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A Hellish Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

J. G. Landels
J. G. Landels
Affiliation:
The University, Hull
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Extract

Vocem in v. 514 is generally taken to mean ‘voice’ on this basis there are two possible interpretations— (a) that Allecto shouted through the bucina, or (b) that two actions are implied, an alarm call on the bucina followed by a shout, (a) is, owing to the structure of this type of instrument, physically impossible; this may or may not be regarded as an objection, (b) presents less difficulty, but it seems strange that, if two actions are involved, Vergil should have joined cornuque recuruo syntactically with the wrong one of the two; in sense it would belong with pastorale canit signum.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue 3-4 , November 1958 , pp. 219 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1958

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References

1 So Conington (iii. 50, though not in his prose translation) and Knight, W. F. J. (Penguin translation, p. 191).Google Scholar

2 This difficulty could be removed by supposing that the endings of vv. 512 and 513 (et de culmine summo. cornuque recuruo) had been interchanged, perhaps by Vergil himself; there is no manuscript evidence to suggest miscopying.

3 ad vocem bucinae, nam quicunque sonus dici ox potest.

4 Cf. Aen. 5. 136, intentaque bracchia remis.

5 The v. 1. incendit (M1, R) is not generally ccepted: uses quoted by Conington (x. 895, i. 147) are not really parallel, as they describe the effect, not the production, of the sound.

6 Cf. Aeschines (Fals. Leg.) 2. 157 Aeschylus, , Pers. 574–5 Eur. Medea 201, and the derived adj. in Eumenides 569 and Ar. Clouds 1154. The suggested meanings are (a) ‘shout loudly’, or ‘intensify’, (b) ‘prolong’, and (c) ‘raise to a high pitch’. On (b) cf. an article by E. K. Borthwick, to appear in the near future in C.Q.Google Scholar

7 Bacchides 709, Poenulus 201.

8 Aen. 8. 704, 9. 590, 665.

9 Aen. 9. 606 spicula tendere cornu.

1 On the dating cf. Sch. on Iliad 18. 219, and on the use of a torch to start races, Sch. on Frogs 133.

2 In Homer, as the Alexandrians observed, it is mentioned only in similes, and never depicted in actual use, as it is (e.g.) in Eur. Troades 1267. The ‘invention’ seems to have been a technological advance in the working of bronze, by which the older bucina or could be reproduced in metal. Vergil's Misenus uses a bronze instrument—yet another ‘felicitous anachronism’.