Sen. Her. F. 260-61

Latin Learning Latin
1

Hello,

I have been studying Seneca’s Hercules Furens for the past few weeks, but now I can’t seem to figure out the meaning of these two lines:

“e cuius arvis eque fecundo sinu
stricto iuventus orta cum ferro stetit”

More specifically, I can’t, for the life of me, understand why “eque” stands where it stands, a horse out of the blue, in the vocative case. In any case, I am more concerned with the grammar and the literal meaning of these lines, rather than asking for a poetic translation, as I am translating into another language than English.

My commentaries did not offer any insight on the matter, nor has a quick search on the internet come up with any clues. In light of this, any help you could offer would be much appreciated, for me to make sense of this passage.

Edit: Could “eque” perhaps stand here for “aeque”?

2

I would read that as e-que, the preposition e(x) followed by the enclitic -que, ‘and’.

3

Thank you so much. It is so clear to me now. Sometimes it truly is hardest to see the most obvious thing.

4

Meter could have helped you out here. eque “horse” wouldn’t scan.

5

I must admit that I’m always too unsure of meter to trust my instincts on that when translating. I now see that I have to look better into that.

The main clue for me should have probably been that my supposed horse had absolutely no place in the sentence, grammatically or contextually. Sometimes it’s just so hard to unsee what you think you see. In my frustration, I simply could not get past it.