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ON THE DIFFICULT PASSAGE IN AEN. 10.185–8: A POSSIBLE SOLUTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2025

Catalin Anghelina
Catalin Anghelina*
Affiliation:
Columbus State Community College, USA
*
Anghelina10@yahoo.com
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Abstract

The passage 10.185–8 in the Aeneid raises two difficult issues, which have not been satisfactorily resolved so far. The first issue is textual and concerns the word Cinyras/Cunarus in 185. The second vexed issue concerns the meaning of crimen amor vestrum in 188. The present paper summarizes the main discussions on this passage and tries to offer a new interpretation to it.

Keywords

AeneidCupavoCinyras/cinyreAmor/amorcrimenAeneid MS Tradition

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Research Article
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Greece & Rome , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , October 2025 , pp. 193 - 202
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In a well-known passage from Book 10 of the Aeneid, Vergil mentions Aeneas’ Etruscan allies in the war in Latium. One of these is a certain Cupavo, the leader of the Ligurians, and the son of Cycnus. The exact meaning of the passage that describes Cupavo, a character probably invented by Vergil, is shrouded in obscurity.Footnote 1 There is no general agreement among scholars on how to accurately interpret the verses referring to this character. The Latin text and translation of the Loeb edition are as follows:

Non ego te, Ligurum ductor fortissime bello,

transierim, Cinyre, et paucis comitate Cupavo,

cuius olorinae surgunt de vertice pennae

(crimen, Amor, vestrum) formaeque insigne paternae.

(Aeneid 10.185–8)

Nor would I pass thee by, O Cinyras, bravest in war of the Ligurian captains, or thee, Cupavo, with thy scanty train, from whose crest rise the swan-plumes – a reproach, O Love, to thee and thine – even the badge of his father’s form.Footnote 2

In the lines immediately following, Vergil succinctly tells the well-known story of Cycnus, the character that turned into a swan out of sorrow for the death of his cousin Phaethon.Footnote 3 Given this, there is no doubt about what the general meaning of lines 185–8 is. As Cycnus’ son, Cupavo wears on his helmet the symbol of his father, the swan plumes. There are, however, two details in this passage which have not been explained so far in a satisfactory way. I summarize these difficulties below and try to offer a new interpretation of the passage.

‘Cinyre’

The first difficulty is textual and concerns the fact that the manuscript tradition is not uniform with respect to the name Cinyre in line 186. There are different forms and variants of this word in the MSS: cinyre, cinyrae, cinire, cinere, c(i)nera, cunerae, cumarre.Footnote 4 This variation in the MSS is reflected in the various editions and translations of the Aeneid. The preferences of the editors for the name in 186 are mainly reducible to four.Footnote 5 These are either Cinyras/Cinyrus or Cunerus/Cunarus.Footnote 6 Cinyras is an actual Greek name, which is well known from the story of Cinyras and Myrrha, the incestuous parents of Adonis.Footnote 7 It is, therefore, not illogical to consider it as a suitable solution. The form Cinyrus, on the other hand, can explain the presupposed vocative Cinyre in the MSS. There is, however, no such name in Greek. Given this, it has been proposed that Cinyrus is a Latin name – possibly Vergil’s learned creation – based on the Greek adjective κινυρός ‘wailing, plaintive’; thus, Cinyrus would anticipate the sad content of the story of Cycnus immediately following.Footnote 8 The name Cupavo seems also to be the result of a wordplay that reflects details of the story of Cycnus.Footnote 9

The variant Cunarus can be found in Servius’ commentary.Footnote 10 Servius explains it as deriving from the name of the mountain Cunarus in Piceno, in southern Italy. Footnote 11 The name of this mountain today, however, is Conero, which is impossible to derive from Cunarus. Given this, it was proposed that the name in question was Cunerus and that Cunarus had to be a scribal error or a vulgarism.Footnote 12

Aside from the two solutions above, there is also Lejay’s conjecture that the disputed word in 186 is Cycni, the genitive of Cycnus.Footnote 13 The conjecture is based on the existence of cycne before cunare in two DSeru. MSS.Footnote 14 The translation of 186 would accordingly be ‘Cupavo, the son of Cycnus, followed by few…’. The main problem with this solution is that, unfortunately, Cycni does not appear anywhere in the Aeneid MSS. The reasons behind Lejay’s solution, however, are not difficult to understand. The mention of Cunare or Cinyre in line 186 runs against the logical construction of the whole passage. The lines immediately following 188 tell only the famous story of the metamorphosis of Cycnus; there is no additional mention of Cinyras or Cunarus, who is thus left in suspension after line 186.Footnote 15 This putative character seems to have an awkward place within the passage.

The logical disconnection between 186 and the rest of the passage is also reflected by syntax. The conjunction et in 186 is unlikely to coordinate Cupavo and a putative Cinyre/Cunare. Such coordination would blatantly contradict the beginning of the passage, in which Vergil specifically addresses himself to a single person, te. Footnote 16 In fact, in the Loeb edition, Fairclough (n. 2) is forced to add another ‘or thee’ to make sense of the whole passage: ‘nor would I pass thee, Cinyre … or thee Cupavo…’ Being aware of this difficulty, Timpanaro draws attention to a similar syntactical construction in G. 2.101–2: ‘non ego te, dis et mensis accepta secundis, /transierim, Rhodia, et tumidis bumaste racemis’, which he interprets as referring to two kind of grapes, the Rhodia and the bumastus.Footnote 17 He thus assumes that Rhodia implies an unmentioned uva. There is, however, nothing in the Georgics passage that prevents Rhodia from being an epithet of bumaste.Footnote 18 Given this, one cannot interpret 186 by taking into consideration the passage in the Georgics.

Another strong argument against the solution Cinyras/Cunarus in line 186 is the fact that the only king of the Ligurians we know of in the context above is Cycnus himself.Footnote 19 If this is so, then Cupavo, his son, must be the king/leader of the Ligurians. This excludes any other character, be it Cinyras or someone else, from being such a king. This observation shows that Vergil can refer to only one character in lines 185–8. This is Cupavo, the king/leader of the Ligurians. The conjunction et ‘and’, then, must coordinate Ligurum ductor fortissime bello ‘bravest in war of the Ligurian captains’ with paucis comitate ‘accompanied by few’. In other words, the coordination is between two adjectives in the vocative, fortissime ‘strongest’ and comitate ‘accompanied’, and not between two proper nouns. The meaning of the phrase without Cinyras/Cunerus is ‘O, you Cupavo, the strongest leader of the Ligurians in war and accompanied by few…’

It remains now to explain Cinyre/Cunare. According to the above, this word cannot be a name in the vocative. And, if Cycni is discarded as a plausible solution, the consequence is that this mysterious word is unlikely to be the name of a person. In other words, this word must be a common noun. This noun, in fact, exists in the MSS but it has been completely overlooked so far precisely because of the erroneous assumption that this word had to be a name. It is the variant cinere Footnote 20 (cf. n. 4 above), which can be interpreted as the ablative form of cinis, -eris, an actual Latin word meaning ‘ashes’, but also, metaphorically, ‘death’.Footnote 21 Given this observation, a completely new possibility emerges for the meaning of 185–6: ‘Nor would I pass thee by, Cupavo, bravest in war of the Ligurian captains and accompanied by few in (your) death…’

This interpretation raises an apparently insurmountable difficulty, which concerns the locative ablative cinere. In the case of an unqualified noun, this type of ablative is normally preceded by a preposition. Vergil, however, uses it freely without preposition even in the Aeneid; for example, at 12. 911–12 (non corpore…sufficiunt vires ‘strength is not enough in his body’) and 12. 914–15 (Tum pectore sensus vertuntur varii ‘all sorts of thoughts come to his mind’), where the norm would have required in corpore and in pectore.

Another possible solution for this syntactical difficulty is based on the build-up of the word comitatus ‘accompanied’, which is ultimately derived from the verb i-re ‘to go’ (comito <comes, itis ‘companion’ <Proto-Italic *kom-i-t ‘going together’).Footnote 22 To express direction and the idea of ‘towards’ with ire, Vergil appeals sometimes to the dative: it caelo (for ad caelum) clamor ‘a loud shout goes to heaven’ (11.192). Moreover, at 11.542 Vergil uses precisely the word comes ‘companion,’ which is based on i-re, with this kind of dative: Metabus…infantem fugiens…sustulit exsilio comitem ‘Metabus flees and takes the child with him into exile.’Footnote 23 Given this, the textual solution for 185–6 can also be:Footnote 24 Non ego te, Ligurum ductor fortissime bello,/ Transierim, cineri paucis comitate Cupavo ‘Nor would I pass thee by, Cupavo, bravest in war of the Ligurian captains and accompanied by few towards (your) death…’Footnote 25

Vergil, therefore, tells us that Cupavo will die in the battle. Unfortunately, neither Cupavo’s death nor Cupavo himself are mentioned again in the Aeneid.Footnote 26 Is this negligence on the part of the poet? Was he planning to pick up on the story again in a revised version? We will never know.Footnote 27 An omission such as the one above, however, is not peculiar to this passage. In 7.740–60, in the section in which he presents the Latin allies, Vergil mentions Umbro’s future death at the hands of the Trojans. As in the case of Cupavo, Vergil passes this moment over in silence.Footnote 28

There are also other considerations that corroborate the conclusion that the enigmatic word in 186 is cinis ‘ashes, death’. First, Vergil’s poetical jargon in this passage is essentially funerary. The verb transeo ‘pass by’ can often be seen on tombstones as a direct address to the passers-by.Footnote 29 The verb comitor ‘to accompany’ is also used to describe funeral processions; Vergil himself uses it as such in Aen. 11.51–2.Footnote 30 Thus, the whole passage bears a distinctive funereal flavor. This includes the metamorphosis of Cycnus, which happens because of his mourning for Phaethon.

Finally, there is the subtle echoing between lines 186 and 194. In 194, after having succinctly told the story of Cycnus, Vergil returns to the description of Cupavo: filius aequalis comitatus classe catervas ‘the son (of Cycnus), following in the fleet with like-age companions’.Footnote 31 The parallelism between cineri paucis comitatus (186) and comitatus classe catervas (194) is obvious and cannot be accidental.Footnote 32 The ideas expressed in these two phrases complement each other; they were purposely designed to reflect each other. In 194–7, Cupavo enters the scene of the conflict in a glorious way; in 185–6, the poet alludes to his glorious death.

Crimen amor vestrum

The second difficulty in the passage in question here concerns the meaning of line 188, which is characterized by Conington (n. 15) as ‘the most obscure in Virgil’. More precisely, there is no agreement on the meaning of the first part of the line that occurs before the break, crimen amor vestrum. The meaning, on the other hand, of the second part of 188, formaeque insigne paternae, is clear: ‘the emblem of your father’s shape’, which is, as I noted above, a transparent allusion to the story of Cycnus.

The Loeb translation of crimen amor vestrum as ‘a reproach to Cupid and Venus’ is problematic.Footnote 33 It is unclear why the wearing of plumes by Cupavo would represent a ‘reproach’. Cupavo wears them because they are a symbol of his family (father) and not because he wants to reproach Cupid and Venus for his father’s death.Footnote 34

There is also Servius’ interpretation. For Servius, amor refers to the erotic love between Cycnus and Phaethon, and amor vestrum means ‘your love, Cycnus and Phaethon’.Footnote 35 Since neither Cycnus nor Phaethon are introduced into the story at this point, there doesn’t seem to be any logical connection between vestrum and the passage in discussion here. As for the erotic relationship between Cycnus and Phaethon, Servius himself is not certain of its nature. He only postulates that this love had to be erotic. Footnote 36 The version of this story in Ovid (cf. Met. 2.367–80) does not explicitly mention this type of love. The elegiac poet Phanocles (fourth century BC), on the other hand, included this story among those with erotic theme.Footnote 37 Vergil’s language (189 amati, 191 amorem) seems to point in this direction as well.Footnote 38 This version of the story reflects the literary topos of amor ‘love’ being connected to mors ‘death’.Footnote 39

The meaning of 188 also depends on how one interprets its syntax, more precisely the role of the coordinating conjunction –que ‘and’. In the Loeb edition, crimen amor vestrum is parenthetical, and, therefore, -que coordinates formae insigne paternae with olorinae pennae in 187. In such a case, the role of –que would be epexegetic. Such an epexegetic coordination across a parenthetical phrase, however, seems to be artificial.Footnote 40

Another possible interpretation for the syntactical role of –que is that it coordinates the two hemistiches of 188. In such a case, 188 would be entirely an epexegesis of 187: ‘…swan plumes/a reproach to you, Cupid, and the badge of the father’s shape’. This coordination works well syntactically. Semantically, however, it also seems artificial; there is no logical connection between ‘reproach’ and ‘badge’.

Given these difficulties, I propose a new solution to the meaning of 188. It is based on the other meaning of crimen, which is ‘crime’ or ‘guilt’. This solution takes into consideration the fact that right after this passage Vergil mentions the story of Cycnus and Phaethon. The story elaborates on the lines 185–8. It shows Cycnus as Phaethon’s loving companion. Given this, Amor’s guilt is that he is the cause of Cycnus’ death and metamorphosis into a swan. One should note as well that the mention of Amor in this story is not superfluous. The swan is Venus’ bird; therefore, a symbol of love.Footnote 41 More importantly, the swan points directly to Venus, who is, thus, implicitly referred to in uestrum.Footnote 42 This use of the second person plural when addressing a single person is not unusual in Vergil. At 9.525, he addresses Calliope with uos, thus referring to all the other Muses. The same happens at 1.140. There, Neptune addresses the wind Eurus with uos, which points to the other winds as well. There is, thus, strong evidence that uestrum in 188 refers to both Amor and Venus.

Therefore, according to these considerations, the meaning of 187–8 is: ‘…from whose crest rise swan’s plumes, of which you are guilty, Amor and Venus, and which represent the symbol of his father’s form’.Footnote 43 The second hemistich is in epexegetic coordination with the first one.

Conclusion

The present paper tries to find a new solution to the obscure passage 10.185–8 in the Aeneid. According to the above considerations, the original form and meaning of this passage are the following:

Non ego te, Ligurum ductor fortissime bello

Transierim, cineri (cinere et) paucis comitate Cupavo,

Cuius olorinae surgunt de vertice pennae

Crimen, Amor, vestrum formaeque insigne paternae.

(Aeneid 10.185–8)

Nor would I pass thee by, Cupavo, bravest in war of the Ligurian captains and accompanied by few in death, from whose crest rise swan’s plumes; your guilt, Amor and Venus, as they symbolize his father’s form.

References

1 Neither this character nor his name seems to appear elsewhere; cf. S. J. Harrison, Vergil: Aeneid 10 (Oxford, 1997), 119.

2 H. R. Fairclough, Virgil: Aeneid VII–XII (Cambridge, 1960). I initially use the Loeb text and not R. A. B. Mynors (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Opera (Oxford, 1972), which is different, because it provides a translation of the passage.

3 10.189–93: Namque ferunt luctu Cycnum Phaëthontis amati/Populeas inter frondes umbramque sororum/Dum canit et maestum Musa solatur amorem/Canentem molli pluma duxisse senectam/Linquentem terras et sidera voce sequentem ‘For they tell that Cycnus, in grief for his loved Phaëthon, while singing and with music solacing his woeful love amid the shade of his sisters’ leafy poplars, drew over his form the soft plumage of hoary eld, leaving earth and seeking the stars with his cry.’

4 Cf. Mynors (n. 2): ‘186 Cunare Dseru.: Cinyr(a)e, Cynir(a)e, Cinire (quae idem ualent) MVω: Cinerae P2 (cinere ceuv): Cunerae P1: Cumarre R’; O. Ribbeck (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Aeneis Opera III (Aeneidos Libri VII–XII) (Leipzig, 1862) has: cinyre b2, cinyrae M, cinire V b1c2, cinere c1γ, c(i)nera P, cumarre R; J. Perret, Virgile: Énéide, Livres IX–XII (Paris, 2008): cinyre V2, cinire V1bdfh rtγ2, cinyrae M, cinere ceuvγ1, cinerae Ppc, cunerae Pac, cunare Dseru., c…re a, cumarre R. The majuscules refer to manuscripts from the fourth–sixth centuries; the minuscules to manuscripts from the eighth–ninth centuries; cf. Perret (above) vii–xii.

5 S. Timpanaro, Contributi di filologia e di storia della lingua Latina (Roma, 1978) 290; S. L. McCallum, ‘Elegiac Amor and Mors in Virgil’s “Italian Iliad”: A Case Study (Aeneid 10.185–93)’, CQ (2015), 695.

6 E.g., Cinyrus: F. Ahl, Metaformations: Soundplay and Wordplay in Ovid and Other Classical Poets (Ithaca and London, 1985), 33; Ribbeck (n. 4), F. A. Hirtzel (ed.), P. Vergili Maronis Opera (Oxford, 1900); Fairclough (n. 2); Perret (n. 4); McCallum (n. 5); Cinyra(s): R. Heyne, R. (ed.), P. Virgilii Maronis Opera Omnia II (London, 1819); R. Durand and A. Bellessort, Virgile: Énéide, Livres VII–XII (Paris, 1948); J. Dryden, The Works of Virgil: Containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Aeneis (London, 1697); Cunerus: M. Paschalis, Virgil’s Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names (Oxford, 1997), 350–1; R. Fitzgerald, Virgil: The Aeneid (New York, 1983); Harrison (n. 1) 119; G. B. Conte (ed.), Aeneis (Leipzig, 2009); Timpanaro (n. 5), 310; L. R. Rivero García et al. (eds.), Publio Virgilio Marón: Eneida, IV (Libros X–XII) (Madrid, 2011); Cunarus: Mynors (n. 2).

7 Timpanaro (n. 5), 303.

8 Ahl (n. 6), 33; J. J. O’Hara, True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (Ann Arbor, 1996), 224; McCallum (n. 5), 695; Perret (n. 4), 196: ‘such a name is strange for a warrior’.

9 Cupāvo from cup-ire ‘desire’ and either ăvis ‘bird’ or ăvus ‘forefather’ (both terms allude to the story of Cycnus); Paschalis (n. 6), 350; Ahl (n. 6), 56–7; McCallum (n. 5), 696; S. L. McCallum, Elegiac Love and Death in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford, 2023), 115.

10 G. Thilo and H. Hagen (eds.), Servii Grammatici qui feruntur in Vergilii carmina commentarii, (Leipzig, 1881–1902).

11 DSeru. ad 10.185: cycne. cunare quidam duci nomen datum tradunt a Cunaro monte qui in Piceno est; Plin. HN. 3.111; Harrison (n. 1), 119.

12 Timpanaro (n. 5), 309–10.

13 P. Lejay, L’Énéide (Paris, 1930). This conjecture goes back to H. Richards, ‘Notes on the Aeneid,’ The Journal of Philology 5 (1873), 140–1; cf. Timpanaro (n. 5), 305: ‘a misfortunate emendation.’ For this type of genitive in Vergil, cf. Aen. 1.41 (Aiacis Oilei).

14 Thilo and Hagen (n. 10); Ribbeck (n. 4); Heyne (n. 6), see Cycne as an interpolation; Richards (n. 13), 140.

15 Cf. J. Conington and H. Nettleship (eds.), P. Vergili Maronis Opera III (London, 1884) on 10. 186.

16 In antiquity, Donatus interprets cinyre as an epithet of Cupavo; cf. H. Georgius, Tiberius Claudius Donatus ad Tiberium Claudium Maximum Donationum filium suum. Interpretationes Vergilianae II (Stuttgart, 1905–6), 316: non ego te, inquit, Cinyre Cupavo, qui es Ligurum ductor et in bello fortissimus, praeteream carmine meo ‘I will not, he says, pass you by in my poem, Cinyre Cupavo; you are the leader of the Ligurians and the strongest among them in war; Macrobius 5.15.4 and 9, however, interprets the passage as referring to two characters; cf. Timpanaro (n. 5), 301.

17 Cf. Timpanaro (n. 5), 303; Harrison (n. 1), 119.

18 ‘I would not pass you by Rhodian grape with swollen clusters’; cf. R. F. Thomas, Virgil: Georgics, vol. 1. (Cambridge, 1988), 174.

19 Paus. 1.30.3; Phanocles fr. 6 Powell; Hyg. Fab. 154; Harrison (n. 1), 119.

20 The variant already exists in P2; cf. n. 4 above.

21 Cf. Mart. 1.1.6: decus…rari post cineres habent poetae ‘privilege that few poets have after their death’; also Prop. 3.1.36, Ov. Pont. 4.16.3; OLD s.v. cinis #4.

22 M. de Vaan, Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the Other Italic Languages (Leiden and Boston, 2008).

23 Conington (n. 15); cf. Cic. Cat. 2.6.14: ire in exsilium ‘to go into exile’, with the accusative of direction.

24 I speculate that both the metaphor of cinis and the poetical use of the dative in this passage led to the lexical and syntactical confusion we see in the MSS (the scribal error!)

25 There is no need for the conjunction et ‘and’ anymore since the ending of the dative is long (ī). Lejay (n. 13) adopts the same type of solution, but he uses a word which is not present in the MSS (Cycni). This solution with the dative is elegant because it expresses the idea of ‘towards’.

26 The Etruscan catalogue in the Aeneid seems to introduce heroes without significant roles; cf. Harrison (n. 1), 106–7; McCallum (n. 5), 698, n. 27.

27 Cf. Timpanaro (n. 5), 317.

28 At 10.544, Vergil mentions how Aeneas turns furious against Umbro and Caeculus but he never says what happens to them. Thus, there is no way to say whether Umbro died at that moment or not; Harrison (n. 1), 209.

29 See e.g. CE 123.1 frequens uiator saepe qui transis lege ‘you traveler read this; CE 1152.3 tu qui uia Flaminea transis, resta ac relege ‘you traveler on via Flaminia rest here and read’; CE 1879.1 tu uiator qui transis rist(a) leg(e) tit(ulum) obiter ‘you traveler who passes by rest here and read what is written’; CE 1330.2 terris quicumque uiator transieris et dixeris [h]ui[c] tumulo Auito [h]aue ‘whoever on earth passes by and says to this ancestral tomb, “hail”’; For the ‘passer-by’ motif in the Greco-Roman world, cf. R. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana, 1962), 230–4; E. Wolff, La poésie funéraire épigraphique à Rome (Rennes, 2000), 45–53; C. C. Tsagalis, Inscribing Sorrow: Fourth-Century Attic Funerary Epigrams (Berlin and New York, 2008), 219–24; McCallum (n. 5), 698–9.

30 The funeral ritual of Pallas: …et nihil caelestibus ullis/Debentem vano maesti comitamur honore ‘mourning and honoring him vainly, we follow Pallas, who owes no more to the celestial gods’.

31 The whole passage runs as follows: filius aequalis comitatus classe catervas/Ingentem remis Centaurum promovet: ille/Instat aquae saxumque undis immane minatur/Arduus et longa sulcat maria alta carina ‘the son accompanying like-age companions in the fleet drives with oars the mighty Centaur; over the waves towers the monster and threatens to hurl a monstrous rock into the waters while with long keel he furrows over the deep sea.’ (194–7)

32 The meaning of comitatus is active in 194 (<comitor) and passive in 186 (<comito).

33 The same interpretation in e.g., Timpanaro (n. 5), 316 (with bibliography); cf. also Ribbeck (n. 4); Harrison (n. 1), 120; Fitzgerald (n. 6); Rivero García et al. (n. 6).

34 P. Lejay, ‘Essais et notes sur Virgile’, Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes (1916), 172–3; Lejay (n. 13) argues that amor vestrum refers to Cycnus’ and Cupavo’s ‘love for the family members’; cf. Perret (n. 4), 197. Such an interpretation, however, leaves crimen in suspension (‘reproach’ to whom?)

35 Lejay (n. 13).

36 Cf. aut…aut and si ‘either…or’ and ‘if’ in: Phaethontem amatum a Cycno aut pie aut turpiter, accipiamus necesse est. si turpiter, talis est sensus: crimen vestrum est, o Cycne et Phaethon, quod sic amastis; hoc vobis tantum potest obici. alii ‘vestrum’ pro ‘tuum’ accipiunt, et ad solum Cycnum referunt, ut (IX 525) vos, o Calliope, precor. si pie amavit, secundum Asprum ‘crimen’ erit ‘causa’, ut alibi (II 65) et crimine ab uno disce omnes, ut sit sensus: o Phaethontiades sorores et o Cycne, causa vestrum, id est vestrae mutationis, amor est, quia sic Phaethontem amastis, ut periretis. ‘Cycnus’ love towards Phaethon must be either pious or shameful; if shameful, the meaning (of the passage – my note) is this: it is your fault, Cycnus and Phaethon, to have loved each other this way; it is this that can be reproached to you. Others interpret “vestrum” as referring to the second person singular, therefore to Cycnus alone, as in (other passages such as IX 523 where Virgil says): I beg you, Calliope. If he loved in a pious way, then, according to Asper, crimen means “case (reason)”, as in II 65 “learn all of them from a single case”; therefore, the meaning of the passage would be: “Oh, you sisters of Phaethon, and you Cycnus, the reason for your metamorphoses is love; you loved Phaethon so much that you died.”’

37 Phanocles fr. 6 Powell (Ἔρωτες ἢ Καλοί = Amores et Pulchri = Loves and Beautiful Youths); cf. Harrison (n. 1), 119–20.

38 McCallum (n. 9), 118.

39 Ibid.

40 Conington (n. 15).

41 R. G. M. Nisbet and N. Ruud, A Commentary on Horace, Odes, Book III (Oxford, 2004), 344; M. Librán-Moreno, ‘Blood-Coloured Swans: Hor. Carm. 4.1.10 and Homer’s Purple Death,’ CQ (2017), 199–209.

42 McCallum (n. 9) 117–18.

43 Cf. Prop. 1.11.30: ah pereant Baiae, crimen amoris, aquae! ‘Let the waters of Baiae, the guilt of love (i.e. guilty of love), perish!’ Similarly, one can translate crimen, Amor, vestrum as ‘your guilt, Amor and Venus’. Cf. also 12.200.