Ecloga I

Latin Learning Latin
21

I looked in Wheelock’s and both in the chapter and in the Summarium Formarum in the back “hoc” as the nominative/accusative singular of the demonstrative is marked short, and it’s short in the exercises as well (at least twice). However all the evidence as laid out here suggests that it should be long. Wheelock’s couldn’t have inadvertently made such an error, yet it seems that they have (I had thought that perhaps we were talking about two different words or uses, but A&G in Qimmik’s link makes it plain). It’s inexplicable.

Ed: A&G also mark “hic” (as the demonstrative) as long when in Wheelock’s it’s short,

I’m not worrying about the reliability of the dictionary. If I had paid list price I might be a bit miffed but the thing was like $12 on Abe Books, and besides it’s done its job fine so far save for the one error.

22

Some famous lines from the Aeneid (6.126-9):

. . . facilis descensus Auerno;
noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;
sed reuocare gradum superasque euadere ad auras,
hoc opus, hic labor est.

You might try working through these as an exercise. Aeneas asks the Cumean Sibyl to take him to hell. This is what she tells him.

23

Facilis descensus Auerno

“Easy is the descent to the underworld”

“Auerno” is dative, as literally “to the underworld” (rather than “Auernum”)? “Noctes atque dies etc.” is actually used (adapted, I’m sure) as an exercise in Wheelock’s.

24

The dative (not the accusative, which is reserved for cities and islands) is not infrequently used in Latin poetry without a preposition to indicate the “goal of motion.” Similarly, the ablative is used without a preposition to indicate agency, separation, etc. where ab would be used in prose. I think these usages not only give the poet metrical alternatives, but also allow the poet to avoid prosaic function words and make for greater concision.

25

I’m having trouble with 36-37. Meliboeus is responding to Tityrus’ expressing thanks for Amaryllis’ being his wife, as his previous spent all his money:

Mirabar quid maesta deos, Amarylli, uocares
quoi pendere sua patereris in arbore poma.

One difficulty with 36 is that I don’t know what case “Amarylli” is. I presume it is dative and would agree with “quoi” in the next line: “I’m astonished that you invoke the gods for Amaryllis, for whom you were suffering that she hanged herself from a fruit-tree” or something like that. “Sua” by the meter is ablative; how does this work with “hanged herself” (not “suam”)? I have some sense of what I think the Latin is saying (famous last words) but I can’t figure out how it would work. “Maesta” is either feminine nominative or neuter plural. Whatever it is it doesn’t agree with “quid”, “deos”, or “Amarylli”. I don’t get the subjunctive either. “I would marvel that…”? I’m stumped here.

26

This is a pathetic apostrophe–Meliboeus addresses these lines as an aside to Amaryllis (who is not present), looking back to a time when Amaryllis was languishing for love of Tityrus; he had not yet realized that she was his true love and was still occupied with Galatea.

Amarylli is Greek vocative with short i, and she is the subject of vocares and patereris. Note: the verbs, including mirabar, are all imperfect.

Vocares and patereris are subjunctive–indirect questions introduced by quid and quoi (archaic spelling of cui), respectively. Again, here are subjunctives introduced by question words–your indirect question radar should be switched on. There should be a comma after uocares: the next line is parallel to the uocares clause but there is no connective (asyndeton).

Sua agrees with arbore and the referent is poma – apples. The apples, not Amaryllis, were hanging in their tree.

maesta – this is an adjective that is best translated as an adverb: “sadly”. Frequently, a Latin adjective modifying the subject is equivalent to an English adverb modifying the verb.

“I used to wonder, Amaryllis, why you would sadly call on the gods, [and] for whom you were suffering/allowing the apples to hang in their tree” – instead of picking them, preoccupied as she was with Tityrus, who was at that time unresponsive to her love for him.

“Suffering” is perhaps better than “allowing” here, to capture what is probably a double meaning: Amaryllis is suffering from unrequited love; she’s suffering the apples to hang on “their” tree.

The neglected apples have an erotic significance–symbols of her “suffering” from unrequited love. Amaryllis herself is an unplucked apple. For comparison, apples as a symbol of eros: at Ecl. 3.64-5 we have: Malo me Galatea petit, lasciua puella/et fugit ad salices, et se cupit ante uideri. Galatea throws an apple at Damoetas and then runs coyly to the willows, though she wants him to see her before she hides. The apple is the object with which the playfully erotic (lasciua) G. attempts to get D.'s attention.

Actually, I’m not sure whether this technically qualifies as an apostrophe, which usually occurs in a narrative, when the poet addresses one of the characters. But it is an aside addresses to someone who isn’t present.

27

“One difficulty with 36 is that I don’t know what case “Amarylli” is.”
Evidently you missed what I wrote above:

“This is pastoral (as silvestris musa signals), a genre that Vergil takes over from Theocritus. Not only the genre, characters too: one of Theocritus’ “idylls” begins:
Κωμάσδω ποτὶ τὰν Ἀμαρυλλίδα, ταὶ δέ μοι αἶγες
βόσκονται κατ’ ὄρος, καὶ ὁ Τίτυρος αὐτὰς ἐλαύνει.
The serenade starts Ὦ χαρίεσσ’ Ἀμαρυλλί,
and Vergil’s line invites us to imagine Tityrus likewise calling “O formons’ Amarylli,” only Vergil puts it at a remove. The form Amaryllida enhances the Greek feel.”

28

Qimmik: No wonder I didn’t get it. I seem to be having the old problems that have vexed me in prose, only it’s harder to root out while getting used to and paying more attention to poetic writing, which has its own intrinsic challenges that I’m still picking up. Thanks. (I seem to have especial trouble with indirect questions; it’s come up several times. I’ll have to pay closer attention to question words)

Ed: by the way, I’ve ordered student editions of De Senectute (which came yesterday and, oddly enough, uses macrons) and De Amicitia. I have the Loeb – I got it last October thinking it was the way to go – but I think I’ll put it in another room so as not to be tempted. I’m learning more without translations and it helps a lot not to use that crutch (though I still think the Loeb Caesar was good to have). The Cicero works don’t look too hard.

mwh: I didn’t “miss” it; I just didn’t remember it. I never got that far in Greek (for a few reasons) and I’ve forgotten most of what I learned, so all I noticed in the Greek text were the underlined “Tityrus” and “Amaryllida” and figured the example was to show that they were stock characters, and I glossed over the details around the Greek text, figuring it was beyond my understanding (my phone, in fact, doesn’t even display several Greek letters, such as the initial alpha in “Amarylli”. I think it has trouble with breathing marks and perhaps circumflexes, at least).(Okay; rereading that it does indeed seem that I missed it. My bad; given how badly I mangled these lines I’m probably not smart enough to have recalled and applied it anyway) Reading it again I do see what you were saying. I do appreciate the considerable thought in that post, though, and I appreciate it even if I didn’t remember that form (I got a lot out of it).

For the record for both of you: I read all of what you all write and consider it carefully. There’s nothing I can really say except “thanks” but do know I’m not just ignoring your toil, simply concerned with getting the “answers”.

29

With regard to poma:

It’s interesting that in Theocritus 3, which mwh mentioned above–the poem from which Vergil took the names Tityrus and Amaryllis–the singer of the serenade (who is not Tityrus; Tityrus is off tending the singer’s goats while the singer is unrequitedly pouring out his heart to Amaryllis) sings (lines 10-11):

ἠνίδε τοι δέκα μᾶλα φέρω: τηνῶθε καθεῖλον,
ὧ μ᾽ ἐκέλευ καθελεῖν τύ: καὶ αὔριον ἄλλά τοι οἰσῶ.

“Here, look, I’m bringing you ten apples. I got them where you told me to, and tomorrow I’ll bring you some more.”

These are not necessarily the same characters as in Ecl. 1, but Vergil evokes this poem of Theocritus by giving his characters the same names as the Theocritean characters. And here apples again are emblematic of unrequited love–the singer’s (with the added twist that this Amaryllis is toying with the singer, demanding gifts but withholding her affection). Vergil must have been alluding to these lines in Ecl. 1.37. This is key to Vergil’s so-called “imitation” of other poets: the allusions, even when they involve almost literal translation or quotation, are often contextually different in some respect from the original (and the translations are always transformations into verse that stands on its own as Latin poetry).

30

Lines 40-41:

Quid facerem? neque // seruitio me exire licebat
nec tam praesentis // alibi cognoscere diuos.

(“What was I to do (but to go to Rome)? (Here,) I was not allowed to exit my servitude nor to recognize?/know? in other places gods so at hand (to help).” Line 41 seems a bit funny. “Divos” refers more to men, as opposed to “deos”? “I did not know of in other places ‘gods’ so at hand as at Rome”? But it’s “licebat … nec … me … cognoscere”. This is probably simple and I’m just overlooking something. In line 40 the caesura is exactly between the second and third foot; is this of any significance?)

‘Pascite ut ante boues, pueri, submittite tauros.’

(“Feed your cattle as before, slaves; rear your bulls.” Is “ut ante” correct? It’s literally “as before” but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.)

31

nec tam praesentis alibi cognoscere diuos.

“nor could I know [i.e., find] such immediately helpful [praesentis] gods anywhere else.”

Quid facerem? // neque seruitio // me exire licebat

This is a type of line with two caesuras, one in the second foot and one in the fourth foot, instead of a single main caesura in the third foot. It adds variety. A caesura always occurs in the middle of a foot, either after the first long syllable (a “masculine” caesura), or after the first short syllable of a dactylic foot in the third foot (a “feminine” caesura). A caesura by definition never occurs at the end of a foot.

‘Pascite ut ante boues, pueri, submittite tauros.’

Pueri indicates they were slaves, but it doesn’t mean “slaves”. Maybe “young men” would do.

Yes, ut ante means “as before”.

[Continue to] graze your cows as before, boys/men; [continue to] raise your bulls."

32

Never mind: I figured it out. I had missed a commentary note explaining the situation and was confused as to the purpose of Tityrus’ trip to Rome, but I found that note and it’s all cleared up now.

33

A bit late in the day, I’m afraid, but I have a few comments:

  1. Pronouncing HOC.

‘The vowel of nominative hoc is long’.

Far be it from me to question Qimmik’s great wisdom and knowledge, but I believe the following advice (in line with Allen’s Vox Latina) is often followed today:

Pronounce hic, hoc (Nom. and Acc.) as long syllables with a short vowel - hicc, hocc from hicce hocce. Long vowel in hoc (AbL).

Just as with other double consonants eg op-pidum, vil-la, oc-cidere, we get:

‘hocc opus, hic(c) labor est.’

Allen notes with some concern “nowadays these words are not infrequently pronounced with a long vowel as hîc and hôc and are even so marked in dictionaries).” (Allen)

Meliboeus addresses these lines as an aside to Amaryllis (who is not present), looking back to a time when Amaryllis was languishing for love of Tityrus; he had not yet realized that she was his true love and was still occupied with Galatea.



“I used to wonder, Amaryllis, why you would sadly call on the gods, [and] for whom you were suffering/allowing the apples to hang in their tree” – instead of picking them, preoccupied as she was with Tityrus, who was at that time unresponsive to her love for him.

I don’t think Amaryllis is suffering from unrequited love. It’s only AFTER Tityrus has finally escaped Galatea’s clutches and embraced Amaryllis that he has the gumption to travel to Rome. Amaryllis misses him just like ipsae pinûs, ipsi fontes, ipsa arbusta miss him while he’s away. Longing for her absent lover makes her neglect her apples while he’s away in the Big Apple, so to speak.

Edit: Or maybe that’s what you’re saying, Qimmik? It’s just Meliboeus who thought it was unrequited love …?

  1. I share your confusion, swtwentyman, concerning Tityrus’s motives for going to Rome. Meliboeus asks him why he went. Tityrus says he went to seek liberty and patronage of some kind. Luckily for him, he there met the ‘godlike’ youth who let him keep his farm. But he doesn’t say he went to Rome to save his farm from being confiscated. Rather because he’d been unable to eek out a living from selling kids and cheese to the miserly local townsfolk (while still tied to his spendthrift (?) Galatea).

  2. I myself have a small question:

Hic MIHI responsum primus dedit ille PETENTI:
‘PASCITE ut ante boves, PUERI; SUMMITTITE tauros.’

A single person (Tityrus) entreats, but the godlike youth addresses his answer to a group:

Has Tityrus brought his own cronies along with him? Or is this some sociolinguistic convention of gods/patrons when speaking to the lower orders?

Bene vale/te!
Int

34

Regarding “mihi petenti”: the notes say “Although Tityrus egotistically describes the petition as his own, the form of the reply shows that he was just one of the crowd.”

Ed: There’s a note on the next page that I missed while looking through them for help with this. Apparently Tityrus had gone to Rome “to secure his libertas, which would be achieved only if he could retain his one means of raising the cost of emancipation, namely the animals and their pasture, which were both the legal property of his master. Security of usufructus would thus ultimately guarantee Tityrus his libertas. The fact that only pueri are explicitly mentioned suggests that the previous owners had been dispossessed. The rights of slaves to farm land for their own profit were thus now safeguarded even under the change of ownership. By contrast Meliboeus, a free man, retained his herd but had nowhere to graze it. There is no indication that Tityrus was actually manumitted by the responsum.”

I understand now, I think.

35

Interaxus:

  1. I wasn’t aware of Allen’s discussion, but now that I see it, it makes sense.

  2. Maybe you’re right–the next line states that Tityrus was away. But Meliboeus is wondering for whom she was neglecting her apples–I’ve always seen that as referring to a time before Tityrus and Amaryllis were known to be a couple, i.e., before he discovered her as his true love. And maesta deos . . . uocares didn’t seem to me appropriate for a temporary absence–it has always seemed more like unrequited love. I thought Tityrus hinc aberat refers to his being away somewhere with Galatea. But I could be wrong. Edit: I see that everyone else agrees with you–she’s pining for him while he’s away at Rome.

  3. I think it’s clear that he went to Rome to seek not just his liberty, but also his right to continue his occupation of his farm, to avoid being dispossessed by the confiscations that were taking place to make room for Antony’s soldiers. His economic difficulties date back to the time when he was under Galatea’s sway. The way I read this, it was only after he got together with Amaryllis that he went to Rome to secure his liberty and his right to continue grazing his cattle on his farm. (Apparently, as a slave, he would not have been the owner of his farm–it would have been the free owner whose land was confiscated.) I think it’s left a little vague, in any case, and I suspect it isn’t possible to sort out the details precisely in terms of legal relationships. The point is that his trip to Rome allowed him to continue raising cattle. The idea may be not that he actually got his freedom in Rome, but rather that by being allowed to continue grazing his cattle he would eventually have been able to accumulate the funds necessary to purchase his manumission.

  4. He must have gone with a group of fellow-serfs.

36

Lines 67-69:

En umquam patrios longo post tempore finis
pauperis et tuguri congestum caespite culmen,
post aliquot, mea regna, uidens mirabor aristas?

“Shall I ever marvel after a long time, seeing my kingdoms: the borders of my fatherland, the thatched roof of my poor hut; after a few (years?) some ears of corn?”

“Pauperis et tuguri culmen” is a bit convoluted literally – “the roof of poor and of hut” (it would be clearer without the “et” but I suppose that’s a rhetorical figure?) – and I can’t find a place for “caespite”, which is defined as “turf” or “hut” (which would seem to make more sense here). I’m not real clear on the sense of the whole sentence: after a long time in exile, he will despair of ever seeing his “kingdoms” again? “Mirabor” suggests actually being there again, though.

Ed: “Shall I ever be present to marvel at the sight of etc. again?”

Lines 71-72. A barbarian soldier is taking over Meliboeus’ land:

En quo discordia ciuis
Produxit miseros.

“The discord produced wretched citizens.”

What does “quo” mean here? It doesn’t seem to be ablative or mean “where”; the dictionary suggests “to what end?” or “by reason of which”. “To this end” would make the most sense by the context (and the next sentence: “his nos conseuimus agros!”); is this right?

37

En umquam patrios longo post tempore finis
pauperis et tuguri congestum caespite culmen,
post aliquot, mea regna, uidens mirabor aristas?

The syntax of these lines is quite difficult and is actually much disputed. After thinking about this and reading some of the commentaries, I’ve changed my interpretation substantially. I think it best fits together as follows:

uidens mirabor has two sets of complements, as if it were repeated with each: patrios . . . culmen and aliquot, mea regna, . . . aristas. The word that is actually repeated is post, which articulates the two sets of complements, instead of a connective such as et or atque, making it clear that this is an asyndeton.

pauperis et tuguri - et is postponed until after pauperis. It links finis and culmen. This positioning of et isn’t uncommon in poetry.

congestum caespite – “heaped up with sod”: his hut has a sod roof.

mea regna is a pathetic appositive to aliquot aristas, syntactically similar to raucae, tua cura, palumbes earlier.

post – adverbial, not a preposition: “afterwards”.

aliquot with aristas.

". . . shall I ever, a long time afterwards [‘afterwards by a long time’], seeing admire [maybe translate ‘see and admire’ or ‘look on with admiration’] [my] ancestral territories [patrios finis] and the roof of [my] humble [pauperis] cottage, piled with sod,

“[shall I ever] afterwards [see and admire] [my] small [plot of] wheat/corn [aliquot aristas, ‘a few ears of grain’], [humble though it is, but] my [very own] kingdom[s] [to me]?”

“. . . shall I ever, long afterwards, fondly gaze on my ancestral territories and the roof of my humble cottage, heaped with sod? Shall I ever afterwards fondly gaze on my small plot of wheat, a kingdom to me?”

I can’t bring myself to translate en as “lo”, so I’ll leave it untranslated.

En quo discordia ciuis
Produxit miseros.

quo is the adverb “where”, “to what place”, and produxit means “has led”, not “has produced.”

“This is where discord [civil strife] has led wretched citizens.” “miseros”, I think, is proleptic–an adjective that represents the result of the action of the verb.

Did you have no problems with the long stretch of exquisite verse from 46 to 66? There are a number of interesting constructions–

hinc tibi, quae semper, uicino ab limite saepes
Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti
saepe leui somnum suadebit inire susurro

The buzzing of the bees is transferred to the hedge; depasta florem – a Greek accusative of respect: grazed with respect to its flower, which sounds very odd in English but a very beautiful and concise image in Latin. I hope you noticed the onomatopoetic alliteration of s when reading this aloud.

. . . sitientis ibimus Afros
pars Scythiam et rapidum cretae ueniemus Oaxen

ibimus and ueniemus here are almost transitive verbs, taking an accusative object without preposition; I guess this is an accusative of motion towards without a preposition, a construction reserved for cities and islands in prose. In fact, I would say that in ibimus Afros really is a transitive construction, since Afros is not a place-name but rather the name of a population. This is an example of “poetic license”, which is not really “license” to violate rules, but rather the use of common words in unusual ways, which contributes to a diction that’s removed from prosaic everyday speech, one of the elements of which is extreme concision.

38

I want to draw attention to the fact that I edited my previous post substantially after rethinking it, in case you read it before my editing.

39

Actually I did have a few problems with lines 46-66, but I got so caught up in another problem (which I was able to solve on my own) that I forgot about asking about them. For the most part, though, the language in this passage is pretty straightforward with fairly concrete words.

Fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota
et fontis sacros frigus captabis opacum.

(“Fortunate old man, here between well-known rivers and sacred springs you will seek out the cool shade.”)

I think I’ve got this. Earlier I had thought it might be “you will seek out the sacred springs and the cool shade”, with an understood “et”, but I think this translation is better.

Hinc tibi, quae semper, uicino ab limite saepes
Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti
saepe leui somnum suadebit inire susurro.

The notes helped considerably with this. I take it to mean “saepes depasta florem salicti (ab) Hyblaeis apibus saepe suadebit inire somnum leui susurro” – “the hedge, which is fed on in respect to its flowers by Hyblaein bees, will often induce you to go to sleep with their light buzzing”. (Yes, I heard the soft S’s in this part – how could I not?)

The first line of those three gives me some problems, though. "Henceforth, as always… uicino ab limite. Is it “ab vicino limite”? “On this side of your neighboring dividing-line”? The notes suggest that this line means that Tityrus’ hedge is on this side of a boundary-limit (or maybe the hedge is the boundary-limit?) but I otherwise have little clue. “Tibi” – with “suadebit”, right?

Good to know I’m not the only one to have trouble with 67-69. Your interpretation makes sense.

Please excuse the large number of edits. I’ve revised my translations, added or removed details, and in one case figured out the problem myself. I’m leaving this post as-is now, need for revision be damned.

40

hinc tibi, quae semper, uicino ab limite saepes
Hyblaeis apibus florem depasta salicti
saepe leui somnum suadebit inire susurro

Qimmik: I’m so glad you took up just these lines. I’ve struggled no end to get my head around the Greek accusative of respect used here. I can’t recall meeting the construction in Crosby & Schaeffer’s Introduction to Greek which I worked through a couple of years ago.

I can ‘understand’ it here but I haven’t yet developed a ‘feel’ for it. Do you know of any other instances of its use in Latin (poetry or prose)? Could you even invent a simple ‘everyday’-type example as an illustration? I realise that’s a tall order, so please ignore this request if it exceeds the bounds of propriety.

Having written which, I found the answer to all my dreams here:
http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=MLoG6pE

Naturally, any additional examples would be welcome anyway.

  1. HIC, HOC. For anyone else interested, the relevant passage in Vox Latina may be read using the Look Inside! feature here at Amazon (UK) :
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vox-Latina-Guide-Pronunciation-Classical/dp/0521379369/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427649025&sr=8-1&keywords=vox+latina#reader_0521379369

(page 75 onwards).

  1. swtwentyman: I admire your rugged perseverance. Now that you’ve had a dig into Vergil, why not apply your spade to an ode or two of Horace, for example, 1.4, 1.9, 1.11, 1.5 or 4.7. Then we can look forward to more insights and analyses from Qimmik concerning Horatian poetry.

Bene vale/te!
Int