[383] Haurire of suffering to the full, like ἀντλεῖν, and the old Latin ‘exantlare.’ “Quot, quantas, quam incredibiles hausit calamitates!” Cic. 1 Tusc. 35. Waardenburg thinks there is a special reference to death by drowning; but though such a wavering between two meanings would be sufficiently like Virg., Aeneas' repeated cries on Dido would precede, not follow, his ‘drinking the stifling wave.’ It was natural that those who could not understand ‘hausurum’ should conjecture ‘haesurum,’ as Erythraeus did; but ‘supplicia’ presented a difficulty, which was not satisfactorily surmounted by reading ‘supplicio.’ ‘Mediis scopulis’ implies of course shipwreck on a rock. ‘Dido’ may either be the Greek accusative or the vocative. The latter is more probable, as Virg. elsewhere studiously avoids using any inflexion of the word, adopting ‘Elissa’ instead in oblique cases. Comp. Prop. 1. 18. 31, “resonent mihi Cynthia silvae.” Ov. however, while not using any other inflexion of the word, has ‘Dido’ twice as an acc., vv. 7, 133. Cerda collects instances from the Latin poets of drowning persons calling out the names of those who were most in their minds. Comp. also Croesus' cry on Solon in Hdt. 1.
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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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