[629] Nepotesque Med., ‘nepotes’ Gud. In Pal. ‘que’ is nearly erased. The change was evidently made to avoid the hypermeter. ‘Ipsique nepotesque’— the present generation of Tyrians and Trojans and all that follow them. The prayer is that hostility may begin at once and never cease; another way of putting ‘stirpem et genus omne futurum Exercete odiis.’ Wagn., Forb., and Gossrau refer the words exclusively to the Trojans and their Roman descendants, supposing Dido to wish that the nation may be cursed with perpetual war. But a thought so weighty would not have been included in a single hemistich, nor can ‘pugnent’ well stand, apart from the context, for “bello aeterno exerceantur:” while Gossrau's attempt to give the sense to the previous sentence, which he would commence with v. 627—‘Whenever the Romans shall gain strength, let them find themselves with the whole world in arms against them’— though ingenious, is by no means natural.
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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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