V. 246. Arva. The word arva, signifying cultivated fields, (compare En. II. 209,) goes to establish the argument (Comment. En. 1. 244,) that the description is not of the permanent, but only of the occasional state of the river (or more properly the stream) Timavus, viz. of that state which would be produced by the eruption of the sea through the spring. V. 250. Cæli...arcem.-Not the high place, viz. heaven, but the high place, or high part or citadel, of heaven; where, as appears from Ovid, the poets located the palace of the superior gods. Quæ pater ut summâ vidit Saturnius arce, Atria nobilium valvis celebrantur apertis. See Comment. En. 1. 225. Metam. 1. 163. V. 255. Vultu quo cælum tempestatesque serenat; see Comment. En. I. 127.-There is a representation of Jupiter Serenus, with the inscription "Jovi Sereno sacr.," on an ancient lamp in the Passerian Museum. It is stated by Passerius (I know not how truly,) to be the only ancient representation of Jupiter Serenus in existence. See Lucerna Fictiles Musæi Passerii (3 tom. fol. Pisauri 1739) tom. I. Tab. 33. It is highly probable that the words of the text allude to some such representation of Jupiter Serenus actually existing, and well known, in the time of Virgil. V. 292. Cana Fides et Vesta, &c.-The simple meaning is, that men, ceasing from war, shall live as they did in the good old times, when they obeyed the precepts of Fides, Vesta, and Remus and Romulus. [See next note.] It is sufficiently evident from Georg. I. 498, II. 533, that the deities here mentioned were specially associated in the Roman mythology with that primitive epoch of the national history, to which the Romans (sharing a feeling common to all civilised nations that have ever existed,) loved to look back as an epoch of peace and innocence; for this reason and no other are they specified as the gods of the returning golden age here announced by Jupiter. I am unwilling so far to derogate from the dignity of this sentiment, as to suppose, with Heyne, that it contains an allusion to the trivial circumstance of the temples of Fides, Vesta, and Remus and Romulus being seated on the Palatine hill near the palace of Augustus; nor do I think it necessary to discuss the opinion advanced by the late Mr. Seward, and preserved by Hayley, in one of the notes to his second Epistle on Epic Poetry, that the meaning is, that civil and criminal justice shall be administered in those temples, that opinion being based on the erroneous interpretation of jura dabunt, pointed out in Comm. vers. 293. The whole of this enunciation of the fates by Jupiter is one magnificent strain of adulation of Augustus. A similar adulation, although somewhat more disguised, is plainly to be read in every word of Venus's complaint to Jupiter, and in the very circumstance of the interview between the queen of love and beauty and the Pater hominumque deúmque; that interview having for its sole object the fortunes of Eneas, Augustus's ancestor, and the foundation by him of that great Roman empire, of which Augustus was now the absolute master and head. Nor is the adulation of Augustus confined to those parts of the Eneis, in which, as in the passages before us, there is reference to him by name or distinct allusion; it pervades the whole poem from beginning to end; and could not have been least pleasing to a person of so refined a taste where it is least direct, and where the praise is bestowed, not upon himself, but upon that famous goddess-born ancestor, from whom it was his greatest pride and boast that he was descended. Not that I suppose, with Warburton and Spence, either that the character of Augustus is adumbrated in that of Eneas, or that the Eneis is a political poem, having for its object to reconcile the Roman nation to the newly settled order of things; on the contrary, I agree with Heyne that there are no sufficient grounds for either of these opinions, and that they are each of them totally inconsistent with the boldness and freedom necessary to a great epic. But, nevertheless, without going so far as Warburton or Spence, I am certainly of opinion that Virgil wrote the Eneis in honour of Augustus: that he selected Eneas for his hero, chiefly because, as Augustus's reputed ancestor, and the first founder of the Roman empire, his praises would redound more to the honour of, and therefore be more grateful to, Augustus, than those of any other hero with which the heroic age could have furnished him; and still further, that he not only purposely abstained from introducing topics which might have been disagreeable to the feelings, or derogatory to the reputation, of Augustus, but also seized every opportunity of giving such tendency and direction to his story, and illustrating it with such allusions as he judged would be best received by him, and shed most honour and glory upon his name. Nor let this be called mere adulation call it rather the heartfelt gratitude of the partial poet towards his munificent friend and patron, and the fulfilment and realization of his allegorical promise to build a magnificent temple to him by Mincius' side, viridi in campo templum de marmore ponam Georg. III. 13-39. V. 293. Jura dabunt.—Jura dare is, primarily, to make and impose laws, to perform the function of lawgiver, and, therefore, secondarily, to rule-Cesar dum magnus... victor... volentes Per populos dat jura.-Georg. IV. 560. Hospitibus nam te dare jura loquuntur,-En. 1. 731. See also En. III. 187; v. 758; VIII. 670, &c. It is surprising that Heyne, having correctly interpreted jura dabunt in the passage before us, by præerunt, should afterwards, at line 507, fall into the common error, and confound jura dare with jus dicere, the meaning of which is to expound, explain, or lay down what the law is, to perform the office of a judge, to administer justice. Ea res a Volcatio qui Romæ jus dicit, rejecta in Galliam est,-Cicer. Fam. Epist. 13, 14. Appius... quam asperrime poterat jus de creditis pecuniis dicere,-Liv. II. 27. Ipse jus dixit assidue, et in noctem nonnumquam: si parum corpore valeret, lecticâ pro tribunali collocatâ, vel etiam domi cubans,-Suet. in Aug. c. 33. I think also that Heyne confines jura dabunt within too narrow limits by subjoining imperio Romano; and that he should have used some more comprehensive term, such as hominibus, or populis, or gentibus, which would better harmonize with the wide extent of the term sæcula, and with the general spirit of the prophecy, that the peace was to be universal, to extend over the whole world. V. 293.* Diræ ferro et compagibus arctis Heyne has set his seal to the following, which is the univer sally received, interpretation of this passage; [belli] porta dira, quia dei diri et abominandi, clauditur ferro et compagibus arctis, seu vinculis, h. e. foribus serratis. (Excurs. 9. ad En. 1.) It seems almost incredible that neither Heyne nor any of the other commentators should have perceived that this interpretation is not only inconsistent with the well known meaning of the word compages, but with the plain and obvious structure of the sentence, and with the fairly presumable intention of Virgil. 1st, With the well known meaning of compages, which is not bolts or other fastenings, but the conjunction or colligation of the parts of which a compound object is compacted or put together, as of the stones or bricks of a wall, (Lucan, III. 491); of the planks of a ship (En. 1. 122), or other wooden building, ex. gr. the wooden horse, (En. II. 51); or of the organs constituting an animal body, (Cic. de Senect. c. 21); or of the several constituent parts of which an empire, (Tacit. Hist. IV. 74,) or the world itself (Aul. Gell. vi. 1,) consists. This is the only meaning which the word compages has either in the Latin language, or in the English, into which it has been adopted from the Latin. 2dly, The received interpretation is inconsistent with the plain and obvious structure, according to which ferro et compagibus is connected with dire, not with claudentur, in the same way as ore cruento at the close of the sentence is connected with horridus, not with fremet. It is impossible for the reader or reciter to separate ferro et compagibus arctis from diræ, or ore cruento from horridus, without making, at dire and horridus, pauses very disagreeable both to the ear and sense. So also, in the sentence ora modis attollens pallida miris, (vers. 354,) modis miris is joined with pallida, not with attollens, as is proved by the corresponding sentence, Georg. I. 477, Simulacra modis pallentia miris. See note, vers. 637. Pliny uses dira in precisely the same construction, (B. v. c. 4,) Sinus vadoso mari dirus. 3dly, Even if it were admitted (which, however, I cannot admit,) that compages might, in another situation, mean the bolts or fastenings of a gate, still we must, in justice to the ars poëtica of Virgil, refer it in this situation to the structure of the gate itself, because it would have been highly incorrect and unpoetical to lay so great a stress on the mere circumstance of the fastenings of the gate being of iron, since it appears not only from the celebrated line of Ennius, quoted by Horace, but from Virgil's own Belli ferratos rupit Saturnia postes (En. VII. 622,) that the gate itself was iron; it is incredible that Virgil should have presented us with the minor picture of the iron fastenings, and wholly omitted the greater picture of the iron gate. The structure, therefore, is dira compagibus arctis ferri, and these words, are the description of the gate itself: dira expressing the effect which its appearance produced on the mind; ferro informing us that its material was iron; compagibus, that it consisted of several pieces adapted to each other; and arctis, that those pieces were closely joined or compacted together; for, as appears from En. 1. 122, closeness does not form an essential part of the ideas expressed by compages. It will further be observed, that the emphasis (which by the received interpretation is thrown upon the fastenings of the gate) is by this mode of rendering the passage, thrown upon claudentur, the really emphatic word, as containing the principal idea, the closing of the temple of Janus in the time of universal peace. Exactly parallel to ferro et compagibus arctis, we have (En. II. 627,) ferro crebrisque bipennibus, for crebris bipennibus ferri. The turn given by Voltaire to this passage, in his application of it to Elizabeth, Queen of England, is as happy as it is truly French: Quel exemple pour vos, monarques de la terre! V. 300. Volat ille, &c. Down thither prone in flight Henriade, c. 1. He speeds, and through the vast etherial sky V. 301. Remigio alarum. Οδε πρὸς θυμέλας ἄλλος ἐρέσσει V. 313. Bina manu lato crispans hastilia ferro.-Lexicographers, commentators, and translators, with one consent understand crispans, not only here, but in the 12th Book, vers. 165, (where this whole line is repeated and applied to Turnus,) to mean brandishing; ("quassando et vibrando micare faciens." Forcellini.) But, 1st, no example whatever has been produced of the use of the term elsewhere in this sense; and, 2dly, both |