Debita quam sulcis committas semina, quamque Multi ante occasum Maiæ cœpere: sed illos Si vero viciamque seres, vilemque faselum, Per duodena regit mundi Sol aureus astra. Ante occasum Maiæ.] Maia See the notes on Vilem faselum.] The kidneybeans are said to have been very common among the Romans; and therefore the poet is thought to have given them the epithet of vile, mean, or common. He might use this epithet, perhaps, because they might be sown in any sort of soil, as Pliny tells us. This author tells us also, that the Romans eat the seeds in the shells, as we do now. Pelusiaca lentis.] Pelusium is a town of Egypt, which gives name to one of the seven mouths of the Nile. He calls the lentil Pelusian or Egyptian, because the best are said to grow in that country. 225 230 Bootes.] This is a northern constellation, near the tail of the Great Bear. Arcturus, as has been already observed, is a part of this constellation. Idcirco, &c.] In these lines the poet, having, in honour of agriculture, supposed the sun to make his annual journey for the sake of that art, takes occasion to describe the five zones, the zodiac, the northern pole, and the antipodes, in a most beautiful and poetical manner. Mundi.] The commentators are much divided about the interpretation of this passage.The most general opinion is, that mundi follows astra; which makes the sense to be this: the sun governs the earth through twelve constellations of the world. I believe we must read orbem mundi, and understand it of the turning round of the heavens. Quinque tenent cælum zona.] This description of the five zones is thought to be taken from Eratosthenes. Under the torrid or burning zone lies that part of the earth which is contained Semper sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni: between the two tropics. This 235' 240 Munere concessa divum; via secta per ambas, obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.] Here the poet describes the zodiac, which is a broad belt spreading about five or six degrees on each side of the ecliptic line, and contains the twelve constellations or signs. They are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, Pisces. The ecliptic line cuts the equinoctial obliquely in two opposite points, whence the poet calls the zodiac obliquus signorum ordo. It traverses the whole torrid zone, but neither of the temperate zones; so that per ambas must mean between, not through them. Thus presently after, speaking of the Dragon, he says it twines per duas arctos: now that constellation cannot be said to twine through the two Bears, but between them. The zodiac is the annual path of the sun, through each sign of which he passes in about the space of a month. He is said to be in one of those signs when he appears in that part of the heavens where those stars are of which the sign is composed. Mundus ut ad Scythiam, &c.] He speaks here of the two poles of the world. He says the north Consurgit, premitur Lybia devexus in austros. pole is elevated, because that only is visible in these parts of the earth and for the same reason he speaks of the south pole as being depressed. The ancient Scythia was the most northern part of the known world, being what we now call Muscovy, and the Muscovite Tartary. Lybia is an ancient name for Africa, the southern part of which reaches to the tropic of Capricorn. Maximus hic flexu, &c.] This description of the Dragon winding, like a river, at the north pole, between the two Bears, is no less just than beautiful. Illic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet nox.] Virgil alludes, in this passage, to that doctrine of Epicurus, that the sun might possibly revive and perish every day if which opinion be admitted, there can be no antipodes, nor can the sun go to light another hemisphere. This opinion of Epicurus is to be found in his epistle to Pythocles, preserved by Diogenes Laertius. 245 250 Aut redit a nobis Aurora.] Here he proposes the contrary doctrine that the sun goes to light another hemisphere when he leaves our horizon. This is not inconsistent with the Epicurean philosophy: for we see, in the preceding note, that Epicurus proposes the other opinion only as a possibility. Primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis.] Some interpret this of the morning, as if it referred to Aurora, just mentioned; but the gender of primus is a sufficient argument against this interpretation. I take Sol to be understood. Accendit lumina Vesper.] Virgil is commonly understood to speak here of lighting candles; because Vesper, or the evening star, is the forerunner of the night. This is so low an idea, that I cannot think it ever entered into the mind of our poet. To conclude so sublime a piece of poetry with the mention of lighting candles, would be a wretched anticlimax. Surely |