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Vergil, Aeneid 4.543

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. Dyson
M. Dyson
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Extract

In his vigorous analysis of Dido's soliloquy J. Henry confronts the problem of line 543: ‘How comes it that, having just decided that she will not go with the Trojans, that they would not even receive her if she went, she so immediately inquires shall she go with them, alone or accompanied?’ He suggests that the words introduce ‘a new category of objections’; hitherto the issue has been between herself and the Trojans, but now she reflects that the Trojans are not the only people she has to deal with. To go alone is but to run away from her own people, and she cannot in the circumstances of their recent arrival at Carthage ask them to sail with her. ‘Even more impossible to leave Carthage than to go with Aeneas.’

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , May 1990 , pp. 214 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 Henry, J., Aeneidea ii (Dublin, 1878), p. 786.Google Scholar

2 Pease, A. S., Aeneidos liber quartus (Cambridge, MA, 1935)Google Scholar, ad loc., is in substantial agreement with Henry in taking line 543 to introduce a new aspect of the case, but he does not expressly debate the apparent contradiction.

3 See the commentaries on this passage of Austin, R. G., Aeneidos liber quartus (Oxford, 1955)Google Scholar, and Williams, R. D., The Aeneid of Virgil, Books 1–6 (London, 1972).Google Scholar

4 This interpretation is my own modification of that of Henry (above, n. 1), devised as an attempt to make sense of the passage and put forward here to forestall its possible use as a counter to the criticism.

5 Sabbadini, R., Vergili Aeneis (Torino, 1922), on 543Google Scholar: ‘li accompagneró sulle mie navi sola o con tutti i miei?’ The plural ‘ships’ is rather odd in connection with her going alone, but the meaning is clear enough. More precise is Buscaroli, C., Virgilio, il libro di Didone (Milano, 1932), p. 382Google Scholar: ‘seguirli sola su una nave’. Buscaroli refers to other suggestions e.g. that at 543 Dido intends to disguise herself as a slave in order to get aboard a Trojan ship despite their refusal! At least the authors of this interpretation took the contradiction seriously.

6 Baehrens, E., ‘Emendationes Vergilianae’, Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Paedagogik 135 (1887), 807–29, p. 820.Google Scholar I quote the main section: ‘quaestionem in universum factam, secuturane sit Troianos horum se subdens imperio (537), quamquam ingratus eorum animus dubitantem de re suscipienda facit (538 sq.), tamen singillatim persequitur Dido de variis sequendi modis deliberans, disputat autem v. 540–2 de se a Troianis excipienda simulque hanc rationem inprobat, turn demum ex se quaerit utrum sola an cum tota gente sit comitatura (543–6). sed hoc alterum de tota gente iactum ut statim refutat iustis causis, ita ad prius illud (solane sit itura) nihil respondet. haec autem responsio necessaria habetur in panno illo 540–2, qui suo loco alienus est utpote non pendens alicunde. bene omnia profluent v. 543 ante 540 posito.’

7 But not by Geymonat, M., Vergili opera (Torino, 1973)Google Scholar, who records it in his apparatus criticus.

8 I wish to record my thanks to my colleague Dr Michael Apthorp for the benefit of his comments on a draft of this article.