P. Vergili Maronis Georgicon Libri I. Ii. Ed. with Engl. Notes by A. Sidgwick

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ...the wheel. 39. immanem, 'cruel'. saxum refers to the punishment of Sisyphus, the brigand-king of Corinth, who in Hades had to roll a stone for ever up hill, which was always falling back upon him. This stone is here boldly and expressively called 'unconquerable', non exsuperabile. These two were stock instances of sinners tortured below (Ov. Met. IV. 459, X. 43 &c), which explains the omission of Sisyphus' name: so A. vI. 616 'saxum ingens volvont alii radiisve rotarum districti pendent'. 40. Dryadum, 'the wood nymphs' of the Greek mythology. sequamur, 'track', 'seek', a favourite use of V. sequere Italiam ventis A. IV. 381, sequi tabulataper ulmos G. II. 361. 41. intactos, 'wild' but the epithet suggests Vergil's love for the country as something 'undefiled' by man. Maecenas had urged V. to write the Georgics: see Introduction. 42. incohat. This and not inchoat is the true classical spelling. en age, &c. C. takes this as an address to Maecenas 'to plunge with him into the subject'. It is simpler to take it (with W. L.) as an exclamation addressed to himself. 43. He is going to treat of animals: and he expresses this imaginatively by saying he is summoned to Cithaeron (mountain on the border of Boeotia, --the land full of cattle, and the mount of wild beasts), to Taygetus (mountain of Laconia famous for dogs), and Epidaurus (in Argolis, the land famed for horses). 46. 'To sing the wars of Caesar' V. here sets before him as an aim hereafter to be fulfilled, see 11. The idea was carried out in a very different shape, in the Aeneid, when the military glory of Augustus had fallen into the background. dicere. The infin. prolate is used by V. with many more verbs than by prose writers: in fact with any verb implying order, wish, ...