Sum deus, et nostri sanguinis ista fides. Illa petit Nilum cymba male nixa fugaci, Di melius: quantus mulier foret una triumphus, goddess. See the commentators on 62 Libera signa. 'Nunc demum, postquam apud Actium debellatum est, non amplius ab Antonio oppugnata, vere libera dicuntur.' Hertz. 64 Hoc unum, sc. consecuta.—jusso die, constituto a victore. The only exception to her complete defeat was that she eluded the conqueror's hands and put an end to her own existence. 65 Dii melius, sc. nobis consuluerunt. The sense, is Heaven indeed willed it otherwise, and no doubt for the best yet what a glorious addition would the queen herself have made to the triumph.' A similar formula of resignation to the will of heaven is found in Od. ix. 262. Sue бо 65 70 'Cleo tonius, Octavianus, § 17. 68 Una decem. Decem seems used 74 Spica Cilissa, saffron; Cory Ingenium potis irritet Musa poetis: Bacche, soles Phobo fertilis esse tuo. Reddat signa Remi: mox dabit ipse sua. cius crocus' of Horace, Sat. ii. 4, 68, 75 Potis. The copies have positis, but dots are placed under the two central letters in the MS. Gron. Some read irritat; but the sense seems to be, Let us try the effect of wine in inspiring our minds.' 76 Fertilis, yóvμos Arist. Ran. 96. suggestive.' The intimate connection between Bacchus and Apollo in the patronage of poetry explains Phobo tuo. Thus Parnassus was sacred to both deities. Juvenal (7,64) | speaks of poets as inspired 'dominis Cirrhæ Nysæque :' Tibullus, iii. 4, 44, 'casto nam rite poetæ Phœbusque et Bacchus Pieridesque favent.' Ovid, Am. i. 3, 11, ‘At Phoebus, comitesque novem, vitisque repertor, Hoc faciunt.' Here, however, the poet is implied under the name of the god himself. 77 'Let one poet celebrate the emperor's victory over the Germans, another his Ethiopian conquests, and a third his expedition against the Parthians to recover the lost standards of Crassus.' Meroe is a well 75 80 85 known island formed by the Nile, (Strabo xvi. 4, xvii.) 1, here called Cephean from Cepheus king of Æthiopia. 79 Confessum, i. e. Romanorum potentiam, et se ab iis probe victum esse. 81-2 If Augustus does not entirely quell the rebel Parthians, may it be for the purpose of leaving his sons something to conquer.' Caius and Lucius Cæsar, the sons of his daughter Julia, adopted by Augustus, are here meant. See Ovid, A.A. i. 177. 83 Nigras arenas, the alluvial plains watered by the Euphrates; though properly speaking these did not extend up to Parthia. Virg. Georg. iii. 241, ‘Et viridem Ægyptum nigra fecundat arena.'-si quid sapis, i. e. if your Manes can know that you have been avenged. Similarly iii. 4, 42. 'Nonnihil ad verum conscia terra sapit.' 84 Ire licet. The way to the east is now opened by the Roman arms. Some light is thrown on this passage by Tacit. Ann. ii. 58. 'Inter quæ ab rege Parthorum Artabano legati venere. Miserat amicitiam ac foedus memoraturos, et cupere renovari dextras, daturumque honori Germanici ut ripam Euphratis accederet.' VII. Sunt aliquid manes: letum non omnia finit, Murmur ad extremæ nuper humata viæ, VII. The ghost of Cynthia, in all the horrors of a half-burnt body from the funeral pile, appears to the poet when asleep and dreaming of her, and upbraids him in very affecting words with his heartless neglect of her in death. From the concluding elegies of the fourth book the reader is prepared for the part Propertius was likely to take in the matter. Her continued profligacy had in fact at length effectually estranged him. Yet it seems singular that he should record the just complaints of the deceased against himself, unless impelled to do so by remorse. It was evidently composed immediately after the obsequies, but the exact date cannot be determined. I Sunt aliquid Manes. 'There are then such things as spirits:'v apa Tis vxn, compare Il. xxiii. 103; Juven. 2, 149. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which the Greeks unquestionably derived from the Chaldces, was perhaps not more sincerely held by the majority of well-informed pagans than the legends of Tartarus and future judgment connected with it. Of its separate existence, apart from the body, and its spiritual essence, the Romans understood perhaps less than the Greeks. See on v. 11, 1. The poet's scepticism is evinced by iv. 5,.45.-evictos rogos, i. e. qui Manes domare non possunt. Esch. Cho. 315: TéKVOV, φρόνημα τοῦ θανόντος οὐ δαμάζει πυρὸς paλepà уváðos.-effugit, elapsa est. 5 4 Murmur, strepitum prætereuntis populi, according to Hertzberg, which becomes a faint murmur in the extrema via, the remoter parts; where, we may suggest from the tenour of the poem, the poor and despised were buried, while such of the more wealthy as were not interred suo agro had their graves close to the roadway, that all might ejaculate sit tibi terra levis &c.-Murmur is usually explained of the waters of the Anio, on the banks of which the via Tiburtina is said to have ended. See inf. 85-6. Marmor ad extremæ &c. is an obvious suggestion, 'hard by the milestone;' yet this could only have a local meaning which we are not warranted in assuming. In either case humata refers to burying the cinerary urn, for which the more correct expression is sepulta (Becker, Gallus, p. 516.) It seems surprising that the disgusting practice, originating with the Hindoos, of burning the dead, should have prevailed so late among both Greeks and Romans. But the Pelasgic or Eastern admixture in both nations will account for the custom. Rome was' (says Dr. Donaldson, Varron. p. 9) to the days of her decline, Pelasgian in all the essentials of her language, her religion, and her law.' 5 Exequiis amoris. Compare i. 17, 20, Ultimus et posito staret amore lapis,' and Theocr. 23, 43, Xôμa dé μοι κοίλανον, ὅ μευ κρύψει τὸν ἔρωτα, passages which Lachmann has well Et quererer lecti frigida regna mei. Sæpe Venus trivio commissa est, pectore mixto Fœderis heu taciti! cujus fallacia verba Non audituri diripuere Noti. At mihi non oculos quisquam inclamavit euntis; quoted in defence of the MS. reading. Kuinoel gives amaris after Broukhusius. 7 The dissyllabic eosdem is remarkable; idem and isdem for iidem and iisdem are familiar; ii is a monosyllable iii. 16, 35. The initial e was pronounced as our y. Compare 'hoc eodem ferro' ii. 8, 26; 'hac eadem via' iv. 6, 36. Most of the copies here give hosdem. So ews Soph. Ajac. 1114. 10 Lethæus liquor. Kuinoel appears to be right in explaining this of the pallor of the lips, as if she had sipped the waters of Lethe before she returned to earth. 12 'While she spoke, the bony hand, extended with the gesture of an earnest orator, rattled in my ears.' at implies that the words were those of the living Cynthia, but the form that of the departed. ΤΟ 15 20 15 The MSS. have exciderant (not exciderunt), which seems to be correct. Had you already forgotten, when you fell asleep, our clandestine interviews in the Suburra ?' This part of Rome, it may be observed, was something like what St. Giles' was to London; and it may be adduced among other proofs of Cynthia's low birth and character. 23 It requires some sagacity to choose between inclamavit, the reading of the Naples MS., and inclinavit, which most editors have adopted from MS. Gron. and ed. Rheg. Hertzberg alone admits the former, though Jacob also approves of it, observing that the pentameter verse has no allusion to closing the eyes, but evidently implies an earnest appeal to the dying, when the eyes are euntes (i. e. labentes, deficientes), to stay Unum impetrassem, te revocante, diem. Nec crepuit fissa me propter arundine custos, Læsit et objectum tegula curta caput. Denique quis nostro curvum te funere vidit? Atram quis lacrimis incaluisse togam? Si piguit portas ultra procedere, at illuc Jussisses lectum lentius ire meum. Cur ventos non ipse rogis, ingrate, petisti? Cur nardo flammæ non oluere mea? yet awhile with the friends who sit by the couch. The action is natural; and Jacob observes 'posse autem amore, desiderio, voto retineri fugientem animam putarunt multi.' See iii. 19, 15: Si modo damnatum revocaverit aura puellæ, Concessum nulla lege redibit iter.' It was the custom, when the eyes of the deceased had been closed (so says Becker, Gallus, p. 506,) to set up a loud clamour or wailing, to recal the departing spirit, if the person should only be in a trance. When no hope remained, they said conclamatum est. Does not the present passage show that the clamor took place in articulo mortis? In fact, this is clear from Ovid, Trist. iii. 3, 43, quoted by Becker himself. 25 Much has been written, and not a few extravagant conjectures have been proposed on these two verses, which Lachmann, Jacob, and others, have transferred to follow v. 22 or v. 18, (Jacob in the latter instance suggesting ac crepuit for nec crepuit). But the objection to denique, that it shows ante exequias actam esse rem,' is easily removed by Hertzberg, who remarks that it is 'non temporis, sed ordinis vocabulum.' The arrangement in fact is quite a natural one: (1) nemo morientem inclamavit. (2) Mortuæ nemo assedit. (3) Nemo 25. 30 vidit te atram togam indutum.—The custos here mentioned was appointed to watch by the body till it was carried to the pyre (elatum), and he seems to have occasionally sounded a shrill note with a pipe, in case the apparently dead should only be in a trance, and so might possibly be aroused to consciousness. This is stated on the authority of Pliny, quoted by Servius on Æn. vi. 218. 26 Tegula curta. Instead of a cushion, a broken tile was used to prop the head, which was cut (læsa) by being rudely jammed against it, (objectum). 30 'If you would not attend me to the pyre, at least you might have given orders that the bearers (vespillones) should carry the bier (sandapila) without such indecent haste.' It was a common custom for the friends to accompany the body only as far as the city gate. The bearers perhaps hastened their steps after this, just as with us a hearse or a mourning coach moves quicker when it has passed through a town.-illuc means, from the gate to the pyre. 32 Nardo, the precious perfume generally translated spikenard, and supposed by some to have been oil of cloves. It was the produce of a species of valerian from the mountains of India. |
