Aeneid - Book IX

[AoM]

“T.’s words break off with the ejaculation en occupying the first syllable of 52.”

 

[AoM]

aut tu, magne pater divum, miserere, tuoque
invisum hoc detrude caput sub Tartara telo (495-6)

Don't know how viable it is, but it sounds good:

"There is perhaps also a hint of the other invisus 'unseen', taken proleptically: 'thrust me down to Tartarus [= Hades, Ἀ-īδης 'the unseen'] where I shall be unseen'."

 

[AoM]

et media adversi liquefacto tempora plumbo
diffidit (588-9)

"the ancients believed that the friction of the air on a leaden bullet melted it"

 

[Bitmap]

et media adversi liquefacto tempora plumbo
diffidit (588-9)

"the ancients believed that the friction of the air on a leaden bullet melted it"

I give it a like because I never cease to be amazed by how much thought some ancient poets put into the mere description of those brutal acts. Vergil somehow stands in the tradition of Ennius's (and even Homer's) way of describing all the gore that can be described while also trying not be too excessive in his descriptions (or in his poetry in general - it took him 12 books to do what Homer did in 48 )

My personal reading would have been a different one, though. I would have read liquefacto as a prolepsis: It alludes to the fact that the spear became wet after it had slit the temples (or the head for that matter) of the victim. I think this is a bit more likely because you find numerous allusions to weapons becoming wet once they've penetrated some part of the head (off the top of my head, I think something like that appears in the Euryalus & Nisus episode [spear] and in Camilla's aristeia [when she splits somebody's head with an axe]).

Also note how the hyperbata in that verse support the idea of splitting something (although the sentence structure is pretty normal for an hexameter).

 

[AoM]

Yeah, I can see that. The synchysis literally stresses the fact that the lead is now breaking up his temples.

off the top of my head, I think something like that appears in the Euryalus & Nisus episode [spear]

And yup.

dum trepidant, it hasta Tago per tempus utrumque
stridens traiectoque haesit tepefacta cerebro. (418-9)

 

[Bitmap]

The other verses I had in mind (regarding Camilla) were from 11, 696-698, but it's not the weapon that gets wet there (I misremembered that), just the face (or what's left of it...)

tum validam perque arma viro perque ossa securim
altior exsurgens oranti et multa precanti
congeminat; vulnus calido rigat ora cerebro.

 

[AoM]

Another (from book 9):

________________volat Itala cornus
aera per tenerum stomachoque infixa sub altum
pectus abit; reddit specus atri vulneris undam
spumantem, et fixo ferrum in pulmone tepescit. (698-701)

 

[AoM]

nec duplici squama lorica fidelis et auro
sustinuit (707-8)

Apparently the only use in Virgil.

 

[AoM]

Alcandrumque Haliumque Noemonaque Prytanimque. (767)

Apparently the only exact reproduction of something from Homer in the Aeneid.

Ἄλκανδρόν θ᾽ Ἅλιόν τε Νοήμονά τε Πρύτανίν τε. (Il. 5.678)

And then Ovid used it as well (Met. 13.258).

 

[Dantius]

Interesting

 

[Bitmap]

Alcandrumque Haliumque Noemonaque Prytanimque. (767)

Apparently the only exact reproduction of something from Homer in the Aeneid.

Ἄλκανδρόν θ᾽ Ἅλιόν τε Νοήμονά τε Πρύτανίν τε. (Il. 5.678)

And then Ovid used it as well (Met. 13.258).

It may be the only *exact* reproduction, but then again it's not particularly easy to create a 1-to-1 reproduction from a different language in an hexameter.
Apart from that, there are some estimates that about 6,000 verses in the Aeneid are inspired or allude to Homer in some way (which would amount to 2/3rd of the entire opus).

I think you insert "direct" quotations like this one to root yourself within a line of outstanding poets. Vergil also makes a direct reference to Ennius in book 6 when he writes tu Maximus ille es / unus qui nobis cunctando restituis rem (v. 845f.)

I've once heard that even Homer had 2 or 3 lines that actually won't scan in Homerian Greek, but make sense in the Greek spoken some 300 years earlier (which, if that's true, suggests that Homer's poem wasn't just a mere invention by himself, but implies that at least parts of it are based on a longer tradition of oral history)... unfortunately, being no scholar of Ancient Greek, I never really investigated that myself. It's just something I've heard in a presentation by Joachim Latacz once.

 

[AoM]

Yeah, it definitely seems like the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey had a long oral tradition before "Homer" ever wrote any of it down/composed it in his own way.

And I wish more of Ennius had survived. I still want to pick up this book.

https://www.amazon.com/Ennius-Architecture-Annales-Jackie-Elliott-ebook/dp/B00GA22FZK

 

[AoM]

Hardie's commentary is pretty good overall, but there are times when I wish he would pick a stance on an issue, e.g.:

sed manus e castris propere coit omnis in unum (801)

Neuter vs. masculine

It may be the only *exact* reproduction, but then again it's not particularly easy to create a 1-to-1 reproduction from a different language in an hexameter.

I just remembered this bit from Donatus (most likely Suetonius):

Asconius Pedianus libro, quem "Contra obtrectatores Vergilii" scripsit, pauca admodum obiecta ei proponit eaque circa historiam fere et quod pleraque ab Homero sumpsisset; sed hoc ipsum crimen sic defendere adsuetum ait: cur non illi quoque eadem furta temptarent? Verum intellecturos facilius esse Herculi clavam quam Homero versum subripere. Et tamen destinasse secedere ut omnia ad satietatem malevolorum decideret.

 

[Bitmap]

Hardie's commentary is pretty good overall, but there are times when I wish he would pick a stance on an issue, e.g.:

sed manus e castris propere coit omnis in unum (801)

Neuter vs. masculine

Well, it could be both, as both meanings make sense somehow.

The two meanings are not mutually exclusive. In cases like this one, where a poet does not mind the slight ambiguity in his wording, or even welcomes it, I dare even say that both is meant at the same time.

 

[AoM]

Definitely possible. Though he could've taken that stance. : p

That's where I appreciate someone like Horsfall's directness when he'll put out there, "Why not both...?" as the other scholars are clashing over two interpretations.