[507, 508] Both here and in v. 513 Virg. has had his eye on Homer's description of the second shot with which Meriones kills the dove after Teucer had cut the cord. The lines, as they appear in our editions, are difficult, as it would seem that Meriones shot with the same bow as Teucer, but that he had taken aim with his arrow, which he held in the same place, even while snatching the bow from Teucer's hand. Σπερχόμενος δ᾽ ἄρα Μηριόνης ἐξείρυσε χειρὸς Τόξον: ἀτὰρ δὴ ὀϊστὸν ἔχεν πάλαι ὡς ἴθυνεν. Eustath. however tells us that in the Marseille recension, ἡ Μασσαλιωτικὴ ἔκδοσις, the lines were read Σπερχόμενος δ᾽ ἄρα Μηριόνης ἐπέθη κατ᾽ ὀϊστὸν Τόξῳ: ἐν γὰρ χερσὶν ἔχεν πάλαι ὡς ἴθυνεν. We cannot tell what reading Virg. had in his copy of Homer; but at any rate he has given his competitors a bow apiece. ‘Acer,’ keen; not quite the same as σπερχόμενος, ‘rapidus,’ as Mnestheus had not the same occasion for haste. ‘Adducto arcu’ may be illustrated by Il. 4. 123, νευρὴν μὲν μαζῷ πέλασεν, τόξῳ δὲ σίδηρον. ‘Arcus’ is here put of the whole, string as well as bow, the string of course being that which he drew to him. See on 9. 632. ‘Constitit,’ took his stand. “Alta petens” in a different sense G. 1. 142 note. ‘Pariterque oculos telumque tetendit’ seems to mean ‘he levelled his arrow, as he had already levelled his eye.’ The latter action would precede the former, but might continue along with it. “Tendere lumina” 2. 485. “Tendant ferrum” we have just had v. 489. Thus there is no reason to suppose a zeugma here.
This text is part of:
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.