[535] Subito adsurgens fluctu, rising with a sudden swell. ‘Orion adsurgens fluctu’ is another of those artifices noticed on vv. 381, 508, the word ‘adsurgens’ being intended to combine the rising of the star and the rising of the wave. For ‘adsurgens fluctu’ in the latter sense comp. G. 2. 160 and note; for the former comp. Val. Fl. 5. 566, “Qualibus adsurgens nox aurea cingitur astris.” We are reminded here rather of the follower of Hesiod and Aratus than of the imitator of Homer. The inconsistency was felt in Serv.'s time, many, as he says, putting the superfluous question why the rising of Orion is mentioned when the tempest was raised by Juno; to which he replies that Ilioneus was not aware of the facts which the poet learned from the Muse. Elsewhere storms are connected with the setting of Orion (7. 719, Hor. 1 Od. 28. 21., 3. 27. 17, Epod. 10. 10), as here with the rising. The rising of Orion is about midsummer (Pliny 18. 68), which agrees with the time here, v. 756.
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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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