10:20. Vesta. Goddess of the hearth.
10:20. Quirinus. Name given to Romulus after he was translated from earth to heaven. Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome. Cicero tells us that after his translation, Romulus appeared on the Quirinal Hill and stated that his name as god was Quirinus, and gave instructions that a temple should be erected to him on that hill—hence the name of the hill and the palace, once home of the popes, now of the monarchs of Italy.
10:26. Son of Maia. Mercury, swift-winged messenger of the gods.
10:28. Dido. Daughter of Belus, king of Tyre; widow of Sychæus. According to story, she led the Phœnician colony to Carthage.
10:33. Punic. Carthaginian. So the three Punic wars of Rome against Carthage.
11:17. Ho.
11:26. Goddess.
11:27. Phœbus’ sister. Diana, sister of Phœbus Apollo.
12:1. Agenor. Twin brother of Belus and founder of Sidon, from whom Dido was descended.
12:18. Hope.
12:33. Woman. “Dux femina facti,”—motto on the medal in 1588, in honor of Elizabeth’s victories over the Spanish Armada. Cf. Kingsley’s Westward Ho!
12:36. Byrsa. A word which in the Carthaginian language meant citadel, but sounded like a Greek word meaning bull’s hide. From this confusion, apparently, arose the story that Dido cut a bull’s hide into very thin strings and so encompassed much ground for her new city.
13:24. Breath of life.
13:31. Jove.
13:36. Wings.
14:6. Walk.
14:18. Paphos. A city in Cyprus.
14:20. Sabæan incense. Arabian frankincense.
14:37. Bees.
15:18. Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were the chief cities of Phœnicia. Adjectives formed from them are used interchangeably with Phœnician and Carthaginian for the sake of variety or to meet metrical requirements.
15:37. Tears.
16:4. Pergamus. Troy.
16:12. Xanthus. A river near Troy.
16:13. Troilus. Shakespeare’s Troilus draws plot from Chaucer.
16:19. Pallas. Minerva, goddess of wisdom, friend of the Greeks.
16:32. Memnon. Leader of the Æthiopian allies of Troy. Was son of Tithonus and Aurora.
16:33. Penthesilea. Queen of the Amazons who fought for Troy. Achilles slew both Memnon and Penthesilea.
17:6. Diana.
17:9. Latona. Mother of Apollo and Diana. The type of perfect mother love.
18:10. Orion. A hunter famous in ancient myth, armed with belt and sword, translated to the heavens as a constellation, thought to bring storms.
19:36. Shone.
20:4. Enchased.
21:9. Learning.
21:30. Acanthus. A plant now called bear’s-foot, or bear’s-breech; grows in southern Europe, Asia Minor, and India. Its leaf was a common form in embroidery and sculpture, and is well known from its use in the Corinthian capital.
21:31. Helen. Most beautiful of women, daughter of Jupiter and Leda, was wife of Menelaus of Sparta. She was carried off by Paris as Venus’ reward to him for his decision in her favor in the question of the Golden Apple. This breach of hospitality by Paris was the cause of the Trojan war.
22:1. Cupid. Son of Venus; god of love.
22:10. Typhœan. Thunderbolts of Jove, called Typhœan because they slew the giant Typhœus at the time of the great fight for the throne of heaven between Jupiter and the Olympian gods and “the earth-born Titan brood.”
22:38. Poison.
23:4. Slumber.
23:29. Gazing.
23:35. Lap.
24:6. Lamps.
24:15. Bacchus. Son of Jupiter and Semele, god of wine, and, by metonymy, used to mean wine. (Name of god for his realm, as Vulcan for fire, etc.).
24:25. Atlas. A king of Mauretania; father of the Pleiades; he supported the heavens on his shoulders. He was skilled in astronomy. Personification of Mount Atlas.
24:25. Song.
26:8. Myrmidons or the Dolopes. The soldiers of Achilles, who was the fiercest of the Greeks.
26:9. Ulysses. King of “Ithaca’s rocky isle,” husband of “faithful Penelope.” His wanderings are the subject of Homer’s Odyssey. Homer’s stock epithet is “the very crafty.”
27:18. Laocoon. A priest of Apollo appointed to act as priest of Neptune. The famous group of Laocoon and his two sons in the coils of the twin serpents, of the Pergamenian type of sculpture, was discovered in the baths of the Emperor Titus, and stands in the Belvidere of the Vatican Museum.
29:8. Calchas. Priest of the Greeks.
29:14. Sons of Atreus. Agamemnon, king of Mycenæ, commander-in-chief of the Greeks, and his brother Menelaus of Sparta, former husband of Helen.
29:27. Phœbus. Apollo, god of prophecy.
31:16. Palladium. Statue of Pallas, the Greek goddess identified by the Romans with Minerva, goddess of wisdom, of household arts, and of war. Also called Tritonia.
32:7. Pelops. Son of Tantalus and father of Atreus. He was served up as food for the gods by his father, restored to life by Jupiter, and furnished with an ivory shoulder in place of the one eaten at the banquet. He gained control of the Peloponnesus, or Morea, which was named for him. The use here, another case of the specific for the generic, is in place of Greece itself.
33:27. Cassandra. Daughter of Priam and Hecuba. Priestess of Apollo. When she offended Apollo, he could not take back the prophetic power which he had given her, but he decreed that her prophecies should never be believed.
34:17. Hector. Of this passage Fénelon wrote, “Can one read this passage without being moved?” Châteaubriand called the scene “a kind of epitome of Virgil’s genius.”
35:9. Vesta. So Æneas is to be apostle to the heathen. Even the early Christians reverenced the vestal sisters, prototype of church sisterhoods. The institution known as the Vestal Virgins was the purest element of the Roman religion; even emperors intrusted their last wills to their sacred keeping as the most inviolable of safeguards. Their convent has recently been excavated near the Roman Forum.
38:36. Nereus. A sea-god, father of the Nereids.
40:3. Andromache. Daughter of King Eëtion, wife of Hector, the eldest son of Priam and the most famous warrior of the Trojans, finally slain by Achilles and dragged around the walls of Troy.
40:17. Pyrrhus. Son of Achilles. Also called Neoptolemus. After fighting in the Trojan war, he founded a kingdom in Epirus.
41:17. Hecuba. Chief wife of Priam. She really was the mother of nineteen children. Poetic license treats her as the queen mother of all Priam’s fifty daughters-in-law and fifty daughters, and finally includes them all under the term daughters-in-law.
43:13. Creusa. Wife of Æneas and mother of Ascanius or Iulus.
43:21. Tyndareus. Father of Helen.
46:2. Flame. In this passage Virgil makes Anchises refer to a previous capture of Troy by the Greek hero Hercules, at which time King Laomedon was slain; and, secondly, to Jupiter’s punishment of Anchises himself for boasting of the love of Venus. Jupiter crippled him by a thunderbolt.
The time covers about six years. It begins with events immediately following the fall of Troy, June, B.C. 1184.
51:7. Antandros. A city on the southern side of Mount Ida, near Troy.
51:19. Lycurgus. An early king of Thrace who stoutly opposed the introduction of the rites of Bacchus into his realm, was blinded and afterward destroyed by Jupiter. The present king was Polymnestor, who had married Priam’s daughter Ilione.
51:24. Æneadæ. Literally, descendants of Æneas, translated by Conington in Book I, line 157, as “the family of Æneas.” Really used to mean the “household” of Æneas, or followers of Æneas, nation of Æneas. So Greek artists of the early time called themselves Dædalides, or followers of Dædalus. One is reminded of the tale of Jacob with his “household” meeting Esau with his “household.” Indeed, the Romans themselves were sometimes called Romulides, followers of Romulus.
51:25. Dione. Mother of Venus.
52:13. Gradivus. Mars, god of war, who decides the issue of all battles, and goes forth to war with giant strides. Gradivus is derived from a Latin word meaning to march, Mars was father of Romulus and Remus by Rhea Sylvia.
53:11. Manes. The souls of the dead, also the spirit or shade of a single person.
53:16. Farewell call. The cry valē, made three times at the funeral pyre as a final farewell to the dead.
53:35. Thymbra. A city near Troy having a famous temple of Apollo.
64:35. Gnossus. A common name for Crete, from one of its towns.
55:4. Idomeneus. A king of Crete, leader of the Cretan forces against Troy. On his return to Crete, in accordance with a vow, he sacrificed his son to the gods. Because of the pestilence that followed this act, the Cretans banished Idomeneus.
56:17. Hesperia. Land of the evening star, or western land, Italy. Also called Ausonia.
56:25. Corythus. Legendary ancestor of the Trojans.
56:26. Dicte. A mountain in the eastern part of Crete.
57:32. Celæno. Queen of the Harpies, which were foul winged monsters described as daughters of Electra and Oceanus.
57:33. Phineus. King of Salmydessus in Thrace. He put out the eyes of his son, and so was himself blinded by the gods, and the Harpies were sent to torment him by carrying off or defiling all his food. The house of Phineus was shut to the Harpies when they were driven off by the Argonauts.
59:5. Tables. Not so dreadful a portent as it seemed. See page 153.
59:18. Zacynthos. The island Zante.
59:29. Actium. Actium is introduced here because of the epoch-making battle of Actium between Augustus and Antony, and the fact that Augustus, after the victory, initiated games there.
60:5. Phæacian. The island Corfu.
61:4. Daughter. Polyxene, sacrificed at the tomb of Achilles.
61:11. Hermione. Granddaughter of Leda, daughter of Menelaus and Helen; had been betrothed in Menelaus’ absence to Orestes. Menelaus, not knowing this, gave her to Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son.
61:36. Scæan gate. Famous gate of Troy.
63:4. Circe. The famous sorceress, who by her magic cake turned men into animals. She was called Ææan, from Æa, a city in Colchis, in Asia Minor, famous for its magic. Circe came from Colchis. Her island is fabled to have become a promontory of Latium.
64:5. Scylla and Charybdis. Whirlpools, bordering the straits of Messina, dangerous to the ancient navigator. This is the description of Scylla used by Milton in describing one of the guardians of the gate of Hell.
64:15. Trinacrian. Sicilian. The word is of Greek origin, and signifies triangular, referring to the contour of Sicily. Pachynus itself was the southeastern point of Sicily, the modern Capo di Passaro.
66:8. Astyanax. Son of Hector and Andromache, who perished in the sack of Troy.
67:8. Aurora. Goddess of the dawn. Wife of Tithonus.
68:32. Enceladus. One of the giants who was defeated by Jupiter and imprisoned in a burning cave beneath Mount Ætna. See Longfellow’s Enceladus.
All this region, as has been newly shown by the late terrible earthquake, is peculiarly subject to seismic disturbances.
72:17. Arethusa. According to fable, pursued by Alpheus, river-god of Elis in Greece, was turned into a subterranean river, still pursued by the river-god under the Ægean until she emerged harmoniously blent with her pursuer in the famous fountain of Ortygia. Shelley uses the legend as follows in his Arethusa:—
This portion of the Æneid was written when the memory of Antony and Cleopatra was still fresh, and many traits of royal, imperious Dido seem suggestive of the Egyptian queen. Cf. Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, and Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women.
74:8. Dawn-goddess. Aurora, with Phœbus’ torch. Apollo is constantly identified with the sun-god.
75:3. Erebus. God of darkness, son of Chaos and brother of Night. Synonymous with darkness, especially that of the underworld.
76:5. Lyæus. Bacchus. As the god that makes men unbend and frees them from care, he is called Father Lyæus.
78:9. Hymen. God of marriage.
79:24. Fame. Cf. Bacon, Fragment of an Essay of Fame. “The poets make Fame a monster. They describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously. They say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath; so many tongues; so many voices; she pricks up so many ears. This is a flourish; there follow excellent parables; as that she gathereth strength in going; that she goeth upon the ground, and yet hideth her head in the clouds, that in the day-time she sitteth in a watch-tower, and flieth most by night; that she mingleth things done with things not yet done, and that she is a terror to great cities.”
79:31. Cœus. One of the Titans; was father of Latona.
80:34. Mæonian cap. Mæonia, part of Lydia, Asia Minor. Since Lydia and Phrygia were adjacent, Mæonian = Phrygian = Trojan.
81:15. The laws. Rome, the world’s lawgiver.
83:18. Mænad. Mænads, or Bacchantes, women worshipping Bacchus in wild and orgiastic fashion in the woods or on mountain slopes of Cithæron.
84:19. Elissa. Dido.
84:31. Grynean. Refers to oracle of Apollo at Gryneum.
89:29. Hecate. Diana, moon-goddess, is identified with Hecate, also moon-goddess. As goddess of cross-roads, Hecate was called Trivia, and is represented by three statues standing back to back. Hecate is especially a goddess of the underworld and of witchcraft.
90:28. Laomedon. The father of Priam. He was notorious for his trickery and broken promises. Hence Trojans in a derogatory, scornful sense were termed race of Laomedon.
91:38. Tithonus. Son of Laomedon, husband of Aurora.
95:10. Iris. Goddess of the rainbow, the messenger of Juno.
95:14. Proserpine. Daughter of Ceres, wife of Pluto, and hence queen of underworld.
Æneas sees the flames of Dido’s pyre and guesses their meaning. In Sicily, he institutes funeral games to Anchises. Compare funeral games of Patroclus in 23d book of Iliad. The contest of the ships and the equestrian exhibition are wholly original, however. The burning of the fleet was part of an old Trojan legend.
99:8. Acheron’s prison. The underworld.
99:14. Phaethon. The sun-god.
99:23. Talent. A weight, not coin, of silver or gold. The Attic silver talent was worth over $1000.
103:2. Feel that they are thought strong. The translation here is poor, the correct rendering being, “They can, because they think they can.” Virgil’s is a classical expression of the power of belief.
103:12. Portunus, a god of harbors, is here associated with the other divinities of the deep.
103:24. The royal boy. Ganymede, a favorite subject of art.
106:38. Amycus. A famous boxer of Bebrycii killed by Pollux.
107:35. Eryx. A Sicilian king, son of Venus; was killed by Hercules in a boxing contest.
113:8. Labyrinth in Crete. The Labyrinth, a maze built by Dædalus for King Minos at Gnossus in Crete to contain the Minotaur.
113:25. Solemn. Sacred festival, required each year.
117:20. Dis. Ruler of the underworld, variously called Orcus, Acheron, Erebus, Avernus. Dis, or Pluto, brother of Jupiter, is called Jupiter Stygius.
117:22. Tartarus. The abode of the wicked in the underworld.
117:24. Elysium. The abode of the good in the underworld.
120:11. Glaucus. A prophetic sea-god, said to be completely incrusted by “shellfish, seaweed, and stones,” so that he is used by Plato (Rep. X, p. 116) as the image of a soul incrusted with sin.
120:12. Ino’s Palæmon. Ino with his son Palæmon were transformed into sea divinities. The following names are of sea divinities.
121:7. Lethe. A river of the underworld whose waters bring forgetfulness. Styx. The main river in the underworld.
121:17. Sirens’ isle. The Sirens were monsters with heads of women and bodies of birds who dwelt on some rocks off the Campanian coast, by the bay of Naples. Their sweet singing enticed mariners on to the rocks to be destroyed.
121:24. Naked corpse. Burial thought essential to spirit’s peace.
Visit of Æneas to Anchises in the world of the dead. Much of the philosophy is Stoic pantheism. The theory of the vision appears to include the Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis. Ulysses in Odyssey, Book XI, visited the world of shades.
122:11. Sibyl. Through the Cumæan Sibyl, Deïphobe, as the guide of Æneas through the lower world, Virgil exalts the use of the Sibylline Books in the Roman religion. It is interesting to note that the position given the Sibyl, as guide of Æneas, Dante in turn gives to Virgil as his own guide in the lower world.
122:24. Sons of Cecrops. The Athenians yearly surrendered seven youths and seven maidens to be sent to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur, because the Athenians, through envy of his success in the public games, had murdered Androgeus, son of Minos, king of Crete, and Minos had made this the condition of peace.
122:31. The edifice is the Labyrinth, in which the Minotaur was confined.
123:5. Icarus. Son of Dædalus, who sought to escape with his father from Crete, but flew so near the sun that the wax by which his wings were fastened on was melted, and he fell and perished in the sea called from his name Icarian.
123:35. Dardan. Trojan. The Trojans are called by Virgil sometimes descendants of Dardanus, sometimes of Laomedon, sometimes of Anchises, again of Æneas, now Teucrians, and now Phrygians.
123:36. Æacides. A patronymic, applied by Virgil, now to Achilles, as here, now to Pyrrhus Neoptolemus, meaning descendant of Æacus.
124:35. Dorian. Greek.
125:36. Alcides. Hercules.
126:10. Cocytus. A river of the underworld.
127:29. Fissile. Easy to split.
129:19. Aornos. Greek word, meaning without birds.
129:28. Furies. The Furies were the goddesses of Vengeance, named Allecto, Megæra, and Tisiphonë.
130:31. Briareus. Giant, son of Earth.
130:31. Lerna. A lake and marsh near Argos in Greece. Here dwelt the Hydra, a nine-headed monster, whose breath was poisonous. Hercules finally slew it. Possibly an idealized tradition of the draining of the marsh Lerna.
130:32. Chimæra. A fabulous monster which breathed forth fire. In front it was a lion, in the hinder part a dragon, and in the middle a goat. The monster was slain by Bellerophon.
130:33. Gorgons. Three mythical women of Libya, having some resemblance to the Furies. The chief was Medusa, slain by Perseus. Her head with serpent hair was placed in the shield or Ægis of Jove and Minerva.
134:31. Cerberus. Three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld.
136:10. Minos. King of Crete; after death became one of the judges in the underworld.
136:19. Marpessa. The mountain in Paros which contained the famous marble quarries, Marpesian, Parian.
138:12. Æolus. Ulysses was descended from Æolus.
140:20. Ixion. Ixion was father of Pirithous, king of the Lapithæ. Examples of men who have incurred the wrath of the gods.
141:31. Priest. Orpheus. Legendary poet and musician. ’Twas he who so charmed Proserpine that she allowed him to lead forth from the lower world his wife Eurydice.
142:9. Eridanus. A river issuing from the underworld, variously identified by ancient writers with the Po, the Rhine, or the Rhone,—usually with the Po.
143:26. Lethe. Quaffing its waters brought forgetfulness. See page 144.
146:1. Berecyntian mother. Cybele, a Phrygian goddess, worshipped as mother of the gods. So called from Berecyntus, a mountain in Phrygia, sacred to Cybele.
146:37. Fasces. The bundles of rods from which an axe protruded, carried by the lictor before certain magistrates when they appeared in public. Symbol of authority.
147:5. Drusi. A Roman family mentioned here in compliment to their descendent Livia, wife of Augustus.
147:5. Decii. The Decii, father, son, and grandson, solemnly devoted themselves to death, each to win a doubtful battle, in the wars of the Latins, of the Samnites, and of Pyrrhus respectively.
147:5. Torquatus. (T. Manlius) won his title (with a gold neck-chain) by slaying a gigantic Gaul.
147:6. Camillus, returning from banishment, drove back the victorious Gauls, winning back the captured standards.
147:12. Father-in-law and son-in-law. Cæsar and Pompey.
147:30. Fabii. Quintus Fabius wore out the strength of Hannibal, constantly refusing to be drawn into a pitched battle. Hence “Fabian policy” means delay.
148:10. Quirinus. Romulus.
149:7. Laurentian. Laurentum, a town on the coast of Latium, a city of King Latinus.
149:14. Gate of ivory.