[711] Wagn. thinks ‘ea’ is used rather than ‘haec’ because Aeneas is more anxious to know the general character of the river than its name (see on 3. 393). It seems simpler to say that ‘ea’ is used for ‘illa,’ which in the oratio obliqua would answer to ‘haec’ in the oratio recta. ‘Porro’ seems to have its local sense of ‘procul,’ like πόρ᾽ῥω, for which Forc. quotes Plaut. Rud. 4. 3. 95, “Ubi tu hic habitas? Porro illic longe usque in campis ultimis.” It is more commonly found of motion onwards, which may be its meaning here, as Heyne explains it, “longo inde cursu praetexentia campum.” Otherwise it might be taken in its most ordinary sense, Aeneas asking further about Lethe, after having asked generally the causes of what he saw.
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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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