[644] Translated from Od. 8. 264, πέπληγον δὲ χορὸν θεῖον ποσίν, where however it would seem from a preceding line, v. 260, that χορόν is the place of dancing, not the dance, though the other construction, χορόν as a cogn. acc., would be sufficiently idiomatic. The sense of clapping the hands, though the most usual sense of ‘plaudo,’ does not seem to be the primary one, at least if we may argue from its derivation “plaustrum” (comp. “claudo,” “claustrum”), which may either be, as Scaliger ap. Forc. thinks, “a plaudendo terram,” or perhaps ‘a thing hammered,’ as κροτεῖν is used of applause, of hammering, and of the rattle of a car (ὄχεα κροτέοντες Il. 15. 453), ὄχεα κροτητά Soph. El. 714 being taken by some ‘hammered,’ by others ‘made to rattle.’ Κρότος ποδῶν is used of dancing Eur. Heracl. 583, Tro. 746, like ‘pedibus plaudunt’ here, and the parallel may be completed by comparing κροτητὰ μέλη Soph. Thamyris fr. 221, music struck out by the πλῆκτρον, with the similar action expressed by ‘plaudere’ in the Ciris v. 179, “Non Libyco molles plauduntur pectine telae.” ‘Carmina dicunt’ G. 1. 350, where it is mentioned in connexion with dancing.
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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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