[615] Quam poenam, sc. ‘exspectent,’ or, if the construction is the same as in the next clause, ‘exspectant.’ ‘Mersit’ shows that ‘quae’ must be relative, not interrogative, ‘doceri formam fortunamve quae mersit,’ though the awkwardness of such a construction may dispose us to see some plausibility in ‘merset,’ the reading of two MSS. ‘Mergere’ however is simpler than ‘mersare,’ and is supported by v. 429, 512 above. ‘Forma’ too is very strange, though it receives some illustration from v. 626, where it evidently means “species,” a sense illustrated by Forc. from Cicero's Topics. Here the meaning seems not to be ‘forma sceleris,’ but ‘forma poenae,’ so that ‘forma fortunave’ form a kind of hendiadys. Virg. probably chose the word on account of the dramatic character of the various mythological punishments, which consist in some striking, significant, and pictorial act. The form itself is said ‘mergere,’ as it receives them when they are engulphed in the abyss.
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John Conington. P. Vergili Maronis opera. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. The works of Virgil, with a Commentary by John Conington, M.A. Late Corpus Professor of Latin in the University of Oxford. London. Whittaker and Co., Ave Maria Lane. 1876.
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