[583-585] Henry thinks that in these three lines another definite picture is presented, the ‘chori’ severally wheeling about, one set (say) E. and W., another W. and E., and thus meeting in the middle of the ‘spatia,’ when they come into collision so as to prevent each other from completing the circle, ‘orbibus orbis Inpediunt,’ and then pretend to fight for passage, ‘pugnae cient simulacra.’ Accepting the definite picture which he had developed out of the preceding lines, I think he has been too anxious for explicitness here. Virg.'s words, it seems to me, become purposely rather indefinite at this point, ‘alios cursus aliosque recursus’ merely expressing that these retreats and charges keep going on in one form or another. ‘Adversi spatiis’ (so Wagn. from Med. and Rom., for ‘adversis,’ Pal. and Gud.) seems to imply that they still keep their ground, right and left respectively, as they took it in v. 580, though they are continually advancing and retreating over the ground. ‘Adversi spatiis,’ opposed in point of ground, is of course the same thing as ‘adversis spatiis.’ ‘Alternosque (so Wagn. again from Med., Pal. &c., for ‘alternisque’ Rom.) orbibus orbis Inpediunt’ is I think rightly referred by the generality of the commentators to complicated circular evolutions as it were entangling each other. The ‘chori’ are not really confused, but their movements are so ingeniously intricate that they appear confused: the effect produced is that of circles involved in or cutting each other. “Septenosque orbibus orbis Inpediunt” occurs 8. 448 of the shield of Aeneas, where, though the entanglement of the circles is not the same as that here supposed, the picture is still less like what Henry imagines, circles preventing each other from being circles. Besides, Virg. has himself shown that he intends not single but highly complicated evolutions by the comparison to the labyrinth which immediately follows—a comparison which would be unmeaning if the movements of the ‘chori’ had been such as the eye could easily trace. Whether these circular evolutions are the same as what is described generally in v. 583, or something different, it is not easy to say. There will be no reference in any case to the military sense of ‘orbis’ ( = ‘globus’） for a mass of men. ‘Alternos’ implies that the complication was reciprocal. ‘Pugnaeque cient simulacra sub armis’ seems to be general—‘in short, they have a sham fight.’ The expression is from Lucr. 2.41, 324, “belli simulacra cientes,” which is actually copied below v. 674. ‘Sub armis;’ above v. 440.
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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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