[870] This and the following line are the words of Aeneas, as we learn from the beginning of the next book. Heyne thought them spurious: but the only charge he brings against them, except that of frigidity, is that they are inconsistent with the fact, Palinurus having met his fate precisely because he refused to trust the sea and take his natural rest—a charge at once answered by Aeneas' ignorance of the circumstances of the case. ‘Pelago sereno’ is a singular expression (in Stat. Silv. 3. 2. 10 the reading is doubtful): but Virg. doubtless felt that ‘caelo’ paved the way for the extension of the epithet.
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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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