[585] ‘Exstinxisse laudabor,’ like “posuisse figuras Laudatur,” Persius 1. 86. The more ordinary construction would be ‘laudabor quod exstinxi,’ or ‘qui exstinxerim.’ Virg. has another variety 10. 449, “spoliis ego iam raptis laudabor opimis.” ‘Nefas,’ contemptuously of a person, as we might say, ‘for having put out of the way so much crime.’ So ‘scelus’ is frequently used in the comic writers. ‘Merentis’ is probably the acc. pl., agreeing with ‘poenas,’ not, as Heyne and others have thought, the genitive singular, a construction which, though not prima facie opposed to the genius of the language, would require to be supported by examples. ‘Merentis poenas’ will then be like “sceleratas poenas,” v. 576, note. The repetition of a harsh or unusual expression within a few lines may be used as an argument against the whole passage; but similar instances might, I fancy, be accumulated, where it seems as if a novelty in language had exercised for the moment a fascination on the writer, compelling him to recur to it immediately after having used it first. The mere repetition of ‘poena,’ ‘poenas,’ may be paralleled more easily; comp. “pulsae,” “pulsa,” in the passage from A. 11, cited on v. 583.
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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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