[401] There seems something contemptuousin ‘exsanguis terreat umbras.’ ‘Exsanguis’ is used to express the effect of terror (2. 212, &c.), so that to frighten those who are bloodless already is to slay the slain. A similar taunt too appears in ‘patrui’ v. 402, as if Proserpine were ill matched. ‘Let Cerberus continue to frighten the weak, and Proserpine keep her unenvied state’ would seem to be the spirit of the two lines. The Sibyl's tone is affected by her sympathy with Aeneas, so that she falls, excusably perhaps, into a strain which, though natural to a philosophical Roman, would hardly be found in Homer.
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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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