itself; it is present
as often as the Bacchae or the Eumenides
are acted, read, or remembered. As
before, we cannot determine whether Virg.
had any single play exclusively in his mind.
Serv. says that Pacuvius (in his Dolorestes
or Dulorestes?) represented Orestes as entering
Apollo's temple at the instance of
Pylades and being attacked by the Furies
when he tried to leave it. In Aesch. Eum.
the ghost of Clytaemnestra appears, but
does not haunt Orestes, contenting herself
with stirring up the Erinnyes. ‘Scaenis
agitatus’ I understand to mean ‘driven
over the stage,’ the sense of ‘agitatus’
being fixed by the context, and by the
parallels 3. 331., 12. 668, Cic. Rosc. Am.
24, “ut eos agitent Furiae.” That Ausonius
uses the words ‘scaenis agitare’ in
the sense of ‘to treat scenically’ may
prove that he had Virg.'s words in his
mind, but need only prove further that he
did not consider himself bound by Virg.'s
meaning, when another suited him better
and suited the genius of the language as
well. In other words, the objection to the
interpretation which Serv. gives as an
alternative to that adopted above, “famosus,
celebratus tragoediis,” is not that it
is doubtful Latin, but that it would yield
a very frigid sense. I will now transcribe
the passage to which I referred from Valerius
Flaccus, as the detail into which the
description is carried makes it more than
a mere repetition of Virg. The comparison
is to Medea's lovesick distraction—
“Turbidus ut Poenis caecisque pavoribus
ensem
Corripit, et saevae ferit agmina matris
Oreste:
Ipsum angues, ipsum horrisoni quatit ira
flagelli,
Atque iterum infestae se fervere caede
Lacaenae
Credit agens, falsaque redit de strage
dearum
Fessus, et in miserae conlabitur ora sororis.
”
[472] Clytaemnestra is represented as herself having the attributes of the Furies. Alecto throws a snake at Amata 7. 346, a torch at Turnus ib. 456. Eur. Iph. T. 285 foll. makes Orestes speak of the Erinnys as attacking him with her serpents, Clytaemnestra being in her arms.
[473] The threshold, Henry remarks (following Germ. on 6. 563), was the peculiar and proper seat of the Furies. He refers to 6. 279, 555, 574., 7. 343, Ov. M. 4. 453. See on 6. 563. Here they doubtless prevent the egress of their victim as he flies before his mother. ‘Dirae:’ comp. 7. 324, 454., 12. 845. Pal. and the first readings of fragm. Vat. and Gud. have ‘divae.’
[474-503] ‘Having taken her resolution, she seeks to blind her sister: tells her that she has found a wise woman who will cure her of her love by magic, and bids her erect a pile on which the effigy and relics of Aeneas may be burnt, that being part of the ceremony. Anna believes and obeys her.’
